Elizabeth Keating-Jones Archives

Earth Day. A Celebration – Saving the Jacaranda- copy

colleen General, Poetry April 23, 2019April 23, 2019Earth Day, Elizabeth Keating-Jones, jacaranda, Mary Reynolds Thompson, Neil Gaiman, Rachael Carson, saving the jacaranda, Silent Spring

To celebrate Earth Day I choose to reprint a poem I love from my first poetry collection, A Call to Listen. It is a true story of a group of workers in our local council. A model to save trees wherever you can for the life they support, for the beauty they give, for the fresh air they make, and for their healing presence in our lives.

Thank you Mary Reynolds Thompson for your inspiring email . . . a reminder for me to act today.

It was on an autumn walk I learnt the old Jacaranda tree that I loved was under threat. It was in the way of new pipes. The pipes about 2 metres in diameter were being dug in and the gorgeous old Jacaranda was in the pathway. The next day there was an arborist directing the men down amongst the roots gently digging out the soil. The pipe was placed in underneath the roots. Then in November, 6 months on there it was, in full glory . . thanks to those who had worked to save it.

jacaranda_tree

saving the jacaranda

the line for the new concrete
drainage pipe
runs under the massive old jacaranda

meticulous to protect its roots
day after day the council men
ratty and mole in fluorescent yellow
dig a man-made warren
wide and deep

exposed roots
stretch and coil like dark bearded monsters
from a tenebrous underworld
smelling earthy airless damp

then overseen by an arborist
a crane lowers the pipe into place
and this private world is reclaimed

a year on
standing before its gnarled trunk
on a lilac path
i am corralled in its aura
of blossom-laden branches
and i rejoice with the breeze
in whispered mantras

And thank you to my daughter Elizabeth Keating-Jones sending me Neil Gaiman’s poem in honour of the Scientist and researcher, Rachel Carson (1907- 1964 ) who is the inspiration for Earth Day after the new enlightment the world was given with her book Silent Spring (1962)

Earth Day. A Celebration – Saving the Jacaranda

colleen General, Poetry April 23, 2019April 23, 2019Earth Day, Elizabeth Keating-Jones, jacaranda, Mary Reynolds Thompson, Neil Gaiman, Rachael Carson, saving the jacaranda, Silent Spring

Thank you Mary Reynolds Thompson for your inspiring email . . . a reminder for me to act today.

jacaranda_tree

saving the jacaranda

the line for the new concrete
drainage pipe
runs under the massive old jacaranda

meticulous to protect its roots
day after day the council men
ratty and mole in fluorescent yellow
dig a man-made warren
wide and deep

exposed roots
stretch and coil like dark bearded monsters
from a tenebrous underworld
smelling earthy airless damp

then overseen by an arborist
a crane lowers the pipe into place
and this private world is reclaimed

a year on
standing before its gnarled trunk
on a lilac path
i am corralled in its aura
of blossom-laden branches
and i rejoice with the breeze
in whispered mantras

Myall Creek Massacre Commemoration Weekend

colleen General June 14, 2018Bruce Pascoe, Elizabeth Keating-Jones, Lyndall Ryan, Map of Massacres, The Dark Emu, Thomas Keating-Jones

The Myall Creek Massacre Memorial is a healing place. This is our second pilgrimage out to Bingara to participate in the memorial commemoration. A pilgrimage for every Australian who cares about our shared history and acknowledges white Australian has a black history. Being the 180th Anniversary since the Massacre we had the opportunity to participate in a full day symposium at the Universary of New England on Friday and I met Bruce Pascoe who gave the key note address. I had read his original Dark Emu but the latest edition has so much more in it as more and more information comes to light. Thank you Bruce Pascoe for inverting almost everything I thought I knew about pre-colonial Australia. It makes us all richer. My poem shared history, I read at the memorial will be published in The Good Oil SGS later in June.

Thank you also to Lyndall Ryan for her tenacity at research on Mapping the Massacres. with her new interactive map. When my sister, Margaret Hede, sent me a map a year ago of Lyndall’s work I was stunned, blown away as the saying goes and to meet her and listen to the next stage of her work was uplifting. One can google Map of massacres to find lots of information.

Photos below of Bruce Pascoe and Lyndall Ryan amd yours truly with Bruce’s updated book

The next two photos below show over 1000 people gathering at Myall Creek and holding my Grandson’s winning entry in the Children’s’ Vision and Dreams for the Future Competition . Thomas Keating-Jones lives in England but i am proud of my daughter Elizabeth assisting him to enter and helping him understand the word Empathy.

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Spring: A poem by Thomas

colleen General May 6, 2018May 6, 2018blue-bells, daffodils, Elizabeth Keating-Jones, spring, Thomas Keating-Jones

SPRING

by Thomas Keating-Jones

Daffodils dancing.

Snowdrops swaying. snow bells

In the spring sunshine

the flaming winter fire branches

were erupting

from flowerbeds like a volcano.

Spring was coming for us

as we wandered the winding paths.

Thomas Keating-Jones

Age 7

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Photos by Elizabeth Keating-Jones

Epiphany: A Poetic Journey

colleen Hildegard of Bingen, Poetry April 27, 2018April 27, 2018A Poetic Journey, Elizabeth Keating-Jones, epiphany, garden, hildegard of bingen, spring

tulip bud in Liz garden

Tulip bud by Elizabeth Keating -Jones

Epiphany

In the garden, Hildegard sings
of the soft hills
curved as a mother’s breast,
The earth is at the same time mother,
She is mother of all that is natural,
mother of all that is human.
She is the mother of all,
for contained in her
are the seeds of all.

She sings of trees and plants
ferns, herbs, flowers and stones.

The greening power of God’s love
surges through her
palpable holiness
surging with vitality.

Hildegard learns
names of the plants, herbs
their healing properties.
The sisters’ garden explodes
a paint box come to life
spilling across a landscape.

Richardis follows her
discerns culinary and medicinal plants
bubbles intensely,
alive with the world.

Image may contain: plant, flower, nature and outdoor

Photo taken by Elizabeth Keating-Jones in her spring back-yard garden, which we began while visiting in the past autumn.

Viriditas: Poetic Journey

colleen Hildegard of Bingen, Poetry April 19, 2018June 14, 2018A Poetic Journey, Disibodenberg, Elizabeth Keating-Jones, Health, healthyhildegard.com, Her own Mystery, Hildegard, hildegard of bingen, nutrition, viriditas, wellbeing

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This is one of my reflective times in Hildegard’s Kapelle at the ruins of her
Disibodenberg Monastery in Germany where Hildegard
lived for the first 38 years of her Religious life. And the snowbells are a first of spring moment of viriditas taken by my daughter Elizabeth Keating-Jones in Sussex England.
Disibodenberg nurtured Hildegard. She listened to the vitality of the greeness and alivemenss of her world. She made the word “Viriditas” and heard the Spirit whisper to her but still young and fearful as a woman she clams shut. Even though this suppressing her thoughts and feelings made her sick many times, she still not know how to go forward.

Viriditas A word coined and made famous by Hildegard. The word combines the essence of truth and green, meaning vitality, fecundity, lushness, verdure and growth. Hildegard uses it metaphorically as vitality. She sees it in the moist fresh greens..In her writings viriditas means the ‘greening power of God’

Hildegard was one of the first to speak of nutrition being linked to wellbeing.
She saw food as medicine. And as we will read as my story of Hildegard unfolds
she cares for her sisters well being.

Viriditas

After the rains
Hildegard tends the garden
knee deep
in wet grass,
up to her elbows in soil,
worms, snails
and ruff of leaf compost.

Marvels at the ramble
of a pumpkin vine,
a stray seed gone free.
Lingers in the fragrance
of chives and basil,
coriander, lavender and mint,
and the smell of parsley.

Savours their bouquet.
Being jubilant
with the flirt of white moths,
and the canticle of bird song
from an oak branch above.
Dwells on her knees
as if in prayer.

Hildegard stands
her hands on her lower back
stretches and arches
skywards. wisping clouds
ruffle and the Light whispers,

I am the breeze that nurtures all things green
I encourage blossoms to flourish with ripening fruits
I am the rain coming from the dew
that causes the grasses to laugh
with the joy of life.

Fearful of her own mystery
she clams shut this light
into the tight knot of her gut.

Hildegard’s Highest rated foods
Spelt, chestnuts, fennel and chickpeas (garbanzo beans).

“Spelt creates healthy body, good blood and a happy outlook on life,” – Hildegard

Hildegard-Medieval-Diet-Healthiest

A website healthyhildegard.com is an excellent resource. Thank you to the creators of it . It is an inspiration.
Other resources that focus on Hildegard and health
Dr. Wighard Strenhlow, Hildegard of Bingen:Spiritual Remedies, Healing Art Press 2002
Dr. Wighard Strenhlow, & Dr. Gottfried Hertzka, Hildegard of Bingen’s Medicine, Bear & Co. 1988.
Jany Fournier-Rosset, From Saint Hildegard’s Kitchen Foods of Health, Foods of Joy, Liguori Publ. 2010.
Victoria Sweet, God’s Hotel, A Doctor, A Hospial, and a Pilgrimage to the Heart of Medicine. Riverhead Books 2012

A Healing Colour: Poetic Journey

colleen Hildegard of Bingen, Poetry March 13, 2018June 14, 2018A Healing Colour, Colleen keating at Disibodenberg, colleenkeatingpoet.com, creativity, critical mass, Disibodenberg, Elizabeth Keating-Jones, hildegard of bingen, Michael Keating, Poetic Journey, viriditas

hildegard

1.Hildegard of Bingen with her tablet to write while listening to the Divine Light

Colleen Keating at Disibodenberg where Hildegard lived for 38 years. (1112 -1150)

A Healing Colour

The none bell fills the air
for afternoon prayer.
Richardis runs ahead with the sisters.
Hildegard in the new garden
adjacent to the monks gardens,
lingers a moment, cherishing the freedom.
Her basket filled.

She gazes around her
sighs with joy.
Her smile can hardly be contained.
How she relishes these moments
to be lost in the loving, living Light.

Dappled, the sun textures
trees and grasses,
with crunch of heaping leaves underfoot,
a riot of russet and gold.

Affirmation comes on the breeze,
God hugs you.
You are encircled by the arms
of the mystery of God.
Feast your eyes on the green
a thousands shades of green
a healing colour, let it heal you
with its greening power rooted in the sun.

This moment is my miracle
she murmurs,
as she hastens back to the convent.
Colleen Keating

VERIDITAS

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Photo of Veriditas taken by Elizabeth Keating-Jones

I watched an aerial view of the destruction of forests and bush in Queensland recently, yes in 2018, we are still destroying forests here in Australia. I thought of the natural habitats, animals loosing their homes and the birds’ nests falling and the wildflowers and moss and tiny orchids now gone and the bare vulnerable earth left to be washed into erosion gullies and then the droughts, because the forest canopy has been destroyed and the earth no longer sustaining the people. And I thought how relevant are Hildegard of Bingen’s words from the 12th century across the ages to us today in this age of climate change and greed and with the loss of so much wilderness and natural habitats.

Hildegard has a word veriditas that was a touchstone of her spirituality. It is said to be coined from two words green and truth.
For Hildegard this was the greening power, the animating life force manifest in the natural world that infuses all creation with moisture and vitality.
She talks of the “exquisite greening of grass and trees, of earth’s lush greening.
She says all of creation and humanity is “showered with greening refreshment, the vitality to bear fruit”

Clearly for Hildegard creativity and greening power are intimately connected.
To her, the divine was manifest in every leaf and blade of grass. Hildegard saw the manifestation of the Creator in every flower, every stone. For her creation revealed the face of the creator.

Hildegard celebrates the sacred in nature.

I am the breeze that nurtures all things green,
I encourage blossoms to flourish with ripening fruits.
I am the rain coming from the dew
that causes the grasses to laugh
with joy of life

For all of us who know and love Hildegard of Bingen,
let us be aware, awake and alert to bring lush greenness to the shrivelled and dried and wilted, to our earth and all its people. It only needs one more to sway the scales to change the critical mass of people who say, leave our trees, our rivers, our forests, our air alone. This tiny blue sphere we live on is our home . . protect and love it.

Hildegard says, we are here to cultivate the earthly and thereby create the heavenly. We do this in all of our creating . . . music, art, poetry, sculpture, bush walking, hobbies and culture.
The tragedy of drying up and ignoring the greening power is that nothing is created.

Colleen and Michael at Disibodenberg at Hildegard’s Kapelle

Fire on Water: a sneak preview

colleen General July 12, 2017September 10, 2017A Call to Listen, Annette Esser, Elizabeth Keating-Jones, Fire on Water, Ginninderra Press, Stephen Matthews

fire-on-water-cover

A sneak preview of my latest Poetry Collection,
Fire on Water
published by Ginninderra Press, South Australia.

Thank you to Stephen Matthews for such a professional presentation,
and my daughter Elizabeth Keating-Jones for the creative cover.
As a first step I took a few copies to the Society of Women Writers, July luncheon
and they sold like hot cakes. I am appreciative of such encouragement.

The poems in Fire on Water are divided into 7 sections .
Poems are as diverse as ‘visissitudes of a blue butterfly’
and ‘counting dead women.’

One of the poems included is ‘ in search of Hildegard of Bingen’ which was short-listed for the Society of Women Writers Poetry Competition 2016 and which has recently been translated into German by Annette Esser (Theologian, Scholar, Art Therapist and Teacher) to be included in a journal in Germany published September 2017 to celebrate the opening of a Pilgrimage Way that has been planned and worked on by Annette for many years now. It will be opened on 17th September 2017. Hildegard’s feast day.

It is called Hildegardweg. Attraktion fur Pilger und Wanderer.

The logo for the Hildegardweg is below. If you ever go to the Rhineland look for this sign and put your walking boots on.

Michael and I plan to do it when the International version opens in September 2019. Hmmm that means we will have to get into training!

The logo for the Hildegardweg in the Rhineland Germany

Fire on Water is my second collection of poetry and follows A Call to Listen . (2014).

Date for launch of Fire on Water is to be announced.
The launch date is TBA

zen moments

colleen Poetry June 16, 2016September 25, 2017A Call to Listen, autumn, Elizabeth Keating-Jones, Keating-Jones, The Smell of Parsley, zen, zen moment

Zen is a way of being and can be seen as a state of mind. I think for Blake it is seeing ‘the world in a grain of sand, and a heaven in a wildflower’. For Eliot it could be ‘at the still point of a turning world.’ For Frost’s ‘Two Roads’ it is taking the one less travelled’ For Michael he suggests it is the moment at the bottom of the driveway when he is out and on his morning walk.

My zen moment this day was watching a single tawny leaf on its journey. And all I could do was breathe out slowly . I felt a sense of everything and nothing. It could be like my heart and gut just connected very satisfyingly. And so I wrote. . .

zen moment

a tawny leaf

clothed
nourished
the tree

lived its time
served its purpose

takes its leave
surrenders

falls

how gently
falling
falling
its fluttered spin
air-cushioned down

received
lightly
silently
by the earth

Colleen Keating

leaf

Photo taken by Elizabeth Keating-Jones