Happy New Year!

The old year now away has sped,
The new year now has entered,
Now let us now our fears downtred
And joyfully all appear,
Let's merry be this day,
And let us now both sport and play,
Hang grief, cast care away,
God send us a happy new year.

Traditional / sung to the tune of Greensleeves

LISTEN / To a dear friend struggling over the holidays

Ancient sugar maple stands majestic,

Her daughter at her side,

Both graceful in their icy finery,

A sparking gift from the winter fairy

Who, though unseen, 

Has been summoned by the whirling snow.

How is it

On this day

So close to dark of winter

My heart stands open in

Light-filled reverence?

Yet, lodged in the stone-heavy ache in my heart,

Shame ever readies her venom-laden claws,

Threatening in a thundering voice

To crush all wonder.

I don my armour,

Shield of Celtic courage,

Sword of phosphorescent gratitude,

And with the raging heart of Queen Boudicca,

I cast out all that is unlike love,

Cradle my bruised heart

In winter silence.

All sorrow is but a fleeting thing

For deep within the earth's

Radiant heart

The Great Alchemist works to fuel LIFE.

To you, my dear, I send a message.

Armed with the ferocity of mother love.

This warrior is

Ready to stand at your side,

Cut away what would strangle you whole.

But should you choose to wage this battle

On your own strength.

Do not forget,

Victory will come,

And Joy will return

In small steps.

Encouragement can be found in the tiniest things.

In the sweep of the wind through maple branches,

In the light in the eyes of a friend,

In the perfect symmetry which nature creates

To remind us that we are part of a great whole.

The Creator sings to you this day.

Be still. And listen.

Elizabeth Copeland / Dec. 2014

GRACE

On the day when the scar tissue burns at every turn
There is grace.

When the longing to be seen, 
to be heard, 
to be celebrated,
to be witnessed,
Rises up like a dervish spinning staccato prayers into the twilight
There is grace.

When the heart screams 'no more!'
And the howling in your belly 
Becomes the howling of the ages,
And you find you have no choice
But to bring up the poison seeds you swallowed so long ago.
There is grace.

I see you little one.
Spit the bitter seeds on to the ground.
Grind them under your heel and let the
Earth reclaim them. She will
Make medicine out of your poison.
Make beauty out of your suffering.

If you do this thing, the suffering will be great.
But then...ah then, you will know...

There is grace.

Elizabeth Copeland
Dec. 11, 2014

TSP: Hilary Mantel's Ten Observations About Writing

Tips on writing from one of my favourite authors.

TSP: Hilary Mantel's Ten Observations About Writing: In the 39th in a series of posts on 2014 books entered for The Story Prize, Hilary Mantel, author of   The Assassination of Margaret Thatc...

Apathy, Climate Change and the Canadian Public

There is an insanity afoot in our world. A terrifying insanity born of apathy.

In the face of hard science about the catastrophic effects of climate change, we continue to keep our collective heads buried in the sand, focusing instead on shortsighted solutions that rely on our addiction to fossil fuels.

In a recent speech at the World Bank, Mark Carney - former head of the Bank of Canada, and now the Bank of England – said, "Burning all the carbon that humans have discovered and banked for extraction might well end our civilization." 

Strong words from a banker, which, not surprisingly, did not make the front page of any mainstream media.

The recent report from the International Panel on Climate Change tells us that we are ill-prepared for risks from climate change which is about more than just a few bad storms.  It’s about the major social upheaval that will inevitably come when large populations are displaced because they no longer have access to clean air, water and unpolluted land.

We can blame the Harper Government, which admittedly has an abysmal track record re: the environment. We can blame big business that is putting profit before people. But ultimately we must take a hard look in the mirror. The Canadian public has become frighteningly apathetic, taking for granted rights people in the rest of the world are willing to die for. In so doing, we are complicit in the devolution of our democracy, and the desecration of our planet.

APOLOGIES!

BLOGGER has updated their program.
I am technologically challenged.
Add those two things up, and you get published posts that are repetitions of each other.
My apologies for filling up your email boxes. I think I have the hang of it now.
Elizabeth

Word Travels in Rexton - Nov. 12