Lesley Gann

Weaving Glass

Grains of sand tell stories
Of mountains, forests, weather, creatures.
Sand blasted in the furnace
Transforms into glass,
Moving mountains into liquid matter.

Hard-won strands of light
Furnaced in the heart and mind
Can weave a cradle of possibility,
A beautiful basket of woven glass
To capture light.

Now you see it, now you don’t,
An impossible beautiful tragic forever
Explosion of molten Love.

Lesley Gann is a traditional acupuncturist who lives in Monmouth.  She is a long-time student of Beshara and the School at Chisholme House. She writes: ‘The education from the School has been the best and truest thread throughout my life, since my first introduction back in the late 70s. I’m not a scholar but I love that this is not an education into a set of beliefs, but rather a reaching for an all-embracing perspective, ever changing and alive.’

Janus

Harvesters

The harvesters, rhythmic, detached,
Fill baskets with ancestral memory. Until,
The limestone border, sun soaked, cools.
And snakes and geckos hand the night watch to
Mantis and cicada.

freda karpf

what passes between hands

It took me most of my life to find my way. I do not have a turtle’s natural instincts. Even with these, reinforced over millions of years, they are vulnerable to human interference. And to this, I can relate.  But I lack a natural migration route, a path taken over generations, charted in some mysterious but definite way in each turtle. But now, fooled by changes in temperature, turtles too are finding it difficult to find their way.

I identify with turtles for many reasons. Animals seem more like us humans, when we know they can be long-lived. Turtles can be long-lived, as much as 30 to 50 years. Some species can live to 90 or over 100 years old.

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Sometimes I will move my hands shaping the space in front of me. As I move them, I play with the magic of breath and design. I will sometimes have palm facing palm, fingertips touching. Or I will hold them facing each other but apart. One hand facing another can hold, without holding, a presence. In all these positions, the necessities of the day-to-day, the list of to-dos are moved to another realm. In that moment, the palm of one hand facing the other is all it has to be. Or could it be my hands are ready to rescue turtles from the cold waters, stunned beyond their knowing? This is sometimes how I address the spirit world.  One palm facing another is its own kind of paradise. For there is no purpose I must run down. There is nothing pulling me away from an orchestra of silence; there are only my hands.

~ ~ ~

Hands held together are about union. Not to complete anything or anyone; or be whole; but to touch all the possibilities; and the many ways to relate to the world. What passes between hands dancing in the air, held in prayer or touching another? What whispered thoughts between hands seek the solace of presence with unspoken words of intention? Time shared, the work needed, love. Everything.

freda karpf writes about our deep roots in nature and our connection to all wildlife, especially birds. She says: ‘I’m also jealous of birds, so, I took a ride on their dreams and wrote the story bird dreams.’  Bird dreams and her other links are available through freda’s wild blues | Twitter, Instagram, Facebook | Linktree

Thumbnail image: Sarah Seymour (click here)