Wind blown Christmas wishes

Twinkling lights. firelight, candle light. Even a few floating snowflakes. Christmas is blowing in this year here with great gusts, swirling winds and swaying branches.

Warm, peaceful and merry wishes.

Nollaig Shona. Happy Christmas.

St. Elmo's fire

A weather phenomenon.
A bright blue or violet glow, appearing like fire sometimes, from tall, sharply pointed structures such as masts. Often accompanying the glow is a hissing or buzzing sound.
Some sailors saw the glow as an unlucky sign; it interfered with compass readings because of the electricity in the air. Others took it as a sign of the presence of St. Erasmus's (Elmo's) protection, the patron saint of sailors.

What must it be like to be at sea today? Stormy gale warnings forecast for this weekend.

Look up.

4.40pm. Clean my brushes. Empty the jar of water. Put away the watercolours and wipe the palette clean. For a listening appointment. Two robins and a few blackbirds. According to the clock, the daily appointment is not the same every evening, it depends on the light and when it begins to depart to let the night come early. Every evening it is a treat, to eavesdrop on their bird gossip. And to have it accompanied by a burning sky as it was last week.

Blazing end-of-November dusks. Goodbye to the second last month of the year! December is on the doorstep!

Pools of November light

Chancing upon pools of sunlight reposing among the trees. Fallen leaves painting pools of bright yellow against the brown earth. Pools of orange light peeking out the windows of homes in the darkening early evening. 

Above: Come on in for a little homespun music. Feet soon warm up with tapping toes. Fingers get warm around cups of warm drinks. Ears glow with mandolin and piano tinkles. Anyone can join in!

Little Autumn. Fómhair beag.

Evening mellow light. Scarf needed now for nippy air.

 Underfoot crunchiness as sound accompaniment

 Feathers falling from a bird's duvet in the trees above

A little umbrella for rain shelter

More little Autumns here.

Be Kind

 

To yourself. 

As well as to others. 

The days are getting late earlier. Warm days making way for cooler evenings. Birds are quieter and trees are tinged. More layers being pulled out from wardrobe. First evening candle lit.

St. Kevin and the blackbird

St Kevin was known as a lover of nature. Legend has it that one day Kevin was praying with his arms outstretched in his cell in Glendalough. His cell was so small that his hands reached out the windows. As he was praying, a blackbird came and nestled in his open hand. The blackbird built a nest and laid her eggs. St. Kevin decided he wouldn't move his arms until the egg had hatched and the chick flown away. Like all simple stories, many meanings have been taken from this legend. Is it about endurance? Finding love in a hard place? Nurture despite hardship? Kindness?

The Irish poet,   Seamus Heaney, who died last Friday wrote a poem that describes it better:

And then there was St Kevin and the blackbird.
The saint is kneeling, arms stretched out, inside
His cell, but the cell is narrow, so

One turned-up palm is out the window, stiff
As a crossbeam, when a blackbird lands
And lays in it and settles down to nest.

Kevin feels the warm eggs, the small breast, the tucked
Neat head and claws and, finding himself linked
Into the network of eternal life,

Is moved to pity: now he must hold his hand
Like a branch out in the sun and rain for weeks
Until the young are hatched and fledged and flown.

*

And since the whole thing's imagined anyhow,
Imagine being Kevin. Which is he:
Self-forgetful or in agony all the time

From the neck on out down through his hurting forearms?
Are his fingers sleeping? Does he still feel his knees?
Or has the shut-eyed blank of underearth

Crept up through him? Is there distance in his head?
Alone and mirrored clear in love's deep river,
'To labour and not to seek reward,' he prays,

A prayer his body makes entirely
For he has forgotten self, forgotten bid
And on the riverbank forgotten the river's name.

By Seamus Heaney