Celtic Cross as Lifemap: Greenbelt workshop post 2

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I was very pleased to welcome over 50 people to the Grove, a lovely 'fringe' sacred space created by Forest Church and friends, at Greenbelt this year, with arches and foliage marking the four directions.
Although we just had an hour, which meant we could only really begin to enter into the idea of the Celtic Cross as a life map, a lot of people came up afterwards to say that they had connected at quite a deep level and were going away feeling inspired or even significantly helped along the way. It's always really rewarding and humbling to hear such things, and thank you for sharing if you were one of those.

I was also asked if I could bring the workshop in its expanded form to other venues - yes I can! If you are interested and don't have my contact details look for me on Facebook or twitter @HephzibahAnnie, I look forward to hearing from you!

Celtic Cross as Life Map - my Greenbelt workshop

Cross at St Non's chapel, Pembrokeshire

I was delighted to be asked to offer a reflective workshop in the Grove at Greenbelt this year (12-1pm Saturday 24th Aug '13!) and have been having a good time planning it out. Yesterday I was out on a local field with lots of rope, forming a large Celtic Cross and pacing it out, labyrinth-like - to the bemusement of at least one dog-walker!

I took some pains to align the cross to the four directions. In Christianity, East has always held great significance. Being the direction the sun rises each morning, it is equated symbolically with the risen Christ who appeared to the women in the early morning of the first Easter. Traditional churches honour the East, the congregation faces this way, towards the altar.

Moving with the sun, in a southerly position at midday, we hear about Saul's blinding midday encounter with Christ, which challenges him to the core.
As evening draws on and the sun begins to set in the west, we can reflect on the story of the first people, who knew God to walk in the garden in the cool of the evening (Genesis 3:8). The north is equated with night time, rest, meditation and waiting in hope for the return of the sun.

So, we measure our days, our months, our years, our lives with the cycling of the sun, moon and earth. The church year too, falls into the pattern, interweaving holy days and seasons with natural and agricultural events, helping us to locate ourselves and live meaningfully.

But the cross allows us to return to the centre, it allows us to look back, to dream of a future, to focus on the heart, the hub of this great wheel. In the Christian faith, wherever the path leads, wherever we go, whatever our time of life, Christ is at the centre, at the heart, and Christ is encircling us.

The Celtic church had a tradition of the 'caim', a prayer of protection, recited while rotating in a circle, drawing an imaginary ring around oneself with a finger. There are plenty to choose from; here is one on the theme of a garment, from my Wild Goose Chase book (page 98), which I have drawn on for the workshop:

Encompass me, 
O God of goodness,
my form to surround,
my being to hold close
in the wrap of your loving.
Amen

 

We will chant from the Psalms, as we tread our way around the circle:

You made the moon to mark the seasons

and the sun knows when to go down ...'

Psalm 104:19

And we will sing a verse from Jeremiah, as we contemplate the cross at the centre:

Stand at the crossroads and look,

and ask for the ancient paths;

ask where the good way lies and walk in it,

and so find rest for your souls.

Jeremiah 6:16

The Blessed Path: a wedding / partnership ceremony

Checking my emails after a two week holiday, I was especially delighted to receive a royalties statement from Wild Goose Publications. It's not that I'd suddenly become a best-seller, far from it, but that a particular downloadable pdf publication I'd written a while back, had been chosen by 28 people.
Those 28 people mean a lot to me. (In the micro-publishing world of small (but special) publishing companies, sales are counted carefully, book by book and article by article, and we writers get a cheque on the happy occasions that we make more than £50 in a season - about £1 per book, and for 28 downloads of a wedding liturgy, £16! )

The work in question is 'The Blessed Path, a wedding / partnership ceremony'.

I was pleased to be asked to write this by Wild Goose Publications. Working on it, I felt as though I was preparing a gift - a wedding gift - for couples planning their declaration of commitment and love to one another, on their most joyous day.

I wanted very much, to honour the dignity and depth of this commitment, and I wanted to write it in a way that would be inclusive, appropriate for all couples seeking blessing within the Christian tradition, whether straight, lesbian or gay or any other permutation of sexual preference and gender. I wanted to honour the exploration of sincere love in all its subtleties, and the increasing freedom our society is beginning to offer, to let love flourish.

Tolstoy wrote a short story called 'Where Love is, There God is Also,' Mother Theresa wrote a book of a similar name: 'Where there is Love, there is God'. Taize have a lovely sung Latin form of the saying: 'Ubi Caritas'. It's not a new idea though, the words are from an old Gregorian chant traditionally sung during the Maundy Thursday foot washing, beginning, 'Ubi caritas et amor, Deus ibi est.' Where there is charity and love, God is there. It's something I really believe: when people live in love with one another, they live in the Divine Presence.

An ancient path: the Ridgeway near Wayland's Smithy

The ceremony is based on a theme of journeying and paths. It recognises that we each walk our own path, but in partnership we commit to walking with somebody, which is a challenge as well as a delight. The paths that bring us to our life partners can sometimes be difficult and as we join hands with our beloved we recognise that the way ahead is a journey into the unknown, and that all we can do is trust in one another and in the goodness of God.



 

Song of Songs in Hebrew, photographer unknown

To express this sense of journey and committment I have woven texts from the Song of Songs and from the psalms together with prayers adapted from the Celtic collection the Carmina Gadelica, and stories of great love and loyalty  from the Bible - between Ruth and Naomi, Jonathan and David, Rebecca and Isaac.

If I had been asked to write the ceremony for just one couple preparing to celebrate and solomnise their  relationship in the presence of God and their community, I would have been immensely happy to do so and touched to be part of the sacred moment. As it is, that 28 people have considered using 'The Blessed Path' (and I hope some of these are using it, or part of it), fills me with gladness. Although I am waiting for my 6th book to work its way to publication as I write, I think this little e-publication expresses everything for me about the sense of satisfaction of being able to offer something that can touch another's life, and give a little companionship along the way. It really does make it all worthwhile, so thank you if you happen to be one of the 28, and may your path be blessed!

St Non's holy well - finding the Feminine in the landscape

We're just back from a really wonderful campervan holiday in Wales, visiting among other places, Brecon, St David's, (where my son is currently part of Festival Arts, performing King Lear and a family play, 'the Man whose Mother was a Pirate'), then on to St Govan's Head.

I particularly wanted to visit a favourite place of mine, St Non's chapel and holy well, which are to be found on the cliff tops a mile to the south of St David's. St Non is the mother of St David, patron saint of Wales, and to my mind, the more fascinating of the two. Although a nun, she was raped (or seduced,  depending which story you listen to) by a visiting nobleman. Non was obliged to leave the safety of the convent while pregnant and eventually gave birth alone in a terrible storm, on the cliff top. 

 It is said a stone on which she leaned during her labour still bears the impression of her handprint.  We thought it might be this one but are open to correction ...

 At her feet, a spring is said to have appeared, to which many used to make pilgrimage for healing. It's housed in a simple stone well.

The old chapel is in ruins, a simple Celtic cross propped up in the corner,
but a short distance away a more recent chapel has been built, close to a retreat house. The location in bleak in the winter, but in the summertime, swallows make a home in the rafters.

the chapel is particularly interesting because of its feminine focus. While we might expect the central stained glass window above the altar to be dedicated to St Non, she is not alone. To her right is the better known St Bride or Brigid of Ireland, the first woman, so legend has it, to be ordained a Bishop (see another of my posts, the Good Shepherdess), and to her left, the lesser known St Winifred, also of Wales.

 These three Celtic holy women are accompanied by a particularly dynamic statue of Mary with child.
In short, it's all women up front around the altar. There are a couple of male saints on other windows, David being one, but far less prominent. I find this quite refreshing - it's one of the things that draws me to the place.
But I also find the landscape itself quite intriguing, because the features of the location are older than the Christian tradition and to me, they too have a distinctly feminine feel.

There's something about this stretch of cliff around St Non's Bay, perhaps more apparent to travellers coming to pay their respects by boat rather than by land. A pilgrim would know which narrow cove to navigate towards as they made their way cautiously around the rocky coastline, because it lies between two distinctive rock arches, one to the left and one to the right of the spring, up on the cliff.

     








The rocks in one of the easiest places to scramble ashore - from a small boat at least - are a strange, deep reddish purple, shining blood-like with the sea spray.

 It occurs to me that this stretch of coast might have been associated with the feminine for a very, very long time. I see a connection, I suppose, (I have had a lifelong fascination with the prehistoric) with ancient stones such as Cornish Men-anTol, which seem (to me) to represent simply and starkly, male and female elelements (but make your own mind up!):

from sacredsites.com

I'm sure the rock-arches of St Non's Bay were there long before Christianity, so was the spring, and so were the coves, cutting into the cliffs. Ancient people gravitated towards this place because of the special features they saw in it, and perhaps the spiritual presence they felt there: I can well believe it was a sacred place already, when Non came here to give birth. I wonder if it was sacred to the Femimine Divine, an auspicious place to birth, a place where Non felt safe, empowered, even though in human terms she was alone.

The Lord, the Lady and Lammastide

two corn-dollies made about 30 years ago by a Midlands craftworker known to my Dad.

It will be Lammastide on 1st August, one of my favourite celebrations. The word comes from the Anglo-Saxon for Loaf Mass (hlaf-mass) and celebrates the first bread made from the first of the grain harvest - the blessing of the first fruits. There's a 'Celtic' form of the feast too, Lughnasadh. Depending on regional variation of tradition and who you ask, these may or may not approximate to the same thing - given that they fall on the same day and focus on harvests, sun and community celebration.
 It may be that Lughnasadh is a bit more 'pagan' and Lammas is a bit more 'church', but in rural traditional societies of pre-literate times, I suspect there was a good deal of cross-pollination.
There still is a good deal of cross-pollination, actually, although politely wiped up by some, to suggest clear 'either/or' boundaries so we all know where we are.
Take the word 'Lord.' 'Lord' is used with reverence, and I mean no disrespect. In the past and in other places, and this is a subject for another post, it was/is used as a subversive and courageous statement of loyalty to God rather than an earthly power, that could land one in a lot of trouble.
 But 'Lord' is an English word ( Scottish variation, Laird) with a good old Anglo Saxon root. (The first translations of the Bible made for indigenous speakers of the British Isles, were in Anglo Saxon, long before William Tyndale died for his pains.)

from Matthew's Gospel in Anglo Saxon, Lord's Prayer in red box - spot the line about bread ... ?

'Lord' is also a word that causes theological mushiness, to my mind. In Christian circles it gets used interchangeably of 'God Most High' and of Jesus - in some liturgies it is sometimes not clear who we are addressing at all. But the distinction matters; it seems highly improbable to me - but a matter for debate for some - that Hebrew-speaking contemporaries of Jesus would use the same title for Jesus as for the Most High God, regarded by Jesus himself as a practising Jew with utmost love and reverence: 'Our Father, hallowed be your name'. In Judaism the most holy name is not spoken, and 'Adonai ' (in English translation Lord or LORD) is a Hebrew title used as a reverential substitute. Kyrios, the Greek equivalent, is used of God but also of powerful male human beings, and since early Christians tended to rely on Greek translations and wrote their own material in Greek, some of the confusion can be traced back to this formative time.
We use Lord, like Kyrios, of the Divine, and of human beings, and of Jesus who is, according to tradition, both. It's worth pausing to consider what - and who - we mean when we use the word. It is a male title of respect. It therefore seems quite appropriate to use of a male human being, such as Jesus, but today, do we have to have a gendered title to speak of the Supreme Being? The Liberal Judaism prayerbook has already addressed this, and uses non-gendered, inclusive language of God. 'The Eternal One' is used where we might expect to find Lord.

Lord (and Scottish Laird) comes from the Anglo Saxon word Hlaford. The Anglo Saxon theologian-translators decided 'Hlaford' was an appropriate choice to render the equivalent concepts implied by biblical writers, and in many ways it was, as long as we remember the etymology of the word.

Hlaford  is made up of the word for loaf, hlaf, and the word for a guardian or protector, weard - some letters got lost or morphed along the way. The Lord is the one who looks after the bread supply, secures its production and ensures its distribution. Generosity is an essential quality of an Anglo Saxon Hlaford. We might find here a pleasing Eucharistic association. 

But it also illustrates the utter importance of the grain cycle for a people whose staple diet was bread. The line in the 'Lord's' prayer, 'give us today our daily bread,' would resonate with these people, and it's what a benevolent hlaford does.
In the Christian story, the bread-guardian goes further: he is the bread, he is the grain cut down and bound up, threshed with rods, exposed to the elements and trussed up in a shroud-sack, then placed in the dark ... from which he bursts forth in new life. He is self-giving. He is the dying and rising one. Throughout the Gospels, Jesus's teachings are full of references to the grain cycle, it is one of his favourite illustrations. Jesus is Hlaford.

As with so many human titles, the genderedness of 'Lord' implies a binary which adds to the complication when speaking of God. Where there's a Lord, folklore and fairytale insists there must be a Lady somewhere about. Since Biblical faith is monotheistic, we, like the prophets of old,  run into problems - God's aloneness can sound lonely. People throughout the ages have woven consorts and other beloved companions into the Divine story. In some strands of Christianity, it's Mary, Mother of Jesus, who is 'lady,' and there are many folk legends concerning Mary and the grain cycle. In other strands, Mary Magdalene is cast as lover, or holy Wisdom is emphasised, a feminine personification of the Divine. But 'God Alone', divine aloneness, may not be loneliness but Oneness - completeness, not lonely but joyous, not excluding everything else but encompassing it. Some feel that sexual union and erotic love express the mystery most deeply. (Some feel that it seriously doesn't.)

But what does the word 'lady' mean? Once again, it has an Anglo Saxon root hlaefdige: hlaf again, which means bread, and dige pronounced di-ye, related to the activity of kneading dough - another gendered activity in ancient times. Wherever the grain grew, grinding and kneading became womens' work. And there we have it - some might feel the hlaford to be superior, perpetrating the age-old patriarchal pattern. But Jesus himself said that the reign of God is like a woman kneading dough (Luke 13:20-21). The hlaefdige, the lady, gives us an insight into Divine power and creative presence on earth. Can we really do without her? If not, how do we express her rightful belonging within the oneness of God, in a way that has integrity, within our faith tradition?

As long as the Earth endures ...

I noticed a theme yesterday in a couple of leading newspapers, about the economic impact of methane release from the Arctic. Now, I may be naive, I may have missed something and I know I'm no scientist, but it seems very telling that it takes an 'economic disaster scenario' prediction to bring this apparently collosal threat to life as we know it, into the news - albeit a few pages in - as though impact on wallet is the only way we can take it seriously these days.

Back in the late 90's, I remember a new theory coming up, from a British geologist, Paul Wignall, that methane gas release from the oceans, caused by global warming, had been a major contributing factor to the Permian extenction in which over 90% of living things died. In short, some rat-like things, a few plants, sea creatures, birds and bugs survived, and we evolved from the rat-like things. There was even a BBC docmentary about it. Two decades have passed and now we are starting to get publicity about global warming causing methane leaks, some highly alarming, such as the Avaaz campaign in preparation for the 2015 Paris Summit.

Natural phenomena came together to cause the Permian extinction. Clever as we are, we seem to be not quite clever enough to put two and two together and notice that by replicating the same kind of conditions ourselves, we can replicate the same kind of effects. It's not, as they say, rocket science.

There's a saying, attributed to God, that springs to mind, especially as we approach harvest time in the northern hemisphere, and the celebration of Lammastide.

As long as the earth endures,
   seedtime and harvest, cold and heat,
summer and winter, day and night,
   shall not cease.’
Genesis 8:22 NRSV

At what point, I ask myself, does the earth stop enduring? At what point, do the seasons shift and the harvests fail? They are already failing. There's an account in Genesis, of how (some of) the Ancient Egyptians survived a terrible famine: first they bought grain from the reserves with money - if they had any - then, if they had any, with their livestock, then, if they had any, with their lands, then with their own lives so that in time, they had nothing, not even their freedom, they were slaves in their own land (Genesis 47:13-26). And so it is. The prosperous eat and keep their freedom for longer, but at what point are even they reduced to nothing? It is a question for the West, perhaps, a question for the nations of the world who will be affected least and last by the ravages of climate change- a 'who is my neighbour?' kind of question.
We ask a lot of our Mother Earth - too much maybe. I thought, twenty or so years ago, having (so it seemed) sorted women priests, that the Churches might go on to take up climate change and make it the next great mission, to cherish and take care of the earth, believing creation to be good and of God.

I painted this for Ray

I imagined Christianity rediscovering itself as a spiritually motivated greening movement, promoting simplicity, sustainability, an alternative to consumerism, creative care-taking for the love of generations to come, and respect for the sanctity of all life. It's all there in the Bible and Christian tradition, after all. And here and there, there are churches, websites, books, movements, initiatives, the environment gets a mention in the weekly intercessions ... but on the whole, it still feels like a marginal pursuit. 'Why?' is a question worth asking.

Expressing concerns about the possibility of catastrophic loss of life and agricultural failure - and this is not just curtains for polar bears - can we really only get as far as the economic cost? Is the economy really our frame of reference for meaning? Is there no prayer left, no prophetic voice from our times that will be listened to, concerning the intrinsic worth and beauty of the earth and all life? When the Ancient Egyptians ran out of money to buy bread, the wealthy elite survived and the poor majority became slaves or died. What provision do we make in our own times, to ensure that economics and the survival of the richest is not the end of the story? Besides, survival when all else has died, what kind of richness is that? There's a Cree proverb:

somewhere in Birmingham

Only when the last tree has died
and the last river been poisoned
and the last fish been caught
will we realise we cannot eat money.


To be honest, I'm a bit weary of other Christians asking me if I'm a Pagan because I care about and find spiritual depth in the earth. I think I want to turn the question around: what kind of insane cult would destroy its own home and habitat and all who share it, and preach freedom to exploit and waste as much as they like, because nothing but the short-term satisfaction of the privilidged few really matters? Nobody would listen to them, surely ...

Wake me, ever-present One,

from my sleepy state of self-absorption,

from the cocoon-like hedeaway of blinkered belief

that persuades me of my spiritual superiority.

Wake me with the sound of the whole earth together

singing and dancing as it has done for ever;

dancing with passion and wild delight

to a drum call I only heard

before in my dreams;

deep-souled song

spanning infinite octaves

from the abyss of despair

to pinnacles of joy;

each creature stamping

and chanting the ecstasy,

the heart-melting tenderness

of life lived in You.

Amen

Annie Heppenstall: The Healer's Tree

Who am I, O God, and who are you?

St Francis by Dorothy Woodward

The wonderfully elemental illustration above, can be found on the Franciscan Tertiary webpage. According the the 'Little Flowers of St Francis', there's a question that St Francis repeatedly asked in prayer, in his long retreats on his favourite mountainside, which goes something like 'who am I, O God, and who are you?' It seems like a really fundamental question to me, and one I reflect on in the last chapter of Rejoice with Me.
St Francis himself is famous for a prayer in which he added lots of attributes and epithets to describe God. It's a beautiful prayer, and some say, inspired by his encounter with Islam and the devotion to the 99 Beautiful Names of Allah.

You are the holy Lord God
Who does wonderful things.
You are strong. You are great. You are the most high.
You are the almighty king. You holy Father,
King of heaven and earth.

You are three and one, the Lord God of gods;
You are the good, all good, the highest good,
Lord God living and true.

You are love, charity; You are wisdom, You are humility,
You are patience. You are beauty, You are meekness,
You are security, You are rest,
You are gladness and joy, You are our hope, You are justice,
You are moderation, You are all our riches to sufficiency...
The Praises of God and the Blessing

It seems Francis was spilling over with things to say about God, but in describing himself, it is said he called himself a 'worm'. It's quite popular to liken ourselves to creatures, or even to identify with animals in a totemic way, with those which have qualities we especially value. Wolves, bears, eagles, horses, leopards, these are popular, but I've not heard many people claiming an affinity or identity with worms.
Yet, on our little altar at home in the prayer room, there's a bowl of garden soil and it's as healthy as it is because of the digestive work of worms. I picked one up the other day, off scorching hot tarmac during our week of summer sun. It squirmed in my hand all the way down the road until I found a patch of shady earth - brother worm, I thought fondly, as St Francis would call it. But then, maybe it should be brother-sister worm, or sister-brother worm, since they are, after all hermaphrodite. 
Sometimes, it seems, when we try to label, categorise or define ourselves and others, we get in a tangle. We get in a tangle when we try to define Supreme Being too. According to Exodus 3:14, God anticipated this and offered help by giving a divine name of utter genius which is simply a statement of existence: I AM. There's something to be said  for just being, and letting others just be - it may even be a quality of the Divine.