The Serenity Prayer

by Ebb Then Flood

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You may well have seen or heard this prayer before (actually it is just part of a longer prayer written in the early 1930s by US theologian Reinhold Niebuhr) , most closely associated with Alcoholics Anonymous and other recovery programmes.

It is however a design for life and wellbeing for anybody really.

You don’t have to be religious; you can call on your own understanding of the divine.

And even if you are a dyed in the wool atheist you can permit yourself the assets  mentioned in the  words to be used at your disposal to meet most life situations.

I use the prayer more often than my own ego would like, for the simple fact is that I  often don’t have a f**king clue about how to react to certain things.

If nothing else, it gives me a pause before I might plow on ahead and do some damage…

 

 

Portrait: The Antique Dealer

by Ebb Then Flood

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I took this shot of an antique dealer in a provincial New Zealand town coming back home from further afield .

Needed to find a special birthday gift for my wife ,entered the bursting at the seams but tidy shop .Managed to be talked into ,and sold, a gorgeous blood red coral necklace.

This obliging gentleman even hung it round my neck for size. This in a really conservative town! But I was happy with the likely  fit for the donee. Really excellent and knowledgeable customer service. We got on like a house on fire, and in talking found we a mutual acquaintance. NZ is truly the land of two degrees of separation.

The charming man posed for a picture before I hit the road again. I really like this one, the emperor of the emporium seated on his throne ,surrounded by pre-loved vintage homeware and curios.

Plenty of history ,a heap of passion, and great facial hair!

The Experiences And The Meaning

by Ebb Then Flood

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” We had the experiences but missed the meaning “

    – T.S Eliot , ‘The Dry Salvages’

I went down to the water’s edge earlier this morning, the sun penetrating the sea fog, the light quietly spectacular. There was a fleeting moment of soul connection and calm.

Then, as is my wont, my mind ticked over to what I needed to do today, tomorrow and into the near future.

The moment was gone and  the experience had lost its meaning.

The sun and the water had not changed, or maybe imperceptibly.

But I had moved on.

How many little moments or experiences are lost just like that, as I  am “elsewhere” even though physically present?

And then the best I can hope for is that the meaning of the experience will come to me in hindsight.

Just a reminder to myself to be mindful and soulful, even in the smallest experience, for it may not occur again.

 

Entangled

by Ebb Then Flood

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“Sentenced to drift far away now

nothing is quite what it seems

sometimes entangled

in your own dreams “

– ‘Entangled’,Genesis (1976)

I listened to this old prog rock song for the first time in years in the last week, and took the photograph about the same time.

I am not sure whether the song and its lyrics influenced the shot, but certainly not consciously.Maybe though at some weird unconscious level in the way that music does,evoking a mood or place.

The album the number comes from was one of the first I ever purchased .I drift back in time and see myself as a geeky 14 year old reading the lyrics intently from the beautiful cardboard gatefold  cover, while the vinyl record spun on the rudimentary turntable in my bedroom. I played that disc countless times(entranced with ‘Entangled’!)

I was a bit of a dreamer as a teenager and the music took me back in an instant to my younger self.

So too the tangled tree branches in their veined pattern,to some more recent troubled and nightmarish times.

All is dream.

 

Block The Sky If You Cannot Scrape It

by Ebb Then Flood

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So, yesterday’s post, “Block 6 & Block 7”,featured two buildings across from my Auckland City work office.This one, just around the corner, is another linear edifice, doing just enough to block the view but not tall enough to threaten the heavens.

Reflective glass sends back the message of the other side of the street, but there are chinks where you can sense humanity within the cubes of concrete, steel and glass – clothes on a rack, pictures on a wall ,lampshades -random personal paraphernalia .

Hope the owners within are doing more than just scraping by…

Is It True?

by Ebb Then Flood

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This large ceramic compass sits in the foyer of a building  I work in.

I love compasses and their myriad designs. I also love the way they tell the truth.

Without the compass I would only be guessing where, say ,north was outside the building. If I stepped outside, my sense of direction would be coloured by the street angle or the positioning of a building, and after dusk the sun’s absence would make matters way worse. I might have a good idea where north is but I can never be entirely accurate.

In life we have feelings that come to us and hunches we rely on. Sometimes real or right,other times false.

The  first question I try to pose to myself in those moments is like taking a compass bearing: “Is it true?”.

If not,then I may move on from that thing, or maybe choose to sit with the unknown for awhile.

If yes,then I can ask myself the subsidiary  questions: What? Where? When? What? How? and Why? And then take action, based on reality.

Is it true? Is it actually true?

 

There Are No Signposts In The Sea

by Ebb Then Flood

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” There are no signposts in the sea.”

– Vita Sackville-West

When we hit our own uncharted waters or new territory,we have to listen to the tales of who have been there before and depend on our inner strength and sense of direction for the rest. Nobody else can chart our course or sail our ship for us once we leave a safe harbour.

And we will have to leave…

 

Boredom

by Ebb Then Flood

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 “A certain power of enduring boredom is essential to a happy life”

     -Bertrand Russell

I can get easily bored. Like the boat lying on the mudflats at low tide, stasis can grip when there is no motion and there are no waves to ride .Sometimes the sameness of daily life palls. I suspect we all feel that way, maybe about completely different things.

But I have to recognise that life largely consists of boring bits; it cannot always be a highlights reel. Those places, people and things which can become overly familiar  are also the very items that ground me in this life. We need to express gratitude for the mundane as well as the shooting star moments.

I am not saying that we do not need to change it up when we get stuck in a terminal rut, for that too is sometimes necessary .However,coping with boredom is actually a life skill in itself, like the art of  conversation or apologising when we screw up. Developing a positive outlook and coping strategies for boredom are essential. Low tide times and desert experiences are inevitable. We do not necessarily need to seek more “stuff “or to busy ourselves just to alleviate boredom, but we are all guilty of that. Actually embracing the tedious  or the just plain necessary will help get us through it. And,without boredom, we would not appreciate excitement when it arrives.

Just remember ,someone else would probably kill for your “boring”!

Autumn Almanac

by Ebb Then Flood

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“Breeze blows leaves of a musty-coloured yellow

So I sweep them in my sack

Yes, yes, yes, it’s my autumn almanac

     -The Kinks, ‘Autumn Almanac’

Thank you Ray Davies for reminding me that the above leaves ,and hundreds more, burying the back lawn require removal. Too lazy to bother with the sack, will probably deposit them over the fence into the park next door and let them rot there…

The song is an old fave of mine ,which dissects, but not without lowkey affection, a  mundane type of English life where nothing ever seems to change. Worth checking out if you haven’t heard it.

Under The Wharf, Above The Waves (VI)

by Ebb Then Flood

20190421_123805.jpgSorry if I am repeating myself – actually not really, there can be virtue in repetition (well you gotta tell yourself that just to get through this life!)…this is another in the ‘Wharf ‘ series; studies of  the ‘space in between’.

And, given that it is Easter after all ,right now the recurring motif is about the place between death and resurrection, endings and beginnings. No pause is without purpose. Be the barnacle and hang on in there…