Mexican Day of the Dead (Oxfordshire)

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Ashmolean, Mexican Day of the Dead, Oxfordshire

Photo by Candia Dixon-Stuart.  The Ashmolean.

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Hailes Abbey- Gloucestershire

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Cistercian, Cotswolds, Gloucestershire, Hailes Abbey, Rule of Benedict

Photos by Candia Dixon-Stuart

Treasures of Hailes Abbey, Gloucestershire

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blood of Christ relic, Cotswolds, encaustic tiles, Gloucestershire, Hailes Abbey, monks' bell, Percy coat arms, Samson and the lion

Photos by Candia Dixon-Stuart

Hailes Church – 13th century wallpaintings

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elephant, Gloucestershire, Hailes Church, medieval wall paintings, St Catherine

This gallery contains 6 photos.

Photos by Candia Dixon-Stuart St Catherine – patron saint of teachers (she is carrying a book) Winged elephant!  

Two Musical Angels

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angels, Cotswolds, St Lawrence, stained glass

                       St Lawrence Church, Lechlade (Cotswolds)

                         Photos by Candia Dixon-Stuart

The Deerhurst Angel

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angel, apse, Deerhurst angel, epiphany, Gloucestershire, Odda's Chapel, Sculpture

We tried to see it at Odda’s Chapel.

Was that a wing, a halo, or just damp?

Our epiphany was not forthcoming,

for all our straining interpretation.

We went to St Mary’s adjacent church.

A child on the path pointed out a sign:

‘To the Angel’ – it wasn’t evident.

Then we walked across an apse’s ruins;

squinted upwards; craned our necks.

The elusive angel was always there.

Meysey Hampton- a Sermon in Glass

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Cotswolds, crucifixion, Dismas, Gestas, gold frankincense myrrh, Meysey Hampton, Paradise, paradox, Penitent Thief, Romans 5, Sheol, St Peter, wormwood

 Meysey Hampton church (Cotswolds) has stained

glass fragments pertaining to the crucifixion.  I believe they

were discovered in a barn, sold to the Paul Getty museum,

but have been returned home.

I’m Dismas.

 

Who the hell is that? you ask.

And where’s the other rogue – the one who mocked?

 

If I say I’m The Penitent Good Thief,

does that give you a clue?  Through gritted teeth,

I am trying to process a promise

that I’ll be translated to Paradise.

I’d get there sooner if they’d break my legs.

I can hardly breathe for my fractured ribs.

 

At the cusp of salvation/ damnation,

I turned my face, to see He’d gone ahead.

 

Some think my pardon was an act of grace,

bestowed because I showed a flash of faith,

but others say it was a just reward,

because I stopped those bandits – and Gestas

(no longer with us) from nicking gold,

frankincense, myrrh from that Man’s family,

aeons ago, when they were fugitives.

 

I asked then that He should remember me,

should our paths cross again – one day they did.

 

Well, some say Christ Himself was a Good Thief,

since He stole us back from Satan’s kingdom.

Do two wrongs make a right?  I do not know,

but I am warming to the paradox.

 

Salvabitur vix justus in die

judicii/ ergo salvabitur.*

 

I’m a glimpse of your hope of glory.

Hey, you malefactors – just look and live!

Everything else is a heap of smithereens.

 

I joined Him in Sheol and freed captives,

but, for the life of me, I do not know

what happened to Gestas; nor where he is.

 

I was found, restored and here I hang now –

unbaptised, but, oddly, beatified,

waiting for my promised resurrection.

Uncertain of what was meant by ‘today,’

but first in the queue to meet St Peter.

Meanwhile, give me a sip of that wormwood

and, since He didn’t want His, I’ll have it.

 

 

• Romans 5 v 7-9

For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die, but God commendeth His love towards us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

Abide in the Vine

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black grapes, Jesus' sayings, pruning, The Vine

My first grapes!

Kept thinking about The Vine and the need to ‘abide’ if one is a branch.

I am a minor twig, but I want to be fruitful so I am not pruned and

thrown on the fire.

It’s Not Coming Home

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Benjamin's sack, Croatians, diptych, football, Henry Bolingbroke, Joseph, King Edward, King Richard, livery badge, martlet, Pope, Revenge Parliament, shrines, St George, WAGS, Wilton diptych, World Cup

Viewing The Wilton Diptych on the Day England Realised

‘It [wasn’t] coming home.’

 

 

 

 

We knelt with King Richard – supplicated;

wanted to wave that pennant of St George,

which was frustratingly just out of reach.

There was no revolt; the ‘peasants’ behaved.

Why did the Virgin reward Croatians?

Why did Henry Bolingbroke take the crown?

Why is the Pope a Catholic?

 

All our hearts were couchant and chained today.

The shock of failure was epiphanal.

Our livery badge was the three lions.

The angel team seemed to be in clover,

while we were brought to our knees in wasteland.

 

After four years the Revenge Parliament

will sit.  We will challenge hollow power.

Our heraldic past was manufactured –

attributed, as Edward’s martlet shield.

Our feet seemed to be made of feathers

like the little birds thereon depicted.

 

Shrines and treasures are often portable

and they can be exchanged across countries,

like trophy WAGS.  We would have kissed the feet

of anyone who’d helped us win the cup;

not let it pass from us

into some thieving Benjamin’s rucksack.

With sainted management behind us, we,

like Joseph, will recover the chalice.

Collage

Tags

archetypes, collage, myths, Poetry, prayer, self, transitional state