Quicksilver of the Heart
()
About this ebook
Brendas spare, simple words say big things. In this very intimate collection we
are offered messages of lifes mysteries in a language as clear as any fine spiritual
direction. Throbbing through the poems is her Celtic sensibility, offered in the
calm dialect of a sagacious heart bred to thrive in Newfoundland weather. Taken
as talismans of transformation, these poems beg rereading, like stories retold over
strong tea to take off the chill and to strengthen the heart. We are whispered secret
courage to engage life, open-eyed and ready. The stanzas give voice to the quiet
satisfactions of honest, open-hearted awareness and offer a travelers guide into a
soulscape both delicate and wild. From a knowing of winters graced grit to the full
out exhilaration of the greening again spring, Brenda opens to us the experience of
a woman stepping into elder-hood well versed in living close to the heart of things.
Look, she says to us, despite any initial evidence to the contrary, small moments are
thresholds into soul size transformations and no less than lifes best gift. (Gabriele
Uhlein OSF, author and artist, Meditations with Hildegard of Bingen)
Brenda Peddigrew
Brenda Peddigrew encounters the natural world mainly from her home in the Algonquin Highlands of Ontario, Canada’s “near north,” which she photographs as often as she writes about. She is an international facilitator, spiritual teacher, retreat guide and sometime adjunct professor(online) in the D.Min. program of St. Stephen’s College at the University of Alberta.
Read more from Brenda Peddigrew
Finding the Line: Ordinary Encounters in Nature's Mirror Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMarrow of Light Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related to Quicksilver of the Heart
Related ebooks
Finding Comfort in Uncertainty Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsInspirations: Collected Poems and Quotations for the Mind and Heart Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsView from the Chancel: Church-related Writings by a Pastor Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Book of Bliss Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTapestry Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Magnanimous Gift: Poems and Prose Poems Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPagan Portals - The Awen Alone: Walking the Path of the Solitary Druid Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Sweet Corn from the Pastor Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsOut of the Kiln: Vessels of Hope Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDiary of an Apprentice: Book One in the Series Diaries of a Shaman Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLetters from the Other Side of Silence Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFinding My Way Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSpirit Chronologies: Ten Thousand Poem Project, Selections 2007 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBread and Other Miracles Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTimbres of Pond Moon Sungs Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Way Home: Poems for the Journey Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsOrdinary Sacred: The Simple Beauty of Everyday Life Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Bridges, Paths, and Waters; Dirt, Sky, and Mountains: A Portable Guided Retreat on Creation, Awe, Wonder, and Radical Amazement Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSea of Iron Hands Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSon of the Earth: Poems by Chris Hoffman Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLove Letters to The Earth Vol 3: The Earth is my Prayer Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe First Drop of Rain Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSomewhere Between Here and Perfect: Further Findings of a Fallible Free Spirit Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Golden Thread Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSaint Peter and the Goldfinch Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Half-Dreaming: poems Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Meaning of the Reading Between the Lines:: The Esoteric Verse and Verve of Edward V. Beck Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsReflections on Life Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Thinking Root: The Poetry of Earliest Greek Philosophy Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHere, in the Morning: A New Day, a New Life . . . Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Poetry For You
Dante's Divine Comedy: Inferno Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Selected Poems Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Iliad: The Fitzgerald Translation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Divine Comedy: Inferno, Purgatory, and Paradise Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Gilgamesh: A New English Version Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Twenty love poems and a song of despair Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Iliad of Homer Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Odyssey: (The Stephen Mitchell Translation) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Prophet Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Odyssey Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Tao Te Ching: A New English Version Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Bedtime Stories for Grown-ups Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Canterbury Tales Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5For colored girls who have considered suicide/When the rainbow is enuf Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dante's Inferno: The Divine Comedy, Book One Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Inward Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Way Forward Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Letters to a Young Poet (Rediscovered Books): With linked Table of Contents Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Edgar Allan Poe: The Complete Collection Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Beowulf Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Love Her Wild: Poems Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Leaves of Grass: 1855 Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Beyond Thoughts: An Exploration Of Who We Are Beyond Our Minds Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Complete Poems Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dream Work Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Complete Poems of John Keats (with an Introduction by Robert Bridges) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Waste Land and Other Poems Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5You Better Be Lightning Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Divine Comedy: Inferno Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related categories
Reviews for Quicksilver of the Heart
0 ratings0 reviews
Book preview
Quicksilver of the Heart - Brenda Peddigrew
Author’s Preface
Like many of the poems in this book, the title Quicksilver of the Heart arose out of a very ordinary encounter in a very ordinary event. I was removing an old thermometer from the side of a tree where it had served well for a few years, when it slipped out of my hand and the glass part of the thermometer hit a large stone just at the foot of the tree. Mercury spilled out and over and around. In my rushed and futile attempts to gather it up, a thought began to grow: isn’t this like my own heart? Haven’t I been doing this work of gathering up the fragments of my heart for most of my adult life, and with the same results? Might it be time to try another way, like surrender? This decision changed my life.
The poems in this collection continue the journey begun in When the Bones Find Their Singing Place and continued in SoulWinds: poems of transformation. The poems in Quicksilver of the Heart move visibly deeper into spiritual questioning and the presence of the Divine. They have taken me into wells of grief and planes of light. They illumine the natural world and have given me glimpses into the sacredness of every single living thing without exception.
But what is the one work
and why are these poems of the one work?
In a recent winter, while shoveling snow, that necessary beautiful engagement with the world, I realized that work outside
and work inside
are really the same. When I listen to my heart and my soul and take their guidance seriously, I am really working in the outer world as well, for the quality of my presence changes then and my influence for good increases. As I get older I can see this more directly, more concretely, and the poem The One Work
says it best. Being and doing are married, and one without the other loses transformative effect.
Finally, I am often asked how it is I write poems. There is no set time. There is no plan, or any carefully thought-out intent. There is no sweating over particular words or agonizing over length or form. The closest I can come to describing my writing process for poetry is that – like William Blake - I take dictation.
Most of the poems were written during the half-hour silent writing time of the bi-weekly Saturday morning meeting of the Algonquin Highlands Writers’ Resonance Circle. Sitting silently, I open inside and wait for a word or phrase; when one comes I write it down and the rest follows, often with one or two poems being written in that half hour. Similarly, when I’m doing other things anywhere, a word or phrase will arise inside and I will endeavor to write it down as soon as I can. These inner words
have a particular luminous quality which I have learned to respect over years.
May the poems of Quicksilver bless, guide and protect you.
Brenda Peddigrew
Algonquin Highlands, ON, Canada
June 2010
Closing Windows Against the Rain
I used to think that God
was present only when I did
sacred things: sitting in silence
on a cushion, or in a pew, for example;
praying in a Church