St. Lucy's Day

Today is the feast of Saint Lucy, a Sicilian martyr particularly venerated in Scandinavia, there known as Saint Lucia. Her martyrdom was particularly gruesome: among other things, having her eyes gouged out. She is always depicted holding the dangling eyes, but completely whole. Perhaps a reference to the fact that her true sight was unaffected, that is, her willingness to suffer anything for the love of Christ. As such, she is the saint of light.

Today is always ruthlessly dark in north Wales. I feel a particular kinship with Lucy, not so much in her historical personage as in the mystical immortal soul who lives in eternal glory with God. Like all saints, she transcends time and place, but for me it is this aspect of St. Lucy that most moves and kindles. She is what, I imagine, our pre-Christian ancestors would have called a god: someone who speaks to them out of the quiet part of the soul and points to something greater beyond.



In this sunless winter, St. Lucy is a steadfast beacon, joining in the ranks of all the Advent saints in pointing to the horizon where the star of Christ will soon rise.

Spring 2019 in Black and White

Beyond the Bridge

Today is the 8th day since our clocks turned back an hour, and I am feeling the effects: a bit lethargic, a bit melancholy.  Suddenly we have turned the sharp corner toward winter.

October felt like a blind charge from the recent memory of summer.  And it was too rainy.  I finally made it to Tu Hwnt i'r Bont, the "internet famous" tea room in our own little Llanrwst, made out of a 15th century coach house.  Its name means Beyond the Bridge.  We picked up some buckeyes beneath the giant horse-chestnut tree, and the following Saturday Roan and I drank hot chocolate, read books in bed, and punctured our buckeyes and tied them through with string to make conkers.

But autumn is still here!  Early November on the Conwy coast is the height of color.

November feels like a month of dormancy; of rest after the harvest and Hallowtide.  Of turning inwards, into our warm glowing homes and our quiet inner thoughts, before the preparations of Advent.

June

I Wake Close to Morning

Why do people keep asking to see
God’s identity papers
when the darkness opening into morning
is more than enough?
Certainly any god might turn away in disgust.
Think of Sheba approaching
the kingdom of Solomon.
Do you think she had to ask,
“Is this the place?”

By Mary Oliver

(robin, Betws-y-Coed, February 2019, film on Pentax k1000)

Victorian Extravaganza 2019

Notes:  cold but dry, partly sunny, thinner crowds than last year.  James wasn't wildly impressed with the Ferris wheel, and he didn't want to go to the circus, but I made Roan sit through it on Saturday.  Roan got a Paw Patrol balloon on Sunday that he lost thirty minutes later.  Two separate people asked us later that day if he was "the little boy who lost the balloon."  Roan and James "won" some toy guns at the duck booth, and Roan's was predictably broken in less than twenty minutes.  They played on the beach for a while, then some arcade games at the pier and some food.  We saw a live Punch and Judy puppet show, which has some questionable content involving nooses, and the devil, and throwing the baby down the stairs!