Animatedstardust

Breathing

 

In this past week I have written letters, sent cards and made phone calls but as to blogging there has seemed a barrier, which could not be crossed so I have sat and pondered instead. If only it has been just a week of sitting and pondering but that as they say is another story.

Pen and paper have certainly been utilised to enable thoughts to be straightened confronted and begun to be understood and as always the very act of taking letters and forming them into words or colours into shapes has given me space I did not think I had and time I was not aware was available.

Sharing

Sometimes it is good to just lay and think.

Rhys has certainly come of age in the last month or so, the lanky gangling teenager has without fanfare become the long legged, muscled young male with the glee of a toddler and the energy of a volcano kept to 'delight' me:0)

Tomorrow will be the anniversary of Mr Bryn's death and today I found myself watching Rhys and his sister Banon - co conspirator and all round egger on, race around up down in and out through autumn tinged trees and I remembered another dog who loved life just as much and wished the three of them could have played together.

Rhys and Banon have not and will never replace the companion I found in Mr Bryn but they are certainly held in my heart with thanks if sometimes in mind with hysterics. They grow and become as I do also and we continue to learn and come to understanding of each other as the days roll into weeks into months and will be a first yea together in a matter of weeks.

There are still many moments when I question them both being here but  get the feeling they don't question it at all and I am learning how to do this through their example and maybe come another year or two I may not question the choice I made to bring two loudly needy puppies in to my home and life.

I cannot pretend that I went to see the litter of puppies after seeing their pictures, I went to meet the pup I now call Rhys, I knew immediately I saw his picture that he and I had some travelling to do together. Banon was and is immediately cute to look at but she did not register with me until I watched and listened to the communication between the two and discovered it was Love-Rhys-Love Banon so home they came. They are very different individuals and run rings round me basically but even though they have tested every  ounce of patience and  persistence on my part they are part of my life now and even though I may consider finding one or both another home far far away from me or me a home far far away from them on the days of hysterical need, lack of comprehension, loss of control and exhausted winging, which describes my state not theirs, I know to lose one or both from my life would be deeply unsettling in ways even their intelligent chaos cannot begin to touch.

On a day when leaves begin to carpet the ground, temperatures are definitely turning towards the cool and the days grow shorter in light minutes I found watching a young dog enjoying a moment of rest, and, it seemed to me thought, was moment to be thankful for a shared morning midst trees and leaves and racing knowing that the Earth offers support and continuity to all life and all I may endeavour to do is echo that intent towards the lives my life touches especially within my home.

Small thought

So a new month arrives, another week has passed and I find myself considering where am I?

It would be easy to say, at home watching the heavy rain pelt the window and two rambunctious dogs wrestle around on the sitting room rug and leave it at that but my wondering has been about geography both internal and external and I find when they are both combined as they always are, no matter how hard this mind often tries to  separate them, the landscape of the personal and of the world takes on a very different topography and I find maps, charts and plans need appraisal, updating, re-configuring and often just plain ripping up and starting again.

This goes for day to day, hour by hour as well as month or years and is the place I find I need position energy, intent and acceptance of the highest magnitude to make sense and semblance of a life I call mine.

Someone said to me recently that the ‘one day at a time’ mode of living was all very well and good but they needed goals and plans way beyond that if meaning and any sort of purpose, sense, living seemed worth bothering about. I knew what they meant and on some levels agreed with what they were saying but it has niggled at me since on a deeper level for my self and midst watching rain fall and dodging the joyful games of Rhys and Banon as I cleaned up a somewhat dishevelled kitchen I found myself smiling at the thought of the goals and plans in my life and how often they have been at the very least modified and more often wrecked or obliterated by the one day at a time and how fortunate I am that this has happened and will no doubt continue to happen.

Looking out, looking up, stepping towards, reaching forwards, building, creating, designing are all words and actions in my life many of which could be part of a plan, means to reach a goal, the way to express the aim to find completion but to my mind, heart and body not to mention my spirit:0), they are just the small part of the proverbial iceberg which is noticeable to the casual eye or careless lookout for beneath the obvious there is a vast panoply of other.

The kind of other that has little to do with words or lines on paper drawn in the earth lost in the sand spelt out with leaves or pebbles trailed with dripping bucket or sprinkled crumbs. Nothing identifiable that marks the way to go or the way travelled rather there is nothing and everything held on a breath expressed in a moment understood in a second and lost to eternity.

Time is nothing but a pause to gain momentum to nowhere so I would rather be nowhere and finding myself stood in the moment becoming.

(just to say that Stepping Stones stretched and shook itself into life today too, Sunday Tuesday and Thursday posts have begun again,tentatively as I say there but with sense I need that small space to be awake too)

Sunday Smile 37

One of the things I did manage to do during the month off from here was to make a small step towards snapping in a slightly different way. I went to ebay and looked around for a digital camera with thoughts I might manage to upgrade a little from my very bashed up, frequently dropped on field in stream skidding across kitchen floor and all manner of other abuse that my little camera has taken and come up clicking. I know I would wish to buy another canon and almost certainly another PowerShot as though somewhat heavier and larger than other digital cameras in the compact bracket for me the design means I can actually hold it with one hand and not drop it as often as I would with slimline sleek versions, the lens seems good to this non photographers eye as even though the present model a PowerShot A30 has a humungous 1.2 mega pixels :0) the clarity and possibility have been absolutely fine for email and blog purposes and produce acceptable paper prints as long as I'm not after anything bigger than A5. Since the A30 many a model has come and gone in the range and now its up 700 so my wee camera could be said to be a little less than cutting edge:0) but I am not looking to make my name or my living from the lens but wish for a recording tool that captures a little of what my eye sees and helps me push what I see into realms that head sometimes thinks up.

After much consideration and looking at bank balance and commitments of the financial kind I decided on...... another A30! Huh, upgrading this is not save for the fact that the one I have now in my care looks as if it has only just been manufactured compared with the original with its scratches scrapes and dents. In fact I bought it for the princely sum of £7 as it was listed as faulty but when I took the time to ask what exactly was wrong with it turned out it had been used by someone with a lens attachment fitted for a while and when that was removed they could not find the piece needed to fill the gap left. That it didn't have nay of the software etc either was certainly not a problem as I have it all for the original. So I bid and it duely arriived well packed and pristine. I then purchased a lens convertor and some up close and hugely fun lenes plus mini tripod and cleaning kit for another outrageous price of £9:0) and that duely arrived a few days ago. I can of course use this new/old camera for both landscape shots and closeups but think I will continue with the much travelled one for the views until it dies completely, the on off button is definitely worn to almost no function and the viewing panel is pretty scratched and has a dog hair trapped beneneath it but I'm used to it and it just means that the snaps I take can sometimes be as big a surprise to me as anyone else.

The new/old camera has just begun to be used, will play for a while but the idea is I am going to try to take a closeup snap every day starting on the 1st of October which I am going to post over on Stepping Stones. but for today the learning will find its way here as it made me smile and it is Sunday.

Have a ways to go before my eyes and the camera can understand each other but am looking forward to 'catching' the small worlds, shapes, designs I see every day within the larger picture.

Whilst I play and enjoy discovering how to translate what I see into a snap using this addition to my tool box I will begin to save for a camera that will upgrade the present model but by the time I look at the A700 as possible purchase I suspect it will have been superceeded by A800+ but that's fine I'm in no race to get the latest, the brightest etc and if the money I save is needed for something or someone else that'll be just fine too.

In answer to Cathy's query-comment

A Melon

Stories

"Tell me a story, Pew.

What kind of story child?
A story with a happy ending.
There's not such thing in all the world.
As a happy ending?
As an ending."

from "Lighthousekeeping" by Jeanette Witerson

I read this whilst sitting in the garden this afternoon watching the small flag I have flying there, for over four years now, showing signs of the storms it has 'lived' through; with section ripped off which I found on the ground and its tattered edges there is no mistaking its had a hard time. As I read the words above they seemed to have been spoken beneath this flag and I was glad to think that the story I am living / telling and hearing will have no ending. That the focus needs not be on a happy ending or even on an ending but on the telling and living.

The fragment of flag I picked up from the ground is now sitting on my work table as I want to transform it in some way and let it continue to 'tell' its story and be set to fly down tunnels of darkness that are as natural and as welcoming as the one I found myself walking recently which the Earth had helped form from growth and becoming and which as with telling and living light found means to lift into beauty

No fish but lots of harvest

As there would be no blank in my daily life during the weeks I decided not to post here, I have kept a list of limits, leavings and life doings on paper so I have a memory of them but have not decided to post this as first post back as they have been and I’m more about now if I’m about anything.

There is no vast library of posts waiting to be taken down and presented one by one with consummate ease and grace, no, there will continue to be a blank screen and an absent minded woman found in the same room and by some piece of luck, magic, furrowed brow, will come a post. I still have no agenda or self made brief save for the fact of living a daily life as creatively as I may and using what tools I may find to discover, gain some sort of comprehension, even sometimes understanding and continue to discover what I am thinking, feeling and have always known but have the undeniable facility to forget when I wander away from becoming to doing.

That doing can be part of becoming is true but that for me becoming is the intent, the impetus and the intrinsic truth that needs to be first second and third before doing is writ large in heart and mind and body or else the doing becomes selfish, mindless and destructive.

The month of silence here has not been a month of silence anywhere else in my life. There have been no long days of resting in my month away from posting here, as life never really pans out like that in my living.

Gone 'fishing'

Clearing the decks, inner and outer, time to ask what is necessary and life enhancing even life giving in this life I call and claim as mine.

This year has been one of many stops and starts on all levels physically, emotionally, spiritually and the motion has made me feel pretty sick some of the time and perversely elated at others sometimes there has even been balance and then the word bliss seems to fill space and time and I know its where I need to be.

This motion has been caused by the external and the internal of environment, the environment of home and heart. Place and pace seem to have become key words and they have gradually been opening doors I had not even noticed were there before or else were doors I had ignored or shied away from. All this walking through and unlocking has left me tired and a little hesitant so know I need to sit a while and rest.

Over the months of my designated celebration and commemoration of arriving on the threshold and walking into the country of the 50’s I have been discarding and regarding much of my life and living. Not in any sense as relinquishment of life and living, or the responsibility and resplendent joy I feel this to be but as means to walk more squarely, strongly and securely with sensitive steps towards the Earth, the lives I come in to contact with and my self. Compassion and kindness are all very well and good being offered and given to others but the giving to myself is important too.

Sunday Smile 36

This is why I call Rhys and Banon the toothsome twosome. It’s one of their regular daily contests to prove who has the whitest, sharpest teeth without leaving a mark on each other, though Banon if she feels she is in some way losing the contest will grab hold of her brother’s cheek and see if she can stretch it in to the next day! Rhys is all very laid back about this, often literally on his back as Banon seems to have inherited some Northumberland wrestler genes and can flip him over with seemingly no effort on her part and then pounce on his neck for the kill…. thankfully it is all play if sometimes a little rough to human eyes and she becomes absolutely rigidly still if she actually closes her mouth hard enough on his ear to make him yelp, though it doesn’t stop her repeating the exercise when big brothers delight in the game gets too much for her sense of being boss.

Their other favourite game is to run as fast as they can side by side and deliberately swerve into the other to try and knock them over, seeing they can get up to quite some speed it is always effective save for those times when two minds are thinking as one and they both swerve into each other at the same time. The technique is not to head butt but hip swivel and bottom bash; so effective is this that when they strike in unison they both come to a standstill and then topple over like some still from a Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner cartoon.

For me there are moments when their virtual disappearance into that canyon which Wile E. Coyote seemed to inspect from a great height, at great speed and with a puff of dust signifying arrival at the end of his ‘tour’ down to the bottom is actual but young dogs being young dogs are not young humans and there full on battle mode can be replaced in a split second with sniffing and snoozing together.

Their absolute joy that seems to be expressed to me at being young dogs able to let rip and wrestle and roar keeps the heart beat a little slower than it might otherwise be but there are times when ‘mum’ has to step in and inform them enough is enough and we three continue on with a little more decorum but just as much joy.

Real Decoration

Midst glazed tiles, adhesive, grouting and some anglo saxon :0) there was time to walk, to take in the glory that is nature and understand we humans can only graze the delight the Earth showers us with in the decoration and display of so many other lives around us.

Walking along the forest track with three dogs and good friend was a real treat for us all as the sun had blessed us with its presence which was gift for drying washing but not so easy in a very small bathroom with equally small window. I did little in the tiling department save for getting them, and all the other various tools and materials together and making sure the 'worker' was regularly fed and watered. Because the light was so intense outside I was unable to be in the garden during much of the day but RnB and I got out there for a few hours each morning before anyone else was awake and even if I was only up to sitting and listening rather than doing any work out there finding the colour and design of the Earth so freely shared before my eyes made me smile not only in thanks but at the attempts of one woman, with a dear friends help, to decorate a bathroom with light born on the wings of colour.

Decoration

The cob nut harvest this year looks set to be bumper as even the smallest tree is showing signs of plump 'fruit'. I am making note of the diferent trees I pass whilst out with RnB and look forward to enjoying picking and using the nuts in the autumn but for now I watch RnB enjoy the long grass and each othere and smile at our good fortune to have the feedom and safety to wander as we please without fear of bomb or bullet.

It could be so easy to become weighed down by the capacity for the human mind to conjure up barbarity and bloodshed before ploughshares and peace but when I turn my face to the sun each morning and catch glimpse of the beauty and bounty the Earth offers if one walks slowly with some sense of the moment I find heart and mind lifts with the sun and another day is found to be rich in gift.

Rhys and Banon seem to agree especially when playing 'hide and seek' in the long grass.