Month: January 2020

Young Growth

by Ebb Then Flood

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Maize, Glenbrook Beach NZ

A young crop of maize in rows on a friend’s land today.

Such a sense of order and design is very appealing to the neat freak in me!

We have got to set definite plans for new ventures and things that will grow us, I know.

But sometimes, despite  those plans, growth is haphazard or sprawling. At other times nothing appears to be happening at all. Or worse, the new seedlings wilt and die.

To grow is to accept that there will be pain, frustration and unpredictability. There is a need to be patient when there is no immediate yield. I need to remind myself of this almost daily – at times I am a lousy sharecropper in my own life growth.

To leave your field bare is not an option though.

“Don’t go through life, grow through life” – Eric Butterworth

 

 

 

My Back Pages

by Ebb Then Flood

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“Ah, but I was so much older then, I’m younger than that now “

– Bob Dylan, ‘My Back Pages’

An elderly gentleman sits on a park bench in the Auckland Domain, quietly reading a book and listening to something through his headphones.

He would pause from thumbing the pages and look up from time to time to gaze around at his fellow parkgoers; walkers and people watching the ducks at the adjacent pond.

Reading is a luxury to me in an oft time-cramped existence, but this fellow seemed to have all the time in the world to focus on his book.

Ironic, considering that he has, in all probability, less time left on this planet than me(that is no certainty however!).

I was slightly envious of his ability to immerse himself in his book and music, or whatever he was filling his ears with.

I wondered what he was reading – fiction or non-fiction; thriller, humour or biography?

To read is to be curious about life.

And I bet he had an interesting life story himself.

What might his back pages read like?

 

Warning: Do Not Touch The Lobsters

by Ebb Then Flood

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A  worn but perfunctory warning on the side of a concrete lobster tank on a Fife harbourside.

In my mind’s eye I picture a time when the sign was freshly painted, and when the lobsters were more abundant than they, sadly, are today.

A tank full of delicious, thrashing, spiny crustaceans…

And then a young Gordon or Alistair, or somesuch, ignoring the warning, reaching in , almost losing a finger or two in the tank, and screaming pitifully for his ma….

Do.

Not.

Touch.

The.

Lobsters!

 

The Shade And The Space

by Ebb Then Flood

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The cool greenery of native bush is a shady lure as the summer continues to heat up in Aotearoa/ New Zealand.

A refuge from the amped up glare amongst the palms and ferns.

There is just something tranquil about disappearing into a grove of trees and being immersed in green light, the sun battling to break through the leafy canopy.

For however long you are in the bush, it is as if the outside world is irrelevant and time stops ticking.

We all need a place to go like that, I think.

 

Stone Box (Final Destination)

by Ebb Then Flood

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In the previous post Boxed In ,I touched on the boxes that we end up in.

In my recent travels in Scotland, I came across this ancient stone version in a cemetery at St. Andrews. Pretty impressive; nicely ergonomically tapered and contoured to fit the deceased’s head. Top design marks.

I suspect it was for someone of some importance. You wouldn’t go to all that bother for a regular dude or dudess.

Important person or not, as the pop-punk bard Wreckless Eric once said,” there’s only one destination in the final taxi”.

And on that cheery note, I too shall depart…

Boxed In

by Ebb Then Flood

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My fourteen year old daughter took this photo of her old man in one of London’s iconic red telephone boxes.

I do look just a little trapped!

We do it to others; we do it to ourselves mostly.

Put them, us, into boxes of our design.

Labels are for jars, and boxes, well,  boxes are the caskets that we will go out in.

Pigeonholing and stereotyping behaviours kill the hope of the different and the unique.

In venturing into blogging , I am trying to think outside of a box I have spent years carefully constructing.

In expressing my creative side, I bury the negative self-thought (and perhaps the thought of others), that tells me that is not what I am, or do.

That final box can wait for now; I have a few more I need to tick…

 

 

 

Tangled Up In Black

by Ebb Then Flood

20200102_144642.jpg                                                            Twisted Vine in Black

With apologies to Bob Dylan, whose tangled tune was blue, not black.

Blue, black; it doesn’t matter really.

Tangled up-ness comes in any hue you like, as long as it is saturnine.

Any shape or form too, as long as it seems impossible to get through.

It mixes and matches to every sort of person quite nicely.

Think of it as Ikea for the dark night of the soul…

 

Gently, Gently

by Ebb Then Flood

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Flowers do not need to persuade you of their beauty.

They just sit there being their own damn sweet selves, and we are inspired.

We are taught to be assertive in order to persuade someone, commence or change something. Assertiveness is seen as a modern day virtue.

However, the individuals who have had the greatest effect on me were the gentle sort. Those who didn’t try to convince me of the right way to do something, or how I should be. They were good listeners as much as anything, and carried themselves by soft action.

Being gentle is hard(excuse the pun).

I have had to go through a bit of a re-wiring process this last year or two. Rough circumstances have knocked a few sharp edges off, but if the school of hard knocks is your only teacher, you just get worn down and eroded away at some point.

You can’t be gentle without first being easier and softer on yourself.

Berating yourself for every f**k up you make, or have made, does not make you better or treat others more kindly. The opposite in fact.

So, just go a bit easier on yourself, petal….you’re alright really.

 

Flax & Islet

by Ebb Then Flood

IMG_2948 (2)                                                                      Muriwai, NZ

View though flax stalks to a rocky islet at Muriwai, on the west coast out from Auckland.

We were there three days ago to visit friends who live at this beautiful spot.

Before catching up, we took in the spectacular coastal views, on a day which was distinctly un-summery.

The Tasman Sea was at its moody, relentless best, surf pounding the lonely islet; the flax stalks waving and bending in the wind.

It felt like a Christmas cleanser!

 

Begin Again

by Ebb Then Flood

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Pohutukawa Flowers, December 2019

 

“Every beginning is a consequence – every beginning ends something”

– Paul Valery

So, new year, new decade.

We will celebrate the New Year, as humans are wont to do with anything new.

Some ponderings:

Sometimes we start something new, without realising it has drawn a line with the past.

And vice versa – we can be so obsessed with ending something, that we fail to grasp that we have moved into a new phase.

Also, sometimes there is an end without an apparent “new” thing. That’s alright. A time of transition, awkward as it can be, may be infinitely valuable and is in fact essential. Not that the world will necessarily understand if you find yourself in a place of apparent nothingness.

Remember, in nature there has to be a fallow time before verdant growth.

Anyway, Happy New Year, wherever you find yourself !