St. Peter's, Kirkhouse…….. From ‘Emergence’ Magazine….Cloud Hidden….
by Bernie Bell - 10:00 on 22 August 2023
St. Peter's, Kirkhouse
Kirkhouse, South Ronaldsay, is one of our regular places to visit and walk – either along the Bay…..
https://theorkneynews.scot/2021/01/03/kirkhouse-revisited-1-1-2021/
Or in the Kirkyard….
https://frontiersmagazine.org/kirkhouse-kirkyard/
We’ve never managed to be there when the Kirk was open but our neighbour, Steve, recently visited the church and sent us some photos of the interior which made us very keen to be able to go inside one day - I can almost feel and smell the wood and the polish…..
Photos courtesy of Steve Davey
I thought it had the air of being a very old church, so I looked it up in the ever-reliable Canmore…..
https://canmore.org.uk/site/9600/south-ronaldsay-kirkhouse-point-st-peters-churchyard
It’s looking so good, thanks to members of the local community working in partnership with a national charity…..
https://theorkneynews.scot/2021/10/28/great-news-for-unique-st-peters-kirk-south-rondaldsay/
A similar situation to St. Peter’s, Bay of Skaill - as mentioned in the above article – and also St. Magnus Church, Birsay and St. Ninian’s, Deerness, both of which I wrote of previously here….
https://theorkneynews.scot/2018/10/13/the-old-kirks-of-orkney-vikings/
Thank goodness for volunteers – much history and heritage would be lost without their dedicated work.
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From ‘Emergence’ Magazine….
by Chelsea Steinauer-Scudder
Photos by Russel Albert Daniels
“Manifest Destiny, a prophecy of a nation bolstered and sustained by Divine will, gave as clear a direction as a swinging sign, with a painted hand pointing west.”
“The thrumming prairies of the American Great Plains—a knitted community of deep-rooted grasses, wildflowers, and sedges formed in the shapes of meadows and marshes—have evolved with people, realized their own agency in relationship to people, for thousands of years. As a changing climate, disrupted habitats, and the pressure to convert grasslands to cropland send the prairies into decline, efforts are underway to reconnect fragmented ecosystems and repopulate them with bison, who once roamed there in great numbers. But as we strive to restore these lands, how will we navigate the line between stewardship and superiority?
On a visit to the nature preserve in Nebraska’s Sandhills where she lived as a young child, Chelsea Steinauer-Scudder recalls the geologic and human forces that have shaped this land. Weighing the power of words to remake landscapes, she traces the swift transformation of the Plains during the nineteenth century to the prophecy of “Manifest Destiny” and grapples with our tendency to impose our will on the land. Accompanying Chelsea’s story are photographs by Russel Albert Daniels, a Utah-based documentary photographer of Diné and Ho-Chunk descent, who drove a winding course through Nebraska, South Dakota, and Wyoming to portray the history of creation and conquest scrawled across the region’s sandhills and prairies. Together they glimpse what it means to listen for the prophetic voice of the earth.”
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Cloud Hidden…
I know someone who is recovering from Covid.
He felt unwell - with the tell-tale symptoms. He tested himself – tested positive and commenced to do the right things, including staying home and ‘avoiding humans’.
I observed that avoiding humans can be very therapeutic at times and directed him to the book ‘Cloud Hidden’ by Alan Watts…..
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/187456/cloud-hidden-whereabouts-unknown-by-alan-watts/
And the song inspired by the book, by Van (The Man) Morrison…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7_6CdHg-7g
He was aware of both artists, but not of those specific pieces of work by them, and says he’ll look them up - making good use of a bad time.
He also said he’d work on his poetry – and he did…..
https://bartbarkerpoet.com/2023/08/18/fraiku-covid-19-test/
When Mike was going to be absent from work and needed to leave an ‘I’m not here‘ message – he used to post the words… ‘I’m Cloud Hidden’ and his date of return.
Sometimes - for one reason or another - we need to be….
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Here’s one I made earlier…. https://theorkneynews.scot/2022/03/26/hobbister-to-scapa-or-maybe-not/
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