· stillpoint ·

  It’s 9pm on the 31 st of December and rarely have I felt so uncertain about the coming year.    There seem way more instability than usual in our national and international systems and given the record of early 2020 and 2021 all bets are off that there’s not something else coming down the track.   Or perhaps October 7 th was that and it just came early.   Or maybe it is the metastatic fall out from that day which will dominate early 2024.    Tonight I’m at the top of a big wave,   hovering there waiting, feeling rarely more alive just as the pre-reptilian bit of my brain flashes all the danger signals.   A deep   breath. And yet I am reminded of the prayer I led my church in this morning, written in the mid eighteenth century by John Wesley and since become an integral part of the Methodist Community’s life. I am no longer my own but yours. Put me to what you will, rank me with whom you will; put me to doing, put me to suffering; let me be employed for you, or laid asid

  A Solstice Nudge At 3.47am this morning the solstice took place and the earth started its' long journey back towards summer (in the northern hemisphere at least!).   I always feel my heart lighten a little when this happens. It’s all about the direction of travel as I have so often said to people struggling with circumstances or a seeming lack of progress.    And the fact that I know we are heading towards warmth and light makes all the difference in the dark and the cold.   It reminds me that my current situation, however stalled it may feel, will one day pass. Such a change though rarely takes place in a dramatic and obvious ‘before and after’ kind of way.   Rather it feels like a nudge.   You would have to be looking very closely to notice that little tilt of the earth that starts the process.   I’ve just been looking at my weather app and over the next few days the sunset time moves by a minute each day: today:15.44;   23 rd : 15.45; 24 th :15:46 and 25 th 15:47.    (yes