Similar to Heather, sometimes I write my blog about joyful events or everyday life stuff and reflections on how I use my mindfulness practice. Sometimes I write about difficult things where I have been challenged to the extreme and how my mindfulness and compassion practice has supported me. Such events are difficult to share but…
I leant upon a coppice gate When Frost was spectre-grey, And Winter’s dregs made desolate The weakening eye of day. The tangled bine-stems scored the sky Like strings of broken lyres, And all mankind that haunted nigh Had sought their household fires. The land’s sharp features seemed to be The Century’s corpse outleant, His crypt…
A boy of 5 was taken to see Father Christmas. Father Christmas was in a grotto in a wood, accessed by a short train journey through woodland. Father Christmas asked the boy what he would like for Christmas. The boy was a little phased by this question. He paused. He almost seemed embarrassed – then…
Sitting under the mistletoe (Pale-green, fairy mistletoe), One last candle burning low, All the sleepy dancers gone, Just one candle burning on, Shadows lurking everywhere: Some one came, and kissed me there. Tired I was; my head would go Nodding under the mistletoe (Pale-green, fairy mistletoe), No footsteps came, no voice, but only, Just as…
I am a feather on the bright sky I am the blue horse that runs in the plain I am the fish that rolls, shining, in the water I am the shadow that follows a child I am the evening light, the lustre of meadows I am an eagle playing with the wind I am…
At the weekend I attended the Engaged Mindfulness Course at the beautiful venue of Samye Ling deep in the Dumfriesshire countryside. It was a wonderful weekend reconnecting with my practice, nature and this planet earth. During the weekend Kristine, one of the lead tutors, asked us to recall a recent moment when we felt fully…
I love the fitful gusts that shakes The casement all the day And from the mossy elm tree takes The faded leaf away Twirling it by the window-pane With thousand others down the lane I love to see the shaking twig Dance till the shut of eve The sparrow on the cottage rig Whose chirp…
Dublin I’d never thought of myself as a writer, yet there I was, at a book launch at the notorious Irish Writers Centre in the centre of Dublin. I was to give a short talk and read from the chapter I had written for the book Mindful Heroes. It was one of those surreal occasions…
It’s already a couple of weeks ago but it feels like yesterday, when finally, the Launch of the Mindful Nation Scotland took place in Holyrood. It took many months of preparations, as this was a collaboration between most of the Scottish mindfulness teacher training organisations. We came together to devise a curriculum especially tailored to the…