ASYNCHRONOUS PROCESS

Gifts at New Year

Someone gave me gift this past week which they have no idea they gave me. It was during one of those delight filled times, conversation and consideration with a friend.

It was a moment to savour and treasure in the moment and hold as dear after the moment. To realise gradually what bounty had been handed over and what a wonder to find in my hands from the apparently simple…hearing another’s affirmation of my being.

This was not presented to me with a flourish or fanfare there was no note of explanation or card of goodwill. It was offered in laughter wrapped up in thought decorated with shining eyes and imbued with the love of a friend.

I was not required to be on my best behaviour or engage in polite general small talk listen to diagnosis, prognosis or best cure course of action or inaction. I was ‘just’ encouraged to be in the moment as I was and to feel complete acceptance. No tricks or techniques just one fallible fragile human being spending a moment with another and recognising my humanity as I recognised hers.

Facing my part

chris jordan photography

I found this link/website following up something else. I felt it to be something shocking, sad and in some ways beautiful.  The images not of what they are, there is no beauty in what we have done, but beauty in the fact that someone has spent time energy and skill telling a little of these precious lives and their preventable deaths.

As I looked at the images I felt there is beauty in the way the Earth has transformed such gross desire for instant throw away gratification by many - look at all those plastic bottle tops mainly from water bottles no doubt, in tableaux worthy of regard; transformed by the skills of a man whose hands like mine have at some time probably been part of the cause of the deaths in the first place.

For me I found the shapes and textures, away from the reality of the waste and pain I may have been part of without knowing, made me think of richly textured wall hangings placed in homage and celebration of the possibility of change. 

A life counts

It is the time of year when I always find my thoughts turning towards where, how and why I live in the way I do. Often it’s just a fleeting glance but sometimes a longer harder look is needed and sometimes a grinding halt is called for and new layout of days and place are craved way beyond any want or idle wish.

I have found the last year harder than many of recent times. The disintegration of thought process, physical energy, emotional strength have ripped huge holes in any sense I had of my fulfilling each days potential within my own small world and experience. As days slipped in to weeks and weeks in to months here I am in the final moments of the year doing something I rarely do, looking back.

The wasteland I glimpse is not pretty, the wreckage of days and long nights of confusion, despair and disrepair are piled high in to a mangled pillar, a monument to a life less lived, rather more survived and too often absconded from completely.

How dare I step in to the New Year in a few days time when the barren and bleak of this year wraps around me like a knotted rope and a chair to stand on feels easy; a push away in to space and a forever moment. But then if I do not dare 'WHY?', 54 years as recorded by man will just be the point at the top of an anonymous obelisk.

A Safety Net

Often it seems that to do something without the 'aid' of a safety net is applauded and lauded because of the danger, the risk, the challenge but I have been thinking recently how much more challenging and dangerous it is to plan, approach and carry out task, activity, daily life with a safety net firmly in place; obvious to heart eye and feet if one should be tight rope walking at the time:0)

The challenge is to not relax into some sort of satisfied stupor, to amble through each day with less than open heart or mind, to see and hear only that which is designated within the safety net operational stress load. To not forget the 'what if' scenario and question for that needs to be on the tip of the tongue at the edges of the mind and part of the energy that pumps the blood round the heart if discovery and delight are to be found in a life.

Setting up a daily rhythm, a pattern, a routine to my days is my safety net. It is means for me to feel free, to go beyond the where or what I might often feel is within my capability and step out into the void shielded and protected by the rhythm, pattern and routine but never contained or constricted by operational stress loading notices.

In the blink of an eye

Community, Communication, Connection,

... these seem to be the words that guided my Equinox thoughts.

I decided I would take three days to mark the moment, well time moves so slowly in this household that I thought my 72hrs might come a little closer to 24hrs in real time:0)

It was actually even slower but meant I certainly considered the balance and equality of light that this time seems to represent, to me at least. Trying to bring sense of nurture and cherishing plus balance in to my own life is such an unending quest that I feel so often to be caught up in a Homer saga, just with no rippling muscles or shiny breast plate, where is a woman in a toga when you need one :0)

Thoughts also about days to come and maybe what if any community I might live within.

Small Joys (1)

1. Being woken by a very wet cat, tapping her muddy paw on my cheek and swishing her dripping tail across my bare shoulder, at 3am so I might reach for her towel to dry her off that she may possibly settle down on her blanket on the side of the bed, purring contentedly to be home.
2. Having an electric kettle, china mug, spoon, grater, sharp knife, a lemon, ginger root, honey, wee teapot and strainer all arranged and ready for use by the side of the armchair in my bedroom.
3. Lying in bed looking out through the window and watching the progress of a blue tit along the branches of the tree until it is directly in front of the window, which it then launches itself towards to somehow gain foot hold on the frame enabling it to tap meaningfully on the glass. Nothing like being reminded it’s someone else’s breakfast time.
4. Opening the door in to the garden and being greeted by the sight of the fuchsia bush weighed down by the many, many birds waiting for me to lay their tables.
5. A friend taking the time and thought to send me a postcard each time they visit somewhere, connecting me to them but also to places they know I’d find it difficult to visit myself these days.
6. Tube bandages, gloriously beautiful in their ugliness because they help me inform my legs and feet they ARE still going to walk.

eSky: Autumnal Equinox

Autumnal Equinox

The point, presently lying in the constellation Virgo, where the Ecliptic crosses the Celestial Equator. When the Sun passes this point, on about 23 September each year, nights begin to grow longer than days, and continue to do so until the Winter Solstice in December. (In the southern hemisphere, this situation is reversed). The Autumnal Equinox signals the end of the summer months and the beginning of winter. At this time of year, days have been shortening since the Summer Solstice some three months earlier, and the Equinox is the point where nights reach the same length as days. After this point, the Sun will shine lower and lower on the horizon until the Winter Solstice in about three months' time.

via www.glyphweb.com

Preparation for my own small celebration to mark the changing light and the gift of a day of balance are on the list of to-do's this day. Usually I mark the day on the 21st as it is easier for me to remember but this year I have decided to go with the stars so tomorrow is set aside for thought, thanks and treats:0) More of that later. For now here is a website that you might enjoy if you ever look up to the stars and wonder. 

Officially Autumnal Equinox is on the 22nd September 21:18 GMT 2009

(Trying the Blog It feature on typepad works well but can't seem to 'catch' the diagram so do click on the link above and go to the page if you have a minute)

Margaret Atwood, brand, product, event.

Last Friday morning I looked at the sky and listened to the weather forecast and made a decision. Picked up the phone and asked a question to at first be told no and then wait a moment I will just check that one more time… we are full but we’re sure we’ll squeeze one more in.

A few months ago I made a promise to myself that I would no longer purchase tickets to concerts, cinema, exhibitions etc., unless there was a very good prospect of me actually attending. Being on limited income means that booking a ticket well in advance usually saves me money as well as securing a seat but unfortunately the seat stays secured without my bum on it way too often. So instead I have added any prospective ticket purchase money to my ‘O.U.T.’ tin, (opening up and transforming tin), then if I am in a position to feel I might get to a performance, exhibition etc I take the money out. If I don’t find it possible then the money goes towards purchasing artists work be that paper, cloth, clay or any combination of materials and their transformational skills.

However some transformational skills can only really be experienced in the moment and such was Friday night.

The La-La Theory

via www.thelalatheory.com

I am happy to begin my posting Wednesdays with link to this website which is part of my 'Bookmarks-Library', which has now got some 500 plus 'books' on its shelves - thank goodness for Xmarks, but that is another link:0)

I found Katie's website when I was looking for zine makers and just generally considering the future of my idea for the zine/book I have been working towards creating for a long time. The one titled "A Travellers Guide When Lost, A to Z. (A Mental Health First Aid Manual)"

I have continued to explore layout and materials to use as I've hobbled back from the two 'delightful' falls this year. The hobbling is still going on but at least the pain meds have been lessened now so that maybe I can get a little more done on the book without running sewing machine over my hand etc.

Which brings me back to Katie's website and her work which I am now very pleased to have samples of in my care. I loved the humour and seriousness that permeates her site and the same aesthetic appears clearly in the zines and wee book that are now sat besides me on my desk. The wee book "Obsolete - an alphabet of poems inspired by dead words" is delightful and I have no hestitation in recommending you go to Katie's website and take a good look:0)

Now I am here

I really enjoy poetry, rarely is there a day when I don’t find a poem to be my companion and as to a week that is lost if no poetry has been part of it. My life has been fed, favoured, found, saved and transformed by poetry or at least by my interpretation of the poetry I have read and the impetus this reading has given me to create.

This is the first post in a regular, I hope, delve in to my bookshelves for the poem or poems that have been part of a day or week.

You Don't Believe

You don't believe -- I won't attempt to make ye:
You are asleep -- I won't attempt to wake ye.
Sleep on! sleep on! while in your pleasant dreams
Of Reason you may drink of Life's clear streams.
Reason and Newton, they are quite two things;
For so the swallow and the sparrow sings.

Reason says `Miracle': Newton says `Doubt.'
Aye! that's the way to make all Nature out.
`Doubt, doubt, and don't believe without experiment':
That is the very thing that Jesus meant,
When He said `Only believe! believe and try!
Try, try, and never mind the reason why!

William Blake.