Tag: Light

To The Island In The Light

by Ebb Then Flood

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‘To The Island In the Light’

Islands hold a special fascination for me.

There is something about there compactness, their isolation, their very apartness – that draws me like a magnet.

“Why should islands exert such an exceptional appeal? Why should so proportionately a small area of the earth loom so large in our awareness? What is the secret of the special excitement generated when people are isolated and surrounded by water?”

                          – John S. Bowman, ‘A Book Of Islands’

I have no real answers to the above questions, but I post this photo of craggy Taranga Island, in New Zealand’s Bream Bay, rising from the sea and bathed in light, as some sort of response to them.

In my mind, I go to the island in the light…

The Water Tower Above Glover Park

by Ebb Then Flood

 

IMG_3083 (2)‘The Water Tower Above Glover Park’

Glover Park, in Auckland’s eastern suburbs, was an idyllic scene a couple of days ago in the warm autumn sunshine.

People, dogs, prams, sports balls everywhere, in a natural grassy bowl surrounded by leafy arboreal splendour. Everyone practicing social distancing while trying to be and look friendly. Bliss!

Then there’s this brutalist concrete exemplar on a ridge, watching silently over it all.

I remember it from when I was the same age as the children running around in the park.

Ugly, grimy and slightly sinister in appearance, even bathed in sun.

I, for one, need the foreboding form to complete the scene – you can’t have all that light without a little darkness…

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Daylight Will Not Be Saved

by Ebb Then Flood

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    ‘Pohutukawa Branches & Sea’

New Zealand ends daylight saving hours this weekend, as the northern part of the country basks in glorious sunshine and the weight of Covid-19 diminishes the glow without totally extinguishing it.

So, the daylight hours “saved” will now be “lost” again!

If daylight itself cannot be preserved it leads me to wonder exactly just what can be saved right now.

I’ll settle for saving my sanity and, in doing so, remind myself that you can’t save everything and everyone, not even yourself sometimes. You can just do the next right thing, whatever it is, for yourself and others, in any given moment and then keep doing so in those that follow…

Meanwhile, I will make the most of the fading warmth and light of autumn. It is still my favourite time of year in my neck of the woods. The picture above was taken on a gentle coastal walk yesterday.

Stay safe, if not saved, people!

 

The Very Necessary Narrow View

by Ebb Then Flood

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Window, Tower of London      October 2019

We all want to be seen to be broad minded and to be the one to take the wider perspective.

This shot of a window in the Tower of London (a prison to many unfortunates centuries ago) gives a little lie to that virtue.

For there is a time to take the narrow view.

When it is the only view.

When you are in darkness, or a jail of circumstances beyond your control.

Then the sliver of light and the merest glimpse of the exterior is enough to give hope.

Some small positivity, manageable to a damaged spirit.

The whole luminescent world of possibility is too much to contemplate in that grim time.

If you are there, as I have undoubtedly been, it’s okay to do only what you can and take the narrow view…

Through The Twilight

by Ebb Then Flood

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“You cannot, in human experience, rush into the light. You have to go through the twilight into the broadening day before the noon comes and the full sun is upon the landscape.” – Woodrow Wilson

 

Those words sum up my own experience; my picture recreates its memory and serves as a reminder.

When you know a darkness, it is tempting, when you are leaving it, to want to parade in the fullness of light.

However, in the ‘tween time – the twilight – you get to really know show the shapes and forms of the important things, dimly lit as they are.You feel them deeply, even as you peer though the mystical interplay of shadows and light.

There will be plenty of time for full light to illumine all the details…

 

Summer Sets The Scene

by Ebb Then Flood

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Here be summer.

Coming on, and growing by the shortening day. We’ve just passed the longest day but the weather will get hotter. That’s odd I think.

But maybe it’s all about intensity.

Quality, not quantity and all that.

The qualities of scorching heat and brilliant UV-blitzed light will inhabit our little part of the planet, and suffuse us with those same elements, as if by osmosis.

Languid days will create relaxed, kinder people.Doing just what they fancy, just because they can. Holidays at this time of year certainly help!

And we will be, temporarily at least, the best versions of ourselves, all flowers and blues skies.

So, the scene is set…let play begin!

 

I’d Be Lost Without You

by Ebb Then Flood

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All my life I have had fascination with maps and cartography (the mapmaker’s art). I have a geography degree that hasn’t earned me a cent, but I don’t care.

As a child, I would pore over atlases and maps with their linear representations of different parts of the world – seas, mountains, rivers ,deserts, towns and cities.

I would get lost in those pages and charts, but a good lost, y’know ?

I took this photo of an old map on my recent travels in Scotland. It depicts Fife and its coastline. Heights in feet, depths in fathoms, as it was, but nothing out of the ordinary.

Look closer.

It’s really a guide to the lost and endangered, or maybe a series of warnings to prevent yourself getting in those predicaments in the first place.

Beacons, lights, storm signals and lifeboats(!) and their locations.

Because (and I say this from harsh experience),when you are truly lost (the bad lost), you need external direction and you must heed the signals that you receive from around you.

You might have a moral compass, but you ,alone, cannot be your own map…

 

 

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.

 

Luminous Skywalk

by Ebb Then Flood

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Lit up skywalk in downtown Auckland.

Coloured panes of glass transform the overbridge in the changing light. Bulbs and fairy lights adorn and assist.

At dawn or dusk, the structure comes to life, and plays tricks with my mind.

It sings songs that glow, and of transcendence.

At some point, I cross over to the other side (no,not death!…but that place beyond logic).