The first light
‘The first light of Advent is the light of stones,
Stones that live in crystals, in seashells and in bones…’
— Steiner Advent verse.
I struggle with beginnings & with endings; this is something I tell myself & others — over & over again. It is only in these last few months — as winter has started to creep once more outside the door —that I have come to understand that this is really only a small part of the story. Of my story ; our story — for surely we all —when we really untangle it all, are made of both these things. Beginnings & endings (although really I’m not sure anymore that things can do either of these two if I’m honest. ) Motherhood has undone me so so so— left me full of the sense that everything is a constant state of flux, of flow — ever changing , ever renewing, ever & forever always .
But the truth is that we live in a world (o! What a world!) in which things tell us — over & over — that things must begin & they must end. A world that reveals itself each new day as a story begging to be told, a sea asking to be swum in , a song waiting to be sung.
So what choice do we have but to tell; to swim; to sing?
So I find myself here, at a beginning of a form; which is really just a coming home, you see. Coming home to the place it all began: to story, to the sea, to singing.
This winter I have held in my hands a final copy of my second book — cacophony of bone—coming in the merry month of May. It is an odd, quiet, tender wee thing indeed—like a fledgling needing warmed beneath your oxter. It was written during the darkest, loneliest but most fiercely alert time of my life. It is about oh so much but ultimately it is about story.
It is about the story of our own selves, the places we call home, the ways we live & love. I hope that this space will be a tribute, too, to these things.
Tonight the stars outside my small stone home are bright & delicate & full of hope. Soon I will leave this wee house — the dwelling in which I became the only thing I will remain always. This space will be about story , yes it will , but for me that story is about light. Ever & always LIGHT. Light like all of our bones & our hopes & our loss & our love & our mornings.
Light has been my only constant.
Light has been my only guide.
Light like a story; like the sea; light like a song that we will never be done singing.
(I hope you know how safe you are here; how welcome you are; in beside the moths) . . .
This week . . .
Listening to — Root and Branch — a gorgeous podcast about our native trees on RTE Lyric Fm.
Reading — AliceVincent’s gorgeous new book — Why Women Grow — a moving, exquisite & wise exploration of womanhood, gardening & what it really means to grow in a changed & changing world.
Moved by — my child’s love of the wild seas at Lahinch , County Clare.
Grateful for — this home that has provided safe harbour in rough storms.