So, so weird

There they are, my astounding smiling boys! Though their faces are far from like this all the time! butyou give them the right chances and the smiles make it all worthwhile.



Walking to the park today, in the cool of the morning, as the sun began to heat away the cloud cover in amazing patterns, I was suspended again in the strangest sensation...something BIG is coming.



I wondered with a friend the other evening if it is because I see the same patterns as when I last returned to Brighton in 1990 to find half the town centre shops closing down. I see the empty shops locally gradually increasing in numbers...the usual turnover of new businesses already slowed...and the new cafes ,that all sprung up in the years I was away this time, all shortening their hours...trying to find trade between them in the Monday to Friday week.



I noticed two more closed shops on the way to the sunshine park this morning...and one whole office building.



Somehow all the sunshine and playing seemed a bit strange in juxtaposition to the shops and the 35% increase in British Gas prices this week...



And still the sensation underneath is something BIG is coming...My mind asks if I'm prepared, and my body sends it's wave of peace leveling a solid foundation to stand on amidst changes...I know all is good.



BIG can be good.

One of the pretty shops locally!

Playing with water.

I've been playing with water again...and watercolour, pens and pencils...I like how everything becomes so random trying out new things. Unpredictable.

Monkey's Birthday

The camera used isn't good enough for this to be excellent...but I'm loving the sunshine/glass/ rain combination caught here.

Little people

Little people just look so little sometimes! Blink and you'll miss him!

And they definitely look way too little to just to go wandering off, climbing ladders, clambering across planks between two drops, and taking off down the slide without a care for Big people's heart rates.

MESS!

I've been wasting time trying to create something to save time....I just have a headache instead...

There are aspects of my life that are consistently like being trapped in some strange (frustrating!) dream. The fact is that I have too much stuff, physically, mentally, virtually, emotionally...too much stuff.

I once spent a month repeating a daily meditation of creation...I had to imagine my own workspace and create a lotus in a different way every day in my mind for 15 minutes. I painted them, made them from paper, made them from glass, made them from fabric...even made them from heated polystyrene food trays...toward the end of the month I had a huge joyous sense of presence with me in my workshop, barely made my lotus and just danced ecstatically around in my mind.
At the end of the month I got to meet one of my guides...off I headed (in my mind) to my joy filled workshop, only to be stopped at the door and gently told that I no longer needed to keep trying to create beauty out of rubbish and dross.

I still fill my life with it though...anything and everything that I can create with, paint on, or is some sort of possible pretty ingredient...or base...or frame...or household article...

Off to keep trying to find some beautiful, efficient, freeing solutions.

Today

Life is overflowing with joy and with lessons...


Sometimes I am not sure if I turn to the lessons instead of accepting the joys on offer...

I wondered for a moment then if I avoid lessons in the name of joy and pleasure...but it instantly stuck me how impossible it is for that to be true.

It depends on what I choose to learn...

perhaps that is what I am being asked to think about carefully at this point...Something is about to give.

Remember

Everything you have done
amazes me
you've already taken steps
your heart sang to you
and as you follow
the tune whispering
in your chest
every step
will bring you closer
and closer to me

with gentle huge abandon
you have taught me
most beautiful truths
and my heart aches
from seeing your beauty

I love you

Sleepy

Life asks us constantly, in a million ways a minute, whether we want to open more, whether in this moment we are willing to change even slightly and grow through the process.

I'm just momentarily wondering whether the effort required to ignore / squash/ abandon/ deny/ not notice, is exactly equal to the effort required to allow / make the change.

Am I afraid to choose change for fear of becoming too fluid? Yeah that would make sense...

I used to do this on faith, this is where my faith lies, somewhere in the process of life, in surrendering to the fluid changes of existence.

In this moment the answer seems obvious, that in truth the effort required to not change is hugely greater than the effort required to surrender to change.

A million ways a minute...how wonderful would that be!

I think it's finished!

Which is more than I can say for transferring the old poetry pages!
If you reading this on Blogger or livejournal then the new links below work...however myspace listed my links as naughty pages(!) ...even I don't think the poems are that bad!

To top off the hours I had last night of trying to get the posts in order (on ning if you edit a post the time of the post changes) I realised today that I had copied all the pages from a site closing on july 24th, to one being moved on July 31st! So I shall still have to back them up just in case as well.


It's all learning!

And I've started a new picture.

And I'm going to the cinema tomorrow.

And it's a sunny Sunday evening.

And I spoke to my dad tonight.

Life is good.

Big kiss.

Poetry links

The lines/poetry links in the previous entries should all become live over the next few hours...

But I shall be asleep...attempting to dream about gorgeous squashy people that I love, rather than edit entry, edit entry, edit entry!

Big kisses

Openheart

Let each
New day
Freshly given
Be filled
With joy
Exploration
And gratitude
As we choose

Openspeak

there's hope
that love
and prayers
remain clear
with expression
but truth
is changed
with words

openshadows

sometimes
truth lies
deep inside
the darkest
space
the place
not touched
or witnessed

Schmod and boasas

I love going off to this little irreverent story by Hellosam on live journal every now and then...it makes me laugh each time I read it.

Schmod

Other times I need a giggle I go here...


Boasas

:)

mixed media mess

Mixed media doodles!
This is what would happen if I had an art journal, except just like all the other doodling I do it's fairly big...I'd need a huge book!
In fact compared to pencils, as soon as paint hits the page I feel like it needs to be even bigger to let the shapes come out un-crowded. I'm hoping to do a collaborative piece, with a young friend, for my first foray into acrylics...one or two 4ft canvases or peices of wood to perhaps remain in the garden.
I'm not especially happy with these, but I'm learning how to play with water. And make a mess!

progress

Okay, still working on the poetry pages, and the tags come to think of it!, but at least I'm working on some pictures as well...though losing faith a bit again today. This one looks better in person, but it's the first time I've used a reference photo I'm a little less happy with while trying to come up with a picture I am happy with...it's a good process, eventually I shall become less and less dependent on photos (hopefully).
I almost abandon this at the stage below...having persevered it's given me hope that I might be able to return to the last one, which I did abandon!

I've been messing about with multi media as well...pics later.

Big Kiss

To link to

c'mon c'mon c'mon.

I'm really not sure at which point everything became so foggy and unfocused but I'm here to say GET A WIGGLE ON!!!

I need to pour a big glass of nice cool water through my brain and then dry it out in a fresh wind tunnel.

I think I've been eating too much rubbish again.

Grrrr

I've been trying to transfer the old poetry here...Huge resistance, HUGE!
Really not sure what to do next.

Poetry warning

I have just discovered that on 27th of July the old mysites from wanadoo/orange are being replaced...I have three old sites of poetry and am not up for creating whole new sites for them, so here is where they will end up.

Rather than have all 24 pages in a row I shall be attempting to place eight on each blog ( blogspot/livejournal/myspace) and interlinking them with one another with rescue links at the bottom of each page so you can return to your usual home.

Hmmmm, I guess that makes it tag time too...I haven't used tags yet on any of the blogs as I didn't understand them at the beginning...so I shall take this up-heavel time to do the lot together.

See you in a year or so?!

Such a gift on strange days

There are many distractions to use on strange days, eating, tidying drawing, laundry, clearing out cupboards...but these distractions are accompanied by the inescapable sensation of strange in my stomach.


There are fewer ways to untangle strange sensation, my favourite being Mark lovingly telling me that I am strange, so feeling it makes perfect sense, and something in that rings true enough for me to let it wonderfully be. Another way is to doodle , great big whatever colour happens doodles, until words and phrases spring to the page to let my strangeness be out there in front of me, wonderful, colourful, vibrant and beautiful truth. And lastly, the gift that is the internet...where people blog their own beautiful truth. Lale truth.


Today is one of those days, full of colour and feelings and I'm reminded of how lucky we are to have this wonderful web of possible connections...How lucky we are to find openess and gifts of everday shared.


I rarely watch television nowadays, I have the occasional day or three of immersing myself in it's light, channel hoping slouched on a sofa...passively letting in images, ideas and sometimes enriching stories... I find familiar faces there and amazing sights and scenery so many miles from myself that I'm likely to never see them in person...but on the internet I can chat and offer, and usually just by clicking a couple of extra links, find an open gate into someone's garden of thoughts and I feel a strong sensation of friendship, kinship.


I've been wondering whether over time this will translate more and more into our everyday world...in the same way that having a strong sense of foundation from home or family gives us confidence in life to go out and be involved, will our sense of connectedness and kin-ship from reading thoughts across not only physical distance but time, bring us eventually to the same confidence?


I no longer feel strange when I read the same senses of beauty and awe in other peoples words.

Obscura and obscura!

Today was a stunning and amazing day full of treasures...from a wonderful lie-in to spending the afternoon with a gorgeous friend planning future nights out. Watching the Doctor Who series finale (excellent and beyond) and this afternoon my bedroom turned into a camera obscura complete with cars driving across my ceiling!

I've lightened the images here so thet are easier to see. It was beautiful...I love light.

Flowertastic Wednesday Walk

found it lost it

I've been fairly convinced in the last few weeks that my 'discovered' ability to draw better than I thought was shortlived...actually managing to completely ruin a portrait for the first time...( I suspected I was capable of that!)

So I'm sketching and practicing and hoping for improvement...the portrait thing has become something in and of itself...I'm not sure if it's just very addictive in some way, or if I've found a bit of a 'my thing'...but it's what I want to improve at, and I actually found myself saying to someone, quite honestly, that I DO portraits. THAT is not a 'me thing' at all! I'm the permanantly unqualified 'I dabble' kind of woman, even after years of experience and/or training...

we'll see

Big kiss

A big sketch of our eldest