Someone has stolen our awe away. It was the only word we had to describe the way we felt when we looked up at the sky and watched stars shimmer, glow, slide, collide. Those intent on filling the skies with weapons of mass destruction, have stolen the word 'awe' away this week. A holy, helpful word.
I claim it back. I do so having been awestruck in the realms of the stars, whilst sat on a comfortable seat at The Barbican last night.
This is why: a bloke in NASA has spent the last forty years using radio receivers to record the sounds which outer space makes, whistles, sirens and booms collected from hundreds of millions of miles away. Then, NASA commissioned Terry Riley and The Kronos Quartet to integrate these sounds with music of their invention. And lastly, the artists brought in celebrated ex-Greenbelt mainstage compere and top-notch live stage designer Willie Williams, to provide the visuals to complete a unique and strangely wonderful event.
It's called Sun Rings and it helped the awe return last night. Not least because although Riley insisted that his work was apolitical, he found himself lulled by the sounds and sights of space, into a meditation about our place in the vast cosmic mystery:
"Do the stars welcome us into their realms? I think so or we would not have made it this far. Do they wish us to come in Peace? I am sure of it. If only we will let the stars mirror back to us the big picture of the universe and the tiny precious speck of it we inhabit that we call Earth, maybe we will be given the humility and insight to love and appreciate all life and living forms wherever our journeys take us."
Good to meet up with some much-loved Greenbelters at the show last night, including one or two who saw photos of themselves up on Willie's massive screen. Good to be at something which seemed to me to be Psalm 8 on a massive, ultra-modern scale. Awe inspiring.
After a good lie-in to recover from a hectic week, I spent the morning in the garden for the first time this year. Half an hour of cutting back and tidying up and it was looking good. Un-wrapping the frost protection from the tree-fern and olive tree is always an act of faith.
I love my tiny patch of green space (a real luxury in my neighbourhood), but have never found the transcendence in weeding that others talk about. Fortunately, living with a gardener for a couple of years taught me the basics and helped me knock my little square into a verdant, but low maintenance urban haven.
So with the tidying done, I enjoyed a leisurely morning on the garden bench, reading the papers and watching the world go by. Bliss :-)
By early afternoon I found the motivation to turn on the PC and get down to some Greenbelt work that needs to be back to the office ready to be sent out on Monday.
In the process I realised that all the files finalised on site last year are still on a mass of floppy disks that need a good sort through. Of course seven months on, the colour coding that made sense back then, is now a mystery to me and collating a set of the most up to date versions of various documents is a rather tortuous chore.
I guess it’s a bit like drying your tent – it’s something you really ought to do straight away after the festival, else you’ll regret it later.
After a couple of long calls to some Greenbelt BHPs and some emails back and forth, the main tasks got completed and I headed out this evening with a sense of achievement.
I can't believe I've just blogged about gardening - a sure sign I guess that I, like Greenbelt, am now in my 30's!
.....so tommorrow brings my farewell do at the ymca and it is a sensitive me here .......do not know what is planned ......only know a few .......100 plus are coming ......!
Well .......gotta roll with it and I am certain I will be grateful but now a bit apprehensive ...........
Today has been sortin ......for the rest of my life and trying to write my speech.
Words not flowing. Need the daily hurly burly to kick me. After Sunday I wil be better. Then only one week to go before I leave.
Now I will view my daily blogs. John Davies,Jonny Baker,Moby ...............all made of stars
bhp
Lovely. I booked this holiday week months ago. Did so immediately after the Greenbelt Soul Space team decided on the date for our annual planning soiree. It was today. At Julian's place, a wonderful flat in a converted Stockwell church. Now I'm in Tottenham Court Road easyInternet Cafe feeling that Greenbelty glow which you, dear reader, probably also know / have known / hopefully will know again soon.
Soul Space is at the top of Cheltenham grandstand, in the luxurious Panoramic Restaurant. It's nine people offering half-hour conversations to anyone at the festival who wants to talk about spiritual stuff going on in their lives. They're called Spiritual Directors, could be called companions, soul friends, conversationalists, above all good listeners. Whatever: around 160 people came up for a chat last year, and they and many more visited this top-of the-site idyll to also use the quiet space we'd set up for prayer / reflection, or to catch their breath at the venue's fantastic view across the racecourse and over to the hills beyond Cheltenham.
They're a lovely group, these Spiritual Directors. People well at ease with listening to others, listening to God, and so at ease with themselves. Which means they're great fun too. A really (deliberately) careful balance of men, women, ordained, not-ordained, denominations, orders, etc. They gel well together. Make the Panoramic Restaurant a lovely humanly-warm place to be, more so, I suspect, than it may have been on Gold Cup week last week.
So, sated on baked potatoes, cheese, salad, red wine, much fruit and many cuppas, I'm once again footloose in London looking forward to four days in August spent with these folk. But I'm an oddball (happily) so, by contrast with the gentle joy of this afternoon's conversations, tonight I'm off down the road to The Astoria to see Kirsten Hirsch's Throwing Muses in concert: by all accounts their new album is very hard, ie, rocky. And no doubt in Hersch's usual way, lyrically intense, challenging. Well, as the Spiritual Directors say to inquisitive Greenbelters, you need a good listening-to, Kirsten; I'm ready.
After almost a week of clear blue skies and bright, crisp days, the sun has disappeared today.
Given the events of the night, the cloak of mist we awoke to this morning, seemed to fit with our saddened mood.
Stuck in a design office it all seems so remote and disconnected. At times like these, I sometimes visit Vurch.com to find some space and light a virtual candle or two.
Reading the prayer wall makes me feel connected to the wider body. Some prayers resonate, some surprise, some jar and some provoke thought.
Some seem to be directed more at the earthly audience than the heavenly... just like normal church then ;-)
Would like to join the local vigil/protest this evening, but that would mean bunking off the monthly community project meeting. Frankly I'm feeling too sad and tired for either. How pathetic is that?
Kyrie Eleison
I had a meal in the YMCA Dining Room tonight as I usually do. I sat alone. Sometimes it is good to do that just to see who decides to sit with me – it opens up many different contacts.
Jacky joined me. He’s from Senegal, with us from the YMCA for one year as a full-time volunteer. We were joined later by Mr. Singh. We talked about lots of things. The war looming. Me leaving the YMCA in two weeks and lots of miscellaneous brief exchanges with passing staff and residents. Jacky was quiet. He often stays silent following conversational exchange. “What are you thinking Jacky?” I ask. He paused, gentle as he does. He said in a measured pace.
“It’s like losing your father. It’s like becoming an orphan. Not just for me, but for everyone, the whole YMCA”.
He was referring to my departure and I felt blessed. I was moved.
.......or is gb too far away .............?
Went to my first mtg today as Christian aid 'youth advisor' ......seems grand the title but just 2 mtgs a year and I guess being available for a few other bits.........
I believe in Christian Aid and life before death..........................
bhp
http://www.romfordymca.org/site.php?section=pearls&article=160
.......really not that late but I seem to be tired on day off and buzz like hell when working .......and I did the chapel at the y tonight .....about 'the last' ........
phone call,meal,music,movie ....we would 'do' if we had little time .....and there is a war potential and seems real,so real within the week............... and of course me going means the last sunday night chapel .......
lord have mercy upon us
see the link above re my questions re 'the last'
lord have mercy upon us
bhp