Tag Archives: photography

… solitude …

Weather-defying, I had my first Pimms with ice cubes this year, imagining warmth, sun, swinging in my hammock under apple blossoms, listening to birds, walking barefoot and having friends round to watch the sun go down and the moon come up. The Brits are fed up with the rain. More than darkening the sun, clouds also obstruct the brighter aspects of the mind. Signals from the noosphere get muffled, or so it seems. There remains solitude, a tranquil space where questions arise, and thoughts have space to dream and play without being overstimulated. Allow your children periods of solitude and they will come to value it later in life.

I mulled over a question these last days, not for the first time. And an answer came, an angel whispered it into my ear while I slept – if all incarnated beings living on this planet were enlightened at the same time, the whole developmental cycle of the psyche would collapse, and consciousness would expand into a new matrix all over again. I’m making no claim to truth, angels can’t always be trusted. But the message seems to be – all is well-tuned as it is.

This is what solitude does to me – I get answers that beg more questions, like, what about multiverses? My body lives in this house in England that is at times difficult to maintain, but my mind also has another house, an interior house, free from mundane pressures, a house that exists in a dimension invisible to the physical eye … built from bricks of meaning rather than clay.

Here to the Noosphere, an interesting concept:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noosphere

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… I write here …

 

Images tend to bring us instantaneously closer.  A recent writing workshop given by a friend, made me think how inner and outer spaces affect our writing.  And I was also  inspired by Roz Morris, a generous and effective blogger http://nailyournovel.wordpress.com/page/3/ who featured her writing space in February.

I write through

the heart chamber

and the drone

of its circular charm

I write in earth

branching to the dark solitude

of birthing

the unknown

I write in water

fractals spinning

plankton under stars

coding the cosmos

I write in air

flexed by the wishbone

that loops breath to lift

wings of longing

I write in space

where spirits linger

in the scent-cloud

of a former home

I write in ether

where dreams free

greening visions

and murmur of bloom

I write here

in a room that is everywhere

bridging hearts

with companions like you

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… smoking elegies …

Her

I admired her calm, her mystery, unaware that she mirrored an enigma in me, hidden as yet under a muddle of neurotic insecurities. I didn’t have a clue who I wanted to be. She was a fellow art student, more mature than the rest of us. Her perceptions had a poetic flavour. Her contemplations surprised. I doubted the value of my perceptions. She was not beautiful by any means, with her dull and pockmarked skin. She was no Marlene …

Her eyes, inquisitively curious, were like gleaming coals, deep set. And her movements were a little wooden, apart from one gesture that made her elegant – the way she held her cigarette, the way she cast her eyes upwards and inhaled with deep satisfaction, and exhaled what seemed like all her woes by lowering her head. I had the impression her unwanted thoughts and feelings were ploughed into the ground and recycled. Because after each exhalation she had a Zen-like presence.

I accepted my first cigarette from her and thereby initiated myself into the eccentric tribe of smoking connoisseurs. Our rituals saw us through tumultuous college years. Camel was the brand in fashion at the time, evoking the image of adventurous travelling – desert excursions, vast horizons and hermit-like independence.

It was my caterpillar phase. The eerie red light in the photographic dark room offered a solitude I treasured. Bending over the emerging images in the chemical developing bath I took pleasure in my seeing, my metaphors. The feedback from tutors, who assumed I had planned my compositions, confused me. I hadn’t planned anything. Things appeared as in a mirror …

I was webbing a secret chamber in which to connect up all the dots before meaning would unfold its wings. A kind of trance was needed for that process. Smoking provided the trance. For our group of students any significant discussion required smoke, voluptuous swirls and veils lifting upwards between us. And as the mind raced ahead of itself, excited by ideas, there was the sucking pause, obligatory, to invest a thought with significance before it was voiced along with feathery wisp, ghostly white and blue cyphers suspended against light.

Unedited thoughts jotted down. More elegies to come …

 

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… sculpture park …

Dreams in stone, fairy horses, quills that use earth as ink, see-through elephants, surprises in the ponds, ghosts, flowing stone, water magic and mysterious circles …

Inspirational hours with my son and his partner at the ‘Sculpture Park’ in Surrey, near Churt.  So  close – and yet I had never visited the place. Like the man behind the bar in the pub opposite, who worked there for many years and not once stepped through the gate across the road. Makes me think of worlds we miss by the blink of an eye.

Here are some images of the place …

magic circles to other worlds …  

If you’re in the area, don’t miss it: http://www.thesculpturepark.com

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how we dream … how we wake …

No matter whether I remember my dreams or not, they sure influence the mood I wake with …

 

On dull mornings I want to stay in bed and drift from one dream to another …

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another morning a space opens the instant I wake. I see a colour, a movement, a view, I understand something, I have clarity, and my heart jumps in recognition … fully alive. And the days rolls on with optimum achievements … effortlessly …

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’m not suggesting I can control my mood a day ahead, but certain disciplines do affect how I wake. Calming and opening my mind, a prayer or a mantra before I close my eyes seem to bring me more intelligible dreams. Asking a question of my unconscious psyche, writing it on a scrap of paper and putting it under my pillow, works well. It’s like tuning into a radio station. I attempt my choice of programme (though only a fraction of our psyche functions consciously). I even can, with some dedication become conscious (lucid) in a dream and influence its outcome.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Trouble is – I have phases of anarchy when I say, ‘to hell with discipline, to hell with my pesky will.’ Phases when I prefer to wander randomly into the surreal dark … and roam the collective …

It’s embarrassing. I’m supposed to be an expert, having facilitated monthly dream groups for fifteen years. From this experience, and from working with psychotherapy clients, I know a dream explored can spark psychological growth and change a person’s life for the better.

 

Carl Gustav Jung had the thought – a dream unexplored is like a letter unopened.

I’m suspicious of quotes. They can float like fluffy clouds, or annoy with carved certainty while having no relevance to an actual situation. And we all get the occasional crap letter. Then again, I sorted old papers recently, and I found even the rare crap letter contained something worth reflecting upon. It all comes down to attitude, perception and application.

So what am I saying?

Given there are endless variables … the weather, the global mood, the state of mind of your friends and opponents and their attitude towards you, the dinner you had, the TV or radio programme you fall asleep over, the worry-loops and idle chatter in your head you habitually give energy to … aim for a balance between self-discipline and anarchy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Be kind to yourself, experiment, and if something works, remember it but don’t invest in the outcome. Slowly by slowly you learn to trust your intuition. Slowly by slowly you begin to realise that you really know very little about the psyche of the universe you are part of, slowly by slowly you have to accept that you ARE … that the wavelength you tune into carries you along until you find a pitch that chimes in your heart. It can take a while …

 

 

 

 

 

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what makes a photograph arresting?

My son, Yeshen, shares one of my passions, photography. Here are three of my many favourites. Still life of the chair …

This is exquisitely composed, I love everything about it, the light and colours, the shadow at the right corner (it wouldn’t be the same without the shadow in the right corner), the space … it’s difficult to define what makes an image special, the best I can come up with is –  I love looking at it, I can rest in this space. I would like to have a large print of it.

This scene of a street in Vietnam has a different quality, a cyclist passing before the door and the bricks that will survive him, a fleeting moment, and again, there is something about the colour tones and the composition, the lines, that pleases the eye. Notice the light spot on the stone next to the door? not sure what it is, it could be a tiny flame, and it adds something to the whole.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bridges are powerfully symbolic. They appears prominently in my novel ‘Course of Mirrors’. This double-arched bridge at Waverley Abbey is dowsed in beautiful light, which gives it a mysterious and dreamlike quality.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here are two sites where Yeshen’s images appear:

http://500px.com/yeshen

http://yeshenvenema.com/blog/stelae

 

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An image keeps returning …

I can’t remember where and when I saw the image, but it has stayed alive in my mind.

The black and white photograph is of a young woman stepping over a dry stone wall in an arid field on a Greek island. She wears a short embroidered vest over a white blouse, together with a medium-long skirt and laced boots. Her dark hair is neatly gathered back and braided. It may be Sunday and she is on her way to visit a friend, a relative, a lover. Whatever her destination, she means to get there the shortest way possible, without diversion. What strikes me about the woman is her clean aura. It shows in the way she dresses, in the way she holds herself upright, in the easy way she strides across the low wall, in her fine and strong face and in her eyes, eyes set on the horizon, eyes holding gentle presence and clear intention. It is a woman who knows where she wants to go. The image left a deep impression in me, and it keeps returning as an inspiration, an emblem of clear intention, beauty in motion.

Much of our lives ricochet between boredom and anticipation, excitement and depression, or waiting, mostly waiting … all tied into our changing ideals … but moments of clear intention are rare and wonderful. They bring peace to the mind.

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blissful Easter time

my son and his friend, wading in the stream after a run

 

Waggons Wells

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