Lady of Shalott
There she weaves by night and day
A magic web with colours gay
She has heard a whisper say
A curse is on her if she stay
To look down to Camelot …
And moving through a mirror clear
That hangs before her all the year
Shadows of the worlds appear
There she sees the highway near
Winding down to Camelot…
-The Lady of Shalott
-Alfred, Lord Tennyson
All of us dream. All of us have visions.
Morena:
A number of you asked to see our South African wedding ceremony, so it is posted here.
Heather found the ceremony out in the (Internet) wild were inspired to adapt parts of it. The individual texts were brought to the ceremony by each ofthe peoplewho read them.
We wrote our wedding vows apart from each other , then incorporated them into the ceremony. They thus represent what each of us felt towards each other and the journey we were about to undertake.
Having had the joy and honour of its use, we would like to re-release it into the wild for the use of anyone who may want to use/adapt copy it.
It goes with our blessings.
whano, whano
Hara mai te toki
Haumi e, hui e
tai ki e.
Jesus Christ at Saltwater Creek
Faithless is he that says farewell when the road darkens. ~J.R.R. Tolkien
Faith… must be enforced by reason…. When faith becomes blind it dies. ~Mahatma Gandhi
Just north of Christchurch, perhaps 20 minutes or so out of town, is a place called Saltwater Creek. It is called that, because, after some reason, it has significance. State Highway 1 crosses on a bend in the river. As you pass, there is a small picnic area, perhaps a few houses, and the remains of what appears to have been a service station and automobile repair facility. Nobody appears to stop there, and in fact it’s perfectly understandable. There is very little reason to do so. But, after some reason I’m still attempting to understand, it has been sitting there in the background for most of my life. For the last 48 years or so, and one guise or another, I’ve driven through Saltwater Creek. Curiously, in all those years, I’ve never stopped, to stretch look around or consider my response to that place.
Until last week.
Kia ora tatou:
As a number of you know, my life journey has continued to evolve, particularly over the last few years, as I have made my way to a place where I can be of maximum service. To do so has meant making some scary decisions, investing in an uncertain future. Now it has reached another crossroads. After a period of travelling and learning, of stumbling and falling, then getting up again, I have now come to a new awareness of who I am and what I would seek to achieve in the time remaining to me. These things are not set in concrete. They continue to shift.
Welcome to Life.
Years ago, when I was a boy, I used to devour the western novels of Zane Grey and Louis L’Amour. I used to imagine what it must be like to ride day after day across the Great Plains of the United States, where there was nothing on the horizon. Later, when I studied American history, I read how some of the early pioneers, travelling across the grasslands in their Conestoga wagons who, when faced by the vast emptiness, had gone mad and committed suicide. I wondered what such emptiness could be like, what sort of experience it would be like to drive for hours across roads where, for 360°, there were no features, no mountains, no…nothing. how would I feel? Would I love it? Would the space cause me to rejoice or would it terrify me?
