Tag: Wellness

Last Of The Dying Leaves

by Ebb Then Flood

‘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…

Angst

by Ebb Then Flood

20200403_181019

‘Angst’

” If you ask me what the most grotesque thing about alcoholism was I’d have said, indeed I did so over and over to anyone who asked – and plenty who didn’t – it wasn’t the physical stuff, it wasn’t the humiliating death stuff… it was the sadness. I called it my angst. A suitable august, Germanic word for a basement depression that was fathomless and occasionally erupted in gasping panic. And even when locked away it would seep out and sour every other emotion, like bitters in milk. Alcoholic despair is a thing apart, created by the drink that is a depressant, but also the architect of all the  pratfall calamities that fuel it. Alcohol is the only medication the drunk knows and trusts, a perfectly hopeless circle of angst, and it is powered by a self-loathing that is obsessively stoked and fed. And it’s that – the personally awarded, vainly accepted disgust – that  makes it so hard to sympathise with drunks. Nothing you can say or do comes close to the wreaths of guilt we lay at our own cenotaph.”

–  A.A .Gill, from “Pour Me: A Life.” (highlights mine, as were the lowlights…)

The Very Necessary Narrow View

by Ebb Then Flood

20191001_125756 (2)

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…

Calm Before The Calm

by Ebb Then Flood

IMG_3075 (3)

      Orewa Beach, Auckland NZ

As calm as an ocean gets.

A beach as flat as a pancake.

Gorgeous, idyllic, serene et cetera.

Fantastic for a day, a week maybe.

What if your life was this scene, endlessly?

That’s not being calm, that’s becalmed ; the doldrums, in which your ship stalls.

Maybe it’s just me, but when matters are progressing really smoothly for any length of time, it’s easy to go on auto pilot, to think: “I’ve got this.”

And that’s precisely when I need to beware.

I don’t wish for turbulence, storms or (god forbid) shipwrecks but if they occur, they (if nothing else) take away my driftwood-like complacency…

 

 

Fractured

by Ebb Then Flood

20191215_185506.jpg

Self-help/lifestyle books and sites are full of tips to assist you to “lead your best life”.

I  am not exactly in love with that phrase, nor some of the iffy suppositions behind it.

The general themes involve the person with the less than best life adopting new mental and physical practices,and sooner or later(preferably sooner) their life is transformed.

There are big assumptions in all of this – first, that you are able to help yourself (it wouldn’t be self-help otherwise!) and, secondly, that what has improved one person will do the same for another.

Sometimes true, often false.

Hard to assess, given the range of “solutions” on offer run the gamut from plain old common sense to ludicrous and even dangerous fads.

And mostly, the improvement schemes are aimed at ,and picked up by, those whose lives are just a bit “off “. Easy marks.

People who are broken, whose lives are fractured, fragmented, do not reach for lists with titles like “10 Ways To A Happier You – Now!” They don’t give a flying f**k about trite inspirational messages on cushions,bumper stickers or coffee mugs. If the Dalai Lama  himself showed up on the doorstep,with his sweet infinite wisdom, they would tell him to piss off. And nobody, I repeat, nobody, needs a coffee enema…

When you cannot do life ,you can’t do “need to do” bullet point lists.

The ones who are lost, trust me on this, don’t need to be told how to make themselves whole or found ,or whatever.

They need to be understood and accepted ,and there is no quick fix in that. Only time, and the love of others, will reach the soul and give the fractured the wherewithal to move themselves on.

 

 

 

 

 

Battered Protector

by Ebb Then Flood

20190629_223535

Wooden groyne at a small beach on Auckland’s Tamaki River.

Groynes are structures that are supposed to prevent shoreline erosion by trapping sand and sediment moved by sea tides.

Pretty evidently,this specimen has seen better days.

Years of protecting the shore against wind and waves have taken a toll. Bits of the structure are gone but it still protects the coast.

Parallel with humans exist – worn down,carers and protectors amongst us can eventually suffer from “compassion fatigue” ,and worse.

If that sounds like you, please remember to shore up your own timbers before fighting the tide -take care of yourself as a priority!

 

The Experiences And The Meaning

by Ebb Then Flood

20190504_083252.jpg

” We had the experiences but missed the meaning “

    – T.S Eliot , ‘The Dry Salvages’

I went down to the water’s edge earlier this morning, the sun penetrating the sea fog, the light quietly spectacular. There was a fleeting moment of soul connection and calm.

Then, as is my wont, my mind ticked over to what I needed to do today, tomorrow and into the near future.

The moment was gone and  the experience had lost its meaning.

The sun and the water had not changed, or maybe imperceptibly.

But I had moved on.

How many little moments or experiences are lost just like that, as I  am “elsewhere” even though physically present?

And then the best I can hope for is that the meaning of the experience will come to me in hindsight.

Just a reminder to myself to be mindful and soulful, even in the smallest experience, for it may not occur again.

 

Kick Against The Pricks

by Ebb Then Flood

20190406_172306.jpg

Carrying on from yesterday’s post, ‘Barbed Wire Blues’, on the theme of things sharp, pointy and generally unpleasant, pictured is a gorse plant. Originally introduced from Europe to New Zealand as a farm hedge plant, gorse has misbehaved in spectacular fashion, spreading everywhere like wildfire and is considered the most noxious ground weed in the country. Most Kiwis would have come off second best in an encounter with this prickly, thorny bastard.

Botany lesson over, the title of the post  comes from an old  Greek saying :”It is hard for you to kick against the pricks”.It crops up in the New Testament too.It has to with beasts of burden being controlled in work like plowing and haulage by a sharp prod.To kick against it would mean the prod would dig in deeper.Not great.

When we go against our own nature  and true gut instincts,and are not in tune with our environment,matters can  get painfully worse,or that is my experience at least .Sometimes best not to fight the tide!

On the other hand,given the modern colloquial  use of ‘pricks’ ,it is tempting to give those people who cause us grief a fair kicking…

Shift Yr Narrative : Comment

by Ebb Then Flood

I hope that the pictures in the preceding post ‘Shift Yr Narrative’ tell a story, or perhaps two stories, of one subject ,on their own. But since I am talking about narratives I will add some words as well….

A narrative is the description of a thing or event from a certain perspective. It can be as sweeping  as an entire world view or, in the telling of a tale, merely a different narrator ,tense or location, for example.

So, what does it take to shift the narrative in our own lives?

A momentous event of change;maybe a crisis of some sort ?

Or perhaps changing  the tense of our story, so that we do not live in the past ,or in  a future yet to arrive ,but in the present?

What would our life look like if we fully authored it and not allowed the manuscript to be ghostwritten by others?

And, can multiple narratives of our lives each be true, wholly or in part?

Many questions and no right answers – but if our lives are not unfolding as we think they ought to be ,and that uncomfortable reality cannot otherwise be altered  , maybe changing it around and taking another  perspective will assist us to move on.

Shift yr narrative!