This month we will look for signs of harvest, seeking to become aware of the law of abundance in the natural environment.
The reading from Scripture for the day is
Luke 13:10-17
10 On a Sabbath Jesus was teaching in one of the synagogues, 11 and a woman was there who had been crippled by a spirit for eighteen years. She was bent over and could not straighten up at all. 12 When Jesus saw her, he called her forward and said to her, “Woman, you are set free from your infirmity.” 13 Then he put his hands on her, and immediately she straightened up and praised God.
14 Indignant because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath, the synagogue leader said to the people, “There are six days for work. So come and be healed on those days, not on the Sabbath.”
15 The Lord answered him, “You hypocrites! Doesn’t each of you on the Sabbath untie your ox or donkey from the stall and lead it out to give it water? 16 Then should not this woman, a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has kept bound for eighteen long years, be set free on the Sabbath day from what bound her?”
17 When he said this, all his opponents were humiliated, but the people were delighted with all the wonderful things he was doing.
Luke 13: 10 -17
For an idea of what to expect, last month we read Psalm 23 and found the water in the Japanese garden. Andy brought a simple frame which we used to view the landscape in new ways. landscape through a simple frame. We also used the conceptual frmaes of- water, valley, green pastures, paths of righteousness- to worship with our own angle through the frame.
The news is full of how tough things are going to get. There are many reasons to be angry. The scary aspects of human being are banging on our awareness like a noisy gong. It is tempting to hunker down in a bunker and block everything out with a wall of iron.
Like working through the experience of grief, where the feelings of loss never leave. Your world can become bigger, and grow, so that the awareness of loss eventually becomes momentary pangs rather than a freezing fog that dims your sight and grips your heart all the time.
Anger can be tempered. Cast iron is very hard, it will not bend until it breaks, and things bounce off it. However when it breaks it violently shatters into pieces. Steel can be hardened as well, but by bathing it in lower temperatures it can be heat treated to loose some of that hardness and gain toughness. This is why I chose the title “Steel Shirt” Rather than the “Iron Shirt” of the song. That, and I’m a blacksmith. Correct use of metal is important to me! If you are going to armour up and face the devil down, make sure you are wearing the best gear. Put on a steel shirt and face down the devil. Temper your mind, relax and let the hardness go. Pick your battles, and choose the battlefield well. Better still, seek peace and create spaces where conflict can be resolved through the recognition of authority rather than the imposition of power.
There will always be poverty, but if you are in a position where you can feast today – feast! and invite your friends to celebrate with you. Pour perfume into the room while the one you love is with you. There will be enough time to work at expanding the cage floor, and you will do it better if you spend time reminding yourself what you are living for.
And here is a recording of the songs composer which will hopefully help you do that.
Click on the picture or the link to go to the BBC website
It was a busy day, with three of us working all the time. Since it was so busy, there have been less words written to describe it!
– no rain so we were able to put up the bunting and have the tent fully open with the chairs out. The Haikus were a bit more random, and the syllable rule was not always followed, Nonetheless we had some good conversations.
A highlight of the day was when a person picked up the postcard of part of the Dream of the Rood and I said that this was the poem on the Ruthwell cross. Her eyes lit up and she said she had been christened at the church there! It was a bit spine-tingling for both of us. The labyrinth also provided some people with time and space to reflect, it is a very accessible activity and they were able to use it on their lap whilst sitting on a chair.
Quartz has been using Haiku this weekend as part of the Wordsmith Crafts CiC setup at Kirkcudbright Art and Crafts trail.
The following is taken from notes written by Kate, who has been leading this activity.
A selection of Haiku
We have been giving people a space to stop. The whole of Kirkcudbright becomes a walking trail and on Friday we had a couple of chairs to rest in which were appreciated.
I have experienced people being surprised by what they have achieved, that they have come up with such a profound haiku. One lady took ages, told me lots about her life and the struggles she faced. She was in tears when she finished her poem, and it was a lovely poem for her sons.
Another experience I have enjoyed was asking children if they know what haiku were and wathcing their parents being really impressed that their child knows all about them.
We have a bowl full of words on cardboard strips. Having words provided means that people encountered words they weren’t expecting. One lady was ambushed by the word forgiveness- we had a brief conversation about it but I suspect more thinking and heart-searching happened after she left.
In addition, giving people the opportunity to write their own words allowed one girl to ignore all the rules and simply state “My name is Bee”. One man wrote a lovely poem about someone special in his life. Young twins who hadn’t learned to read yet enjoyed picking up words they liked the look of, and then the adults watching re-ordered them, #SensingMeaningfulness.
Saturday was wet and windy to start so there were no haiku for the first few hours, but some lovely ones arrived with the sunshine later on. It was great to see parents and children working together – parents were happy to help without taking over or changing things that they thought weren’t quite right.
During the morning haiku hiatus, the finger labyrinth we also have on the table, being made of glazed pottery and therefore much more waterproof, came into it’s own. Some had seen one before, but many learned to use one for the first time. I had a great half-conversation with a lady who was trying to get her son to do it as he had had a difficult day and she thought it would help him.
Not everyone felt able to stop for long, but we had many brief conversations about laying burdens down safely and picking them up in a different mindset. I felt able to say that I speak to Jesus in the middle.
The labyrinth of chairs we set up in St Johns, linking activity inside the building with activities like this in the wider community.
More to follow! Sunday and Monday still to go.
As well as the Quartz area Wordsmith Crafts has a workshop where people can become 5 or 10 minute apprentices and learn to make copper armbands. This is a hands on encounter with millennia old skills. Conversations about value, time, and our relationships with the people who have contributed to making the Scotland we know today.
There is also a shop area where artists associated with WSC can exhibit and sell their work. This helps support the artists, and fund the installation at the trail – any surplus will be directed to helping people access the full resources of their Heritage through other projects.
Just some Iron Age folk discussing heritage, in between customers.
We are set up as part of the Wordsmith Crafts encampment, which is in turn part of a group of tents pitched by artisits inspired by heritage.
Some of us have been in Kircudbright frequently recently, helping interpret the Galloway Hoard that was found nearby and exhibited at the Gallery.
This time though we are here as Quartz and contacts we have made through discussions about the intangible heritage that was discovered along with the more obviously shiny silver can be explored further.
When we help people encounter the material evidence left by our ancient ancestors people are often moved by actions that remind them of the shared human experience we have. For example, wrapping a cord round a cross before carefully placing it in the ground. We can imagine many emotions, possible motives, meaningful stories from that one insight. We can rationally discuss which is the most probable, we can also contemplate and enrich our feeling of connection with our past and reaffirm the emotional truth of belonging.
People are not sprung from the ground like mushrooms as a philosopher once supposed. Indeed mushrooms are no longer understood as rootless and there are fascinating books about the vast underground networks in forests that challenge assumptions made about intelligence during the age of reason.
But day one has mostly been setting up. Enjoying the sunshine and encouraging people to use words poetically. These fleeting “word pictures” are being photographed and tagged. They can be discovered online by searching for #SensingSpirituality or @cyberculdee
Our hope is to help build an online library of moments using pictures, poems and more. Then when people search for #SensingSpirituality or #SensingChallenge or any of the other Sensings, they will be linked with other people’s moments.
Here is a gallery of images from the first day though! More will follow.
A Quartz Outerweave at Kirkcudbright Art and Crafts Trail
Thought becomes a woven banner.
We will be #SensingSpirituality in Kirkcudbright during the last weekend of July 2022. The trail is open from 11am to 5pm on Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday. You can find more info here
We were last there in 2017, and are looking forward to returning. This year we will have three main activities to help people use art and crafts to become aware of, explore and express the invisible things which make humans more than just their physical elements.
The theme for the trail this year is “Cats” in memory of one of the trails founders. We have taken this and then approached it through a poem called “Pangur Ban” The poem compares a monks search for meanings in texts to the quest of his pet cat trying to catch mice.
Either writing freestyle, or by arranging from a selection of words people will be encouraged to reflect on their environment and make an observation. Traditionally this type of poetry is 17 syllables in a 5,7,5 pattern. The poems will be fleeting glimpses of meaningfulness, but they can be photographed and then tagged #SensingSpirituality to be found online as long as the internet lasts…
Weaving
Continuing our practice of collaborative artwork, individuals can record their reflections on ribbons of cloth or paper. These are then woven into a tapestry using a warp weighted loom. Fragments of thoughts will be visible in the final banner, but each is anonymous as part of the whole.
The Cats mirror
Interested?
Come along and see for yourself what we are up to! Quartz takes the challenge of leaving our spiritual comfort zone to find “The face of God in friend and stranger” seriously. We will be setting up in Kirkcudbright to learn as well as help. We contribute from our own traditions and the experience of walking the paths we have made, and we hope to receive from the discussions this inspires. If you would like to get involved in helping do this, then talk with us and we can work out how to help each other.
Studio and Cluaran
Hair clasp by Kirsten Milliken
As well as the Quartz project being on display, we are inviting people to glimpse a travelling version of the Wordsmith Crafts Studio . We will have a workshop set up where we will be experimenting with Iron Age crafts. Making rings and broaches. Some of these will be replicas, some “in the style of” and some will be contemporary creations.
Iron age fibula broaches
We run 10 and 20 minute craft workshops. In these people can drop in and make something, and then take it away with them. We provide the skills and learning for free, but anything made in the workshop has a value and a trade needs to be made in order to take things away!
We will also have a shop front where the artists involved with Wordsmith Crafts can exhibit and sell their work.
I’m spending most of today exploring Myths from outside the canon of scripture, and tomorrow I’ll be telling Viking era stories that most will dismiss as simple children’s tales. Why would I be doing that?
The Church tradition I was brought up in laid a strong emphasis on understanding the meaning of scripture. Recognising that culture within their church congregations had diverged from that in society in general they also placed an emphasis on communicating scripture in relevant ways. Translating from Church english into “everyday”, or “Scottish”, or “youth” English. From books, to spoken words, films, music and the Arts in general.
The focus tended to be on explaining “The Truth” however, rather than on thinking about what was happening in society. I began to question whether efforts by church leaders to maintain a distinctive Church culture had led to the Church playing the role of “Teachers of the law” rather than “Jesus and his disciples” in it’s own stories.
I also became aware that we were reading a very small fraction of the documents from the history of Christianity, and that much of what was explained in them was explained by referring to stories, customs and myths which were general knowledge at the time, but not any more.
So I asked questions, and was blessed by finding people who even if they didn’t know the answers would reflect those questions back on me to help me ask better questions. Rather than dismissing the issue of how the people who built Gobeklitepe
10,000 years before Jesus walked the earth could relate to him, I was encouraged to explore possible answers. Some of these answers are relevant to how people born 2000 years after he walked on earth can relate to him as well.
Don’t let the grey granite wear you down.
Thinking at this scale requires contemplation of mythic themes, and the recognition that logical understanding of truth has it’s limits (anyone familiar with Spock, or Data from Startreck will be aware of this too). Instead of dismissing Myths as stories for children, it becomes helpful to think of them as ways in which children learn epic truths about becoming adults. Or indeed, for adults to learn, through contemplation as well as rationality, about what it is to be human. The rise in popularity of comic books and imaginative fiction to the mainstream when it used to be a geek subculture is evidence of this. This graph showing the rise in use of the word “mythoi” in English literature also indicates a shift in society.
But a search for the word “Cheese” should remind people that without correct labeling these are just pretty graphics that I could be using to distract you from exploring more deeply!
Most people aren’t looking for understanding of how mythoi function though. Growing up in a world where not even your biological sex is a fixed fact requires different life skills to those needed in a culture where your future job was often fixed by who your father was and if you were born a woman you were expected to be a housewife. People are responding to globalisation, changes in societal norms, and a climate crisis and finding help through exploring mythic themes.
Many of the age old myths in the Christian tradition have been edited out and replaced by modern pop psychology and self help books. Compared to the history of human storytelling these are a poor substitute for the wealth of ages. Myths can still be found though. Some are preserved in the lives of saints, some were recorded by mediaeval christians from pre christian cultures.
They are the ideological map of human being which makes sense in relation to the landscapes humans have evolved in. They talk of giants of ice and snow in the north, or fickle fire Jinn from the desert.
So tomorrow I will be telling tales for all who have ears to hear, and opening gateways for people to explore their being. They will hopefully laugh at the jokes too…
