The unblinking stare of a pouwhenua ( carved wooden figurine ) of Hoturoa.
Hoturoa was an an ancestral Maori naval commander of centuries ago.
His image stands upon an Auckland headland, high above the sea.
Gazing out over the ocean and almost, it seems,across time…
Two emerald green boat houses on the shores of Raglan’s harbour on New Zealand’s west coast.
This is apropos of nothing really ,other than I find this view really calming.
That, and at on an ebb(or low) tide, nothing appears to be happening.
But there is always the promise of the rising tide.
A similarly themed post on this blog here:The Boat House
“The source of all abundance is not outside you. It is part of who you are. However, start by acknowledging and recognising abundance without. See the fullness of life all around you. The warmth of the sun on your skin… or getting soaked in an abundance of water falling from the sky. The fullness of life is there at every step. The acknowledgment of that abundance that is all around you awakens the dormant abundance within. Then let it flow out”
-Eckhart Tolle, from “A New Earth”
The Oceanic Building sits across the road from the Tasman Building in downtown Auckland.
Auckland sits on an isthmus between the Tasman Sea and the Pacific Ocean.
My home town ,surrounded by water and with its bricks and mortar bearing watery names…the Queen City, City of Sails…where even the solid becomes liquid…
Awesome caged chandelier light in the foyer of my workplace.
A design of opposites.
Light, imprisoned.
Chains and their shadows cast by luminescence.
This seems to be some sort of interior design thing at the moment, but to me it symbolises the great universal struggle.
Truth and freedom versus lies and subjugation .
It probably is just a light , Andy ,I tell myself – but I will climb the stairs to the office and deal with the legal problems besetting our clients and which are small examples of the big struggle.
And it will be time to try to shine a little light on things…
You waved goodbye and went.
Or so I thought.
Left me to my own devices…
But you were still sticking around.
I can see that now.
Yeah, you waved….but never left…
View through the branches of a pohutukawa tree and down to the waves of Auckland’s Waitemata Harbour yesterday.
‘Waitemata’ means ‘sparkling waters’ in Maori.
Very apt – the sun’s reflection from the water was absolutely dazzling to the eyes.
Anyway, enjoy your day people. I hope it sparkles like this view.
“The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.”
– Joseph Campbell
Mighty sea cave on New Zealand’s west coast at Muriwai Beach.
I would be more than a little afraid to explore beyond the cave’s entrance – the power of the sea ,the damp rock walls and general darkness puts me off. Plus, a tiny fear of drowning…
The uncovering of the mystery of the cave’s depths and discovery of its ‘treasure’ will fall to someone else braver than me…..
Fear holds us back from discovery so often. Even when we know that at the times we have been most brave, we have learned and gained much.
As an aside, sea caves are products of erosive wave action – it is amazing that the destruction of the softish cliff rock over time actually creates something ‘other’ and new!
And so, to the ever-shifting seas, the endless skies, we shall return, at journey’s end.
Lots of contrasts and signifiers in this image for me.
The vintage gothic stylings of the chandelier against the modern florescent lighting behind it.Complexity and simplicity juxtaposed.
Dark and light – the candle bulbs at the end of the twisting ,intricate arms of the lamp. Light at the end of our labyrinthine paths.
The chain the chandelier is suspended from.The birdlike ornaments dangling from it. Connection of all things.
The bars of the modern light, like an illuminated prison window. Hope provides brightness.
Light. Connection. Hope.
Those are some of the simple things that get us through this complex life…
Following on from my previous post The Real You, and the quote from Don Miguel Ruiz contained in it, this photo taken yesterday shows the beauty of the west coast of New Zealand.
The quote likened the wind and ocean as signifiers of our true essence.
Fresh (like the wind you can’t see here ,but believe me, it was, erm, invigorating, to say the least!).
Wild.
Unspoiled.
Not yet tamed.
That is the real you.
Take a trip out to your proverbial coastline and find, or re-find, it!
“Just imagine becoming the way you used to be when you were a child, before you understood the meaning of any word, before opinions took over your mind. The real you is loving, joyful and free. The real you is just like a flower, just like the wind, just like the ocean, just like the sun.”
– Don Miguel Ruiz (Mexican author and philosopher)
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If “youth is wasted on the young” – as Oscar Wilde’s witticism had it – sometimes I wonder whether history is too.
Not that young people cannot understand history ,when stories of the past are told well (as they must be), it is more that their present is constantly shifting,and becoming the future at light speed.
Leaving little time and energy to reflect on a past which appears increasingly irrelevant to them.
Case in point : The young man in the photograph sits at the foot of the Savage Memorial in Auckland. It commemorates Michael Joseph Savage,New Zealand’s much respected first Labour Prime Minister,and he is buried there.
One of Savage’s government’s great achievements was the establishment of comprehensive state social housing in the 1930s.
The young man and his peers face a crushing reality of totally unaffordable rents and house prices ,totally removed from the vision of affordable housing for all ,even the poorest, expoused by Savage.
That dream has faded in recent times, to the point that it appears to the young that is as dead as the late prime minister, and his memorial is just something to lean your back upon….
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Today’s mystery object is some sort of disc coral I think (David Attenborough fail moment!), espied in a Malaysian aquarium a few years ago.
Whatever it is, I know what it looks like to me.
A platter of pearls.
Thousands of ’em.
In rows.
Like soldiers.
Glistening repetition.
Mind bending submerged treasure.
Sunken stars.
And I’m away, dreaming …
But you didn’t come here for a marine biology lecture,did you ?
So this was the view on Thursday this week – from Orakei Marae, where I work in the morning, over a shimmering Okahu Bay and towards Auckland’s CBD.
It’s a usually breezy town but on this day the fog was only fully lifting towards noon, and the sea was like glass.
I work from a community house, which is a pretty humble structure to be fair , but with this stellar vista of man and nature as compensation.
Other versions of the same outlook: The City, To The West, Shining and The City ,To The West, Clouded . I am a sucker for changing weather overlaid over one scene(obviously!)
“Everything seems to fail
And it was all for the want of a nail”
– Todd Rundgren, “For The Want Of A Nail” (1989)
Genius musician is proved slightly wrong in the form of this stunning traditional wooden Malay house on stilts . Okay, that is a massive lyric/subject non- sequitur,but I just love both the song and the house, and there really aren’t that many songs about nails…
Or houses without nails – not a single one was used in its construction, according to the owners. Mainly interlocked timbers, like a gigantic wood jigsaw puzzle. Amazing.
Right near top of the list of coolest houses I have ever visited.
Hasn’t failed or fallen down yet apparently…
“The last thing a fish would notice would be water.”
– Ralph Linton
Great quote from the anthropologist Linton!
What is your fish view blindside?
That thing so obvious but essential, it doesn’t even factor into your thinking.
The thing that you may also forget to be grateful about…
One of those mornings where the view on the foggy Tamaki mirrors my headspace.
Tide out, no real clarity of view and I have the emotional responsiveness of the rocks pictured! Serene enough though…
As usual, I make hopeful assumptions about tides,wind and sun that mean the view can only be a temporary one….
Please have a peek at my last post Making Humiliation An Artform ! if you haven’t already.
There,the great British poet Auden postulated out that art is born of humiliation.
I guess we want to believe that art comes from some more pleasant emotional or spiritual experience ,but he had a point.
We all suffer crashing humiliation at some point -god knows I have – when we find out in no uncertain terms that we are not as good, morally upright, desirable, intelligent or indispensable or whatever we thought we were before the axe fell ,leaving us split into bits of the real truth ,laid bare for the world to see.
Art might come from there, or the resolve not to ever have that thing happen again,or maybe the urge to be “better”.
So, humiliation can be a catalyst for change.
But it is not the same as humility.
Humiliation might give us humility ,but equally might cause self-loathing or resentment.
You can’t sustain humiliation as a force for change in your life or to create something new and different, it is just a starting point.
Humility, however ,can give us those things. It is hard ,because subjugating our ego-driven selves to the uncontrollable is something we naturally are threatened by, and fight.
And the sharp blade of humiliation need not necessarily have to dissect us in order to find humility.
Getting back to art, and using the beautiful and shining copper sculpture in the above photo to illustrate – copper is a soft metal and can be beaten (humiliating moments again!) and shaped into almost anything. Infinitely malleable.
We have to be that way too – responsive,shaped and trained into transcendent form by outside forces.
The world will remember that self we became, long after our moments of personal disaster are forgotten.
“Art is born of humiliation”
– W.H.Auden
ebb then flood 