Aye Whuppity Scoorie !

From the Rampantscotland.com website, one of the more obscure March 1st Holidays:

Whuppity Scoorie - 1st March
A rumbustious celebration by the young lads of Lanark. It is a relic of the days when making a lot of noise was believed to frighten away the evil spirits. Pennies supplied by money from the Common Good Fund was thrown and the children scrambled to pick it up. Balls of paper (or bonnets - a lot softer!) tied with string were used by the participants to strike one another.

And of course I just couldn't resist the name of this late Winter/early Spring festival.

Sounds much more rambunctious than the observances of the Crymu folks celebrating St. David's Day--Patron saint of Wales. But then leeks and daffodils are also harbingers of Spring as well.

Blessings,

Duncan

For those who love Poetry

I stumbled across this inspiring site recently while searching for the author of a poem and want to share it with my readers. Not only wonderful poems, but exquisite photography along with them.

http://www.panhala.net/Archive/Index.html

Enjoy,

Duncan

Playing the Harp

I have been playing the harp so much more this last week, and I wonder again why I don't play it all the time. I know sometimes I am tired from work, there's work to be done around the house and so forth. But once I sit down at the harp, the world of stress and strain becomes distant and I lose myself in the music.
I am focusing on some new music and re-working some older pieces of music so that I can bring a bit of variety to the unit at the hospital. And also for the workshop coming up at the end of April/first part of May at Orcas island with Dr. Ed Tick for helping veterans to heal. I plan on bringing the harp, not to perform per se, but since I feel lost without the harp near and it maybe that I can bring some of the healing nature of the harp for those attending.

Duncan

As the Rain returns

The mountains at sunrise and before the rains began.

We have had some lovely sunny days, but as always the rain has returned this morning and for some reason I am thinking of the poem by W.B Yeats entitled "Into the Twilight", perhaps because of the wonderful images of nature the poem conjures up for me, and most likely a wish for the sun to return. Although I grew up in Washington state and have the proverbially webbed feet (last I checked), I do long for the sun to return in this dark and drear part of the year.

Into the Twilight

Out-worn heart, in a time out-worn,
Come clear of the nets of wrong and right;
Laugh, heart, again in the grey twilight;
Sigh, heart, again in the dew of the morn.

Your mother Eire is always young,
Dew ever shining and twilight grey:
Though hope fall from you and hope decay.
Burning in fires of a slanderous tongue.

Come, heart, where hill is heaped upon hill:
For there the mystical brotherhood
Of sun and moon and hollow and wood
And river and stream work out their will;

And God stands winding His lonely horn,
And time and the world are ever in flight;
And love is less kind than the grey twilight,
And hope is less dear than the dew of the morn.

Beannachaidhe,

Duncan

A Poem for February

From the always delightful book: The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady comes a poem for February that she found in the writings of Hartley Coleridge:

"One month is past, another is begun,
Since merry bells rang out the dying year,
And buds of rarest green begin to peer,
As if inpatient for a warmer sun;
And though the distant hills are bleak and dun,
The virgin snowdrop, like a lambent fire,
Pierces the cold earth with it's green-streaked spire
And in dark woods, the wandering little one
may find a primrose.

Well the distant hills from here this morning are the northern peaks of the Washington Cascades stretching mile upon mile into the Canadian Cascades, all white with brilliant sun touching the peak tops as the day begins again.

I note green sprouts here and there in the garden...rejoicing in yet another sign of Spring.

Blessings,

Duncan

A quote for Sunday

Going through my cluttered desk and office (never quite seem to get it as organized as I would like), I came across this this quote that I have treasured:

Non Nobis Solum Sed Toti Mundo Nati
(Not for ourselves, but for the whole world we were born).

From whatever spiritual path you draw from, I believe this world-view would be part of a pilgrim's faith and practice.

Some recent pictures to share:

Chickadees have always been one of my favorite birds and luckily we have a delightful number of them where we live...but they are so quick to land and depart that I sometimes despair of photographing them, but yesterday I was lucky enough to snap several pictures of them.


Duncan

The Peaks aflame

Yesterday morning I was up making coffee, looked out and saw the beginning of the early morning twilight (yes, twilight applies to that "between the worlds" moments at both morning and evening) and ran for the camera.

It's moments like this that remind me of just how sacred our time and space here on the "blue marble" is, and our task to help care for all creatures and all life around us.



Blessings,

Duncan