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(3) Gratitude

- By Ruth calder Murphy -

It felt so big,

when it was taken

- even temporarily taken -

so big,

that it must surely leave a trench

the size of Mariana,

to be filled with oceans of saline,

one tear at a time…

It felt so big

- so much a part of me,

that I would be diminished irreparably

by its absence...

Yet, all unexpectedly,

the trench...

The second of my "Lessons Learned From Injury" is Patience...

(2) Patience

- By Ruth Calder Murphy -

Learning to wait

 - learning to fill the space

between “then” and “there”

blossom, and bear

previously unimagined fruits;

to turn the injury

to opportunity -

not stare at dashed hope

and mourn for what might have been,

but grow a different seed in the tired gr...

Lessons learned from injury.

(1) Stillness

 - By Ruth Calder Murphy -

Forced to sit in stillness,

listening to the beating of my heart,

frustration flowing away

on the tide of reality,

I learn the lessons that stillness brings -

equal and opposite

to the freedom of wings

and flight -

the freedom of grounding

and growing,

of healing and second sight...

Wow! Well, I did say that I was pretty bad at blogging regularly and here's the proof! My first blog post in what? Six months?

So, before I go on, I'll say that if you want regular updates, the BEST place to go is my Facebook page - Paradoxologies or even my other Facebook page - Ruth C...

The Easter Project

This is The Easter Project movie, created a couple of years ago now, for Holy Week services at a local church, here in Walthamstow, London... My friend, Matt Perry, suggested in the January of that year that we do "a project". At the beginning of February, we came up with the idea. I wrote the narrative...

Well, somehow, two weeks slipped by before I managed to catch up with them, so here I am with two weeks' worth of Saturday Summaries!

They've been good, busy weeks - several art commissions, the stall at the International Women's Day event in Walthamstow, a meeting about the E17 Art Trail (which is always an exciting week or two - if you're UK based, take a ...

My second Lenten pause is quite an ongoing theme in my mind and heart: The Eternal Circle and how it's echoed in myths and legends, religions and seasons and in my own life, over and over again.

This past week, I wrote, amongst others, two poems that reflect that theme: "The Truth in Ash" and "Fascinated by Thistles".

I find it helpful to think of religi...

Whatever one's outlook - theistic or not, religious or not, spiritual or not - it can be very helpful to pause from time-to-time, and take stock. Of life, of attitudes and perspectives, of habits and assumptions... All sorts of things can help to enhance or expand that pause. Music, poetry, art, silence...

Over the next few weeks, I'll be sharing musings, music, poetry and art via this blog, that will tie in with the...

This Saturday, 8th March, in Walthamstow, London, I'm going to be sharing a stall at an https://www.facebook.com/events/815816325111749/" target="_blank">International Women's Day event, organised by https://www.facebook.com/WF.WomensNetwork" target="_blank">Waltham Forest Women's Network. It's a women and children only event, and looks like being a fantastically fun day. There's even a creche provided!

I'll have some of my mini-canvases, small ca...

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a poem and shared it here, as a blog post. A couple of days ago, the same poem was published by The Elephant Journal. I thought I'd share it again here, too, with a few thoughts...

A few hours after I wrote this poem, my mother told me that here in the UK, it's being ...

Some weeks I seem to be juggling so much that blogging not only takes a back seat, but it barely gets a place in the boxes I've packed in the boot! This has been one of those weeks... Or perhaps one of those fortnights. I've lost count... Anyway, I've decided that whatever else I do or do not manage, I'll try to blog a weekly "Saturday Summary", filling you in on what I've been up to and what those shiny things, that I'm attempting to juggle, are......

Measuring Up

- By Ruth Calder Murphy -

Don’t measure me with scales and tapes.

I’m not a prize pumpkin that should be reckoned so.

Don’t measure me by height or weight,

discard or accept me, judge me or pity me,

love me or despise me

based on the bodily size of me...

I’d ask you to measure the pleasure my words bring,

or the perspective of my paintings

or t...

Well, I said I might blog about the night shelter  - or more precisely, me helping to cook breakfast for the guests there - and the more I thought about it, the more convinced I became that it was a good idea. So, here I am.

I love it. Yes, I really do. I’m a morning person by nature. It’s little trial for me, really, to be up early enough to leave the house in time to start cooking by about 6am… Though of course,...

Well, this week's gone in a blur! I want to try to post here at least once a week, but ideally more often, and yet, the days whizz past - confirming that I'm getting old - and here I am, a week after my last post, trying to think of what to say... So I'll share with you what my blurry week's been full of.

At the beginning of the week, I was delighted to go into a local school and talk about being a writer. It was a genuine privilege to share, with bright and enthusiastic children, how m...

Imbolc is celebrated on 1st-2nd February, in the Northern hemisphere,  and marks the halfway point between the Winter Solstice and the Spring Equinox. It's the celebration of the end of Winter and the beginning of the “Light Half” of the year. Imbolc is a Pagan festival in honour of the Goddess, Brighid, but, as with many Pagan festivals, it was also celebrated by Celtic Christians and later by the Roman church, who called it “Saint Brighid’...

Image: "Dragon's Breath" By Ruth Calder Murphy

Well, I warned you... Here there be dragons!

My eight year old daughter, Keziah, was reading to me yesterday morning before school. She's reading The Hobbit for the second time. I'm delighted; it's one of my old fav...

Yesterday, I re-posted the first of two exerpts from my WordPress blog. This one will be the second - and the last. The last of my old posts. From hereon in, we're on new territory. Here there be dragons... ;-)

Image: "Dragon's Breath" by Ruth Calder Murphy (Arciemme)

I'm going to re-post a couple of blog entries that I originally posted, recently, on my WordPress blog, because it feels good to keep things together in one place.

This post was originally entitled "Cards on the Table".

Image: "Falling Star" By Ruth Calder Murphy (Arciemme)

Here I am, back a...

It's less than a week until Imbolc here, in the Northern Hemisphere. Quickening Time. Whatever Winter bugs and gloom still linger, this is always a time when I start to turn my thoughts to new beginnings, re-birth and personal growth... Again.

I love Imbolc.

This year, one of my new beginnings involves this website and, specifically, this blog. I'm glad you could join me here, right at the beginning.

Firstly, let me introduce myself. If ...

Wow! Well, I did say that I was pretty bad at blogging regularly and here's the proof! My first blog post in what? Six months?

So, before I go on, I'll say that if you want regular updates, the BEST place to go is my Facebook page - Paradoxologies or even my other Facebook page - Ruth C...