‘Blowin’ in the wind’
Good morning,
Today’s Companionship reflection is from Kitty Macintyre, our honorary Pagan Chaplain:
The weather changed on Saturday evening.
The still, warm, cloudless skies suddenly filled with movement, moisture and heavy grey clouds. The wind rose and the air turned moist. It felt almost welcome to me. The warm weather has stimulated my subconscious gardener to an almost unsustainable degree. Always, before lockdown, a warm dry day when I had time, generated a sense of urgency. There are so many outdoor projects in an organic garden and orchard and apiary that need to be done when the weather ‘permits’.
That sense of urgency has been with me for the last 7 weeks, partly because the weather has been so dry and windless, in the main. I think the sense of urgency was also part of the sense of not knowing how, or when, this strange limbo of lockdown would end and wanting to ‘have something to show for it’ when it did.
I have accomplished a great many tasks, some of which have been on my ‘to do’ list for many years. I was beginning to speculate, yesterday, how I would fill my time when all these tasks were completed. I then did a bit of a mental inventory, and realised that, as with most gardening tasks, they are never completed. They are simply done for the time being. Weeds will regrow, pruning will need to be done again. The grass will need mown again. Flowers will need deadheaded, new plants will replace older plants when their season is done. A garden is never ‘complete’, but it is a source of continual joy and renewal.
I am reading a wonderful book called ‘the Journey into Spirit’ by Kristoffer Hughes, which has given me much to think about over the last few weeks. I haven’t read very much because I have been so tired after several hours of garden projects each day after work or 8 – 10 hours at the weekend or on days off (of which the University has given us 3 in the last 2 weeks).
This morning, the air was different. It is cool and fresh and tastes very ‘clean’. I heard the wind blowing last night, off and on as I drifted in and out of sleep, all night. It was still blowing quite fiercely while I had my breakfast in the conservatory. The sky was grey and full of clouds. I decided to move my chair into a sunny spot, next to a footrest and just read for a while, rather than heading out into the garden.
The point I had reached in the book was talking about ‘spirit’. How there is, within us all, an element which continues throughout time – experiencing personality during an individual human life, as an observer from within the ‘self’. When the human body is finished, the spirit, according to the author, takes elements of that experience into itself and carries on in this world, alongside human existence, but occasionally accessible to humans only through emotion rather than physical senses.
I am still processing the author’s concepts to decide how I feel about them, and I still haven’t finished the book.
What I did feel, this morning though, very strongly was ‘The answer is blowing in the wind’. The wind is something we experience only through its interaction with other things – when it contacts our skin, our hair, or leaves of a tree outside our window. We know the wind is there through the consequences of its existence – rather than through seeing it directly. That seems to parallel with the author’s concept of spirit.
That thought made me look up the lyrics of Bob Dylan’s song ‘Blowin’ in the wind’ and to me, his words feel very timely in the strange world we currently are living through.
Lyrics
How many roads must a man walk down
Before you call him a man?
How many seas must a white dove sail
Before she sleeps in the sand?
Yes, ‘n’ how many times must the cannon balls fly
Before they’re forever banned?
The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind
The answer is blowin’ in the wind
Yes, ‘n’ how many years can a mountain exist
Before it is washed to the sea?
Yes, ‘n’ how many years can some people exist
Before they’re allowed to be free?
Yes, ‘n’ how many times can a man turn his head
And pretend that he just doesn’t see?
The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind
The answer is blowin’ in the wind
Yes, ‘n’ how many times must a man look up
Before he can see the sky?
Yes, ‘n’ how many ears must one man have
Before he can hear people cry?
Yes, ‘n’ how many deaths will it take ’til he knows
That too many people have died?
The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind
The answer is blowin’ in the wind
Bob Dylan
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWwgrjjIMXA
blessings,
Kitty
This evening’s service of Compline will be the second last of the semester – 20 to 25 minutes or so of prayer and singing of night prayer. I will be leading it. All are welcome to take part from their own home. Here is the invitation – simply click on the link (blue and underlined) below, and follow the process through.
Donald MacEwan is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.
Topic: Compline Online
Time: May 14, 2020 09:00 PM London
Join Zoom Meeting
https://zoom.us/j/91167455741?pwd=SUtWcmNtRFdCNkpySHNVOHE1MTFIZz09
Meeting ID: 911 6745 5741
Password: 9zx5ij
Yours,
Donald