Don’t wish for blind luck or pots of gold at the end of prismatic ether in the sky.
Construct your rainbow from your inherent strength and let it take you to the other side.
Ride your arc !
Month: January 2020
In Dingle Dell
Yeah, I know it rhymes with jingle bells and sounds sorta made up, like something from ‘The Hobbit’, but Dingle Dell is an actual place.
What it is, is a bushland oasis, a sanctuary if you will, right in the midst of suburban Auckland ,and only five minutes from my home.
Decades ago a group of forward minded individuals planted out the difficult terrain in native tree species. Matured now, it is the thriving habitat of numerous endemic species.
I was there yesterday, on the last day of school holidays, with my daughter.
She couldn’t recall the place. Surely I had taken her there…hadn’t I ? Well, not for years , if so. Remiss of me. I mean, I could remember being taken there by my parents but….
Together we stood quietly as tui and fantails fed and preened in the bush canopy. No one else around. Special.
My learnings from the time amongst the trees, navigating the shaded, serpentine tracks were:
That we often take for granted what is very familiar to us; we need to spend a little more time in the quiet wonder of nature – it is humbling actually – and , god, time really does fly – the child becomes the parent and is the guide, not the guided, in a flash.
Oh, and magic is everywhere, not just in fantasy fiction…
East Neuk : Sun, Clouds & Shore
A break in the clouds as they sweep through.
The old houses by the shore gleam in the temporary sunlight.
The rocks below the seawall are the inscrutable guardians of these shifting scenes, waiting for the rising tide.
Dandelion
Dandelion Sculpture, Matakana NZ.
To brighten your day, I present an outrageously optimistic dandelion flower mainly comprised of canary yellow laundry buckets.
Is it art?
Bucket, who cares?
Never The Twain…
“If you hold a cat by the tail you learn things you cannot learn any other way.”
– Mark Twain
Pictured recently, yours truly, seated with a bronze statue of the great man (real name: Samuel Clemens). As close as I will get to meeting him!
I have long admired Twain’s wry humour and sage veracity.
Like the quote above – you laugh first and then the wisdom drags you in and sits you right down, as you reflect on hard life lessons.
I sometimes feel his writing gets me, rather than the other way around.
When I was a young man I took a Greyhound bus from Chicago to New Orleans ( helluva long ride!), and the road more or less followed the Mississippi River south after St. Louis. My best companion on the journey was Twain’s ‘Life On the Mississippi’, published in 1883 . A great read – fantastic tales of diverse folk, working and up to all sorts otherwise, on the river back in the day (it’s well worth searching out).
It just made my trip feel damn boring by comparison though…
The Vineyard, Rain Approaching
Vineyard, Matakana NZ.
Calm Before The Calm
Orewa Beach, Auckland NZ
As calm as an ocean gets.
A beach as flat as a pancake.
Gorgeous, idyllic, serene et cetera.
Fantastic for a day, a week maybe.
What if your life was this scene, endlessly?
That’s not being calm, that’s becalmed ; the doldrums, in which your ship stalls.
Maybe it’s just me, but when matters are progressing really smoothly for any length of time, it’s easy to go on auto pilot, to think: “I’ve got this.”
And that’s precisely when I need to beware.
I don’t wish for turbulence, storms or (god forbid) shipwrecks but if they occur, they (if nothing else) take away my driftwood-like complacency…
Trinity
Three,of course, is a prime number – only divisible by itself.
The sculpture piece pictured here, with its three conjoined hands, speaks of unity and that which only itself can divide.
A flesh triangle of simple form and strength, against a spiky palm backdrop.
“We are all in this together, come what may” it says to me.
Bottled
…and sometimes it was you that drank that bottle dry.
They picked the shards from your scalp.
Stitched your wounds.
Had faith in you, and faith that you would share that faith, when you had lost it.
Even when all has been drained…
DON’T
LOSE
FAITH.
The Same Voice That Calls
“Whether we call it sacrifice, or poetry, or adventure, it is always the same voice that calls”
Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Just one question really – what is it that calls you over your known edge, past your fear, to that thing beyond ?
Blow Your Own Chimney!
Chimney Tops, Pittenweem, Scotland
Albeit a bit of a global warming horror show, I was delighted at this rooftops vista in Fife.
Rows and rows of chimney pots like soldiers on parade. Dozens of the buggers! And hundreds more throughout the village…
It wasn’t cold enough in mid-autumn for smoke to have been puffing from the chimneys.
Had it been, the ghost of my coal mining grandfather would surely have smiled…
Monolith In Monochrome
After yesterday’s flirtation with neon in Eighties Palm Regret, it’s back to basics and a return to black and white.
The subject matter is a million miles from palm fans waving in the breeze, even though the the scenes in the pictures were only metres away from each other.
Water sculpted rock – pure, solid and immovable.
The shape is as fantastical as any by an abstract sculptor, all layers and angular beauty.
I was a little awestruck actually, but strangely reassured by the rock’s transformation over time by the elements.
I’d like to think that time and adversity sculpt us all into striking and unique entities.
Eighties Palm Regret
Palm fans, shot on the weekend, get some (probably regrettable) 1980s neon hues.
No idea why, as I spent most of that decade running from that particular art and fashion tendency.
Possibly it’s a bad flashback to a time that had no regrets about itself, even though it damn well should have. I am looking at you, Boy George and Wham…
And I had a thing for potted palms at the time, thinking they were the height of interior decorating sophistication, dragging them around from one short term abode to the next.
Ah, good times…
I Believe You Are A Rock Star
Food That Pleases
Majestic Diner, Atlanta GA
You don’t come to this joint, or others like it, for the haute cuisine.
You might though if you’re hungry, famished even, need coffee (and lots of it), chat with a friend, or just hang out at any time of the day or night. And you can see your meal cooking on the grill in the kitchen before you get it.
The art deco neon signage in the top picture proclaims the simple pleasure of food.
The diner is described in utilitarian fashion on the internet thus: “Landmark diner serving classics including blue-plate specials & grits 24/7 since 1929”.
Heritage, check.
All day, every day, check.
Grits, check.
And not just any grits. Buttered grits. That come with your eggs.
Cheese, too, in your “de luxe burger”. All kinds, as long as its American or Swiss, and you don’t mind that the Swiss sort is probably American too. If you’re eating the burger, you don’t mind, because you’re probably starving or just not that fussy.
It’s all splendidly functional, yet the old school diner revels in its own American history and mythology, as told in film, story and song. Tom Waits’s ‘Nighthawks At The Diner’ album and Suzanne Vega’s ‘Tom’s Diner’ are memorable examples of the latter.
Everyone needs to eat, and diners are non-denominational temples to food where the sacraments are served to the faithful, good, quick and hot.
Egalitarian, in that the rich and poor, the loved and the lonely, and those of every stripe in between, get the same service and can all chow down or sip coffee in proximity to each other, without anyone really giving a flying f**k about who you are or why you are there.
Food, and a vibe, that pleases…
Cross The Sky
Deconscecrated Church, Glenfield NZ.
The simplicity of the circled cross, a stark symbol against the deep blue sky.
The symmetry of the angled white timber work under the eaves.
Two gleaming halves, mirror images.
They drew me in, these minor miracles, when I visited the building yesterday.
The former church has lost its sacred status to fulfill other uses today, but its uncomplicated appearance still has a striking purity about it…
A Postcard From Asia
Magnolia Dream
‘Magnolia Dream’
………………….
The soft, creamy hues of the magnolia flower with its opulent scent – summer signifiers.
So grateful to have a large tree in our backyard, and I took and made this picture last night after some evening rain had fallen.
The distinctive aroma of the flower was magnified by the warm, moist air.
When the tree was planted by us 20 years ago, this image was the dream in my mind…
‘Truly Twisted’,Twisted
Yesterday’s post Truly Twisted‘s vine picture gets the gothic makeover.
I have the flu and am struggling in the fizzing positivity stakes, in case you couldn’t guess. Rehashing an image is certainly not beneath me today.
Today’s not so inspiring words to match come from the heavy metal heart of Glen Danzig:
“Got a little twist of Cain, from the god below “
(Danzig, ‘Twist Of Cain’)
Murder, check. Satan, check.
…add them to the list of unpleasant twisty things.
Truly Twisted
Twisted things get a bad rap mostly.
If you twist the truth, you lie, and that is not generally a good thing.
Except we often don’t want to call a lie out for what it is sometimes.
So a liar ‘gilds the lily’, is ‘economic with the truth’ or just ‘a little disingenuous.’
A twist on a twist, as it were.
Snakes are twisty, sorta unloved and often deadly.
Actual twisters are beautiful , but wreak havoc and destruction in their paths.
‘Twists of fate’ are random and unpredictable.
Truth is ,we are all twisted in some way.
Biologically. Socially. Environmentally. Psychologically. Intellectually.
That just comes with being human.
However, being twisted does not prevent a spiral staircase; a double helix; a rope; or a vine, being purposeful, strong and creative.
I’ll leave it to you to add your own twist to things…
Ebb Then Flood 