Under The Wharf, Above The Waves (VII)

by Ebb Then Flood

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The ‘Wharf ‘ picture series continues – this time blurred, black and blue, which is how things look and feel in the nether world.

Twixt and ‘tween land, where you exist as other, and neither (above or below, that is).

You can scope the previous ‘Wharf ‘ posts to see where this theme comes from, if you are so minded.

My meditation on this scene is a little different this time around:

What lies between fighting the truth and running from it?

Acceptance

Wiser than fighting, braver than running, and harder than both…

As I have said before – be the barnacle!

 

Cloud’s Illusions

by Ebb Then Flood

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Spring in Auckland – a stack of sun, reams of rain – and cumulus clouds like these reflecting both.

Clouds are for dreamers.

You can see what you want in their shapes.

Giant sheep and rabbits; Jesus; your late father’s face; portents of the future or maybe the outline of a Central Asian country…

Anything you like, everything  you could imagine.

All illusory, but not necessarily in a bad way.

Queen Joni once sang :

” I’ve looked at clouds from both sides now

   From up and down and still somehow

   It’s cloud’s illusions I recall

   I really don’t know clouds at all ”

             – (Joni Mitchell, ‘Both Sides Now’)

 

 

Abundant

by Ebb Then Flood

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Part of an inscription on the side of  water feature outside a shopping mall I visited today. The inscription was about  the people and abundant resources that existed in that locality centuries before it became a consumer magnet.

Inside, the shopping hordes were loading up their tote bags, and we too had to pick up a few things. I’d rather have been elsewhere, truth be told, but sometimes malls are (almost) necessary evils.

Abundance is not the acquisition of more stuff however.

Abundance is about our perception of the world, that it ,and our lives are enough. That  feeling/attitude only really comes when we are content with who we are and can share what we have, and of ourselves, with others.

People have shared out of their abundance with me when I have been in need ,and for that I am grateful. In order to live a full life I have to do the same really.

All That Glitters…Gets Boxed In

by Ebb Then Flood

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It’s the way of the world.

If something is shiny and precious enough, it gets assigned a value over and above its basic elements.

And like this very yellow gold jewellery in an Asian glass display cabinet, it gets boxed in.

To be admired, shown off and micro-examined by others with their own motivations, good or otherwise.

I have seen it with people I know or are well aware of – once you are on constant display there is a polished role or roles to be played.

That person might still shine but their light is often captured in the box of others.

A gold bracelet has an amplified worth, but it had a unique molecular character and purity before the artisan’s touch gave it a lustre to be lusted after, or sold to someone with enough cash.

We are all valuable in our own right, and really need just enough glimmer to throw light on the free path we are on.

 

Return Of The Gannets

by Ebb Then Flood

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In late winter,the gannets return en masse to Muriwai, on the Tasman Sea coast near Auckland.

Home for the season to nest in rocky hollows above the crashing surf on a stretch of coastline constantly buffeted  by the prevailing westerly winds.

It is a staggering sight.

Equally staggering is their annual migratory journey across the ocean to Australia ,2000 kilometres away.

The gannets literally live their entire lives on the edge.

It is all enough to make this comfortable human feel just a little inadequate.

 

 

Sunset On Suburbia (Muse Dream)

by Ebb Then Flood

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A quiet midweek evening in the ‘burbs where I live, the terribly ordinary framed by the fantastical colours of sunset , with rain about to fall, and fall heavily.

I tend to think magic is often found in the most mundane things and places.

Or at the very least there is magic trying to break through.

As Irish pop band The Thrills had it:

“The suburbs dream tonight of finding their muse”

(from ‘ The Curse of Comfort ‘)

 

The New Flow

by Ebb Then Flood

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Walked down to the river shore this afternoon to calm my head.

An ebb tide, about as far out as can be.

Mudflats, shell banks, strewn rocks exposed.

And layered and eroded sandstone, captured in this photo and then subjected to some post-production flight of fancy.

Something bright, molten and fluid resulted.

It brought to mind, and to life, a poem I wrote a while back ( I don’t write many) and posted here:  Bond / Flow

This is for those who have ever lost hope.

Peace,Andy L.

 

Hands Of Time

by Ebb Then Flood

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One of those cool multi-faced clocks that tells the time in different places around the world. The clock is in Singapore but this dial gives Vancouver time.

Love the concept of world time zones – while  I am posting on my blog you may be asleep, and vice versa!

Or, on the longer time scale  – some are living life to the full, while others are about to pass away.

I was driving around town yesterday and a song popped up on my Ipod’ s random play.

“Hands Of Time” by the criminally underrated Canadian singer-songwriter Ron Sexsmith . Great, gorgeous and wise song and rendition , but not sure that he actually wrote it.

Some reflective lyrics from it:

” From the moment we are born

We’re in the hands of time

As drunk on life as death is sober

When we say goodbye

 

Though it hurts to lose a friend

May it help remembering

For every door that closes in

One’ll open to the other side

Opened by the hands of time “

Those words speak deeply to me of time, the ultimate healer and changer.

Okay, time to go…

 

 

Sweet Temptation

by Ebb Then Flood

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“Tempted by the fruit of  another

tempted  but the truth is discovered

what’s been going on

now that you have  gone

there’s no other

tempted by the fruit of another 

tempted but the  truth is discovered”

    – Squeeze, ‘Tempted’

 

Temptation.

It’s been going  on since Adam offered Eve off-the -menu fruit in the Garden of Eden.

And like an insect entering the above tropical plant, some forbidden things look alluring, but could lead to a sticky end.

The Squeeze song (still have the 45 single from back in the day!) was in the soundtrack to a movie I watched recently, and was played right at the end in a party scene, where are the characters nicely resolved all their sneaky affairs and tortuous relationships.

But that was a movie.

Tread carefully if tempted –  sweet nectar is isn’t always what it appears…

 

 

 

 

 

 

Terror Facade (When Buildings Scream) II

by Ebb Then Flood

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Yesterday’s post picture revisited and re-imagined.

There’s been something bugging me about it and I feel the need to inject a touch more terror into this architectural mishap.

Somewhere in the back of my mind is that classic horror short story by Edgar Allan  Poe, ‘The Cask Of Amontillado’,which I read a number of times as a teen .

Brick by awful brick ,the victim Fortunato is walled into a niche in a cellar.

I used to wonder how long he lasted, yelling for help, screaming with fear maybe.

No one to hear him.

Like this old building’s silent scream…

 

Terror Facade (When Buildings Scream)

by Ebb Then Flood

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Downright disturbing turn of the twentieth century building façade espied on an Auckland walkabout this week.

What was the architect thinking?

Or thinking of, to be more precise?

Sheer bloody terror frozen in stone and plaster.

Oddly, the 1905 building was originally a gymnasium.

Which might explain my take on it: few things are more frightening to me that being trapped in a crowded gym amongst heaving, sweating, exercising, bodies.

Give me a walk in the fresh air, anytime. I think I need some…

 

The End Is The Beginning

by Ebb Then Flood

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Auckland’s narrow Okahu Bay Wharf  (seen from a different angle in the previous post Above The Wharf, Over The Sea ) tapers to a point in the distance.

Where it ends,the sea begins.

An end is always a beginning of something.

“You only grow by coming to the end of something and by beginning something else.” – John Irving, ‘The World According To Garp’

(Questions tossed up by the tide: So we know the pier ends, but does the sea have an end?… and if  it does, what begins after the sea?)

Above The Wharf, Over The Sea

by Ebb Then Flood

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This was one view I had today.

Above a wharf stretching out over the sea.

Elsewhere on this blog is a series of pictures entitled “Under The Wharf, Above The Waves”. About being between worlds; neither/nor; other.

Not today. Things must be better and my outlook more optimistic for me to take this photo, make this picture.

Progress.

A different perspective from before.

Stretching out, and over…

 

Not One, A Thousand

by Ebb Then Flood
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Red Lanterns, Penang, Malaysia    2016

 ” You are not one, you are a thousand. Light your lantern.”

   -Rumi

A multitude of hanging lanterns covers a ceiling in Penang, one of my favourite cities.

Spectacular and uplifting (or down dangling ,take your pick)!

If it is not too much of  a cultural mish-mash to attach a quote from a Persian poet and philosopher to a Chinese icon such as these lanterns, I’ll tell you why:

Sometimes the world is just overwhelming, and we feel that we are insignificant in the face of it.

But when we project our true selves and passions, we can connect with those around us .Somehow,and this is sort of mysterious, we become “bigger”and grow. As we ourselves are lit up and inspired, we have the power to inspire others too.

Soon the whole ceiling is covered…

The First Day Of Spring

by Ebb Then Flood

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“With the coming of spring I am calm again”

 – Gustav Mahler

It has been a tumultuous August in Auckland, wet and windy for the most part.

But to be expected. That is what August brings. And I don’t mind really.

Spring ,according to the calendar anyway, has arrived today. Sunny and calm!

Thought I would mark it with this image of a flower from my garden that appears around this time every year.

Not quite sure what it is, but it doesn’t matter.

It is a signal of spring, of renewal, and anticipation of good things to come.

And, like the weather this morning, I feel calm. I struggle with generalised anxiety,so gladly accept that feeling!

 

Locked In Love

by Ebb Then Flood

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From the things I just don’t get department, I present this pic of padlocks, many pink and heart shaped, affixed to a fence atop Penang Hill in Malaysia.

Apparently, there is a bridge across the Seine River in Paris, where so many other star-crossed lovers have done the same thing that the bridge itself is sagging under the weight of thousands of padlocks.

If a lock is not a metaphor for entrapment and being hemmed in, I don’t what is.

Sinking bridges speak for themselves!

Call me a curmudgeon, but I don’t understand it…. and, on a purely aesthetic and functional front, pink padlocks are just plain f**king weird…