‘It doesn’t interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up, after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone, and do what needs to be done to feed the children.
It doesn’t interest me who you know or how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the center of the fire with me and not shrink back.
It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you, from the inside, when all else falls away.
I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.’
This is the last of three posts during my break this summer which combines the profound words from the beginning of ‘The Invitation’ by Oriah Mountain Dreamer with pictures from a beautiful calendar which our company gave out many years ago. It features watercolours of lives during the Viking Age. Never having the heart to throw away the calendar I welcome the opportunity to show these images here accompanied by the inspiring words of Oriah, who I recently came across here on WP. Since I am just back from my long visit abroad, I am at last connected to wifi and look forward to your comments about this series of posts, words and pictures. Wishing you all a very Happy Sunday!
‘It doesn’t interest me if the story you are telling me is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself; if you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul; if you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy.
I want to know if you can see beauty even when it’s not pretty, every day, and if you can source your own life from its presence.
I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand on the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, “Yes!”’
This is the second of three posts during my break this summer which combines the profound words from the beginning of ‘The Invitation’ by Oriah Mountain Dreamer with pictures from a beautiful calendar which our company gave out many years ago. It features watercolours of lives during the Viking Age. Never having the heart to throw away the calendar I welcome the opportunity to show these images here accompanied by the inspiring words of Oriah, who I recently came across here on WP. I’ve turned off comments for this post.
This is the last in a series of Bert Håge Häverö (Swedish artist 1932-2014) paintings which I will feature during my holiday break this Easter. These delightful photographs were taken from our company calendar which we gave out to customers many years ago. Never having the heart to throw our copy away I came across this recently and wanted to share the beauty he saw of the Swedish landscape and people. Accompanying the paintings will be various quotations /sayings/poems that have inspired me or touched my spirit. Comments have been turned off for this post.
‘When I am feeling dreary, annoyed, and generally unimpressed by life, I imagine what it would be like to come back to this world for just a day after having been dead. I imagine how sentimental I would feel about the very things I once found stupid, hateful, or mundane. Oh, there’s a light switch! I haven’t seen a light switch in so long! I didn’t realize how much I missed light switches! Oh! Oh! And look — the stairs up to our front porch are still completely cracked! Hello cracks! Let me get a good look at you. And there’s my neighbor, standing there, fantastically alive, just the same, still punctuating her sentences with you know what I’m saying? Why did that bother me? It’s so… endearing.’
Amy Krouse Rosenthal (1965-2017)
‘Reading it that evening was like having someone whisper to me, in elongated Germanic sentences, all the youthful affirmations I had been yearning to hear. Loneliness is just space expanding around you. Trust uncertainty. Sadness is life holding you in its hands and changing you. Make solitude your home.’
This is the second of three posts on Bert Håge Häverö (Swedish artist 1932-2014) paintings which I will feature during my holiday break this Easter. These delightful photographs were taken from our company calendar which we gave out to customers many years ago. Never having the heart to throw our copy away I came across this recently and wanted to share the beauty he saw of the Swedish landscape and people. Accompanying the paintings will be various quotations /sayings/poems that have inspired me or touched my spirit. Comments have been turned off for this post.
‘I am lying on a hammock, on the terrace of my room at the Hotel Mirador, the diary open on my knees, the sun shining on the diary, and I have no desire to write. The sun, the leaves, the shade, the warmth, are so alive that they lull the senses, calm the imagination. This is perfection. There is no need to portray, to preserve. It is eternal, it overwhelms you, it is complete.’ Anaïs Nin
‘It is a silver morning like any other. I am at my desk. Then the phone rings, or someone raps at the door. I am deep in the machinery of my wits. Reluctantly I rise, I answer the phone or I open the door. And the thought which I had in hand, or almost in hand, is gone. Creative work needs solitude. It needs concentration, without interruptions. It needs the whole sky to fly in, and no eye watching until it comes to that certainty which it aspires to, but does not necessarily have at once. Privacy, then. A place apart — to pace, to chew pencils, to scribble and erase and scribble again.
But just as often, if not more often, the interruption comes not from another but from the self itself, or some other self within the self, that whistles and pounds upon the door panels and tosses itself, splashing, into the pond of meditation. And what does it have to say? That you must phone the dentist, that you are out of mustard, that your uncle Stanley’s birthday is two weeks hence. You react, of course. Then you return to your work, only to find that the imps of idea have fled back into the mist.’ Mary Oliver
The unexpected gift proffered in his hand is a single crocus, weak and weary after the stormy night, found forlorn on the sodden lawn, its stem and spirit broken by the might of the gusty gale.
With a tiny ‘ahh’ she reaches quickly forth and gently takes hold of the stricken flower, searching out a small glass and fills it with water. She places the crocus on the windowsill and waits.
Never a patient person she returns regularly until at last her administrations are rewarded with an admirable show, a spectacle of petals open to view, the blue purple streaks bold yet tender, the yellow stamen a glorious beacon of light, of warmth, a promise of Spring.
‘It was one of those March days when the sun shines hot and the wind blows cold: when it is summer in the light, and winter in the shade.’ Charles Dickens
The brevity of life is encapsulated in that single crocus as the next day she approaches the windowsill with fluttering expectation and finds the petals serenely closed, folded across each other into a perfect form, the sunshine within hidden, the petals virtually translucent. There is only a glimmering of the purple veins of life visible upon the parchment-like veil of petals.
By the evening the crocus clings limply to the glass surface, a striking green slime flourishing around the sad stem, the petals now shrunken and old, the straggly stem floating listlessly in the water. This particular augur of Spring decaying just as the crocuses outside are timidly reaching out from beyond the dark of the ground, their purple, yellow petals a bright sparkle to the winter still residing in the natural world. Onwards she strolls around the garden eyeing each new development, the buds on the buddleia, the daffodils tall and proud, their yellow trumpets safely ensconced in its tight wrap, the leaves of the tulips promising the red celebration later in Spring. Here, amongst the snowdrops the crocuses display shines strong. Welcome Spring!
From a young age we all strive to form friendships, to feel that special moment of ‘oh yes, you get me’ as kindred spirits meet, cautiously at first then unconsciously a life-long friendship is cemented. To have even one two o’clock in the morning friend, on whom to call without fear of disturbing in moments of need, fear, sadness or even celebration is a blessing indeed.
The subject of friends has been on my mind this week as a dear and very close friend celebrated her birthday. As I bombarded her email with birthday messages, some posted here today, the sentimental and poignant quotations struck a chord with me.
Only our truest friends know us to the core, the inner worries, the films and books that will bring us to tears of laughter. Only lifelong friends from young know the ‘whole’ us, events at school, childhood, teenage years that are so instrumental in forming the person of today. Only with them can you reminisce about the broken hearts of young love, the friendship breakups which cut so deep, the scars still raw.
As we exit what is hopefully the haven of home a cloak descends upon us – for better or worse. We can’t help it! In the midst of desperation, a smile will be plastered across our face as we greet others in the street, at work. In a snatched lunch hour an email full of your true feelings will be sent and soon the ping of reply from a good friend brings soothing comfort and support.
Friendships take many shapes and when young you believe friendship is one solely between peers. The sense of joy is overwhelming when you realise how short-sighted, how juvenile you’ve been and a close friendship strikes up between your parents and your more mature self, as a closer warmth and care for your grandparents develops and later you become aware that the security of friendship is found not only in platonic relationships but also in loving ones. This really does feel like hitting the jackpot!
Like relationships, friendships take work – hard work at times! Like relationships there can be break-ups, big ones that reverberate across a large group of people, as the ground shifts, old friendships crumble, new ones are formed. Unlike most relationships, friendships can be sustained for months, even years, with only remote contact – it is amazing how one can sense the others problems, call just at the right time, how easy it is to slot back into relaxed chat after a three-year hiatus apart and pick up the conversation as if from the day before.
The journey of life, with its highs of happiness and lows of loss and suffering, would be unbearable without the constant presence of friends – the shared expedition easing the load, doubling the joy.
As friendships take new format in the world of interconnectedness a new source of inspiration, support and sharing is created. Its warm glow a ray of sunshine and hope on the many bleak aspects of the internet.
So, to new friends here on WP, I ask you to join in a virtual celebratory toast to friendships everywhere!
The weather might not reflect it but summer is here! As usual I will be mostly awol from WP for a few weeks as I disappear to a part of the world untouched by the internet, wifi & TV (I know, unbelievably these places still exist!). I look forward to popping in at times when possible.
I wish you all a lovely peaceful summer. May it be a time for recuperation and soul-searching, may it be a time to reflect where you are today, where you want to be tomorrow. For everyone out there, writers, artists, poets, may your creative energy flow keenly. For some inspiration I am honoured to share Thalia’s Gust’s latest poem. May we all Brave that Canvas, notebook, document…to find the courage to CREATE.
Last week a friend sent me this photograph of their kitten Timmy! The image just spoke to me.
May we all reach out into each new day with the same inquisitive nature, stepping from the shadows into the sunlight, keen, eager to explore the day ahead.
Free of preconceptions.
May lightness fill our souls, may our senses stay alert and present as the thunder of our incessant minds find stillness and peace.
‘I am not my thoughts, emotions, senses, perceptions, and experiences. I am not the content of any life. I am Life. I am the space in which all things happen. I am consciousness. I am the Now. I am.’
A while back our village embraced the creative as we all went goose mad. Not the live ones, nor cooked ones, rather foot tall white polystyrene models. Hundreds of them!
Then the challenge was set – to decorate these as beautifully, unusually, imaginatively as possible.
Mummy Goose
The gauntlet was thrown down by a local artist who is active within the community and after organising numerous Scarecrow Trails she fancied doing something a bit different, something directly related to the village. In the Middle Ages, as geese were driven to London for the fairs, our village became an overnight stop for the travellers. In celebration of this the Goose Trail was born.
Prehistoric wild goose chase!
All school pupils, participating households and businesses were given their own goose to decorate. I believe the final number was close to 300!
Who would have guessed the artistic flair this project would unleash – puns abounded, fun and wit at every goose, ideas both crazy and topical. An absolute wonder of colour, delight and yes, creativity. I hope you enjoy the brief tour with me.
Goosey – The Cat Burglar
The British sea-side was celebrated in two installations – just one aspect was slightly wrong. Where’s that breezy, gusty wind that lifts the umbrella and sends it somersaulting down the beach!
Of course, football is hugely popular and there are many supporters locally of London-based team West Ham – known as the Hammers. I wonder how the geese are faring in this match?
The Cockney Geezers
There was an international flavour to some of the exhibits and I liked this French one …. Oh, I just wanted to stop for some bread, cheese and wine…
Sutton Honk – Raedwald The Goose
This one referred to Sutton Hoo which is one of the most magnificent archaeological finds in England and is nearby. It dates back to the 500 or 600 AD and in the undisturbed burial ship there was a wealth of beautiful and high quality artefacts including a suite of metalwork dress fittings in gold and gems, a ceremonial helmet, shield and sword, a lyre, and many pieces of silverware.
Sutton Hoo Ceremonial Helmet
A giant SpongeBob SquarePants graced one garden, cheekily chatting away to a goose with most unusual shaped eggs. Ouch.
Not to be outdone one household had a flair for mixing fairytales as they included their stalwart metal scarecrow.
Jack (this man) and the Beanstalk with the goose that laid the golden eggs.
This young goose was handsomely, meticulously turned out as a RAF officer – of course it can fly, it has wings!
The Top Gun display brought back great memories of seeing the film and particularly its initial dramatic moments.
Easter is soon upon us and in a few days I’m heading away to the peace and tranquility of the sea, lakes and forests of Sweden. We take this break every year and you can read a bit more about it here. I’ll pop into the blogging world when I get a chance, until then I wish you all a very Happy Easter – may calm, joy and peace be with you all.
Annika Perry 