Today the internet is awash with photos of the Northern Lights taken from all over the UK. I wonder what you would have made of them 1,500 years ago, or even if they were visible in Italy?
I’ve had them explained to me but actually they are just awesome. Sheets and bursts of colour dancing across the night sky. Last night was clear and ideal for them after such a big ‘solar burp’.
Aurora over Longdendale
Everyone who saw it is talking about it and everyone who didn’t is kicking themselves for missing it. It seems that lots of people had them on their ‘bucket list’: a must-see sight or event that notion of which would probably puzzle you too.
Between Compline and Lauds, Benedictines still observe the great silence. There’s no more fitting time to contemplate the heavens. They are immense and vital, providing air to breathe, highways for aerial species and space to pray. As human activity messes with the air we must do all we can to raise awareness and right the balance.
Aurora in Longdendale
Remembered bible: Keep watch and pray.
Make me air aware.
Janet Lees, Friend of Scholastica, Wandering Anchorite of Longdendale. 11.05.2024
The season of wandering is nearly over for this year. We are back on Greenwhich Mean Time and the evenings are now darker as the light part of the day shortens. I’m back to my thoughts about wandering.
I think you took against it because by the time you came to found the community for the Rule that bears you name, you’d done your bit of it and were happy to settle down. God help the rest of them. You wanted them to experience stability and that’s all very well but it can be stultifying.
A goose in Longdendale
Of course I understand that wandering has its downside too. No roots, shallower relationships, a whole host of questions. But maybe this was just what your community needed. I’m back in the valley after my final wanderings of the season and I’m full of observations, questions and feelings of being unsettled. Maybe that does make it harder to re-integrate into a solid settled community. I can imagine the whispering: ‘Who do they think they are, coming back here with all those ideas?’
Of course most of our communities are not that settled these days. Poverty and inequality, for example, are unsettling. Newcomers need attention and understanding. What should we tackle first?
More soup
I settle back to the tasks I’ve taken on; a bit of soup making, reusing and recycling unwanted items, and observing the changes that the seasons bring to the valley. About now many more geese are on the move, from their summer to their winter nesting round. Hundreds at a time fly high overhead to find the right place to spend the winter.
I will spend the winter here. It’s my winter nesting ground. I’ll walk and write and pray in this valley for a few months. I think about the observations and questions that came from wandering. This week I think of the souls and the saints, old and new, their stories of wandering and stability, their homecoming. May they rest in peace and rise in glory.
And more soup
From my remembered bible: I will walk through the valley without fear.
I am thankful for all the saints, even the most unlikely ones.
From a Friend of Scholastica living in Longdendale, 3rd November 2023
This is called ‘Ordinary time’ but then time is itself ordinary. Now we call it Creation Time, although I’m not sure how much time we have for creation, or how much time creation has left for that matter.
I read about a creature from the deepest ocean, found by an exploration team, one never before seen by humans. It was bought up out of the depths and put in a jar. Dead of course. What if it was the only one?
In ordinary time in your Rule, the early morning worship gets a whole chapter 13 to itself. It’s proceeded by chapter 12 which is for Sundays. This morning I lay in bed and listened to the geese again. They flew past my window and made themselves known in their distinctive way, their calls sounding up and down the valley. They don’t know any numbered psalms, just their own. I’m not sure what an Ambrosian Hymn is (sounds like custard) but if it means sweet and musical every bird I know has a version.
Geese flyby
A group of wildlife watchers in the valley, message each other daily on the progress of creatures great and small, sometimes a rare one, sometimes a well ordered flock, sometimes good news, sometimes not so good. They keep alert.
The sun rises and sets, and the valley continues to be the holy space it is.
Geese
This morning my copy of your Rule fell apart when I picked it up. I’m not yet sure if this is a good sign or just carelessness.
For now I’ll listen to the geese.
From my remembered bible: Look at the birds…..
A Robin in the valley
Your call comes with the birds. I am glad.
From a friend of Scholastica in Longdendale, 10th September 2023
I hear that you knew a friendly raven. Various saints are linked to animals: there’s St Cuthbert and his otters and St Oswald is also linked with a raven. In Wales, St Melangell is the patron saint of hares. I’m sure there are many others though I’m not familiar with which saint is linked to the Lesser Stag Beetle, the Gannet or the slow worm. I did once know a child who was very fond of slow worms so perhaps it’s him.
Benny’s raven at Stanbrook Abbey, Wass
It’s interesting that we link holy people to animals in the wild and then promptly forget about them ourselves until it’s time to print another Countryfile Calendar or we see another bit of road kill. Some of us feed birds or count butterflies but it is our general disengagement with the natural world that contributes to our climate crisis. We have forgotten, in our rush to make as much money out of it as possible, that we share the planet.
You never mention the raven in your Rule. Probably it was one of those tales that got expanded later. The faithful raven and the humble monk make a good story, although I can imagine that you had much wild company when you were hermiting. I saw a young jackdaw in the valley recently, but I’m not very good at identifying corvids, except for the raucous magpie in the blue-black and white suit. There are quite a few of those.
Geese in Longdendale
My favourite avian companions are the geese that make their calls in the morning and evening, on the way out or on the way home, commuting up and down the valley. Unfortunately, the avian ‘flu virus has been seen in the valley again this year, especially amongst gulls.
Sea bird cliffs in North Yorkshire
If I was going to add a chapter to your Rule it might be one about recognising the holy space all around us. About how the creatures that also occupy it are holy too as is every species of plant, fungus and bacterium. Some people point to parasitic wasps as proof against God but there’s no need to do so. They all have their own beauty and honouring the place of each one doesn’t mean we have to behave like parasites. It’s only 40,000 years since the earliest painter of Indonesia drew a pig on a cave wall. How long before there are no pigs to draw.
We have forgotten our first vocation, to name and care for our companion earth-dwellers. We need to remember before we all fall asleep on the job and there are no ravens left to guard us.
Lesser stag beetle on the Meridian Way at Greenwich
From the remembered gospel: God does not even forget the sparrows.
May the Creator of slow worms bless you;
May Christ, the counter of sparrows accompany you;
May the Spirit of the wholly connected mycelium bring you together,
That together we may grow in wisdom and understanding and know that all things count.
A Friend of Scholastica in Longdendale, 20.08.2023
I know that summer is nearing it’s end when the valley becomes full of fluff and geese calling. The fluff comes from the thistles and willow herb so abundant here. As the deep purple of the heather wanes, the fluffy seed heads of these proliferant plants explode and set the next generation free on the wind. The geese are also getting restive. Morning and evening they call, their own Lauds and Compline ringing out across the valley as they encourage their companions. It will soon be time for a long flight.
Willowherb in Longdendale
There’s always something on the move in the valley, from tiny bugs to large lorries, some more welcome than others. In chapter 61 of your Rule you explain the welcome that other monastics might expect when visiting a community. In your time too, people were on the move, looking for a place to put down roots and live alongside like-minded people. Although you earlier express your dissatisfaction with gyrovagues (those that wander about) in chapter 61 you seem more accepting that folks will wander about, and more ready to welcome those who do, providing they are not too disruptive.
I try not to be too disruptive……
As one of the more disruptive ones, that made me laugh. Summer, is for me a time of wandering (but then Spring, Autumn and Winter may be as well!). Like the geese I tend to keep my liturgy simple, morning and evening, thanks, reflection and commitment to the valley and the day. I visit my favourite places, watch the sun cross the sky or some other weather, plant my feet on familiar paths. I have snippets of psalms to accompany me and I know the Watching One is awake in the hills (Psalm 121).
A friend reused this old lamps from Bambi to make plant pots.
From time to time I stop on someone’s doorstep: the community foodbank perhaps, to take a turn in deliveries whilst someone else is on holiday. After finding some treasure in a skip I delivered that to my friend who has a reuse, recycle and repurpose shop in the high street. Once a month I join a small group of repairers who try to puzzle out how to extend the life of items bought in by other villagers to the Repair Cafe. So far I’ve eaten more cake than repaired things.
Cake at the Repair Cafe
How disruptive was I? Well, you’ll have to ask the others about that. Meanwhile, I’ll keep company with the geese.
From my remembered bible: The Watching One is always awake.
Watch me as I wander.
From a Friend of Scholastica and a Member of the Lay Community of St Benedict.
In chapter 71 your refer to one of the things I find hardest to contextualise for 21st century people: obedience. You were operating in a hierarchical society and your Rule about being obedient to those selected to lead was not something to question. In some ways these early monastic communities were the beginning of democracy. That’s an on going project.
Our 21st century world has many different ways of understanding obedience. In some places obedience is required on pain of death. Any dissent is severely dealt with. In others situations we have moved on from corporal punishment for, for example, children to the delight of some and the annoyance of others. Others find ways of seeming obedient on the surface but get round the rules in hidden ways. In yet others, obedience is demanded from abusive leaders who blight the lives of those they should be serving. So much then for obedience. It’s no wonder people find it difficult. Some rule with an iron fist and obedience is coerced. Other rule with a soft mitten …… (decide for yourself what is the consequence of that)
Some of the gloves I used to wear when I was a school chaplain…..
In March 2020 our Prime Minister told people to stay at home, due to COVID19. Some did for the good of all. Some didn’t because they couldn’t (low wages, no sick pay for example) or wouldn’t (libertarians who wouldn’t be told what to do, for example). Now with COVID19 infection and death rates rising again in the UK, the government would seem to have spent all its currency on obedience, neither side really now being content to trust its judgement.
So it’s amazing that we have now arrived at COP26, a large international, in person gathering about the Climate Emergency in Glasgow. Only of course we haven’t all arrived. Some have never set out, either because they can’t or don’t want to. Some are still in Rome at the G20 and will doubtless arrive in Glasgow having used less environmentally friendly forms of transport to do so (I really do not understand why the two meetings could not have been scheduled sequentially in the same place).
One of the things COP26 points to is the need for a new look at obedience: for us to be obedient to each other, and most essentially to those most vulnerable to climate change. Unlike the leaders of a monastic community we did not elect these people, but we did play a part in keeping them on the margins. Being obedient to each other is the thing we need to replace unquestioning obedience with. It’s the blessing of the most vulnerable that we should look for when we are caught out in our climate exploiting games.
We keep the Rule best when we readily give up any power or privilege we have in order to have better relationships in our fragile world which will lead to the thriving of all creatures. I am not more important than the earthworm or the bee (or any invertebrate for that matter) for without them I cannot thrive. I am not more important that one who lives on a small island in a rising ocean, for I do so too, or to one who lives sustainably in a place of ice and glaciers, for without their efforts I also drown.
A bee balancing
It doesn’t surprise me that the leaders a country that makes a lot of wealth out of the use of fossil fuels wants to alter the language of a report in order to endorse their right to continue to do so. Neither does it surprise me that large countries emitting increasing amounts of carbon don’t want to come to a summit in which they are lectured by those western governments who seem to see it as their paternal right to set the agenda.
What I don’t understand is why a teenage girl who speaks up for the climate and the action we need to take should attract so much abuse. It is those who will continue to inhabit our more and more precarious planet who we need to ask a blessing from.
Chapter 71, were I to suggest a bit of editing, would be about that. Honour the smallest, the least, the most vulnerable amongst you. Don’t expect obedience for obedience sake. No one should be ruling the roost with this Rule.
From the remembered gospel: Let the children come to me, let them speak for me.
O God open our lips.
From a Friend of Scholastica and a Member of the Lay Community of St Benedict.
It isn’t so long ago that I recall all the Sunday’s after Pentecost were numbered. The numbers varied depending on when in the year Pentecost fell and that in turn depended on when Easter had been celebrated. Anyway, there were always a lot of Sunday’s after Pentecost. Time enough to forget the life changing power of the Spirit and sink back into post-Pentecost lethargy.
Red and yellow
More recently a different habit has been suggested. The period after Pentecost should be considered as Creation Time and celebrated with this in mind. A time to take a look at our world and celebrate the diverse stories that the word Creation embodies.
Green
For me the colour green is one of my favourites. The valley is currently full of all things green: so many shades, so many species. Words cannot describe them all. I go to green places and drink it in like some kind of environmental smoothie. It all reminds me of walking through the green on my End to End in 2019, every green day of it.
How green is my valley? (the Hope Valley in Derbyshire)
A blade of grass is a solar panel of cells making energy freely from sunlight. I salute each one. At the moment we are waiting for the report on Roughfields to see if the local council agrees to ‘Keeping it Rough’. I have reported on the myriad of species that makes a home on Roughfields throughout the year. Creation time is not just after Pentecost, it’s life long.
From the remembered bible: We shall go out joyfully and the trees will applaud loudly.
May we keep it green!
Green reflections
JAL in Longdendale, another green valley in Derbyshire, 02.06.2021
When Julian of Norwich sees a Hazelnut, it appears that she did not immediately crack it and eat it (although she may have done so later). She looked at it. It was very small.
We’ve been out walking in Derbyshire again this week. The Peak District National Park is 70 years old this year: Britain’s oldest national park. Small is relative. The National Park is a lot bigger than a hazelnut but small on the surface of the earth. It’s very beautiful.
I recently heard about a project to map the lost temperate rain forests of England (here). This fascinates me as Woodland is one of my favourite habitats. Local walking for over a year due to the pandemic has opened me to many smaller and small things and I’ve begun identifying stuff I’d not previously given much consideration. I have a fungi book and thanks to the lost rain forests website I’ve also downloaded resources for identifying mosses and lichens.
Moss and lichen in Longdendale
Things get smaller and small. As I look at these tiny species I see a new world. Julian of Norwich remarked that the hazelnut was ‘All that is made’. That’s how the world is. A complex interweaving of smaller and small things, all that is made.
smaller and smaller worlds
So as I walk a bit further afield over the next few months continuing our ‘Joining the Dots’ project (an attempt with @therevbobw to link all our various walks together) I shall continue to use my new knowledge of small things as I make my pilgrimage and gaze at all that is made.
From the remembered gospel: Jesus showed them a mustard seed, the smallest of all seeds.
Thanks for the small!
JAL: in Derbyshire, 8th May being the Feast of St Julian of Norwich
We’re still in lockdown in England which limits how far we can go. The wanderer in me is frustrated so I wander in other ways, up and down local footpaths looking for frogspawn and other signs of Spring, across social media looking for posts about these things. Of course I’d love to be out there and I’d particularly like to be out there in Bambi.
Bambi in a car park
Bambi is my small ageing campervan, but it is also my oratory, not that I knew what that was before becoming a Lay Benedictine. Vocabulary is just one of the ways in which groups create their own language known only to insiders. We all need to watch that.
Anyway, back to Bambi, the Mobile Chapel of St Scholastica. It is currently unfortunately still under winter wraps. But to have a place to pray was a long held yearning for me. Fortunately, I had my own room when I was growing up and could arrange it to my preference. Searching for places to pray is part of my life long journey, one I very much enjoy as some of the most unexpected places can turn into a oratory, or prayer place.
Hermit’s Ledge, a prayer place in Longdendale.
‘Simply go in’ to that place, you write in chapter 52, whether mobile or not, roofed or roofless. It’s good to have a space that we set aside for worship and the continuance of our relationship with God. I’m pleased to have found some lovely ones here and there. At the moment the ledge on the edge of the valley serves this purpose well, opening up as it does onto the side of the reservoir at the end of the Longdedale Valley. Many moods may be encountered here and once in a while the whole place opens up as a wide reflective mirror. I call that the Mighty Blue.
The Mighty Blue: reflection at Bottoms Reservoir in Longdendale.
It’s an awesome sight and it has been one of my mainstays over this third lockdown. A place of extremes, where great and small things meet in the eye of God. About 400 yards from my house it is a fitting oratory for the days when I am less mobile.May you know such a place.
From my remembered bible: Keep me as the apple of your eye, shelter me with your wings.
God is eye to eye with me.
From a Friend of Scholastica and a Member of the Lay Community of St Benedict.
Today I went on a walk as usual, a short journey from home and back again. I was not going for or for a long time and I’d be back for lunch. It was as described in chapter 51 of your Rule.
Bob dropped me off at Torrside Crossing on the Transpennine Trail (TPT) and I set off towards home. I’d hardly gone any distance at all when I saw that the very waterlogged ground of the trail on the bridleway side had been churned up by a heavy vehicle. I could hear it up ahead and soon saw it and the path it had taken as it flailed its way along the small trees and bushes that lined the path.
A bit further along and a different vehicle blocked the footpath. The driver soon moved it. I introduced myself and asked about the work. It was part of a large maintenance plan, I was assured. But that in itself left me with many questions. The path has been torn up before, I’m afraid and each time there are promises to reinstate it, which usually just means ‘wait for nature to get back to work’.
I was disturbed by the use of flailing to trim the hedges and trees as I’d heard this were not a good idea. Spring is advancing and timing did not seem great. I walked on a bit further looking for the TPT contact information on my phone. I love this trail and have walked the whole thing coast to coast. I was not expecting to find this happening on my doorstep but it was a pressing matter as you mention in chapter 51 and needed attending to.
Further information from my smartphone confirmed that hedges and trees should not be trimmed or cut between 1st March and 1st September, according to the RSPB website amongst others. I was therefore puzzled as to why this work was going on at this time.
Then I saw the frogspawn. I’ve been searching for it recently and have seen several other patches on the trail. This was not a patch I’d seen before but it was right in the path of the work if the hedge flailing machine carried straight on. It was holy ground.
Frogspawn seen on the TPT this month.
Now what to do? I fired off several tweets to the TPT. I spoke to a few other walkers coming by. I walked back to the driver and spoke to him about the frogspawn, showing him the place it occupied in the path. He was polite and listened. Are driver’s trained to spot frogspawn I wondered? How would they see it from their vehicle?
Amphibians are amongst the fastest declining groups of wild animals in Britain. Yes, we can make garden ponds, but they already have their own holy ground and return to the same places year after year to breed.
A frog seen on the TPT almost exactly a year ago.
Once I’d returned home, and eaten my delayed lunch, I emailed TPT about the work and restated my questions. My social media has been replete with too many examples of natural destruction this month already. I don’t live near the route of HS2 but the environmental damage that is being done there without any regard for the current inhabitants appals me.
We must learn to reverence the earth, to treat these places as holy ground. I want to share the TPT with other creatures, especially those that hop.
From my remembered bible: God’s voice came from the bush saying ‘You are standing on Holy Ground’.
West African Proverb: Tread gently on the earth.
I’m hopping, Holy One.
From a Friend of Scholastica and a Member of the Lay community of St Benedict.
