Saturday 4 May 2019

Member Letter to the Hay-on-Wye Parish, Church of NSI

Look friends brothers sisters creatures    there is something i want to share with you 

on the occasion of this ceremony    we do not discuss this enough   

ceremony ritual and all of that    we are all a bit lost


let us take a moment


if you leave this place with its pews and cruciform geometries   

and come out to the churchyard and appraise the ancient twisting yew 


treading carefully


and if you allow yourself into the ancient yew    respectfully   show some respect

ceremony is about respect    and ceremony is about order    imposing some order

on these messy proceedings we find ourselves in    shaping it    

into circles or crosses or pentagrams but some sort of shape 

and a gift too please    something beautiful does not have to be material

a sacrifice can take many forms   


also some self restraint    let us rein in our baser instincts thank you

we need some order    can we have some order please 


you see    well maybe you will see    we will see    it is all part of the great cosmic order

the great cosmic order speaks to me sometimes    it speaks through the yew

it may speak to you    through the yew    but you will have to allow it to    be nice


i have learnt these things from many wisdoms and ceremonies   they are all paths really

paths to the great cosmic order    nobody owns the cosmic order    it owns us

no all we can do is seek it    jesus and me and the yew    all the holy men and women

all the witches who lived at the edge of the village and drank from the sacred well

all the people who worked with the sacred plants and the sacred medicines   

played the sacred music    the rhythms and the chants    you can call them shamans

they called me that    the kids did   seamus the shaman   like it was fate    it is all fate

all of this

by Seamus Wilson