One would hesitate to write about sex but a piece in The Guardian's G2 on 8 Jan compels me to complain about the deceptions that society has self-interestedly woven around the precious intention of sexual intercourse. A women writes in to complain that during her 10 month relationship with her boyfriend what had begun as explosive mutually satisfying sex had reached a point where she was now “only able to climax using a vibrator whilst on top.” And she now feels guilty about how long it takes for her to have an orgasm. Pamela Connolly, in reply, points out that her man clearly has problems multi-tasking, and goes on to suggest that they should focus less on technique and more on each other. Well that is a start, but it still seems to accept that sexual intercourse is essentially a form of sport between consenting couples, a bit like football; strong on technique, team-playing, charisma etc.
Essentially, we are not talking about copulation as if we were pairing animals. Notwithstanding the evolution of Homo sapiens and his imperious sex drive, we are also, as someone has put it, Homo divinus. We are angels and human animals in one. God was the author of life, the creator of this extraordinary sexuality in men and women. “Male and female he created them”, and in his own image he made them. As the Genesis story puts it so economically, when a man leaves his father and mother to be united to his wife, “they will become one flesh”. This is about sex becoming the medium through which a man and a woman meet each others' deepest needs to be known. Through a living and breathing, sometimes gasping, intimacy, we become more than the sum of our parts. That was what our Creator intended, which is why sex is too important to be just an issue of technique. The best sex starts after breakfast. We are not talking football, but more curling.
3 January 2010 – Setting our hearts on pilgrimage
I don't expect to find many if any who share my enthusiasm for nocturnal rambling, but if you are mildly susceptible to the lunar cycle I strongly recommend a walk on the wild side under a full moon. Camping for the night in our wood we left the fire going and crunched off in the ice and frost to find Chris and Anna for supper a couple of miles downstream. We stumbled in the darkness through 3 coverts and over a stream feeling our way a little hesitantly not wishing to run into the game keeper of the well furnished shoot. Pheasants are the most hysterical and irritating of birds making a huge amount of entirely unnecessary noise. We also disturbed a huge flock of jackdaws much dismayed at a pair of blundering beasts crashing around beneath their roost. All was well and we supped warmly and happily. The return journey was what makes night walking an adventure and delight, when "midnight's all a-glimmer" as Yeats put it. The full moon had risen huge and bright making black shadows in the sparkling frost. We crunched the ice and felt almost dazzled by the silent empty universe of light. Nothing stirred. No one moved. The few cottages we passed as we left the hamlet were firmly shut up, dogs snoring by the telly, central heating purring.
Our intoxication in the bright madness of frosty light didn't last for long. No sooner had we entered those keepered woods than a storm of pheasants, emboldened by the moonlight, exploded in a cloud with terrible alarm. We hastened on a little quickly wondering whether it is best to offer an immediate and unconvincing explanation to an enraged keeper disturbed from his fireside or to bolt into the undergrowth and hide. No worries; it never happened. Those ridiculous pheasants deserve to be shot for making such an unnecessary fuss. But what a walk, and what a moonlit world. Arriving “home” to the embers of a fire beneath the towering spruce in a frozen Narnia, we bedded down beneath a horse blanket and a huge thick quilt. Walking by owl-light, especially by a full winter moon, is strange and wonderful.
But camping in a wood, even for just a night or two, offers interesting lessons. If you had little clue how to take care of yourself the experience would be uncomfortable at best, or even dangerous. However farmers who care for livestock, just like woodmen who still live and work in the woods, know that living on the land is hard graft. But much more than that it requires community and discipline. These are obligations that we have tried to throw out in the name of independence, but they are part of our fabric, personally and socially. They have to be a part of a healthier future.
Back home in the Marches we walked from church, thoughts of pilgrimage into a new year on our minds, and crunched our way straight up onto the snow-frozen Hergest Ridge. If only I had my langlauf skis! Perfect squeaky snow. The gorse was lost beneath a sculpted frozen cloak. The hills of Radnorshire rolled in frozen white waves to the sun-lit West. The green hedged lowlands of Herefordshire to the East were somehow released from the White Witch's spell. We crunched our way down through the gorse; a pair of ravens tumbled in the blue sky. Places, work, people, homes, going on together; a year of new adventures, perhaps challenges. As the Psalmist declared “Blessed are those who have set their hearts on pilgrimage”.
28 December 2009 – Good luck, good luck to the Woodlanders
In this Epiphany season with families travelling to nurture the bonds that tie us, we went off to find Will and Ed, our friends of <www.awalkaroundbritain.com> fame. The woodlanders were doing exceedingly well. When last seen in their dank Welsh wood with a couple of benders and heaped up hope they were just embarking on the building of an ambitious winter quarter. The nights were closing in and the season getting cold and wet; see Blog of 21 November. But that is why they were wintering in a dripping wood. Learning to reconnect with the land, with fundamental values, building an understanding of community, rediscovering the rhythm of a society that sang songs, told stories, noticed the ice in the pale. Needless to say, they were thriving. And their winter shelter was magnificent.
The woven nut hurdles formed a raised floor; no more rising damp and rodent refugees. Nut and ash poles bowed to form a strong roof over which a skin of re-used plastic and fabric was stretched. Onto this was packed straw all covered over with canvas. Here was a winter-proof and excellently well insulated shelter. But the piece de resistance was a huge perspex window scrounged from a dump to let in the seductive winter sun. And of course there was the little stove with its chimney for steaming socks and frozen gloves. This cabin of mud and straw was a Noah's ark of song and warmth suspended above the long winter of consumerism. The rustic fashioned book case was well stocked with herbals, field guides, Oliver Rackham's Woodlands (I coveted that one!), and volumes of eclectic spirituality (Please mice, you can eat those). Various and numerous musical instruments hung from the wall and roof out of reach of nibbling friends. Strip away as much of life as you can, and what are you left with? Where are the fundamentals in a consumer economy?As Rowan Williams suggested, get out and dig the good earth, get wet, reconnect with the land. The sun and the land are our midwives; that was how we evolved and where society developed.
Will and Ed with Rose and Ayla are re-connecting with a landed past, literally by getting muddy and cold in a wood, but spiritually by gathering in and working over our past landscape in folk song. See their website if you want to buy their album. Its beautiful. So here's good luck, good luck, good luck to the Woodlanders!
26 December 2009 – Restlessly joyful
Those Silurian brackeny hills above Kington were white; the road to church crunched under foot and the bells rang out beneath an ice blue sky. Together we gathered to give thanks for the most extraordinary event this universe has every seen since its marvellous and unfathomable creation. Humanly speaking I am pessimistic about the future of our species and this delicate slither of life which is our planet home. But experience teaches me hope founded on something wider and deeper and timeless. The fifth candle was lit in our church on Christmas morning, lights symbolizing the long heralded coming of God to earth fettered in flesh. The Patriarchs saw it dimly, the Prophets foretold it scarcely daring to comprehend it, The Apostles were burdened with this heavy news, Mary the servant was pierced by it; finally the light of the world was come, and as St John puts it “the light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not comprehended it”.
We went forward to receive the gifts of bread broken and wine poured out, quietly, personally. My eyes wandered up the stained glass window to the image of the cross. There the mystery is focused. Out of light, through darkness, came life for those who come near. Light-darkness, birth-death, new life and hope for the pilgrim, walking lightly, going together on unknown paths towards a certain home.
TS Eliot said it in his Journey of the Magi:.“.were we led all that way for Birth or Death? There as a Birth, certainly, We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death, But had thought they were different; this Birth was Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death. We returned to our places, these Kingdoms, But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation, With an alien people clutching their gods. I should be glad of another death.” Hope possesses shape and life when you are “no longer at ease here”, when you throw out your foreign gods. Jeanette Winterson in her fable The Lion, the Unicorn and Me, gathers in the eternal with the imprisoned past, the breathtaking reality of divine intervention. “The kings came inside even though there was no inside left now that we were blown inside out, time past and future roaring round us like a wind, and eternity sitting above us, like angels, like a star. The kings kneeled and one of them, the youngest, began to cry.” ....began to weep in unreasoning unfathomable joy at a promise we dare to believe.
Walking home in the sunlit snow through the parkland we kicked the ice in a shower, crunched the frozen turf, disturbed the sheep, unwitting spectators of angelic heralds bringing “good news of great joy that will be for all people.” Strange and wonderful that at this winter solstice the creation itself speaks hope in shards of light in the winter darkness. A Great spotted woodpecker drummed its territorial tattoo on an old oak in the wood; a dunnock began feebly to sing, stirred by the boldness of the sun. The dipper flew piping down river; in the dead of winter he sings secretly by the sweet murmuring Arrow. The unsettling flight of hope, restlessly joyful.
One would hesitate to write about sex but a piece in The Guardian's G2 on 8 Jan compels me to complain about the deceptions that society has self-interestedly woven around the precious intention of sexual intercourse. A women writes in to complain that during her 10 month relationship with her boyfriend what had begun as explosive mutually satisfying sex had reached a point where she was now “only able to climax using a vibrator whilst on top.” And she now feels guilty about how long it takes for her to have an orgasm. Pamela Connolly, in reply, points out that her man clearly has problems multi-tasking, and goes on to suggest that they should focus less on technique and more on each other. Well that is a start, but it still seems to accept that sexual intercourse is essentially a form of sport between consenting couples, a bit like football; strong on technique, team-playing, charisma etc. 
I don't expect to find many if any who share my enthusiasm for nocturnal rambling, but if you are mildly susceptible to the lunar cycle I strongly recommend a walk on the wild side under a full moon. Camping for the night in our wood we left the fire going and crunched off in the ice and frost to find Chris and Anna for supper a couple of miles downstream. We stumbled in the darkness through 3 coverts and over a stream feeling our way a little hesitantly not wishing to run into the game keeper of the well furnished shoot. Pheasants are the most hysterical and irritating of birds making a huge amount of entirely unnecessary noise. We also disturbed a huge flock of jackdaws much dismayed at a pair of blundering beasts crashing around beneath their roost. All was well and we supped warmly and happily. The return journey was what makes night walking an adventure and delight, when "midnight's all a-glimmer" as Yeats put it. The full moon had risen huge and bright making black shadows in the sparkling frost. We crunched the ice and felt almost dazzled by the silent empty universe of light. Nothing stirred. No one moved. The few cottages we passed as we left the hamlet were firmly shut up, dogs snoring by the telly, central heating purring.
Our intoxication in the bright madness of frosty light didn't last for long. No sooner had we entered those keepered woods than a storm of pheasants, emboldened by the moonlight, exploded in a cloud with terrible alarm. We hastened on a little quickly wondering whether it is best to offer an immediate and unconvincing explanation to an enraged keeper disturbed from his fireside or to bolt into the undergrowth and hide. No worries; it never happened. Those ridiculous pheasants deserve to be shot for making such an unnecessary fuss. But what a walk, and what a moonlit world. Arriving “home” to the embers of a fire beneath the towering spruce in a frozen Narnia, we bedded down beneath a horse blanket and a huge thick quilt. Walking by owl-light, especially by a full winter moon, is strange and wonderful.
Back home in the Marches we walked from church, thoughts of pilgrimage into a new year on our minds, and crunched our way straight up onto the snow-frozen Hergest Ridge. If only I had my langlauf skis! Perfect squeaky snow. The gorse was lost beneath a sculpted frozen cloak. The hills of Radnorshire rolled in frozen white waves to the sun-lit West. The green hedged lowlands of Herefordshire to the East were somehow released from the White Witch's spell. We crunched our way down through the gorse; a pair of ravens tumbled in the blue sky. Places, work, people, homes, going on together; a year of new adventures, perhaps challenges. As the Psalmist declared “Blessed are those who have set their hearts on pilgrimage”.
In this Epiphany season with families travelling to nurture the bonds that tie us, we went off to find Will and Ed, our friends of <
The woven nut hurdles formed a raised floor; no more rising damp and rodent refugees. Nut and ash poles bowed to form a strong roof over which a skin of re-used plastic and fabric was stretched. Onto this was packed straw all covered over with canvas. Here was a winter-proof and excellently well insulated shelter. But the piece de resistance was a huge perspex window scrounged from a dump to let in the seductive winter sun. And of course there was the little stove with its chimney for steaming socks and frozen gloves. This cabin of mud and straw was a Noah's ark of song and warmth suspended above the long winter of consumerism. The rustic fashioned book case was well stocked with herbals, field guides, Oliver Rackham's Woodlands (I coveted that one!), and 
volumes of eclectic spirituality (Please mice, you can eat those). Various and numerous musical instruments hung from the wall and roof out of reach of nibbling friends. Strip away as much of life as you can, and what are you left with? Where are the fundamentals in a consumer economy?As Rowan Williams suggested, get out and dig the good earth, get wet, reconnect with the land. The sun and the land are our midwives; that was how we evolved and where society developed. 
Those Silurian brackeny hills above Kington were white; the road to church crunched under foot and the bells rang out beneath an ice blue sky. Together we gathered to give thanks for the most extraordinary event this universe has every seen since its marvellous and unfathomable creation. Humanly speaking I am pessimistic about the future of our species and this delicate slither of life which is our planet home. But experience teaches me hope founded on something wider and deeper and timeless. The fifth candle was lit in our church on Christmas morning, lights symbolizing the long heralded coming of God to earth fettered in flesh. The Patriarchs saw it dimly, the Prophets foretold it scarcely daring to comprehend it, The 
Apostles were burdened with this heavy news, Mary the servant was pierced by it; finally the light of the world was come, and as St John puts it “the light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not comprehended it”.
TS Eliot said it in his Journey of the Magi:.“.were we led all that way for Birth or Death? There as a Birth, certainly, We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death, But had thought they were different; this Birth was Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death. We returned to our places, these Kingdoms, But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation, With an alien people clutching their gods. I should be glad of another death.” Hope possesses shape and life when you are “no longer at ease here”, when you throw out your foreign gods. Jeanette Winterson in her fable The Lion, the Unicorn and Me, gathers in the eternal with the imprisoned past, the breathtaking reality of divine intervention. “The kings came inside even though there was no inside left now that we were blown inside out, time past and future roaring round us like a wind, and eternity sitting above us, like angels, like a star. The kings kneeled and one of them, the youngest, began to cry.” ....began to weep in unreasoning unfathomable joy at a promise we dare to believe. 