Doors Closed, Eyes Open

by Ebb Then Flood

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“When one door closes, another opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us”

– Alexander Graham Bell

The first part of this quote is almost a cliché.

It is, fortunately for us, very often true.

The second part is a wisdom to bear in mind though.

I can personally attest to lingering at closed doors ,thus missing out on openings, but I have learnt over time to quickly look elsewhere when something just isn’t to be .

The photo is of some of the most impressive doors in my bag of pictures, just to remind myself that a beautiful closed door is still just a closed door…

 

The Behemoth vs The Indomitables

by Ebb Then Flood

IMG_0976 (2)      Charleston, South Carolina    April 2017

No, not another Marvel sci-fi box office thriller.

However, the scene is ever so quietly gripping…

A southern river scape :

One mighty, fully laden, container ship, ploughs the shipping channel sea bound and looms large against the horizon.

Meanwhile, unperturbed by the floating behemoth, a group of sizable armour plated horseshoe crabs, prehistoric survivors, make their presence known on the muddy shore.

A contest of heavyweight champions!

I make it an honourable draw…

 

 

 

 

 

The Bridge

by Ebb Then Flood

20191007_122603 (2)  Queensferry Crossing, Scotland

This stunning modern suspension bridge over the Firth of Forth was certainly worth a picture, as we crossed over it late last year( don’t worry, I took this photo from the passenger seat! ).

Serious wires!

As I have been filling my musical boots with vintage sounds of late, may I take you on a  transatlantic leap to the somewhat older but equally stellar Brooklyn Bridge, which I was fortunate to have walked over as a young bloke.

Artwork of it features on the cover of  a 1982 album ‘The Bridge’, by jazz/fusion keyboardist David Sancious. Sancious may be better known to rockers as an early member of Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band.

A YouTube link to the sublime title track ,an old favourite of mine, is below, if  you have the time to embark on a sprawling aural trip of your own…

 

Spiral

by Ebb Then Flood

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Spotted, in a church bell tower, before a wedding.

Spiral staircases are fantastic pieces of design, giving maximum verticality in limited space.

Spirals are found in many places in nature – in seashells; in the patterns of our own DNA; in galaxies of stars.

I reflect that I have spiraled both upwards and down in my own life.

The thing with spirals is that they cross over themselves at different levels.

I have found myself at different stages of life crossing over myself, or at least a version of myself.

Oh yeah, I think, maybe I have been here before; but at another level, in another time.

And when I find myself in one of those occasional downwards spirals, I have to remind myself that the set of stairs ascends also.

The newlyweds will learn that too…

Transitory

by Ebb Then Flood

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You can’t make this stuff up really.

Perfect cumulus cloud puffs arrayed in the sky, as they were late yesterday afternoon at home.

So perfect they don’t look real.

But it’s not the form of the clouds that really exercises my mind . It’s their fleeting, transitory nature.

Always appearing from out of nowhere, adorning the moment and then moving on, never to be replicated exactly.

You cannot capture clouds, save in photos.

And all that does is freeze their vapoury uncertainty to fit a frame that cannot ever contain their truth.

Rather than pillowy comfort, I associate clouds with uneasy change.

Change, and being fully present in the moment, are challenges for me – clouds are thus my ultimate mindfulness tools, for their unique presence cannot last…

……………………………………………….

(for more clouded thoughts, see: Cloud’s Illusions ).

 

All Washed Up

by Ebb Then Flood

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Are you finished yet ?

Washed up.

Like desiccated, limp seaweed.

On a shore of equally broken shells.

Maybe you were dragged to this place unwillingly, or you just meandered your way here on the sea swells.

The how is irrelevant.

As is the why.

The question is : Is it true?

That you are done.

That your worth is spent.

I think not.

Prove ’em wrong.

More importantly, prove it yourself.

Lead yourself to new climes.

You owe your spirit that much at least.

 

Are you finished yet ?

In Dingle Dell

by Ebb Then Flood

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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…

 

 

 

Never The Twain…

by Ebb Then Flood

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 “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…