
‘Kaleidoscope 25’
…a whorl of optimism taking pretty flight – there is always a hope of new and better!…

‘Kaleidoscope 25’
…a whorl of optimism taking pretty flight – there is always a hope of new and better!…

‘Hope For The Best’
…sometimes things are out of your control.
beyond acceptance, one can only hope for the best…

‘Kaleidoscope 15’
…the photo of tree branches featured in my previous post ‘a hope beyond’ reimagined as a mandala.
hope radiates outwards!…

‘A Hope Beyond’
…through the dark maze, with its countless twists and turns – there is brightness, there is hope, always…

‘The Sun Comes Through’
…as it always will in the end…

‘Pink Is The New Pink II’
… hope springs eternal…

‘The Light In Between’
… a sliver, a glimmer – hope on the horizon…

‘Bright Flag On The Ebb Tide’
… the tide may have gone out but hope is still signalled…

‘Openings’
…as flowers will blossom and open, the openings you hope for (and perhaps some you couldn’t even imagine) will surely come…

‘Top Of The Rainbow’
…a painted rainbow sign at a children’s playground below a brilliant blue sky – hope, any which way you slice it…

‘Last Of The Dying Leaves’
Took this one looking up through the tangled branches of a tree to the clear, pale winter sky, with a few reddish leaves just hanging on.
The tree in question is next to an Auckland hospital.There for a follow-up appointment yesterday with the surgeon who handled my cancer treatment last year and who performed life saving surgery. All going well despite a fair amount of ongoing pain – the surgeon was happy with progress, but confessed that he had no certainty at all that I would make it through.
In this picture I am reminded by nature of the bleak time when I was tangled up and literally just hanging on… but there was always the expanse of a sky above to reach up to. Hope is everything in such a situation, so very powerful…

‘Chalice’
A view of Neil Dawson’s striking steel sculpture ‘Chalice’ in Christchurch,New Zealand. It stands next to the Christchurch Cathedral, destroyed in a 2011 earthquake, and is a symbol of hope for the city.

‘Beacon’
…both warning and hope…

‘Phoenix Dusk’
…dawn will follow dusk, a phoenix will rise again…

‘Spring Oak Verdant’
...hope springs eternal…

‘A Dim Light Is Better Than None At All’
…and four are better than one…

‘Only Clinging On (Shell Game)’
Tiny mussels and barnacles, thousands of them, cling to a rock in the sea, which in turn is enveloped in the tide’s swirl.
Fragility plays relentlessness in this particular shell game.
Sometimes I feel like one of those small molluscs or crustaceans, insignificant and only clinging on to life.
Those are the days that you hold on to whatever hope you have, and it doesn’t matter what it is…

‘Ebbed Out, Not Effed Up’
So, the tide has ebbed and gone out.
Your flow has flown, so to speak.
Maybe it’s a rock bottom.
Or perhaps you’re just lying on the mud and silt; motionless, hanging onto your ropes and reflecting only yourself dimly.
But, you are not f**ked up, not finished yet – the next tide will come to re-purpose you – just you wait and see!

Ever felt submerged by it all? Like life is one great descent into the depths ?

…even then, there is a light that shines.

‘Lighthouse On The Rock’
…during troubled, or even dangerous times, we are grateful for signifiers of hope and light, and those things that are certain and safe…