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A hollowed stone, baptismal well and caves of darkest night…
Once more we find a secret hidden in the plainest sight;
Where broken pillars signify Golgotha’s final doom
Yet ancient wisdom echoes through the ever-silent womb.
Continue reading at France and Vincent
Dear Santa,
Do you know how many of the four-legs I have met since I’ve been blogging have come from rescues and shelters? You’ve got to admit, they are all intelligent and interesting creatures… Yes, even the cats. Noelle’s Garfield, for a start, though it pains me to say it, is gorgeous.
Some are more than gorgeous, they are making a difference in the world. Dogs like Ben, who started life as an orphan, is raising money by climbing the mountains of Scotland to help Search and Rescue and Canine Partners who train dogs to help people with disabilities.
Then there are all the dogs who work hard looking after their two-legses… the assistance dogs who are eyes, ears and support for their people. I was supposed to be an assistance dog when they rescued me as a pup, but we never got far with that. My role is fairly eclectic… food disposal and recycling unit, foot warmer, exercise machine, clown and comforter, all rolled into one.
But if there is one who deserves a special mention, it is a two legs… a writer who sells lots of books, but who gives the money away to help rescue dogs from kill-shelters. Her name is Paulette Mahurin, and her books are all exceptionally well written, deeply moving and definitely worth reading… and the profits are saving lives.
Continue reading at The Small Dog’s Blog
It was a miserable Monday morning. Frozen fog clung to every branch and blade of grass, the temperature was well below zero and I had to be out early with the car.
The garage is just two miles from my home in normal circumstances, but the construction work for the new high speed railway line has made it into a five mile hike. The garage will normally run me home when I drop the car in to them for its MOT, but they are short staffed. The one bus of the morning had just gone by the time I have negotiated the road closures and diversions and, to make matters worse, I could not make myself understood over the phone to the taxi company.
Shouting might have enabled them to hear me… but the pitiful croak that was all my voice could muster was not going to be able to maintain that volume for more than a few words. And then they hung up anyway.
I was cold, damp and shivering… I needed to get home and into the warm. I called my son, well used to the vagaries of my squeaky voice, and asked him to order me a taxi. He called back a few minutes later to tell me the two mile trip would cost me fifteen pounds… oh, the joys of living in a village… it couldn’t get much worse…
Continue reading at The Silent Eye
Momentary grace
Witnessing the birth of day
Earth and air embrace
Born of the same source
Expressing divinity
They remain themselves
Reblogged from Judith Barrow:
I’m thrilled that Pattern of Shadows is on BookBub this month and grateful to my publishers, Honno, for the support and belief in my writing. When I discovered the first of the trilogy was going to be promoted, I remembered the research that set off the idea for the book, and thethoughts it brought back.So this is a return to memory lane…
Glen Mill was the inspiration for the first of my trilogy: Pattern of Shadows. Glen Mill was one of the first two POW camps to be opened in Britain. A disused cotton mill built in 1903 it ceased production in 1938. At a time when all-purpose built camps were being used by the armed forces and there was no money available for POW build, Glen Mill was chosen for various reasons: it wasn’t near any military installations or seaports and it was far from the south and east of Britain, it was large and it was enclosed by a road and two mill reservoirs and, soon after it opened, by a railway line.
Continue reading at Judith Barrow
It was, when I think about it, one of our ‘raids’; one of those rapid incursions which usually happen we visit somewhere an event is about to start. Like the wedding we almost gatecrashed, although we were to be fair, invited in to look round as the guests assembled and the vicar, rehearsing the nervous groom, very kindly interrupted the proceedings to tell us about some carvings in the chancel…That was the day we began to understand the significance of the Jester in the medieval wall paintings… and we left the church looking like a pair of startled rabbits, leaving congratulations floating on the air behind us.
We had lunched at the Greyhound before pointing the car in the general direction of the snowy hills of Wales. It was mid-afternoon and we had some vague idea of finding a place for the night in Holywell where we were heading in search of the town’s namesake.
The legends of the well tie in with so many of the areas we have looked at in the books. The well sprang up, according to the tales, at the site of the near martyrdom of St Winefride. Her Welsh name was Gwenffrewi , which means ‘white/fair’ ‘peace/reconciliation’, a curious coincidence when looked at a little deeper. ‘White’ was often used to denote a sacred place… and there was certainly a divine reconciliation in her story.
Winefride was born in the 7th century, daughter of Tyfid ap Eiludd, a Welsh nobleman and his wife, Wenlo, herself a sister of St Bueno. Winefride caught the eye of Caradoc, but refused his advances, choosing instead to devote her life to the service of her God. In a fit of rage Caradoc drew his sword and beheaded her. The severed head rolled down the hill and where it stopped a spring began to flow.
Continue reading at France & Vincent
My BookBub Featured Deal went live across the world yesterday. It’s always a little tricky following the numbers really closely, courtesy of the time differences. Here in the UK things got going a little earlier than in the US, and a few sales trickled in, one or two at a time.
Once the US woke up, things became rather more interesting, and I started obsessively refreshing the Amazon sales report page.
454, 515, 645, 749….
Bemusing, though, how the sales rank of the book didn’t update for over half a day. Once it did, though, WOWZERS! By mid evening, THE PRINCE’S MAN had hit #1 in classic fantasy, #2 in dark fantasy, #2 in action adventure fantasy, #5 in the uber-hot main category of epic fantasy, #4 in the equally hot sword and sorcery, and #112 in the entire US store!!!
By the end of the evening, that had changed…
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The title is a phonetic rendering of the spiritual classic, ‘Tao Te Ching’.
A more literal rendering would be, ‘How of the King’,
or even ‘Way of the King’.
All of which is quite widely known.
A little less known, perhaps, is that the text is an alchemical treatise.
Continue reading at France and Vincent
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The Inner and the Outer hold a key to secrets sought
Through maze of alleys leading to the circled temple court,
Where wingéd horse lends flight to feet and horses carry two,
And sleeping knights bear witness to a wisdom found anew.
Continue reading at France and Vincent
Dear Santa,
I’ve been meaning to mention… could we do something about the Tree? I know you don’t do wands, but maybe you could wave an elf or something?
The thing is, I know you know how to manipulate space and time. You manage the whole world in one night and all those presents with one little sleigh and one team of reindeer… There would be complaints from animal activists from here to the North Pole if there wasn’t some kind of magic or quantum science involved. And I only need a little bit more space for my Tree…
She says we’ll manage, but with all her tanks and machines, I’m not sure how. And I need the Tree. Not only does our Robin have to come out to play every year, but you leave all my presents underneath it! Or even sometimes… inside it!
Continue reading at The Small Dog’s Blog
Sue Vincent's Daily Echo 