Heart Centred Holistics

14/02/2026

❤️

Before roses were wrapped in cellophane,
before cards were chosen and signed in a hurry,
before tables were booked
and expectations quietly rose,

there was Love.

Not the fragile kind
that depends on mood
or memory
or whether someone remembered the date.

But the steady, covenant-keeping,
cross-shaped love of God.

Love that saw us
before we were polished.
Love that chose us
before we were impressive.
Love that held us
before we understood what holding meant.

We love
because he first loved us.

Not because we’re good at it.
Not because we’ve mastered patience
or always get it right.
Not because our hearts are tidy.

We love because God is love.
Because the faithful God
has poured his mercy into our cracked places.
Because the holy God
has called us beloved.
Because the constant God
has refused to let us go.

On a day the world names for romance,
we remember the deeper truth.

We are already loved.
Fully.
Fiercely.
Without condition.

And from that love
we learn to forgive.
We learn to soften.
We learn to try again.

We love our neighbour.
We love the difficult ones.
We even learn, slowly,
to love ourselves.

Not with sentiment.
But with the strong, rooted love
that flows from the heart of God.

Because before any of us
ever whispered the word love,

Love
whispered our name.

© E Hamilton 2026

13/02/2026

💕💕💕

🌿You are not measured by your to-do list. In Irish, there’s a word that reminds us what truly matters: Croí🌿

(pronounced kree)

In old Irish society, a person’s value was not counted the way we count it now. The early Irish laws, the Brehon laws, did not measure a human being by how many tasks they finished in a day.

A person’s honor price, their lóg n-enech, was tied to their character, their integrity, and their keeping of promises. Reputation mattered.

Generosity mattered. Loyalty mattered. A person could lose cattle. They could lose land. They could lose a harvest.

But what truly lowered someone in the eyes of the community was cruelty. Dishonesty. A hard heart.

What raised them was fairness. Hospitality. Steadiness.

Not how productive and busy they were.

A good name was earned by how someone treated others, not by how much they managed to accomplish before nightfall.

Croí… It means heart.

Not just the one beating in your chest, but the deeper kind. Your kindness. Your warmth. Your softness. The quiet goodness at the center of who you are. In Irish, when someone is described as croíúil, it doesn’t mean they were productive. It doesn’t mean they were successful. It doesn’t mean they crossed everything off their massive list. It means they were good-hearted.

Somewhere along the way, many of us learned a harsher lesson. That our worth is measured in finished tasks, clean rooms, and long lists at the end of the day. If the list is done, we feel worthy. If it isn’t, we feel like we’ve wasted the day. But the old Irish heart wouldn’t measure a life that way.

Maybe today you meant to clean three rooms, work on two projects, and do four loads of laundry. But instead, you sat and tried out a new sketchbook, or reached out to a friend you hadn’t seen in months. If you have children, maybe you drew pictures with them.
You listened to someone share their story.
You wiped away a neighbor’s worry with a kind word.
You laughed with a friend over tea.

Or maybe you just nourished your soul by curling up with a good book and a cuppa.

You kept up with life as best you could, and when the house grew quiet, or the day ended, you thought, “I didn’t get anything done today.”

But you did.

You used your croí. You gave your time. Your patience. Your warmth. Your presence. You made someone feel safe. You made someone feel loved. You made memories that will last far longer than a clean floor or a finished task.

So if today was full of chores and accomplishments, that’s wonderful. But if it wasn’t, you still carried something more important.

If all you did today was comfort a child, or reach out to a friend just to check in, there is a good croí in that. If you were gentle when you were tired, there is a good croí in that. If you offered someone a kind word or a listening ear, that is the work of a good croí.

If all you did today was make it through the day and try to be kind to yourself, just for a moment, there is a good croí in that too.

You are not only what you produce. You are not only what you finish. You are your kindness. Your patience. Your warmth. Your love. All of that lives in your croí.

So take a breath.

Put the list down for a moment.

A good heart has always mattered more than a long list of chores. If you carried that goodness with you today, then the day was not wasted at all.

23/01/2026

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18/01/2026

💕💕

This 'mystical and ghostly' lake in County Antrim is a one-of-a-kind natural wonder and it's open to visitors

15/01/2026

Love this 💕

14/01/2026

💕light 💕

The light of Epiphany is the light that illuminates God’s heart for us to see. First, in a guiding star, then in the heavens breaking open, this revealing light leads us to Jesus, the One who is himself the Light of the world. The expression of God’s heart—for us, and with us. The life of Jesus is a constant revelation to his contemporaries—the glimpses they receive are wholly unexpected (and only *mostly* welcomed). The belovedness spoken at that baptism was lived out in the care for the ones who are often ignored, touching the unclean, loving the broken, inviting each person’s full, beloved humanity to the table.

And Jesus continues to be God’s revelatory light in a world that often seems darker by the day. We reel at the violence, the injustice, the ways beloved humans are not treated with dignity and care, the way that expands into whole systems and shows up in the smallest details of a single life.

This week, as you notice these places—in your own life, in the life of your community, or the world—that feel confusing, heartbreaking, lost… consider keeping an eye out for the glimpses of Epiphany light in the midst of it. What is God illuminating for you to see, even in your awareness of the personal and political realities that can feel so disorienting?

There is also a progression, from the original, creative “let there be light” to the guiding starlight to the unveiling of Christ in the waters of baptism to Jesus naming “I am the Light of the World”…to the place in the Sermon on the Mount that Jesus says “YOU are the light of the world.”

What if the light of Epiphany is not just something witnessed from afar, but something that pours through and out of you? How might you your-beloved-self, be an expression of Epiphany light—not as one more thing to try to *do*, but just in who you are as you let the light permeate your being and offer its glow out into a space that needs illumination so, so deeply? Even when you're having a hard time seeing it yourself, can you trust that this light *is* in you, on you, reflecting God's heart into spaces desperate for a glimpse of goodness, truth, and beauty?

13/01/2026

💕💕

Epiphany is the light of revelation being shed on what we had not known, had not perhaps even thought possible. As you hold the situations of your life, or the broader life of the world, where do you long for the Light to reveal? Where do you long for Epiphany?

It comes as gift—a star to guide the way, the heavens opening for one moment, our Belovedness illuminated in ways we never anticipated. When have you experienced this kind of light shed in your own soul, your own life? When have you been surprised by something being revealed that went beyond what you imagined?

Perhaps it was a glimpse of your own belovedness, like Jesus in the Jordan. Perhaps it was some small moment of insight into an issue you had been ruminating about. Perhaps it came as a burning bush and you had to pause and turn aside for a while to see, to notice, to hear what it was inviting you into. What comes to mind in your own story as (big or small) epiphany? How did you respond to the light, the revealing, in that moment? Did it feel too vulnerable, too good to be true? Did your embodied soul jump up and dance at the joy of it? Did tears come? Laughter? The quiet settledness of knowing and being known, loving and being loved?

And where do you ache for that still, in your own life and in this world?