‘Bright Flag On The Ebb Tide’
… the tide may have gone out but hope is still signalled…
Bright Flag On The Ebb Tide
Tag: Hope
Openings
‘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
‘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
‘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’
‘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
‘Beacon’
…both warning and hope…
Phoenix Dusk
‘Phoenix Dusk’
…dawn will follow dusk, a phoenix will rise again…
Spring Oak Verdant
‘Spring Oak Verdant’
...hope springs eternal…
A Dim Light Is Better Than None At All
‘A Dim Light Is Better Than None At All’
…and four are better than one…
Only Clinging On (Shell Game)
‘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
‘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!
Sunken Steps
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
‘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…
Fog Inside My Head
I can remember where I took this picture.
It was in the hill country just north of Taumaranui in the central North Island, at a highway rest stop.
I can describe the weather.
There was a fog, like smoke, opaque and wispy at turns, drifting through the pines and scrub, leaving all damp to the touch.
But I truly know what fog feels like.
For it was in my head, in a troubled time, when there was no clarity and no respite and for a brief period, no hope.
And even though I have climbed out of the worst of it, there are still moments, small intervals, when the fog returns from banishment.
Very frustratingly, I might add.
Then I remember that the fog must lift, and the sun come through, as it did a only a few minutes down the road…
Radiant Garden
There is just something both optimistic and calming about a well planned garden with an array of different flowers, plants and trees.
Radiant colours and sweet scents exude hope and reassurance.
Even if one is not a gardener (I am a serial flora killer), gazing over a garden makes life just that much more tolerable…
All Washed Up
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 ?
Failure Loops
What does failure look like?…feel like?
Like the shore with the tide receded and just not coming back in.
Like a tree stripped of leaves, branches twisted over into loops.
For failure can be a cycle, a seemingly endless loop.
And when you are in that loop, you feel so, so, stuck.
The harder you try, the worse it all seems to get.
The loop becomes a tightening noose.
All you do is hope and pray for anything that will act as a circuit breaker.
And when you find it, or the universe brings the tide back in, that will be success.
Remember then what failure looks and feels like, and appreciate that success.
Because you can’t truly know success without having experienced failure.
The New Flow
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.
Blue Spring
If in the last post Blue Moses, Moses had the blues, I think I have them too today, or at least a nagging sense of disquiet.
But blue is also the colour of the pictured spring, one of the special places I love, where water bubbles up from deep down and there is richness and amazing clarity.
Hope springs eternal, right?
Wooden Flower
Contemporary Pasifika carved artwork catches the sun on a building exterior in Auckland yesterday.
An enclosed flower at the centre of the design ,lines radiating outwards.
Abstract symbols that spoke to me yesterday of gratitude and hope.
That may or may not be what was intended by the carver.
Beauty in the eye of the beholder ,and so forth.
In the same way ,the power of symbols lies in simple representations, over which we overlay the complex realities of our own lives.
Condensed and visible symbols help us more easily make sense of our world.
If you could express who you are ,or maybe just the day you are having, as a symbol, what would it be?
Ebb Then Flood 