Tag: Wellbeing

Fog Inside My Head

by Ebb Then Flood

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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…

 

 

Branches

by Ebb Then Flood

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‘Branches’

Branches.

They have spread and influence.

This picture is only of branches.

No trunk or visible roots.

A friend and former legal colleague of mine was announced as a judge recently and will take her place on the bench (in court, that is) soon.

It’s a position with spread and influence for sure, imbued with all the decision making powers that can right wrongs and change lives.

But it can be lonely at the top of the legal tree.

Lonely anywhere at the top, really.

I suppose that any time we get to rarified, or even isolated, places, it is crucial to remember your trunk and your roots.

The sort of life experiences and foundations that took you to where you are now.

In the soon-to-be judge’s case that will include all the clients she battled hard for in difficult situations, who will be looking back at her in the faces of those she must now make decisions for and about.

You will hopefully have your own trunk and roots system to sustain you and call upon, as you spread out and upwards, or merely when you find yourself alone.

Touch wood…

 

 

 

 

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…

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 ?

Young Growth

by Ebb Then Flood

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Maize, Glenbrook Beach NZ

A young crop of maize in rows on a friend’s land today.

Such a sense of order and design is very appealing to the neat freak in me!

We have got to set definite plans for new ventures and things that will grow us, I know.

But sometimes, despite  those plans, growth is haphazard or sprawling. At other times nothing appears to be happening at all. Or worse, the new seedlings wilt and die.

To grow is to accept that there will be pain, frustration and unpredictability. There is a need to be patient when there is no immediate yield. I need to remind myself of this almost daily – at times I am a lousy sharecropper in my own life growth.

To leave your field bare is not an option though.

“Don’t go through life, grow through life” – Eric Butterworth

 

 

 

Boxed In

by Ebb Then Flood

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My fourteen year old daughter took this photo of her old man in one of London’s iconic red telephone boxes.

I do look just a little trapped!

We do it to others; we do it to ourselves mostly.

Put them, us, into boxes of our design.

Labels are for jars, and boxes, well,  boxes are the caskets that we will go out in.

Pigeonholing and stereotyping behaviours kill the hope of the different and the unique.

In venturing into blogging , I am trying to think outside of a box I have spent years carefully constructing.

In expressing my creative side, I bury the negative self-thought (and perhaps the thought of others), that tells me that is not what I am, or do.

That final box can wait for now; I have a few more I need to tick…

 

 

 

Gently, Gently

by Ebb Then Flood

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Flowers do not need to persuade you of their beauty.

They just sit there being their own damn sweet selves, and we are inspired.

We are taught to be assertive in order to persuade someone, commence or change something. Assertiveness is seen as a modern day virtue.

However, the individuals who have had the greatest effect on me were the gentle sort. Those who didn’t try to convince me of the right way to do something, or how I should be. They were good listeners as much as anything, and carried themselves by soft action.

Being gentle is hard(excuse the pun).

I have had to go through a bit of a re-wiring process this last year or two. Rough circumstances have knocked a few sharp edges off, but if the school of hard knocks is your only teacher, you just get worn down and eroded away at some point.

You can’t be gentle without first being easier and softer on yourself.

Berating yourself for every f**k up you make, or have made, does not make you better or treat others more kindly. The opposite in fact.

So, just go a bit easier on yourself, petal….you’re alright really.

 

Begin Again

by Ebb Then Flood

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Pohutukawa Flowers, December 2019

 

“Every beginning is a consequence – every beginning ends something”

– Paul Valery

So, new year, new decade.

We will celebrate the New Year, as humans are wont to do with anything new.

Some ponderings:

Sometimes we start something new, without realising it has drawn a line with the past.

And vice versa – we can be so obsessed with ending something, that we fail to grasp that we have moved into a new phase.

Also, sometimes there is an end without an apparent “new” thing. That’s alright. A time of transition, awkward as it can be, may be infinitely valuable and is in fact essential. Not that the world will necessarily understand if you find yourself in a place of apparent nothingness.

Remember, in nature there has to be a fallow time before verdant growth.

Anyway, Happy New Year, wherever you find yourself !

 

What We Left Behind In Our Wake

by Ebb Then Flood

 

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31 December, and 2019 totters on its last legs.

A wilted flower that is about to be chucked out of the vase.

Seriously, another year gone? ( another decade if you want to take the macro view ).

I may have figured out a few things in my life, but not where time goes. Probably fallen down the back of the couch or stashed in a shoebox somewhere…

All I know is that is once it’s been used up, you don’t get it back.

The quantity of time we had this year, if you got to the end of it (RIP to those I knew that didn’t) – is exactly the same for each of us.

The quality of it is an entirely different matter.

Good, bad, indifferent.

Productive or wasteful.

Exultant, Calm, Boring, Unhappy, Tragic.

Was love present?

And, did we actually learn anything new in the 365 days allotted to us this year? About ourselves, others, and the world around us?

Did we make any sort of difference ? (man, I hate that question but it does run the ruler of significance over what you do).

What, exactly, once the churn and froth has subsided, got left behind in our wake?

 

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!

 

Retrospective

by Ebb Then Flood

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Christmas time.

‘Tis the season to be jolly! (it’s compulsory apparently)

Also, that time of the year when we look back on what transpired.

Lists are compiled in magazines and on websites of the “best of the year” in various fields and genres, to mark the achievements that signified the 360-odd days thus far.

Day by day, we tread our narrow path, in small steps.

Hindsight is a virtue alright, and as you, and I, look back at the path through the tunnel that was the year almost gone, I hope we reflect on happenings and memories with  a wider, wiser viewpoint.

And that if we didn’t achieve all of our goals, there was progress rather than perfection.

Okay, we can turn back around now, and keep plodding on…

 

Avoid The Void ?

by Ebb Then Flood

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“Sometimes we do not want to avoid the Void. When someone gives us flowers, it’s nice to have an empty vase. Finding an empty train carriage is a stroke of luck; an empty motorway is almost a miracle. Making the first pen strokes in an empty notebook or the first steps in an empty new house are sources of pure delight.”

  -Louise van Swaaij & Jean Klare,‘The Atlas Of Experience’

For a void is not nothing! Even if  a void is a scary prospect, it is also the realm of the infinite possible.

 

Easy Chair

by Ebb Then Flood

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Presented for your viewing pleasure: one well-used blue leatherette and fake suede easy chair in a corner of my Thursday workplace, draped with a marvellously technicolor crochet rug, with a hot pink stuffed toy as an armrest accoutrement. Beautiful!

It invites a damn good sit down. A quiet nap perhaps.

Nothing wrong with a bit of comfort.

Getting too comfortable is another thing altogether.

It doesn’t pay to regret the past – it is what it is, and not a lot to be done about it – but I can definitely think of times when I got way too comfortable in certain life situations, overstayed in one place or missed other opportunities that were begging. Even finding some strange comfort in the known surrounds of adverse and damaging circumstances, when the sensible thing to do would have been to run (not walk) away!

I’m not advocating a bed of nails instead of an easy chair in your corner – no one likes a masochist (sadists aside) -but just to seek that challenging edge that will ignite your soul and mind.

As they say, you snooze, you lose!

 

Failure Loops

by Ebb Then Flood

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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.

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…

 

 

Wise Old Beards

by Ebb Then Flood

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Four aerial root formations dangle from the branches of an ancient Pohutukawa tree.

Like woody stalagtites.

And like the beards of old wise men.

Wisdom.

The final request of The Serenity Prayer

The hardest thing to find, and when I really don’t have a clue, this favourite tree reminds me that it may come eventually…