The graveyard at Cemetery junction in Reading town is a ‘Garden Cemetery’, designed and planted to enable visitors to promenade.
Most weekends I’ll take a stroll around the cemetery, enjoying the natural peace and beauty and the wonderful sculptural art placed there as remembrances to people….
passed and past
For p
osterity. Today’s popular memes.
Vineyard Christian (VC): Can you speak in tongues?
I can speak conversational french, but given the context I don’t think that’s what he meant, he might find this comment flippent or sarcastic and definitely inappropriate for such a serious question
wendy: I don’t think so
VC: let me pray for you
wendy: sure, thanks
I listened to his words as he easily chose things to say to me, a stranger. Words and thoughts as gifts through his language of prayer
Early morning climbing the steep hillside at Streatley to the Ridgeway with friends. We watched the solstice sun rise in the distance. Toasting the arrival of the green man with mead, elderflower champagne, and sloe gin made with sloes from a nearby tree. Then cleansing each other with some homegrown sage smudging
After some dancing around local labyrinths and rambling through forests we made our way home for fried-egg sandwiches all around. An excellent start to the new year…
Virgin me!
Never been on the roof of a Catholic Cathedral…until….NOW!
Watching the mason’s cut stone, in-situ, to fit windows. Clouds of stone-dust swirling into the air. Orange roofs, the mediterranean, in the distance. Being on top of a Cathedral gives you all sorts of new perspectives and an appetite for Paella…
The wedding practice-party mingle in the sunshine outside St James and St William of York church. I skirt the party and slip into the substantial entrance porch of Pugin‘s psuedo Norman church. A handsome young man in the porch is talking on his mobile phone:
I’d just like you to take the “a” off the end of my name. At the moment it looks like two girls are getting married – Nicola and Alexa. My name is Alex not Alexa. Please just put it right
I imagine the wedding with the grooms name miss-spelt as a girls name. If they are having the rehearsal, the wedding is probably fairly soon, I am impressed at how well the groom maintains a semblance of calm as he delivers his plea
Reading town has many sculptures, often hidden in unobrusive places where you stumble across them. Suprises in unexpected places.Very pleasing
A girl and a swanSculpture by: Lorne McKean
The girl and swan are easily found at the front of Arundel House, downtown. on Kings Road. I love the way the swan attached to the wall looks like it’s light, it’s flying. I find the seemingly nude, pre-pubescent female figue slightly disturbing
MonkSculpture by: Elizabeth Frink
A fully covered, adult, standing monk has raised his left arm as if about to gesture. Less than 1,000 feet from the girl and the swan it is more difficult to find. Not on a main thoroughfair. In a garden on a quiet walkway within the ruins of Reading Abbey alongside Reading Gaol
I wonder why he’s raised his arm, is it a greeting or the natural swing as he walks?
The sound of christian church bells calling people to prayer cheerfully echos around the Wendy House garden on a Sunday morning. In April London Road, Wokingham Road, Cumberland Road, adjoining streets and park come alive with orange clad Sikh’s singing and sharing goodwill in the streets for Nagar Kirtan
Until recently there were only a couple of Mosques in Reading town. Converted buildings rather than purpose built. Can you imagine approximately 10,000 local Muslims using a couple of tiny converted buildings?
Reading town’s first purpose built Abu Bakr Masjid Islamic centre is part of the solution, and nearly complete. It adds wonderful colour, spirituality and architectural interest to the already diverse and vibrant Oxford Road
It’s on the outstanding Number 17 bus route. Alas, it’s not big enough for 10,000 muslims
Another beautifully architected Mosque is now planned for East Reading, also on the awesome Number 17 bus route
Reading town feels multi-cultrual and as-if people care about more than just the acquisitiveness of capitalism
Pottering around the internet sorting through descriptions of Reading town’s Quaker history I stumbled across this beautiful piece of trivia:
The first petition to the UK Parliament for the abolition of slavery was prodcued by the Quakers in 1783. Looking at the photo of the actual petition gives an insight into the scale of this exercise at a logistical level, before even considering the other difficulties. Despite believing in human equality, none of the signatures are from women. Though some ground has been gained we are still fighting for equality, slavery still exists – mainly women. The second most profitable organised criminal industry, after Drug trafficking
Ostara, in the form of a hare is cohorting around the garden today, delighting the local adult children (Sampo and I) celebrating the shift from more than 12 hours of night to more than 12 hours of daylight.
With a clear view of the sky, in the Wendy House orangerie, the circular dining table has taken the role of an altar dressed in green cloth, laid with candles, flowers, seeds, pen and paper. Drinking large mugs of hot spiced apple juice from the caldron on the woodburner. Yummy. In a small celebration we’ve danced a clockwise circle round the table, written our hopes and desires on the paper, burnt the paper. Tomorrow I’ll put the ashes in the garden, plant the seeds where the growing daylight will nourish and draw them towards the sky
That’s the vernal equinox described in story form. The focus is on the people words that draw images and emotions, describing what people do and how they do it. This writing style is traditionally the domain and humanities.
I find the scientific style of writing which often deliberately excludes explicit reference to people and beliefs fascinating in itself. Some ‘social sciences’ have included people by treating them as the objects to be studied, for example psychology that conducts research with human participants (not called people) and produces research papers written in the scientific tradition of the passive 3rd person. Wikipedia articles are examples of writing in the 3rd person passive, which I understand as core to the current scientific style. Wikipedia describes the vernal equinox in detail.
Here’s a few things I found out written in a more scientific style:
The word “vernal” is of Latin origin and refers to the season – spring. The word “equinox” is another word of Latin origin that means “equal night”. The vernal Equinox is a time when day and night are of nearly equal length, 12 hours, across the world. Today is the March equinox, which is the vernal equinox in the northern hemisphere and the autumnal equinox in the southern hemisphere.
Recently we’ve considered telephone boxes and police boxes.
These boxes are for another form of communication. Can you see the resemblance?
These boxes house the remains of deceased family members, momentos of the lives of those people. People visit them to talk to their spirits, and their gods
Why I love England #15: ‘peeling church bells
Seattle Sunday and Saturday felt interchangeable. The main percievable difference was that Saturday night heralded a sleep-in while Sunday night heralded the start of the working week. Saturday and Sunday were both filled with open, buzzing, malls, bowling alleys, ski-slopes and roads. Returning to England returned my beautiful Sundays.
English Sundays start well with a warm, naturally slow, awakening. Things just keep getting better from there. Whether sunshine, rain, fog, drizzle… going out in it or staying in, the choice is mine and the doing is free from shopping. Then comes the distant peal of church bells. Sunday gives time to be with beautiful people; to do nothing or something. Perhaps a spot of painting, a walk in the park, pull weeds from the garden, talk, listen.
On colder days a log fire fills the house with the gentle scent of warm woodsmoke, the clicking of the Stove as it warms, the sparking of logs and roaring of flames. Lashings of tea, Sunday lunch followed by lashings more tea.
An evening amble to a pub quiz, real ale, laughter, debates and arguments in the company of friends.
Sunday draws to a close with me all wrapped up in sweet smell of fresh laundry and crisp, silence, of the white cotton sheets. They engulf me as I contentedly fall into deep sleep.
Many is the time when a rogue glass door has given me a nose bleed.
Looks like the Pope will be visiting to sort-out this door’s naughtiness. Meanwhile the glass door’s nefaious intentions have been temporarily quashed by the addition of instructions, at nose height, to BE AWARE.
I am loving the message to ‘Be Aware’ on the entrance to a church.
Kevin, a thoughtful minister from the campfire cowboy ministries kindly asked to use a Wendy House photograph of a Beartrap in a post about Beartraps for cowboys to avoid on the trail.
How excellent is that?! Real cowboys!
I said ‘yes of course’, while thinking YEE-HAW!
Modern Cowboys use pick-up trucks and big trailers
a very busy hotline, very personal service, hot and personal
Jonny Cash sang personal jesus
of the office Christmas party
you’re the only girl for me
We laughed together at his assertion. It was one of the most honest expressions of closeness I’d heard then or since.
After two weeks of dating that involved lots of
Easing the suprise with the phrase ‘you’re the only girl for me’ and explaining that he preferred boys. With hindsight, this explained the dearth in exchanges of bodily fluids.
20 years later. He’s still passionate, humourful, debating, smoking, prefering boys and I’m still the only girl for him. Only now there is even less excahniging of bodily fluids because the boy’s grown into a christian
priest
.Listen to the city at night while I watch this sail boat, felucca, cross the Nile after sunset.
Later that evening I experienced the rare treat of watching a whirling dervish. The whirling Dervish are traditionally Sufi people and the dance takes them to another plain of consciousness. Kiddies often discover whirling without any input from religious organisation. Whirling is a natural way of connecting with the earth, in my case normally by falling over. I loved their outfits, the music, the balance, skill and peace.
The sounds of Egypt were so much more beautiful than the sounds of western cities.
Friend in Cairo: we’re meeting a man on the street corner to pick up some bacon
We loitered on a street corner. An old mecedes pulled up, a Egyptain looking man wearing very dark sunglasses, smoking a cigarette, got out of the car holding an unmarked white bag. He looked at us, at my blonde friend and called her name. She walked over.
As a muslim country, rearing pigs, slaughtering them and distributing thier meat is not a high demand business. Listening to my friend and the man talk I heard the fear of the non-muslim.
Friend in Cairo: the children at my school think that you catch swine-flu from pigs, they don’t realise that you catch it from people
The Christians keep pigs, eat pigs. Pig farming in Egypt has stopped. My friend’s bacon supplier talked about how his pig farms used to be hidden in the heart of christian areas, or ex-pat communities (Americans) where the locals don’t worry about them. But now, since swine flu, it’s not safe, people break into the farms and kill the pigs. Now he imports his bacon from other countries.
The man offered us a lift to our next stop, the Cairo antiquities Museum. As he drove he told us his story. He was a native born Egyptian. He left Egypt at 19 to live in the US. There for 20 years. His Egyptain wife missed home so they moved back in 2008. He misses America. He misses the way people drive. Business is getting tougher. He talked to my friend about how she managed to find him. They shared names and places, they were friends of friends in the community of non-muslims.
Picking up the Bacon was so much more symbolic than simply putting food on the table.
The word ‘Coptic’ appears to refer to an Egyptian language spoken in Pharonic times and currently written with the Greek alphabet
The language is now used in the Coptic church, a christian church with it’s own Pope (not the Catholic one). The apostle Mark reputedly bought christianity to Egypt in the first century AD when Egypt was governed by Rome, Emperor Nero
The Copts seceded from the other Christian churches in the 5th century because they rejected the decision of the Council of Chalcedon (451) that Christ had a dual nature, both human and divine, believing instead that he had a single, divine nature
Christianity is now the largest minority Religion in Egypt. About 95% of Egyptians are Muslim. The christains have a difficult relationship with the state, government and some Muslims
The external architecture of the christain churches was such that I found them difficult to spot. The give-away sign was a cross, normally on a dome
I visited the 7th century St. Mary’s hanging church in Coptic Ciaro. Called the ‘hanging’ church because it is built overhanging the Roman gatehouse of old Cairo. This church was increadibly beautiful. Painted walls with motif’s that often looked celtic, arabic writing, gold-leaf
Wall panels were delicately carved wood inlaid with ivory in regular geometric designs. Often straight lines constructed to enable you to see circles and curves. The colours created a warm celebratory atmosphere, very different from the white-washed walls of many Church of England churches. This celebration in art appeals to me.
I was suprised to find the paintings of people (Mary, Jesus, Saints) depicted very pale-skinned people that looked like North Europeans, an over-emphasis on pale skins given the likely colouring of the people portrayed. They were at least portrayed with brown-eyes and dark hair
Above Cairo, within the Saladin citadel, sits the Ottoman style Muhammad ‘Ali Mosque (1848). An ornate structure that provides water for washing before prayer sits in the centre of an quadrangle. The huge prayer room is lit by hundreds of low-energy light bulbs in glass jars that may once have held candles. Tourists glide around using flash photography with blue plastic boots covering their shoes. I followed my muslim guide’s example and removed my shoes.
Outside the mosque is a panorama across the city. If you listen carefully you can hear the peep-peep-peeping of the traffic below….
On a sunny Saturday morning the front door is wide open, birdsong, breeze and buzzy-things float in and out. I hear footsteps on the gravel drive, the garden gate open and close then a cautious voice calls out:
knock knock
At the door a petite, dapper, elderly anglo-saxon lady and a tall stout lady of colour are soaking up the ambience of my garden. The elderly lady, Barbara, smiles and announces
I didn’t know this was here, its lovely, its a hidden garden
I smile and lean against the door frame, considering the ladies semi-formal dress and wondering who they are and why they are here
Barbara: don’t you find that people have very little faith these days?
Wendy: I have faith
Barbara reaches into her big, old-person’s handbag and pulls out a copy of Watchtower. Ah, Jehovah’s witnesses spreading the word and recruiting. The aptly named Gloria stands behind Barbara, her substantial, boxer-like, stature makes her visible both above and around Barbara. Barbara nervously explains how informative and useful the ‘Awake’ pamphlet, within watchtower, is. It has information about prescription drug addicition and about woolly mammoths. She flicks through the pamphet showing me the pictures while trying not to drop the pamphlet or her handbag. I smile.
Barbara: would you like one?
Wendy: I have faith, but if you want to give me one of those I will look at it
Barbara looks surprised, hands me the Watchtower, glances around my garden
Barbara: it’s very nice here
Wendy: yes, especially the nieghbours, the lady who lives in that house was born in it, when she got married her husband moved into the house with her and they both looked after her elderly parents. Isn’t that awesome?! I love it here.
Barbara: can we come back and call again?
Wendy: yeah, sure, have a nice day…
Information
A most reverend, new Archbishop, version 11 was successfully downloaded and installed in westminster cathedral yesterday.
OK?
Quaker weddings. Highly recommended.
The couple marry each other. No third party symbolic proxy as a represenative of a god. No-one gives the bride away. The couple make a public commitment to each other in a way that suits their own personal relationship with their god. Everyone shares meditative silence, interspersed with thoughts, poems and music as the spirit provides, followed by tea and cake. Then all the guests sign a wedding certificate for the couple to keep.
There is a fabulous peacefulness, equality and equanimity about the occassion.
The couple used a classic VW camper van to take them from the ceremony to the field that hosted the reception. The same camper van provided the bride and groom with a place to spend their wedding night.
In the reception field, a marquee tent hosted a blue grass band, bands with brass sections, inflatable chairs, and oodles of wedding guests. The field also hosted the guests tents, fireworks, fire and pathways of candles carved through the grass. During the fireworks I snuck off to keep warm by a fire where I was leant a much needed pair of long, black, thermal leg warmers. All around excellentness.
Hittavainen, the Karelian god of hares has turned up in the Wendy House garden.
According to the BBC Hares crop up in Mythology all over the place and are associated with the Moon, the celestial skies and the Sun, with fertility, the dawn, cunning and bravery.
This one is associated with pebbles purloined from beaches all over the world.
The Observer, also known as The Gaurdian, reports that:
Former hostage Terry Waite stunned Women’s Institute members in Reading by telling them that dealing with their town’s traffic was worse than being held captive for almost five years, after being delayed on his way to speak to them.
Do I think Terry is exaggerating a bit at the detriment of our glorious town’s already overly maligned reputation?
OH YES!
The town traffic may indeed be a bit slower than the executive’s posh car, or Fiat Panda, can travel. It is, however, a reasonable, leisurely, pace for the good and even-tempered people of the town to go about their honest toil.
Even the BBC doesn’t cite Reading’s roads as main UK traffic black spots. No wonder those members of the Women’s Institute were stunned to hear such ill considered twaddle uttered from a professional public speaker and humanitarian.
Outraged-Wendy-citizen-of-Reading
The Islands of the Cyclades are strewn with white churches, often with blue roofs and all with bell-towers. The bells would ring between 6pm and 7.20pm a single tone, often flat, with a basic tune conveyed by a regularly varied pace between the rings.
Graveyards were normally accompanied by a small church, mainly churches stood alone on island high ground, often perched on Island mountain tops.
On the small island of koufounissi they’ve rigged St. Georges church.
One highlight of my Greek holiday involved sitting on this church wall in the early evening listening to the ceremony songs waft through the open doors, children wobble in and out of the church, two old ladies greeting attendees and shepharding the children, watching the passers-by cross themselves as the sunset gathered on the horizon.
Singing and high spirits in the streets near cemetery junction, Balloons tied to fire engines, lamp-posts, leaple and shops. Police directing traffic and cycling aound, smiling. A yound boy offered me bottled water and a leaflet. I took the leaflet and read… …Nagar Kirtan is a Punjabi term that literally means “neighbourhood hymn singing“. The seek new year is April 14th, the day that Sikhism was born in 1699. It is the holiest day of their calendar.
Such singing and laughter and happiness, it was a joy to mingle with the crowds
There are strange, repeating, symbols built into the buildings and public places all around Reading. There are 4 scallops and 2 crossed pilgrim staff’s on the gate posts of Palmers park. The Scallops turn up again in the Univerity of Reading’s coat of arms. 
Evidently the shells are thought to be an emblem of pilgramage because pilgrims to Europe would bring back the scallop shells from beaches. The association with Reading is probably because the old Abbey claimed to hold the hand of St James as a holy relic that shell-carrying pilgrims would come to visit. I wonder how St. James hand got to Reading Abbey….
Scallop or i-pod? visit your nana or some dead saints embalmed hand? Such choices open to the modern traveller.
Four miserable looking people surrounding a chap in a crown on a bridge over the river kennet. This same symbol also appears on one of the gate-posts of Palmer’s park, though in not as much full delightful pale-skinned, blonde and blue colouring. Aparantly this is Reading Town’s coat of Arms and the 4 people are probably burgesses… ..and the miserable looking person is Queen Elizabeth (1 or 2 depending on how you feel).
A version of this cluster of people turns up on the symbol for ‘Reading School’ the people have an almost ominous range of sly through snide to surreal expressions. Girl power gone wonkey?
