The Flute Player

Tags

acrylics, flute, gerbera, Krishna, Shiva, still life

Acrylics by Candia Dixon-Stuart

Grass of Parnassus

Tags

Alba, Apollo, Bog Star, Dalriada, Elysium, faith, Grass of Parnassus, haar, Lismore, martyrdom, Picts, Rosemarkie, St Columba, St Moluag, The Hill of Fire

Photo by Dwindrim at enwikipedia 2004

You, the favourite bloom of St Moluag

(he who pipped Columba to Lismore’s shore)

who ranged Rosemarkie’s red promontory,

seeking his personal white martyrdom.

At your petals’ tip is a nectar drip:

a signal for the reapers to begin.

Once, you colonised Apollo’s fair lands,

but made fresh conquest from Elysium,

establishing yourself in this terrain;

settling in the Land of Picts, as Bog Star:

light in the darkness of Dalriada.

Your chalice-shaped flowers, honey-fragrant,

scent craggy coastlines, where soft haar descends.

You feistily commune with sharp night frosts.

Your subtle venation reminded saints

of Christ’s stripes, or of their green island home;

Moluag  preferred your stamens

to the crowns of all those cremated kings

whose smoke ascended from The Hill of Fire.

Sun of Lismore in Alba; Shining One:

he was determined to take root, like you.

You were transplanted; he was translated.

You were pervasive as that white hot faith.

Until today, I’d never heard of you,

but now I seem to see you everywhere.

He Restoreth My Soul

Tags

Cotswolds, green pastures, Oxfordshire, Psalm 23, weeping willows

…and maketh me to lie down in green pastures

Photo by Candia Dixon-Stuart

Krishna Plays the Flute

Tags

abstract painting, Gerberas, Krishna, Shiva

I used to think this was Shiva, but now I am wondering if it is Krishna…

Photo by Candia Dixon-Stuart

Transfiguration of the Ordinary

Tags

domestic visions, epiphany, spiritual enlightenment, transfiguration, transformation of the ordinary

Photo by Candia Dixon-Stuart

Happy Easter!

Tags

Easter, Easter eggs, Resurrection, victory

Photo by Candia

Easter Garden

Tags

Buscot Church, Easter, Easter garden, hope of resurrection, Three crosses

Buscot Church.  Photo by Candia Dixon-Stuart

Good Friday by John Donne

Tags

crucifixion, Good Friday, John Donne, Metaphysical poets, salvation, St Paul’s Cathedral, the cross

John Donne’s monument in St Paul’s Cathedral ( in his shroud)

Good Friday, 1613. Riding Westward

 

By John Donne

Let mans Soule be a Spheare, and then, in this,

The intelligence that moves, devotion is,

And as the other Spheares, by being growne

Subject to forraigne motion, lose their owne,

And being by others hurried every day,

Scarce in a yeare their naturall forme obey:

Pleasure or businesse, so, our Soules admit

For their first mover, and are whirld by it.

Hence is’t, that I am carryed towards the West

This day, when my Soules forme bends toward the East.

There I should see a Sunne, by rising set,

And by that setting endlesse day beget;

But that Christ on this Crosse, did rise and fall,

Sinne had eternally benighted all.

Yet dare I’almost be glad, I do not see

That spectacle of too much weight for mee.

Who sees Gods face, that is selfe life, must dye;

What a death were it then to see God dye?

It made his owne Lieutenant Nature shrinke,

It made his footstoole crack, and the Sunne winke.

Could I behold those hands which span the Poles,

And tune all spheares at once peirc’d with those holes?

Could I behold that endlesse height which is

Zenith to us, and our Antipodes,

Humbled below us? or that blood which is

The seat of all our Soules, if not of his,

Made durt of dust, or that flesh which was worne

By God, for his apparell, rag’d, and torne?

If on these things I durst not looke, durst I

Upon his miserable mother cast mine eye,

Who was Gods partner here, and furnish’d thus

Halfe of that Sacrifice, which ransom’d us?

Though these things, as I ride, be from mine eye,

They’are present yet unto my memory,

For that looks towards them; and thou look’st towards mee,

O Saviour, as thou hang’st upon the tree;

I turne my backe to thee, but to receive

Corrections, till thy mercies bid thee leave.

O thinke mee worth thine anger, punish mee,

Burne off my rusts, and my deformity,

Restore thine Image, so much, by thy grace,

That thou may’st know mee, and I’ll turne my face.

 

Exhortation

Tags

exhortation, love thy neighbour, Scottish Makar, Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Scottish poet, Ten Commandments, William Dunbar

William Dunbar 15th century Scottish poet. 

Photo by Stephen C Dickson (Wikimedia)

Scottish National Portrait Gallery

 

To God be humble,

to thy friend be kind

and with thy neighbour, gladly lend and borrow;

his chance tonight,

it may be thine tomorrow.

Poem from a Time of Trial

Tags

atheist, blame game, Kipling, natural consequences, Natural Theology, plague, theology

Natural Theology

by Rudyard Kipling

Primitive
I ate my fill of a whale that died
 And stranded after a month at sea.
 .
 .
 .
There is a pain in my inside.
 Why have the Gods afflicted me?
Ow! I am purged till I am a wraith!
 Wow! I am sick till I cannot see!
What is the sense of Religion and Faith :
 Look how the Gods have afflicted me!


 Pagan

How can the skin of rat or mouse hold
 Anything more than a harmless flea?.
 .
 .
The burning plague has taken my household.
 Why have my Gods afflicted me?
All my kith and kin are deceased,
 Though they were as good as good could be,
I will out and batter the family priest,
 Because my Gods have afflicted me!


Medi/Eval

My privy and well drain into each other
 After the custom of Christendie.
 .
 .
 .
Fevers and fluxes are wasting my mother.
 Why has the Lord afflicted me?
The Saints are helpless for all I offer--
 So are the clergy I used to fee.
Henceforward I keep my cash in my coffer,
 Because the Lord has afflicted me.


 Material

I run eight hundred hens to the acre
 They die by dozens mysteriously.
 .
 .
 .
I am more than doubtful concerning my Maker,
 Why has the Lord afflicted me?
What a return for all my endeavour--
 Not to mention the L.
 S.
 D!
I am an atheist now and for ever,
 Because this God has afflicted me!


Progressive

Money spent on an Army or Fleet
 Is homicidal lunacy.
 .
 .
 .
My son has been killed in the Mons retreat,
 Why is the Lord afflicting me?
Why are murder, pillage and arson
 And rape allowed by the Deity?
I will write to the Times, deriding our parson
 Because my God has afflicted me.


 Chorus

We had a kettle: we let it leak:
 Our not repairing it made it worse.
We haven't had any tea for a week.
 .
 .
 The bottom is out of the Universe!

Conclusion

This was none of the good Lord's pleasure,
 For the Spirit He breathed in Man is free;
But what comes after is measure for measure,
 And not a God that afflicteth thee.
As was the sowing so the reaping
 Is now and evermore shall be.
Thou art delivered to thine own keeping.
 Only Thyself hath afflicted thee!