Things to think

Think in ways you've never thought before

If the phone rings, think of it as carrying a message

Larger then anything you've ever heard,

Vaster then a hundred lines of Yeats.

Think that someone may bring a bear to your door,

Maybe wounded or deranged; or think that a moose
Has risen out of the lake, and he's carrying on his antlers

A child of your own, whom you've never seen.

When someone knocks on the door, think that he's about

To give you something large: tell you you're forgiven

Or that it's not necessary to work all the time, or that it's

Been decided that if you lie down, no one will die.

Robert Bly

Image by Mark Ryden

How much is too much?

Sometimes, I am overcome when lost in the blogdom, at the brave, honest cry of somebody's life. There on the shimmering screen are all their fears and dreams; the wet, rude torn wide open truth of who they are, for me to see.

I have friends who have not opened up to me in that way.

Close friends.

And so, I am moved at the searing beauty of these strangers: of their vulnerability. I am swept up by their stories and forced to reconcile them with my own truths, even as I sit there swallowing theirs.

Disclosure is a strange beast.

I have not yet tamed it, domesticated it. I am not even sure of inviting it in. But. I know it is out there, peering through the windows of my home. Looking to be heard.

Once I open my mouth, or press my pen against a blank page, or lean my head against the cold pane of the mind's window, then how will I know where to stop. And when?

And who should be privy to all that.

Are some of our words meant to stay hidden and wary, revealing themselves only to those we love or trust or understand? And maybe some of those words might even need burial, or they will stay fresh, unearthed and moist. Keeping us awake at night and bothering the children.

Maybe, this comes with getting. Older.

Maybe, something pulls us back from all those words. Eventually. Restoring our trust in stillness. In feeling contained, and permitted to move. Forward. Even in a group where others wish to unburden themselves, I will choose to listen. And be still.

Saving my breath. My words.

For a place in which they might find the right tilled soil, in which to grow.

Afrika burns...to go or not to go,,,

AFRIKABURNS

Mr Nielson better known as Sid, and I have been deliberating about paying a visit to Afrika burns.

In the old days, we would have known about the festival through our own channels of communication, now we hear about such matters via our children. This is a humbling phenomonon, that comes as our prodigy, go out into the world and become interesting people. More interesting, alarmingly so, even then us!

Mr Nielson does so like to hang out with young people, thus confirming the benefits of marrying young, and fathering children whilst still 'wet behind the ears'. I on the other hand, am quite happy to stay home and let the children run wild, while I read a good book.

Thank goodness for Mr Nielson.

Afrika burns is an off-shoot of The Burning Man festival, that started out in 1989 on a small beach in San fransisco and became an annual event taking place in the Black Rock Desert attended by tens of thousands. It is primarily an art event creating a blank canvas, on which a community of festival goers can share and express themselves. It is a non-vending event so you take all your provision with you, from food, shelter and water to toilet paper and refuse removal.

The site is so vast that it is advised you bring a bicycle to get around from one installation to another.

The South African festival takes place in the Karoo, a semi-arid, dry and flat terrain hostile even to sheep! Festival goers are encouraged to make themselves useful, by volunteering to assist those who are building huge art installation, and things to burn. Spectators are not welcome. You are instructed to create, particpate or gift in whatever way you can.

.

My friend Cathy, is planning to make a huge coloured sand mandala. Another plans to 'wipe people's fears away' by setting up blackboards on which they can write down their fears for her to wipe off! Mr Nielson better known as Sid, wants to take his drums with to create a drum circle for people to join.

On the other hand, this all looks like a lot of work. We will have to purchase some new camping equipment, so it will be expensive. There will be no toilets. No showers. No take-outs! And as for the bicycle, I blush to admit this, but I don't know how to ride one.

There may also be, some very drugged up people.

And naked ones.

As we like to say ( tongue in cheek) under such circumstances; 'It's not for jews!'

But then again... maybe it is....

I'll keep you posted!

xxxx

elle

Graffiti without the jailtime.

It's so interesting to observe how instinctive the human need is to leave our mark wherever we go.

Trees with lovers names carved into their stately trunks, subway walls daubed with anti social slogans and urban buildings amplified by street art. Evidence of our 'being here' is everywhere.
I have found boulders on the beach still scrawled with the names of errant bathers, and even the famed balcony from which Juliet once called to Romeo in Verona is now a scribbled mass of romantic yearnings.

These lovely notebooks from the. com are the perfect opportunity to express that urgent need without defacing a city near you!

CBIHATEPERFUME

I am loving these perfumes found on CBIHATEPERFUMES:

This little alchemy smells of 'smoked indian ink, bergamot and the hint of shelves full of books.'

This one is described as 'smelling like the salty breath of the mediterranean, drfitwood, rocks covered with seaweed and the smell of old leather suitcases.'



If you had to conjour up your own signature scent what would yours contain? I know mine would include: the warmth of a babies' breath after feeding, potato plants caught on the breeze as you drive through the bush, a whiff of spilt petroleum, burnt toast and the smell of Newlands forest after early morning rain...

Hear ye, hear ye!

So this is how it goes on a dark day. with the roof down for all to see, and the world a whirling dervish sulking at the moon. Small talk at the table. The slur of discontent. And a frown botoxed away, by vanity alone. Coveting. Feeling the small spite of denial. All these things baying for attention, burdening you down.

The Yetzer Rah, where once it called to Adam, in the guise of a serpent tempting him towards the tree of good and evil, now sits too easily within. Where once it was from outside of ourselves that confusion came, now in the admixture of right and wrong it resides as close as our skin.

Instead. It is that small voice of reason, our conscience that calls from the outside now, begging to be heard. The voice of the ego is so loud in us, it all but drowns out the sigh of the soul. Goodness and mercy.

I mean this much less dramatically.

It is the New Year.

Rosh Hashana. How lucky we are to be reminded, and to honour this revolution, not with a drunken countdown but with a careful, measured prayer...

West Wind by Mary Oliver

You are young. So you know everything. You leap into the boat and begin rowing. But listen to me. Without fanfare, without embarrassment, without any doubt, I talk directly to your soul: Listen to me, lift the oars from the water, let your arms rest, and your heart, and heart's little intelligence, and listen to me. There is life without love. It is not worth a bent penny, or a scuffed shoe. It is not worth the body of a dead dog nine days unburied. When you hear, a mile away and still out of sight, the churn of the water as it begins to swirl and roil, fretting around the sharp rocks - when you hear that unmistakable pounding - when you feel the mist on your mouth and sense ahead the embattlement, the long falls plunging and steaming - then row,

row for your life toward it.

By Mary Oliver

500 Pencils Project

25 coloured pencils!

Delivered to you every month, until you have the full collection of 500!

Imagine a month just for green.

Green tea with mint, a freshly mowed lawn, the tiny sprigs of new leaves after rain. Moss. The swimming pool, left unchecked for a day or two. Peas. Granny smith's in an emerald glass bowl and a string of jade on a khaki cloth. Cough syrup. The tennis court. Frogs in ponds. Broccoli. Kermit. And the sticky, deep green of the Newland's Forest.

Then there's blue...

via altruism in the morning

You gotta love her...

Don't you just love this woman?

Miyuki Hatoyama.

The wife of the premier in waiting to Japan, has traveled in a spaceship to beautiful, very green lands. She is fond of the actor, Tom Cruise who 'was Japanese in a previous life' and with whom she hopes to make a movie. Tom would, of course recognise her if they met.

Most importantly, she opens her mouth wide, spreads her arms high and looking up, 'eats the sun, yum, yum, yum.'

There is hope for the world after all!