Childermas: the Feast of the Holy Innocents ~ the Fourth Day of Christmas

Christingle at Canterbury Cathedral, December 28th, 2019

  
The fourth day of  Christmas commemorates the Feast Day of the Holy Innocents, or to give it its Old English name, Childermas.

Childermas, which has been part of the church year since the 5th Century, remembers the story found in Matthew's Gospel (2: 16-18) that, at the time of Jesus' birth, & fearing a challenge to his own power, King Herod of Judea ordered the massacre of all male children under two years old in the vicinity of Bethlehem.

Some estimate that between 6,000 and 14,000, or even 144000, children were murdered, although when considering the size of Bethlehem and surrounding settlements, it is more likely to have been a few dozen, if the event happened at all. Whether it is historical fact is debated, especially as it echoes Pharoah's attempted murder of the Israelite children in Exodus when he is warned that the birth of Moses will become a threat to his crown.

The beautiful but haunting 16th Century 'Coventry Carol' refers to the massacre of the innocents, and is a lament by a mother for her doomed child.

In the Middle Ages, Childermas was taken as an opportunity for role reversal, with teachers and pupils changing places and church services being presided over by 'boy bishops'. And it was once the custom to refrain from work on Childermas day and to avoid work on that day of the week for all of the following year; being taken as an opportunity to play perhaps. This playfulness is echoed in Spain where the Feast Day of the Holy Innocents is a time for pranks, much like our April Fool's Day.

And at Canterbury Cathedral the Feast Day of the Holy Innocents is a day for their annual Christingle. This service raises funds for the Children's Society which works to support vulnerable children in England and Wales. It brings shame on us all that so many children in this country, the fifth richest in the world, are living in poverty and peril.

Canterbury Cathedral Christmas tree, 2019

In March, 2019, the Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) estimated that there were 4.1 million children living in poverty in the UK from 2017-18 (9 in a classroom of 30). By 2022 this is expected to have risen to 5.2 million. 43% of children living in a family with three or more children are living in poverty. 45% of children from minority ethnic families are living in poverty, so too are 47% of children from lone parent families. 70% of children living in poverty are in working families. When a Government minister was recently asked about these appalling figures he replied that we could 'argue about the definition of poverty'. We might shudder when reminded that, in 2016, the Government abolished their own child poverty unit.

But then to keep children in poverty suits our Government because it provides fodder for their lucrative war machine. In Britain, 16 year olds can’t vote, drive a car, or drink alcohol, but they are able to join the army. No other country in Europe recruits at such a young age. Only 17 other countries in the world allow it, including Zambia, El Salvador, and Iran.

Between January and October 2017 more than 19,000 under 18 year olds applied to join the army folliwing the controversial 'This is Belonging' campaign, which was run in partnership with private recruitment agency Capita & designed to attract young people from working class and poor backgrounds, targetting children from deprived areas particularly; they are more desperate you see, more compliant.

In addition, thousands of schools across the UK invite in the military. This despite the UN committee on the rights of the child informing the UK Government in June to “reconsider its active policy of recruitment of children into the armed forces and ensure the recruitment practices do not actively target persons under the age of 18 and ensure that military recruiters’ access to schools be strictly limited.”

And, of course, the army may provide these young people with many good things but statistics show that, although children can’t be deployed on the front line before the age of 18, when they are those who are recruited from 16 are twice as likely to die.

St Martin's Chrustingle, 2019

And children from other lands fare no better. One of the Boris Johnson Government's first acts after the December 2019 election was to "tear up” a government hard-won pledge, known as the Dubs Amendment, to protect child refugees in Europe seeking to reunite with family in the UK post-Brexit. These are children who are alone asking to join their families who are already here. To deny them is monstrous. Máiréad Collins, Christian Aid's Senior Advocacy Advisor on Syria, Iraq and Lebanon, said: "There is a grim irony in this decision being made a few days before Christmas, when two billion people around the world mark the birth of a Middle-Eastern child who became a refugee, and found sanctuary abroad." On 21st December, 2019, The Guardian reported that the Home Office had rejected 1,400 offers from local councils, one third Conservative led, to house child refugees and that numbers of arrivals are "pitifully low."

All Soul's, Cheriton, nativity, 2019

It's estimated that more than 200 children, many who are eligible for settlement in the UK, remain living in terrible conditions in Northern France, with thousands more trapped in Italy and Greece. Clare Moseley, founder of Care4Calais, said: “It’s become absolutely horrible, I do not understand how it can be this hostile, how our country can behave like this, how they keep saying no to this.”

Matt's Bible Blog comments that, "Herod’s shadow still stalks the land. Only that’s not true, is it? Because Herod’s not our shadow, he’s our mirror." May we all be grateful to the mirrors that show us who we are, not who we wish ourselves to be. And, if we can't bear our own reflection, let us change something.

This is relentlessly heartbreaking, bewildering, and dispiriting I know, and Christmas is so much about joy. But it also unfolds at the darkest time of the year, and it too has its dark side. If anything, Christmas teaches us how to negotiate the tension that we must increasingly learn to hold well if we are to keep our hearts open and be any use; gratitude in one hand and grief in the other, joy and despair, and discounting neither.

But how might we do that? Matthew 2 tells us that, after Herod had made his pronouncement, "what was said through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled: “A voice is heard in Ramah, weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because they are no more”, echoing the same words found in Jeremiah 31:15.

Here, Rachel is remembered as the archetypal mother who mourns and intercedes for her children. It feels significant too that her weeping is for her descendants' suffering in exile from the land of their birth. So many are in exile now, or feel unwelcome in this, their own land. And that is worthy of tears.

Childermas is a reminder to offer love, gratitude, and support to all those who work to make the lives of children better, but also brings an invitation to look deep into the mirror and to mourn, not a tale found in the Bible but the ways in which we fail to protect and love our children now. We must guard against hardening our hearts, and we must honour our tears as strength, not as weakness. Let our tears be the medicine that unlocks the door of compassion for all the world's children.

If you would like to offer prayers for our children I have added some links below. Both relate to the situation in the US where children are being forcibly removed from their parents at the border with Mexico and then detained in inhumane conditions, or returning from school to find their parents who had found a home in the US deported. It is horrific that these prayers are so very easily adapted to our own circumstances here in the UK.

I end with a slightly adapted version of my own prayer, written as part of our Novena for the Fallen Through in December 2017. You can read the full piece here.


Novena for the Fallen Through: Peace on Earth.

Blessed Mari, Hallowed Mary,
Holy Mothers of Peace,
Sisters of Reconciliation,
Singers of the Mending Song.

We stand in solidarity with you at the gates of Birth.
We seek Light in the luminous beauty of Darkness, in the depths of winter cold.

With you, we follow the silver thread of starlit Hope,
in the midst of anguish and despair.
We seek a Revolution of Love.
We expect Justice.
We speak for Peace.
We will not be shut out.
We will be heard.
Room will be made.

We ask for nothing less than Peace on Earth.
We cling to the stubborn hope of light in the darkness.
We allow our waiting to become a prayer.

Mary, singer of wild songs, mother of the Light, Mari, drummer of the wild hills, companion of Stars,
we ask for your help in the protection of our children,
suffering in poverty; cold and hungry, even now at Christmas time,
for the protection of our children,
called to war from a life of lack;
of opportunity, of wealth, of hope.
Kept poor to become prey.

We ask for power to come to the peaceful,
for love to come to the lost,
for hope to come to the hopeless.

Blessed Mari, Hallowed Mary,
Holy Mothers of Peace,
Sisters of Reconciliation,
Singers of the Mending Song.

We stand in solidarity with you at the gates of Birth.
We seek Light in the luminous beauty of Darkness, in the depths of winter cold.

With you, we follow the silver thread of starlit Hope,
in the midst of anguish and despair.
We seek a Revolution of Love.
We expect Justice.
We speak for Peace.
We will not be shut out.
We will be heard.
Room will be made.

We ask for nothing less than Peace on Earth. We cling to the stubborn hope of light in the darkness.
We allow our waiting to become a prayer.

Mary, singer of wild songs, mother of the Light,
Mari, drummer of the wild hills, companion of Stars,
We ask for bright paths to be illuminated for our children, for lanterns to lead their way to futures filled with possibility.

We pray for the day when the Feast of the Innocents becomes truly that;
a celebration of the child,
of the innocence of the young and the innocence in us all.

We pray for a time when our innocence is not taken by the things we have seen and what we know. When we need not stand guard to protect our babies from the machine of war, power, and greed, but can lean back and be supported by the sweet waters of life knowing that they are safe to explore the world in freedom.

We listen for the hoofbeat of the Mari Lwyd, we listen for the revolutionary Magnificat of Mary,
we look to the Star fallen to earth,
sing the Spirit in,
gather up the pieces of broken hope,
weave starshine in our hair,
stand with the saints with starlight at their brow, knowing that we also shine.

Like all that is born, Sun and Son, vulnerable and new in the midst of this deepest dark, May we be undefended and undefeated, bright with possibility and hope reborn.

Blessed Mari, Hallowed Mary,
Holy Mothers of Peace,
Sisters of Reconciliation,
Singers of the Mending Song.

We stand in solidarity with you at the gates of Birth.
We seek Light in the luminous beauty of Darkness, in the depths of winter cold.

With you, we follow the silver thread of starlit Hope,
in the midst of anguish and despair.
We seek a Revolution of Love.
We expect Justice.
We speak for Peace.
We will not be shut out.
We will be heard.
Room will be made.

We lift the shard of a shattered star.
We hold the vision of a shining light of protection around our children, allow innocence to be reborn.

We allow the wild hope of Peace on Earth to sink into our bones, and for our very bones to shine.

The lights ARE going on.

For this we pray.

References:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massacre_of_the_Innocents

https://billpetro.com/history-of-childermas

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/childermas-day-1.229056?mode=amp

https://harpers.org/blog/2007/12/the-terrible-fourth-day-of-christmas/

https://mattsbibleblog.wordpress.com/tag/childermas-day/

Child Poverty ~

https://cpag.org.uk/child-poverty/child-poverty-facts-and-figures

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/dec/20/fears-after-government-abolishes-civil-
services-child-poverty-unit

Child Army Recruitment ~

http://radicalhoneybee.blogspot.com/2017/12/novena-for-fallen-through-our-third.html?m=1

Child Refugees/the Dubs Amendment ~

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/boris-johnson-withdrawal-bill-brexit-child-refugees-dubs-amendment-a9253841.html 

https://www.indcatholicnews.com/news/38578

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/dec/21/home-office-ignore-offers-of-uk-homes-for-child-refugees

Prayers for Children ~

https://reformjudaism.org/blog/2018/06/19/3-prayers-children-our-borders

https://parisbooksandcats.wordpress.com/2019/06/28/a-prayer-for-the-children-at-the-border/

http://radicalhoneybee.blogspot.com/2017/12/novena-for-fallen-through-our-third.html?m=1

An Early Spring Prayer for the Beeing

Mo Gobnait*,

Holy honey woman in the line of Brigit,

Little smith who walked the land as prayer,

follower of the white deer tracks,

Wild lands dweller at forge and well,

saint-protectress of the heart-hive of bees.

As the earth wakes from winter into spring and symbols of hope are everywhere,

we ask for a blessing on the waking bees whose hum calls us back to Creation,

and whose gathering of pollen, freely offered by the spring flowers,

by snowdrop, and crocus, by primrose, and by daffodil,

reminds us to trust that the earth can provide everything that we need.

We give thanks for the beautiful creation that we have been invited to share in,

for the intricate web of life that holds us and all our brothers and sisters in

abundance and beauty.

May the pollen gathering of the bees remind us that we are held safely in the Holy One’s generous hand, and may their return after winter sleep revive in us the knowing that we live a Resurrection Life grounded in hope that can break through winter’s frozen ground. May our fear of lack and ingratitude for the simple things melt away with the last frosts. Let us see that we already live in a land flowing with milk and honey.

Mo Gobnait,

Holy honey woman in the line of Brigit,

Little smith who walked the land as prayer,

follower of the white deer tracks,

Wild lands dweller at forge and well,

saint-protectress of the heart-hive of bees.

We come before you in grief and gratitude for all that we have done and do not do

to live in harmony with the web of life.

As our fruit trees begin their journey to blossom,

may we remember the essential role of bees and other pollinators

in producing so much of the food we eat,

not just the wild honey which fed John the Baptist in the wilderness,

but in ways which might not be so easy for us to see.

Let us come deeper into awareness of the intricate relationships woven into

Creation, that we might learn love and serve it better.

Let the bees inspire in us the hope that we too can bring to flower the barren places in ourselves and in our wounded world.

Mo Gobnait,

Holy honey woman in the line of Brigit,

Little smith who walked the land as prayer,

follower of the white deer tracks,

Wild lands dweller at forge and well,

saint-protectress of the heart-hive of bees.

May we follow the example of the hive in knowing that our greatest service

is to work not for ourselves, but tirelessly for the common good of all creation.

May we too strive in the dark and secret places of our hearts to

shed light on our own complicity in not speaking out, in refusing to change through

fear, through tiredness, through stubbornness, through greed, and through

self-entitlement, knowing that in the perfect society of the honeybee all

have equal worth and know their power in working for the good of all.

We ask forgiveness for all the ways in which we give up hope,

letting go of the belief that the honey of love can change everything in an instant, that everything has already changed.

We ask that you help us take the tattered pieces of our battered hope to be shaped into

a honeycomb; strong and beautiful, perfect of form, that might sweeten the lives of our community, the poor, the vulnerable, the oppressed, and any who have given up, lost faith in the possibility of good, or who are afraid to speak. Let justice be the sweetness on our tongue and the medicine we offer to a broken world.

Mo Gobnait,

Holy honey woman in the line of Brigit,

Little smith who walked the land as prayer,

follower of the white deer tracks,

Wild lands dweller at forge and well,

saint-protectress of the heart-hive of bees.

Let us remember the holiness of bees; that it was once believed that their hum

spoke the secret name of God, that the souls of the dead left their bodies as bees, that the tears of Christ on the Cross transformed into bees as a symbol of Risen Life, that beauty can come even from the darkest of journeys.

Let us treasure the Beeing** as a precious messenger of beauty, joy, good work, generosity, and abundance, in a world so often lacking in all of these.

Let us do all that we can to ensure that our bee family thrive by being mindful of our own actions and by speaking out against anything that threatens their wellbeing; the use of pesticides, the mowing of wildflower meadows, the proliferation of monoculture farms, the loss of orchards and wild places, and the hubris that tells us we can do it without them.

Let us speak truth to power for the Beeing and for all who cannot speak for themselves, that the holy Word might become as wild honey in our mouths.

Mo Gobnait,

Holy honey woman in the line of Brigit,

Little smith who walked the land as prayer,

follower of the white deer tracks,

Wild lands dweller at forge and well,

saint-protectress of the heart-hive of bees.

Hear the prayers of our hearts for our sister and brother bees, for the world, and for our part in it.

Aho mitake oyasin, for all our relations, amen, blessed be, Inshallah.

*Saint Gobnait, also known as Mo Gobnat, is the 6th Century Celtic saint of bees and beekeepers. Her Feast Day is 11th February. Like Saint Blaise, whose Feast Day is on 3rd February, she has much in common with Goddess-Saint Brigid, and it may be that they are one and the same. More about the weaving of holy threads soon.

** The 'Beeing' is a name for the collective consciousness of honeybee kind on our planet. See the work of the Natural Beekeeping Trust , who say "Each beeing, each hive is a little universe, completely evolved, perfect like a star", for more.

Novena for the Fallen Through ~ our ninth prayer for our wild kin

Here is the ninth, and so the last, of our November Novenas for the Fallen Through, which for this month are devoted to Saint Cuthbert and to a call for protection for our wild kinfolk. If you would like to read more about this month’s novena you can read our first prayer here.

We have already lifted prayers for our badgers, our hedgehogs, and for the street trees of Sheffield, for otter, cormorant, and seal, and for sharks and orcas, for stag beetles, for starlings, and for water voles. Today, we must return to ourselves, perhaps having learned something of the lives and struggles of our wild family, both those close to us and those who live in ways that we can hardly imagine, such as our sea kin, the sharks, orcas, and seals. Perhaps we will feel more deeply woven into the web of things, or have found a new creature to speak up for, or cried tears of blessing for what has been lost.

Rumi said, “There is sacredness in tears. They are not the mark of weakness, but of power. They speak more eloquently than ten thousand tongues. They are messengers of overwhelming grief and unspeakable love." I know that I have learned a lot, cried a lot, and that I have very much valued making this deep journey with St Cuthbert. I am so very fond of him. Anne, a a Facebook friend who has a long and devoted relationship with him, told me that she and her father refer to him as ‘Cuthbert Greenpeace’. I liked that. And I liked that, this very evening, he helped me to make a big decision when I was reminded of the dream I had about him and the breaking of the cross to reveal a Tree of Life. He is a fine soul friend.

We have shared many stories of Cuddy during this Novena but the other day I was reminded of one that speaks deeply of relationship, devotion, and how powerfully woven in we can become with what, and who, we love.

St Cuthbert had a dear friend for many years called Hereberht, later St Herbert of Derwentwater in Cumbria, who was also an anchorite (someone who has withdrawn from the world for spiritual contemplation) living on a small island. Each year it was Hereberht’s habit to visit his friend on the Holy Isle to seek spiritual instruction. In 686CE he heard that Cuthbert was visiting Carlisle and chose to go and see him there. On meeting, Cuthbert told him, “Brother Herebehrt, tell me now all that you have need to ask or speak, for never shall we see one another again in this world. For I know that the time of my decease is at hand.” Hearing this, Herebehrt fell to his knees and wept, begging Cuthbert to obtain grace from God for them both to enter heaven at the same time. Cuthbert prayed and then said, “Rise, my brother weep not but rejoice that the mercy of God has granted our desire.” And so, Cuthbert returned to Lindisfarne and Herebehrt returned home but soon he became ill with a long sickness. Both men died on the same day; 20^th March, 687CE. In 1374, Thomas Appleby, Bishop of Carlisle, granted an indulgence of forty days for anyone who, in honour of St Herbert, visited his island in Derwentwater and was present at the Mass of St Cuthbert, sung annually by the Vicar of Crosthwaite. Such deep love that one could not bear to live this life without the other.

This is the love that our culture has lost for our wild kin; the sense of interdependence, of devotion, of knowing that we could not live one without the other. The relationship of Cuthbert and Hereberht, and Cuthbert with his wild, and our’s with our own, reminds me of Glenn Albrecht’s phrase ‘soliphilia’, which he describes as 'love and responsibility for a place, bioregion, planet, and the unity of interrelated interests within it', 'soli' coming from 'solidarity'; fellowship of responsibilities and interests, from the French solidarité, from solidaire, interdependent, from Old French, in common, from Latin solidus, solid, whole.' I wrote more about this here; 'Soliphilia: On the Seeing of Stars'

I hope that we find many, many things to fall in love with in the days and months to come and that we are brave enough to cry sacred tears when we must.

Novena for the Fallen Through

Protection, justice, and shining health for our wild kin.

This is a prayer is for the warp and weft, for the weaving of the web.

Blessed Cuthbert,

Beloved Cuddy,

Saint of Salt and Fire,

Antlered ancestor,

Friend of otter, eider, cormorant, and crow,

Walker of the untamed edge of Land and Spirit,

Lover of wild places, wild creatures, and wild grace,

Threader of sea-stars into wild prayer.

We stand in solidarity with you at the roots of the Tree of Life.

The first is for the badger people.

We seek to weave a prayer of protection and bright and thriving life

for our companion of soil, sett, and ancient soul.

We honour badger as digger and unearther, old tunneler,

keeper of the songlines of burrow and root, wild forager,

quiet earth hunter, beloved of the Elder Mother,

lover of the soil, warrior spirit, wild gardener,

planter of primroses, carrier of earth scars, watcher of time,

guardian of land, mapper of memory,

snuffler of spirit paths, wisdom-keeper of home and hearth and clan,

story-holder of the ancient tales of land and tribe.

We seek to weave a wild spell of word and prayer to surround

our badgers, tonight and every night.

We weave a thread of good company and solidarity with the badger people,

our wild kin.

The second is for the hedgehog people.

Blessed, furzepigs, tip-toe urchins,

we come to you in sorrow for the ways in which

we have contributed to your suffering and your decline.

May we come to see the beauty and potential in seeming untidiness,

value the wild poetry of leaf and woodpile,

the silver trail of slug and snail,

knowing that they too are our neighbours and our relations.

Help us to be more mindful in our use of pesticides,

casting them aside forever as we truly weave ourselves

into the ecosystem that we too are part of,

listening to, rather than dominating, the earth,

finding natural ways to bring health to our ordinary Edens,

knowing that all creatures come to teach us balance,

how to care in wilder and better ways.

We weave a thread of good company and solidarity

with the badger and hedgehog people,

our wild kin.

The third is for Sheffield’s street trees, the standing people

We ask for strength and protection for all

in Sheffield who stand for tree and home,

all who speak truth to power,

knowing that attacks on people, badgers, trees,

and all wild kin, come from the same place of

fear for what is truly alive in a world of ghosts.

Let there be justice in Sheffield for trees and people,

rooted in wild grace and the sweet soil of community.

We weave a thread of good company and solidarity

with the badger. hedgehog, and standing people,

our wild kin.

Blessed Cuthbert,

Beloved Cuddy,

Saint of Salt and Fire,

Antlered ancestor,

Friend of otter, eider, cormorant, and crow,

Walker of the untamed edge of Land and Spirit,

Lover of wild places, wild creatures, and wild grace,

Threader of sea-stars into wild prayer.

We stand in solidarity with you at the roots of the Tree of Life.

The fourth is for the seal, otter, and cormorant people.

We ask for the return of health to our waters,

wild children of the Silver Salmon Mother seeking Source,

salt and sweet, fish brimming,

overflowing with diversity of life,

not valued for what we can take,

the money we can make,

but for itself as the womb from which we all were born.

We weave a thread of good company and solidarity

with the badger. hedgehog, standing, otter, cormorant, and seal people,

our wild kin.

The fifth is for the shark and the orca people.

May all beings of the sea that you so loved,

where you sang Pslam songs to time and tide,

be bountifully blessed and wild with mothering,

hallowed with fathering,

and may we, in the name of salt and sea,

walk in grace with grief and gratitude

until justice comes for all beings of land, sea, and sky.

We weave a thread of good company and solidarity

with the badger. hedgehog, standing, otter,

cormorant, seal, shark, and orca people,

our wild kin.

The sixth is for the stag beetle people.

May the stag beetle kin thrive,

may they teach us gentleness in seeming fierceness,

to not judge by appearances, to love the unfamiliar.

In following the tracks of the little deer people,

may we weave a web of noticing,

shimmering threads of right relationship,

woven with the family of all beings.

And in that weaving let there be

a mending between human and wild,

a knowing that we can take communion with life,

that we can be forgiven, make amends.

We weave a thread of good company and solidarity

with the badger. hedgehog, standing, otter,

cormorant, seal, shark, orca, and stag beetle people,

our wild kin.

Blessed Cuthbert,

Beloved Cuddy,

Saint of Salt and Fire,

Antlered ancestor,

Friend of otter, eider, cormorant, and crow,

Walker of the untamed edge of Land and Spirit,

Lover of wild places, wild creatures, and wild grace,

Threader of sea-stars into wild prayer.

We stand in solidarity with you at the roots of the Tree of Life.

The seventh is for the starling people.

May the starling kin thrive.

In a human world where so many walk with loneliness,

let them teach us the value of good company

the protection of community,

the joy of dancing in constellation,

and may humankind and starlingkind

become celestial family,

a twinkling stellar society,

find that our futures are entangled,

that it’s written in our stars.

We weave a thread of good company and solidarity

with the badger. hedgehog, standing, otter,

cormorant, seal, shark, orca, stag beetle, and starling people,

our wild kin.

The eighth is for the water vole people.

May the water vole people thrive,

once more become the tiny engineers,

the cornerstone of the cathedral of our wild,

find safety and peace in our waters,

help us to regain balance,

allow us again to sink into stories

without the taste of bittersweet,

become the awe-filled, open-hearted earth-children

that we were born to be.

We weave a thread of good company and solidarity

with the badger. hedgehog, standing, otter,

cormorant, seal, shark, orca, stag beetle, starling people,

water vole and mink people,

our wild kin.

The ninth is for the web.

You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees

for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body

love what it loves.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.

Meanwhile the world goes on.

Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain

are moving across the landscapes,

over the prairies and the deep trees,

the mountains and the rivers.

Meanwhile, the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,

are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,

the world offers itself to your imagination,

calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting,

over and over, announcing your place

in the family of things.

Blessed Cuthbert,

Beloved Cuddy,
Saint of Salt and Fire,
Antlered ancestor,
Friend of otter, eider, cormorant, and crow,
Walker of the untamed edge of Land and Spirit,
Lover of wild places, wild creatures, and wild grace,
Threader of sea-stars into wild prayer.

We stand in solidarity with you at the roots of the Tree of Life.

May our string of prayer beads,
formed in the starry sea where all things are one,
gathered on the shore of meeting,
be filled with life, love, and wild justice
for all beings on this earth we share.

For this we pray.

Aho mitake oyasin, amen, blessed be. Inshallah.

“For Earth to survive, she needs your heart. The songbirds and the salmon need your heart too, no matter how weary, because even a broken heart is still made of love. They need your heart because they are disappearing, slipping into that longest night of extinction, and the resistance is nowhere in sight. We will have to build that resistance from whatever comes to hand: whispers and prayers, history and dreams, from our bravest words and braver actions. It will be hard, there will be a cost, and in too many implacable dawns it will seem impossible. But we will have to do it anyway. So gather your heart and join with every living being.” (Deep Green Resistance)

References:

https://citydesert.wordpress.com/2013/03/20/saint-cuthbert-and-saint-herbert-hermits-and-friends/