Light Summer Snapshots

What I'm exploring, eating, writing, reading, hosting this Summer.

Hello friends,

Here in Scotland we’re into our second full week of the summer holidays, and today I want to share some light summer snapshots with you. I also have two Soul Sessions coming up on Thursday 10th and 24th of July, see below for all the details.

from our trip to Isle of Lismore

Exploring

Last week we went to the Island of Lismore for 3 nights. Rain accompanied us on the ferry both ways, but sun found her way to us in between. We walked to the tiny island of Bernera only accessible at low tide, we swam in a loch and clamboured up ruined castles living our best Blyton lives.

We conquered Castle Coefin and from the top spotted fins - probably porpoises. We moved for a better view across Loch Linnhe and eventually all spotted the dreamy creatures swimming away.

For anyone else taking rural road trips, we enjoyed claiming sheep and cows while playing this game in the car (thanks Jenny Walley for introducing me to it!).

Eating

Never has there been such chore-related glee in our kitchen as when the twins helped me release the broadbeans. The little beans fired out of their ‘blankety beds’ full of ammunition and surprise. Broadbeans are a lot of work for a small amount of food, but apparently they are also a hilarious activity.

The broadbeans came in our bag of veg from the Wash House Garden, the local community garden haven mentioned above. I am appreciating having the brain capacity and time for creativity and surprise seasonal cooking again after a season of pizza and pasta survival. I made tangy broad bean crostini (a bit like this recipe) that day and this Maple Lime Roasted Cauliflower for some friends. Our uniform weekly carousel of family meals continues, but it’s a delight to get to cook interesting things for grown ups again.

Writing

Erin, over at Spacemaking is hosting a series of summer space holders and I shared over there about a couple of my current spiritual practices:

“Over the past few years I’ve been learning to be with God in quiet friendship rather than productivity. I want to lean into simple rituals of tending to myself as a gentle form of prayer and accepting my belovedness. This can look like choosing earrings for the day, stopping to drink a hot cup of tea and listening to my body when she’s tired.”

Read the whole piece here…

the summer spacemakers series with Debbie Horrocks

Over the next month and a half I am joining other writers across on Lindsay Johnstone’s Substack ‘What Now?’ for The Chain, an experiment of co-creation. Each Sunday we’ll meet on zoom for 40 minutes of writing in response to a prompt piece, and there’s the option to share these first drafts with the wider group. Caro Giles wrote a stunning first prompt for us on Sunday:

Caro Giles Writes...

Reading

Some lovely hardback books currently on my bedside table. I finished The Life Impossible by Matt Haig on holiday and enjoyed it for it’s wacky tenderness and ease of reading. I’m picking up Poetry Unbound by Pádraig Ó Tuama¹ every couple of days to savour a new poem. Phase One by Dilruba Ahmed has been a favourite so far, about self-forgiveness. The Poetry Unbound podcast is a delight too, here’s the episode about Phase One. And I continue to savour This Here Flesh by Cole Arthur Riley; where she considers ‘Spirituality, Liberation and the Stories that make us’.

“For me, most simply, contemplative spirituality is a fidelity to be holding the divine in all things. In the field, on the walk home, sitting under the oak tree that hugs my house. A sacred attention.

And as we pay attention, we make a home out of paradox, not just in what we believe but also in the very act of living itself. Stillness that we would move. Silence that we would speak. I believe this to be a spirituality our world - overtaken with dislocation, noise, and unrest - so desperately needs.” - Cole Arthur Riley

Hosting

Summer brings a different rhythm in my house, as everyone else is off school. I have to contain my own hopes and plans of what I might achieve because the constant different days don’t actually allow much space. And once again, my Soul Sessions are formed into the shape that I need them to be: a pause, a breath, a creative rest in the midst of busy summer. If you’d like to join me for a touchpoint of quiet reflection and gentle conversation to ground yourself you have two opportunities: This Thursday (10^th July) we’ll meet online from 8pm-9:30pm (UK time) and we’ll meet in person at the Wash House Garden in Glasgow at 8pm on Thursday the 24^th July.

Maybe I’ll see you over there?

What are you eating, reading, exploring this summer?

Sending love, hoping for moments of presence for us all this Summer. Below is a blessing I wrote a couple of summers ago, which I shared on Erin’s Substack above.

With love,

Debbie

A Blessing for my Summer Holidays

God, bless this stretched-thin summer.

Between the planning and the pressures;

May I unfold the picnic blanket and find presence.

Between the squabbles and the sandwiches;

Will your compassion sit by me?

Between the weariness and the weather forecasts;

Can I linger in the laughter and the love?

Nourish me with moments of joy and of quiet,

And let’s sit here together for just a minute longer.

1. When I heard him speak earlier this year, he shared that for each poem he includes in an anthology, he reads the poet’s entire work!