This picture may depict the churn in the wake of a ship but it appears frozen and still .
Somewhere amongst the tumult that sometimes engulfs us we need to find that place where we pause the relentless motion and negotiate our way through….
For an earlier picture post on the same subject matter, see the below link:
“Whatever happens around you, don’t take it personally….nothing people do is because of you. It is because of themselves.”
– Don Miguel Ruiz, from ‘The Four Agreements’
This site is under reconstruction.
No, not this blogsite – the empty building above – draped in its exoskelton of metallic scaffolding and serving only a current purpose of a concrete canvas for graffiti.
A punctured and besmirched exterior for sure but she has solid bones ,and great potential in someone’s eyes.
The site is devoid of construction activity presently,dormant and just a bit sad ,if a building can be called sad.
I’ve talked about it before but there it is again, that gap or hiatus where nothing appears to be going on .But something is stirring and rebirth and a new purpose are sure to come.
Watch this space…
Elsewhere on this blog ,there is a poem of mine ,Bond/Flow, which mentions a fountain as a symbol of hope.
Fierce hope.
I had the chance to read that poem to others today as a wish for hope for them.
For you too.
You may well have seen or heard this prayer before (actually it is just part of a longer prayer written in the early 1930s by US theologian Reinhold Niebuhr) , most closely associated with Alcoholics Anonymous and other recovery programmes.
It is however a design for life and wellbeing for anybody really.
You don’t have to be religious; you can call on your own understanding of the divine.
And even if you are a dyed in the wool atheist you can permit yourself the assets mentioned in the words to be used at your disposal to meet most life situations.
I use the prayer more often than my own ego would like, for the simple fact is that I often don’t have a f**king clue about how to react to certain things.
If nothing else, it gives me a pause before I might plow on ahead and do some damage…
This large ceramic compass sits in the foyer of a building I work in.
I love compasses and their myriad designs. I also love the way they tell the truth.
Without the compass I would only be guessing where, say ,north was outside the building. If I stepped outside, my sense of direction would be coloured by the street angle or the positioning of a building, and after dusk the sun’s absence would make matters way worse. I might have a good idea where north is but I can never be entirely accurate.
In life we have feelings that come to us and hunches we rely on. Sometimes real or right,other times false.
The first question I try to pose to myself in those moments is like taking a compass bearing: “Is it true?”.
If not,then I may move on from that thing, or maybe choose to sit with the unknown for awhile.
If yes,then I can ask myself the subsidiary questions: What? Where? When? What? How? and Why? And then take action, based on reality.
Is it true? Is it actually true?
” There are no signposts in the sea.”
– Vita Sackville-West
When we hit our own uncharted waters or new territory,we have to listen to the tales of who have been there before and depend on our inner strength and sense of direction for the rest. Nobody else can chart our course or sail our ship for us once we leave a safe harbour.
And we will have to leave…
Repetition in nature, exponential pinkness.
The flowers aren’t bored(refer the previous post)by it; neither is the feeding bee (bonus prize for spotting it!).
“A certain power of enduring boredom is essential to a happy life”
-Bertrand Russell
I can get easily bored. Like the boat lying on the mudflats at low tide, stasis can grip when there is no motion and there are no waves to ride .Sometimes the sameness of daily life palls. I suspect we all feel that way, maybe about completely different things.
But I have to recognise that life largely consists of boring bits; it cannot always be a highlights reel. Those places, people and things which can become overly familiar are also the very items that ground me in this life. We need to express gratitude for the mundane as well as the shooting star moments.
I am not saying that we do not need to change it up when we get stuck in a terminal rut, for that too is sometimes necessary .However,coping with boredom is actually a life skill in itself, like the art of conversation or apologising when we screw up. Developing a positive outlook and coping strategies for boredom are essential. Low tide times and desert experiences are inevitable. We do not necessarily need to seek more “stuff “or to busy ourselves just to alleviate boredom, but we are all guilty of that. Actually embracing the tedious or the just plain necessary will help get us through it. And,without boredom, we would not appreciate excitement when it arrives.
Just remember ,someone else would probably kill for your “boring”!
Sorry if I am repeating myself – actually not really, there can be virtue in repetition (well you gotta tell yourself that just to get through this life!)…this is another in the ‘Wharf ‘ series; studies of the ‘space in between’.
And, given that it is Easter after all ,right now the recurring motif is about the place between death and resurrection, endings and beginnings. No pause is without purpose. Be the barnacle and hang on in there…
” Precisely the least, the softest , the lightest, a lizard’s rustling, a breath, a flash, a moment – a little makes the way of the best happiness.”
– Friedrich Nietzsche
ebb then flood 