tears from the sky

alone - together

SO.... a bit of contradiction going on in recent posts - one minute it's spill the beans and say we are all in this together next: we have to work it out alone.

What is the message? I only ask because I was asked, perhaps it needed thinking about.

When I read that paragraph in Moomintroll Winter it stood out, but it is cold and lonely. Moomintroll had been lonely throughout the strange winter of not hibernating, experiencing a whole other world yet in his world. Perhaps it merely is a paradox of life. Two things in one. The melancholy, the grief...even the anger, perhaps there is work to do alone; I do have to let the spinning penny suddenly drop to stillness, I have to feel it. No-one else can slap their hand and flatten that penny for me. But there is sharing, being there, knowing another. The stranger that I meet briefly, the people closest to my heart. Something about facing life/death together, sometimes without words.
Two sides to a coin.



curl curl curl, world within world, life within life.
Somewhere I hear a quote about there being another world but it is to be found within this world...where did I read that recently? Reminds of finding the kingdom of heaven within.

a rose and the universe

for _l

small pink

bud

SAINT FRANCIS AND THE SOW
Galway Kinnell

The bud
stands for all things,
even for those things that don't flower,
for everything flowers, from within, of self blessing;
although sometimes it is necessary
to reteach a thing it's loveliness,
to put a hand on its brow
of the flower
and retell it in words and in touch
it is lovely
until it flowers again from within, of self blessing:
as Saint Francis
put his hand on the creased forehead
of the sow..........


for the full text buy or borrow: Soul Food, Bloodaxe 2007
amongst others. I'm not sure about writing out whole poems unless they are on an online publication as poets make their living from the sale of books......

not keeping up...

I put aside images that inspire me, make notes in my sketch book but they don't seem to be making it onto the blog, such tardy behaviour. I am sure much is the same as usual: moments of acceptance; moments of doubt, of the dismal and defeated; moments of joy.



So catching up.


Early in the morning the sun makes it into my north facing room. The light is beautiful and inspiring....it is there again at the end of the day.

these images are from the very end of May.

may day morning

hawthorn blossom, may blossom...for magical may day morning

always the earliest

down by the estuary the lichen covered apple tree is always the earliest to blossom, by now it is probably covered, nd will have faced frost, perhaps sleet and snow.

pink cherry

on 28th february

blackbird

As a child I would rest back on my pillow (with Bear) in bed during the light evenings, after maybe a lonely, bewildering, perhaps quiet day – what ever the day was; and I would gaze through the pink gauzy net curtain (the only sort of curtain that I would have) in my pink room and listen to blackbird song and the call of wood pigeons. It wasn’t that all was solved, all was happy, but all was what it was. Childhood meditation/mindfulness I suppose.

for today

twelfth night

images taken on twelfth night.

link here for similar ones at the end of my christmas images.

a white christmas

rose, frosted

Something made me feel vulnerable, this unzips me and deep sadness opens out. I stand in my friends kitchen and cry, I sit in her red room and cry, she lets me, and gives me tea in a petal thin cup.

The sadness also makes me think about what is important in life, love and honesty. And my pleasure in small delights increases. Fresh filtered water poured into a glass decanter and left by my bed so that I can drink during the night. I watch the subtle movement of a shiny decoration and the tiniest of crystals, enjoying the brief catching of light.

menorca

I have been to menorca for two weeks and taken A LOT of photographs. Week one is on Flickr, if you think you might like to browse click here
maybe at some later date I will compile a selection of words and notes, but there are other slightly more pressing things to do at the moment - like going to bed and having a good sleep; making and writing some midwinter/christmas cards; watching the clouds and blue patched fly across the sky and the blackbirds continuing with their feasting on the cider lawn.....

2 november poems

November I

Curlew calling calling calling
a hunch of egret and oyester catchers
on the full estuary edge.
Big morning moon
hanging high in the west
still drifting north.
Bands of winging starlings
between me and blueing pink clouds.
The flickering ripple full tide
bobbed by buoys, no boats,
meets heaped frosted flotsam leaves.
Curlew calling calling calling
a copper headland stretched
under the slant of sun rise.
A star of ice where a muddy puddle
almost isn’t.

Cold air nose and fingers
I am part of tide and moon.

I hear the calls of curlew, duck, bluetit
they see me
in a world of time place space
on boggy iced grass
I am standing
In life.


November II

I lie in the bath
where many a misery
has been washed off
the low morning sun
crystals through condensation
carnation steam rises
and light flickers on the wall.

Give up the body battle
and let it be.

Full moon has filled the darkness
from dusk to dawn;
nothing deep to sink into
so ride lightly on the brightness
that is surprising in winter.

back

I arrive back from more than 2 weeks away, not exactly full of words, rather seeking silence. Much chaos of belongings seems to be around me. A wondering of what now.

Also I feel truly, briefly, softly yet thoroughly touched. I want to give...and receive.

I am not going to do an authentic movement course, for several reasons other than cost, though currently the right amount of money sits in my bank account.

this is a willow herb on the estuary in later August, but I thought of it today, the soft grey weather perhaps. It suits a tiredness that I feel.

We have had a many sunny warm days until yesterday when we were enveloped in deep deep pale grey, days where there was a clear skied slip into night from day: luminous numinous liminal.

The starlings arrive whirr wooble tribble. The jacdaws were performing a well orchestrated game this morning that I wondered about, until I heard the starlings, there had been a patch invasion, so the jacdaws were involved in a thorough 'we claim the trees'. The long tailed tits have been peeppeeping in the birch trees the last 3 mornings, in stark contrast the other day one fragile birch was heaped with jacdaws.

Inside a twine of feelings, sensations, many worldless; some confusions and some clarity. I want to be walking the coast path between Ceibwr and the Witch's Cauldron, with someone in particular.

pink thing & blue thing

When I have days where choosing what to wear is a problem - this is usually about something uncomfortable going on, lack of sleep, stuff like that, I always remember Slug saying 'wear your pink thing and your blue thing'. He understood those days for me and his suggestion was a good one if I couldn't settle. I am not a follower of fashion except as in social & historical terms or structurally, the craft of it, but I do enjoy clothes; also I have to be wearing the right colours and textures somedays. Today I tried the pink thing and blue thing in my muddle but settled upon black with denim. Safe?

Some of the dahlias have been brought in doors, this is just one bowl of them.

azure & gold morning

Is this the end of the dahlias? The forecast is for frost. There are so many of them, and a smothering of buds still. The sun spangles the water droplets.
The man who planted the dahlias lies dying and I wonder if this week will bring his death too, it seems very possible. Should we have early fireworks, he enjoys them so much?



and I stole someone elses words (P.A.N.) for this morning elsewhere, and used them here in the title.