FOI Lammas Letter 2023
From: Cressida Pryor

Dear FOI Friends,

And now it is Lammas...the first harvest...the grain from the fields to be gathered in and celebrated.

Despite so much rain here, crop forecasts locally seem relatively good...this of course will not be the case for many in central Europe and elsewhere as temperatures just hit record highs. Last year here when thermometers recorded 40 degrees local tomato growers reported their unpicked crops were ruined, cooked on the vine.

Goddess willing, we will welcome a new member of the family to be born in the new year...it is hard not to worry about the planet these little ones will grow up in.

Mother Julian reminds us that the ‘via negativa’ leads to despair and inaction. She contended with the Black Death and violent religious persecution so her divinely inspired words were hewn through real hardship. Her insights now a source of guidance and hope.

We all have a responsibility to ‘do our bit’ however small to make a difference to your own bit of the planet...be it several verdant acres or one square foot of inner city balcony.

And to keep going we need community, we need support and humour.

Of course, there’s a paradox and tension between these two stances...despair and blind optimism.

I am looking forward to going to see the new Barbie film...an allegory of our times and apparently a spiritual story arc that hinges on her question: ‘Do you ever think about dying?’...amongst all the pink plastic and ‘best days ever’ this verboten question, as it did for the Buddha, leads to more fundamental awareness and compassion.

We can be at that coincidence of opposites...where discomfort and creativity mix to give new solutions to how we can nurture this planet rather than destroy it.

Beloved Goddess, hold us as we risk entering the discomfort of paradox
as we step from our binary minds and acknowledge the oneness of all.
For we are connected, even with our differences.
May we enjoy this harvest and protect the future’s with all our hearts, hands and minds.

Blessed be, Amen, Shalom.
Cressida, FOI Steward.