Thin Places - Llansor Mill, South Wales

Another thin place - Llansor Mill, near Caerleon in South Wales. My partner and I attended an Enneagram workshop there two weekends ago, which was eye-opening on its own, quite apart from the stunning location.

It's only a ten-minute drive from the M4, so easy to get to, and nestles in the most beautiful landscape - not wild, but very hilly and green and has a lovely feeling of privacy.

We stayed in the old mill house which Stephen and Mary Ashton have converted into a very comfortable meeting room-cum-holiday home. There's more accommodation in another old stone house, plus space for camping down nearer the Sor brook that gives the place its name. 

There's something very healing simply about being in nature, but here they also run a programme of events to nurture body, mind and spirit, or simply let you come and stay and soak up the tranquil atmosphere. The sun came out for us too, so we saw it at its best.

The website can be found here.

Thomas Merton - When in the Soul of the Serene Disciple

When in the soul of the serene disciple
With no more Fathers to imitate
Poverty is a success,
It is a small thing to say the roof is gone:
He has not even a house.
Stars, as well as friends,
Are angry with the noble ruin.
Saints depart in several directions.
Be still:
There is no longer any need of comment.
It was a lucky wind
That blew away his halo with his cares,
A lucky sea that drowned his reputation.
Here you will find
Neither a proverb nor a memorandum.
There are no ways,
No methods to admire
Where poverty is no achievement.
His God lives his emptiness like an affliction.
What choice remains?
Well, to be ordinary is not a choice:
It is the usual freedom
Of men without visions.

Thomas Merton, Collected Poems (New York: New Directions, 1977)