From us to you….

Mr Winter Flu has visited our family, putting aside many plans for cards, family newsletters and the like. So I hope you can accept this brief offering.

Our nativity

Preparations for our feast with family and friends continue on this most beautiful of nights – the cranberry sauce and stuffing is ready and the veggies are being peeled (most of them grown ourselves at our allotment – what a joy!) and the turkey is soaking using the Nigella spicy brine recipe.

Our year has been full of meaningful work and creativity, rich in learning for the little ones and in the challenge of growing and changing for the bigger ones! As our dear friend and Godfather to Isabella, Fr. John Gilheney would say “To be alive is to change“. We are healthy in our hearts and minds and very grateful for the love, care and heart-connection with our friends and family.

Along with millions of others around the world, we join in wishing us all a Merry Christmas in the hope that by so doing, we breathe more joy and goodness into our world, our relationships, our communities and our own hearts.

I leave you with two offerings before I return to this blog space in the new year.

Firstly, a picture of our two sweet children who spontaneously decided to do a nativity play. I love this picture as it speaks of the innocence of children – something we could all do with more of.

Lastly, a blessing by one of my favourite authors, John O’Donohue (who died nearly 5 years ago, way too young). I have been steeping myself in these words lately and in some of his recorded talks (find them here). Happy Christmas! Concetta x

A New Year Blessing (Bennacht)  by John O’Donohue

On the day when
The weight deadens
On your shoulders
And you stumble,
May the clay dance
To balance you.

And when your eyes
Freeze behind
The grey window
And the ghost of loss
Gets into you,
May a flock of colours,
Indigo, red, green
And azure blue,
Come to awaken in you
A meadow of delight.

When the canvas frays
In the currach of thought
And a stain of ocean
Blackens beneath you,
May there come across the waters
A path of yellow moonlight
To bring you safely home.

May the nourishment of the earth be yours,
May the clarity of light be yours,
May the fluency of the ocean be yours,
May the protection of the ancestors be yours.

And so may a slow
Wind work these words
Of love around you,
An invisible cloak
To mind your life