‘The beach makes no inquiries,demands no reactions.It fills your head with space and sounds and feelings. The sensations of an empty hot beach are as soulful as you can find this side of the grave. There is no end to this peace.Just as Blake said,to see the world in a grain of sand,to pick up shells and see an infinity in your hand’.
– A.A Gill, ‘Shore Thing’.
“Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could.”
-Ralph Waldo Emerson
Love this quote from the American essayist (borrowed image above).Had it pinned to a wall in an office I worked in. Easier said than done but it has great intent. Tomorrow is another day.
And so I will leave it there for a few days, going somewhere with only sporadic internet connection.
Peace, Andy.
I have made comment on the earlier Wharf/Waves pics elsewhere in this blog, not a lot to add – other than this one and the last one just posted seem a bit more optimistic or transcendent, or maybe it’s just because I’m on holiday to the beach tomorrow….they have a couple of decent wharves where I’m going too…
Richard Thompson, Musician (Aquarium Drunkard Interview , September 2018)
AD:” ‘The Storm Won’t Come’…..storms work a lot of ways in songs, but in this one, you’re actually longing for it. You’re not looking for shelter”.
RT: “Sometimes you want change in your life. I think that what the song says is if you try to change things for yourself, it doesn’t always work. Outside forces have to change them for you”.
….and refer the previous post. From Mould’ s first solo album post-Husker Du. I adore the song, it is optimistic and full of sadness at the same time…..
” I can see a little light, I know you will
I can see it in your eyes, I know you still care”
– Bob Mould , lyrics from ‘See A little Light’ off the album ‘Workbook’(1989)
The cat statue in Auckland Domain’s Winter Gardens has appealed to me since childhood. Just what is the feline doing ,reaching for the sky , all alone on a giant ball atop a column? One story about its creation says that he is the King Of Cats, appealing to the heavens so that the incessant war between cats and birds may end. Not sure that the prayers were answered, as he gets regularly shat upon by birdlife. Anyway, you have to admire a trier, and he is one very regal cat!
…inside the wake featured in the last post….
‘The wake of the Sea-Ship after she passes, flashing and frolicsome under the sun’
– from ‘After the Sea-Ship’, Walt Whitman,1900
God, I love Whitman ,he has a line for just about every life experience. Read him at my wedding and my father’s funeral because I needed the reassurance of his insight to sum up what I couldn’t quite get out of my own mouth…
I think ship wakes are beautiful -amazing symbols of where we have come from and where we are going, at the same time.
This place sits right on the shore at Rocky Bay on NZ’s beautiful Waiheke Island. No idea whether Cosmo is an actual person but the place is open to anyone just to stop, rest ,take in the view and just be, well, in tune with the cosmos. The word ‘retreat’ is an interesting one in this context – sometimes we have to step back in order to move forward. In any case, if things get rocky, any place that isn’t is a good place to be!
THE GUEST HOUSE
This being human is a guest house
every morning is a new arrival
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor
Welcome and entertain them all!
even if they are a crown of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture
Still, treat each guest honourably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight
The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in
Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond
– Rumi , ‘Say I Am You – Poems Of Rumi’.
Photo homage to John Berendt’s book of the same name and mentioned a few posts back. It might look like this if set in New Zealand not Savannah….
Spike the sky
prick
holes
in
infinity
– Andy L
“I’ve been searching for the hidden bay
Well it’s a long, long way ,the hidden bay”
– The Chills,‘Hidden Bay’(1984).
A simply gorgeous , and really slowed down version of the Beatles classic by UK artist Thea Gilmore – is it sacrilege to say one prefers it to the original?
….not the sort of wall that keeps people in, like the Berlin Wall, or one that would keep the Mexicans out….
“There is still time to go yet, there are still places to go, new friends to make, maybe new songs to write and sing and jokes to tell.”
– Billy Connolly, ‘Made In Scotland’ (documentary),2018.
ebb then flood 