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Green Summer Magic

28/8/2022

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Nectar collecting, the bees are buzzing 
In lush lavender bushes, purple tumbling 
Summer scented over grey stone walls 
The hives are alive and honey making. 

Breezes flowing through silver birch leaves 
A turquoise sky with the last golden sunlight 
In France this time is known as the blue hour 
Late afternoon, before the sun starts setting 
I turn my face and thoughts towards the west.


Iona Jenkins 2022
Picture
A daily walk is an opportunity for awakening and refining the senses. This not only intensifies my experience, but often triggers a heartfelt expression of artistic inspiration. Since this awakening is inclined to light up both heart and mind, I often refer to these rambles as Wisdom Walking. I am forever delighted and surprised by the many new impressions I receive in familiar territory, at varied times of day, and throughout each season.

In summer I frequently pass by beautiful lavender bushes, so lush with flowers cascading over a grey stone garden wall. The scent comes first, strong yet soothing, for these flowers may be used to make sleep pillows and bath infusions. The purple colour flows soft through my eyes, nerve calming, clearing softening. Yesterday there were only five or six bees, but today has brought a hive, swarming over the tiny flowers which are now almost at the end of their season. Growing such wonder bushes in gardens helps to preserve a dwindling bee population, which deserves and needs all the help it can get.
​I make my way through a local park, where I open my eyes for the first time, to a small group of silver birch trees. I have often passed this way before without really registering their presence, but today it is almost as though they are inviting me to enter their grove.
Sitting on a bench, conveniently placed in front of one of these beauties, I decide to count them and soon discover there are nine. Nine tall, slender maidens dressed in robes as silver as moonlight, they bring to mind the nine Priestesses, guardians of the Isle of Avalon where King Arthur was taken to heal his wounds. Nine is a magical, sacred number made up of 3x3 in Celtic and many other traditions. Associations begin to occur as I follow this golden thread into misty myths and legends from this land and beyond. Poetry, story, philosophy, the inspiration is always a surprise. Moonlight and sunlight on the ocean near my home evoke impressions of unseen angelic realms, and images of animal, human, and fairy kingdoms arise from walking in woodland. The essence, the soul of wild nature personifies, moulded into poem and story by my imagination working through my own background and knowledge, creating forms and feelings I can share through my art. I never escape into these imaginal places, I create from them, then I detach again, and we can all create in this way. The delicate birch leaves rustle with the sound of Awen, the Flowing Spirit of inspiration, which seems to cascade from sky, through leaf, branch, trunk, and root into earth, where I in my still frame of mind become part of the Song.
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Walking with awakened senses, we enter into a relationship with the local landscape that nourishes us, we find richness in our environment in all its green seasonal magic, we discover our part in its legend, its life, its song. 
​
Moving mindfully, I slow down, awakening to beauty and hidden mysteries. Following my Creative Spirit, I find my place in the world.
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Storyteller

28/7/2022

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I am a storyteller, a dream maker
All my tales are a rich woven cloth
Of mystical thread I spin from gold
With dancing feet in the music of Earth
I will sing you her life song of passion
As my fingers draw down a web of stars
To light her chalice the sky reflecting
Deep cauldron of plenty overflowing
This potion of peace and magic growing
Bright flowers blooming colour scented.

Iona Jenkins
       "To begin my poetic journey, I connect to inspiration through my senses, from which I develop awareness of my place within my surroundings and the influence they have on me as a creative being.
        Our early ancestors would have used their senses both fully and spontaneously like any other creature, because survival would have depended on their ability to do so. Today, however, in our modern technological world we can order goods and services in seconds on a mobile phone. We are now consumers instead of hunters and gatherers. We have many creature comforts, but alas, we are also a people with increasing mental health, environmental, and social problems.
        So why are we not satisfied? Why does happiness elude so many? In losing our connection to the Sacred Feminine, we have gradually been losing connection to the planet which sustains us - our mother the Earth. We have come to believe that we are separate, more important, far above the rest of creation. In creating too many boundaries, we avoid the oneness of our reality, and we are lonely as a result. We could learn much from ethnic civilisations living in communities with powerful links to the natural world and a great respect for the land that nourishes them." 
Iona Jenkins, poem and extract from p.58 and 59 To Sing with Bards and Angels, O-Books 2022 
​Embracing the Earth with respect, we can heal the fear that keeps us isolated, regaining our balance we can reach for the stars. It is then, we may also discover them shining within, illuminating all those deep space places, and singing soft in the language of angels.  

May all beings find relaxation and connection in the warmth and light of summer.

Iona
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Midsummer Threshold

13/6/2022

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I am standing on the beach
With waves washing my feet
This luminous threshold place
Where worlds mingle and meet
In a mystical magic of three
The earth the sky and the sea
 
Iona Jenkins, Midsummer, 2022
​Now the wheel of the year has turned towards summer, I am spending more time outside, visiting parkland and green spaces on my way to the beach. The Celtic Ancestors, Druids and Shamans believe the shores and lakes of oceans to be thresholds, magical liminal places, where it was possible to glimpse the Otherworld and to receive messages. I can certainly see why, because after moving into an apartment overlooking the sea, my enthusiasm and inspiration to create through writing, has increased considerably. And it is true to say, that in this environment, I can experience spontaneous meditative states where pictures and words flood my imagination like the incoming tide, to be turned into poetry, philosophical meanderings, stories, or even simple life enhancing ideas, and truths I need to understand in my everyday reality.
 
We are influenced by the landscapes we live in as well as the landscapes we visit, but to really become aware of this, we may need to slow down a little and take the time to connect. My landscape gives me words, images and colours, inspiration that enables me to create vivid images with words rather than paint. People are creative in different ways. I paint word pictures, descriptive prose, which I hope may speak to the reader's own imagination and in turn help to awaken their personal creativity.
​Then, standing on the actual seashore, which lies at the bottom of a steep hill, in my landscape, I became aware of a mingling and flowing together of earth sea and sky. It felt like I was standing at the centre of a Celtic triskele, where these three worlds meet and this is when I received my opening poem. This image could also be depicted as the Trinity symbol.
Celtic Triskele
Celtic Triskele
Trinity
Trinity
June 21st is the longest day of the year, the Summer Solstice, when the light is at its brightest, bringing both blessing and the possibility of joy, energy, illumination and some celebration to life on our Mother Earth. Whatever path or faith you may follow, the sun rises for all, and the Summer Solstice is a great time to greet the rising sun, to sing with Bards and Angels, holding a vision of peace, harmony, beauty, and positive change in the world for the benefit of all beings.  

​Summer Solstice Haiku
 
Sing in the sunrise
On Summer solstice Morning
The world glitters gold

​Blessings of Midsummer to all,
Iona
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The Magical Child

11/5/2022

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"When I was a child, I knew how to take time out. Children don’t always walk in straight lines, they tend to meander about, following their imaginations. 
          A child’s life in Britain during the 1950’s and 60’s was very different without today’s technology. I developed a wild independence, because in those days it was safe to be out in the countryside around my village in Yorkshire without the constant supervision of adults. People talked to each other and took an interest, so someone always knew where we were. In addition, I always felt shielded in the woods and fields with a sense that nature herself was taking care of me. I loved the land and the land seemed to nourish and love me back, like a caring mother.​
          How exquisite and heady the wild rose with perfume fit for a queen. How full of life and bliss the summer in my heart, purple tinged with tufted vetch, red with clover and the pinkish white of tough stemmed yarrow. I would lie in green scented grass listening to bird calls and the nectar collecting bees buzzing. I was content, carefree, warmed by the smile of a golden sun in bright blue skies."
Taken from chapter 11, To Sing with Bards and Angels – A Journey into the Creative Heart, Iona Jenkins.
​Available from ​O-Books, 9th December 2022
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The magical child in all of us is creative and connected. Too often I forgot about her during the many years of my working life, except during leisure hours spent on weekend walks in city parks and gardens, or along the river bank. Then one day after I retired from my therapeutic work and moved to Wales, she turned up again, waved her wand and changed me into a writer.  On this warm May afternoon, she found me sitting on the balcony of my small apartment, breathing in the stillness of the pale blue ocean reflecting the sky, my pen skimming across the page as I listened to the voice of the sea. Taking time out, slowing down and reconnecting to the natural world for even a short time can provide us with a soul soothing, magical, creative moment in eternity.
The Voice of the Sea
The Inspiration ripples and flows
as I listen to the voice of the sea 
in this quiet slowing down of time
to a creative moment in eternity.
Iona Jenkins 16th May 2022

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Spring Equinox

7/4/2022

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The Spring Equinox passed in warmer days of glorious sunshine, a promise of growing green and bright blossoms. After midnight on the 31st March, the air was colder and the sky an indigo velvet cloth strewn with stars as bright as jewels. And as I stood there facing the sea, breathing salt breezes blowing over the cliff, my heart filled with an impression of distant choral music that seemed to emanate from the stars themselves and the ocean reflecting their light. And then, I remembered the 'Oran Mor,’ which I included in my book 'To Sing with Bards and Angels'. It is a Gaelic expression which means The Great Song, The Melody of Life, The Song of Being, the Creative Spirit that sings everything into existence. The Celts opened their imaginations to this Song of Life, in resonance with the changing seasons, planting, growing, harvesting, birthing, living, dying. All of this was symbolised in the curve and flow of intricate knot-work patterns present in their art and spirituality Their awareness of this harmonic Creative Spirit, connecting everything in the world’s fabric, made nature sacred to them.
Slowing down and really listening, my mind becomes still and I am aware of the sound of the wind in the trees, the individual songs of birds, the calm lapping melody of waves washing over the shore, the roar of the tide when the weather is stormy, the buzz of insects, human voice tones, my own heartbeat. Humankind does not own nature, we are a part of her eco-system. Becoming harmonic with nature we are more likely to create with an intent to enhance life on our planet, which in turn enhances our own lives.
The “Oran Mor' is everything - a language of Angels, the Awen, a song of love and life, a heartfelt prayer which exists in us all. Feel free to substitute any words that ring true for you from your own faith or experience like the ethos of Chalice Well in Glastonbury which is “Many Paths One Source." ​

To understand life as an art is to create your own possibility

To understand life as an art is to create your own possibility
Your world shimmers with soul, bringing you close to nature.
Those who are close to nature celebrate colour and diversity
Those who are close to nature see wonder not weapons
Those who are close to nature walk lightly creating beauty.


Iona Jenkins Spring Equinox, 2022

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