‘Tis the season to be grateful – Day#12

Well, I’m very grateful to have made it to Day#12 in my series ’12 Days of Christmas’. I have discovered that setting myself a specific challenge really does help even though part-way through I might regret ever starting it!

As it is the last day, my Christmas icon is that of ‘Angels’. They are key in the nativity story, telling the shepherds about the birth and generally getting the word out there and of course we have to remember the big guy, Gabriel telling Mary all about it 9 months earlier!

Ramryge Angels

The subject for this final day is an installation called ‘The Ramryge Angels’ so called as it was first placed in the Ramryge Chantry chapel at St Albans Abbey. I was lucky enough to see them at Rochester as part of the tour by their sculptor Claudia Jane Brown.

They are six hand etched perspex sculpture depicting the stages of bereavement – Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance and finally Peace.

Why grief?

From a distance they look like glass and they are always lit from the bottom. A stunning thing of beauty about such a sad subject which you may think is strange for Christmas eve. There are many who are grieving at this time and will be finding it very hard to contemplate any sort of celebrations whilst they struggle with the stages they must go through. Grief does bring with it though, a chance to be grateful for the life that has gone. It may not come until the end of the process shown by the sculptures which may take time to complete.

You can see from these close-ups of Depression and Anger that the etching is fabulous and captures those feelings for the viewer.

Don’t leave it until they’ve gone

It may seem like a trite phrase but we often don’t appreciate people, things and events until they have passed. The end of the year often sees us reviewing and planning ahead. Let’s make sure we do stop and consider the year passing and make sure our plan includes plenty of still time to be grateful of all we have in 2016.