A word for 2014.....#Pilgrimage

Ever since I began to toy with the word Pilgrimage (journey to a sacred place), as my word for 2014, I've been having the sweetest dreams. Walking between the villages of the Cinque Terre in North West Italy linked by a cliff path. Re-visiting a cottage in Donegal, where we once drank wine and danced wildly into the New Year. Moving my studio from a corner of an upstairs room into the heart of this house. This word Pilgrimage invites so many possibilities.

There is no journey to a place of holy significance or a sacred shrine in my visualisation. Maybe it's more about a spiritual path into the next decade? A journey of the heart and soul.  Making a shrine of daily life. 

It as a Pilgrimage inwards. A pilgrimage into the third age. A pilgrimage through living the dream of being an artist here and now, no more waiting. 

But there is one shadow that won't let up, there is never enough time, is there? Each new year is swallowed whole by responsibility, survival and attending to detail. Why would 2014 be any different? I will have to find enough hours in the day to close my eyes and make the necessary space. Can I do it?

Dream up your own perfect word for 2014 and then allow yourself to play with it......it can create a deep yet beautiful disturbance!

Easing softly into the frosty morning

On days like this I open the curtains slowly so as not to startle the neighbours. Sure enough, when I do,  there are five rabbits frolicking in the early morning frost just a few steps away.  A good start to Christmas morning, when I often remember the giddy excitement of my childhood. Today the magic is in this moment, in the simple everyday goings on of two families. One outside the window sniffing out green shoots, one tucked up in their beds; growing, changing, transitioning.

It's the best part of the day, this early coffee and toast, a private photo opportunity over breakfast. And even though they are men now, it is always the same when they sleep in this house, I have the illusion that they are protected and safe from harm. And especially at Christmas that dreams will come true.

This year in the space before the expectations set in, we made a joint decision that dreams are not necessarily made of gifts wrapped in packages or by playing happy families. We let each other off the hook. The perfect Christmas, the perfect day would be best if kept to a day like any other. One with love, peace and understanding, full of pleasure and freedom, a day of winter warmth inside while it freezes and storms outside.

And so here I am, easing softly into this frosty Christmas morning. Happy in these moments of calm and eager to experience a post Christmas, adults only alternative.  

In the bleak mid-winter

I've been laid up with a resistant bacterial infection which has made me housebound beyond even what I can bear. So photographing the view from the window is limited by the lens capacity and the increasing greyness of winter.....

I've amused myself by seeing how far I can reach from indoors. The sheep huddling under the hawthorn tree four fields away, swans flying by in the distant sunny sky, seagulls dipping in the fresh lake water for their spa day out. But it's losing it's charm and windy, drizzly weather has started to set in as it typically does around Christmas time.

In December even the most beautiful view can seem empty and forlorn. This carol with words by Christina Rossetti (1872) is my current favourite for feeling deep, mid-winterish and quiet.

Sometimes darker is better.......sometimes nostalgia is a cure......

 In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan,

     Earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone;

 Snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow,

            In the bleak midwinter, long ago.

Looking back on the light of 2013

My word for 2013 was light

The weather was beautifully frosty in early 2013

Micky Mac's house was finally sold

Australia proved to be a stunning part of the world

Dreaming through the eyes of Australian animals

Early morning web captures

Another little trip to London where one of my Shard images won a competition

O the pure joy of summer and Foxgloves!

The lower bog field turned into a fairy kingdom in July

Capturing the last rays of light each evening of summer

A special wedding in field in Waterford

Autumn sky from my desk

Taken on one of the many train journeys of the year

One of the joys of being a blogger is this record in images and words of each week of each month, of each year, three years of it so far. Although not fully explicit about events and emotions here, when I browse the photographs again I recall the events, memories and the feelings as if they were imprinted on my soul. As thousands of images pile up on the hard drive, I can always find a specific photo there based on this internal record of seasons and changes. (A proper filing system might be even better, ahem!)

I'm working away on this notion of how everyday observation deepens our experience of the world and our connection to it. Limited to a small patch of rural Ireland I have noticed how photographing the same things over and over again has opened up my ability to really SEE things. This kind of seeing involves looking outwardly and inwardly.

How does it manifest?

I'm guessing that being in the "zone" completely captures the attention allowing us to delve deeper and deeper.  That the lack of other distractions, the meditative effect of nature, the daily repetition all play a part in heightening awareness. Looking back on the 2013 when I chose the word "Light" as a guiding intention for the year, I began photographing light rather than the subject matter as such, and now a new set of seeing insights is flowing along as part of the practice......

Did you chose a word for last year? Did it influence how you lived out each day? How about taking time out to consider an intention for 2014?

Mulling over word concepts has already begun for 2014 and I'm coming down in favour of "Pilgrimage" excited about where that will bring me....... Deeper rather than further maybe?




For a free download guide on unravelling the year ahead  try this from Susannah Conway

The beating of wings

 It's usually early morning. A time when I am half asleep. A time when I am mulling over so many "important things". Maybe during breakfast, this is the moment when they decide to take flight.

First there is the unmistakable sound, the loud beating of wings. The start is a little clumsy as they raise their heavy bodies into the air. But then there is the soaring in formation, the circling of the lake, the striving towards the west.

I'm not sure where they go, another waterway in the area, a trip to the River Anne beside the sea? But at that moment when I grab the camera (if I'm timely) I feel like I become part of their story and their lives again. 


See the swans in love up close here
See their dawn embrace here
Swans and the Children of Lir legend here

Living in muted colour

The Rosebay Willowherb are at the end of this cycle. At their height they are pinker and deeper than a girly pink. In early autumn they go to seed in a fluffy fashion and by December they are gnarled fists of skeletal remains clinging to their stalks.

In clumps along the ditches, they mark time with me, and as I walk I begin counting back months and reliving my own year.

I started out 2013 seeking light. Throughout the year I embraced shade. In spite of everything I am living in colour! Albeit more muted.

A few photographic memories from 2013......

Relentlessly snowy Berlin .....in March

All bets are off the arrival of Spring......in April

A few postcards from Sydney.......in May

Foxgloves on the lane.....in June

Friendship at the edge of time; Kerry.....in August

One of those nights.......in September

Fodder for the soul

Are we sharing similar thoughts as we watch the cattle being fed? Fodder. Winter. Action.

The structure of everything is revealed by winter, so I am aware of this Robin following me. It's a territorial thing with Robins, they own the place. Making my way along the lane, he continually swoops on ahead always landing in full view on some perch or branch.

Letting me know who's cock of the walk.

As soon as I get closer, he's gone. Then, around the next bend, he twitches and chirps from the top of an improvised gate post brilliantly hewn from an old telegraph pole, the top of a clay jar , a piece of wire.

He's not the only one standing by agog. Other birds are gathering as the tractor arrives with this years silage. I know I say nothing much happens around here, but hey look at this, everything is going on today!

Lost in leafy light

Do you share a memory of lying under trees, watching the light flicker through the leaves? Did you throw yourself onto the grass and stare into the sky? Did you roll in leaves and kick them down the path on the way home from school, or half close your eyes to see faeries dancing between the branches and the sunlight?

Although Ireland should be covered in trees, outside urban areas the forests tend to be the monotonous evergreen pines planted all over Northern Europe. Sadly there is a lack of autumn glory in this part of the world, here autumn is over and winter has arrived.

But today under this rare group of copper beeches I revisited dreamy schoolgirl moments. Perhaps the world has enough photos of autumn leaves? What the hell, here are even more!

The cool balm of rain

Needing balm, something to soothe and cool, I turned again to the simple task of looking. Fired up and blasted off like a rocket that morning, by the end of the day I was dragging myself around.

Too many stories had caught my eye. There were so many burrows to explore. Strategies and crucial questions filled my brain. The simple task of looking would freeze the urgency.

The bracken still had tinges of green. The sky filled the frame with navy blue. Droplets held calm worlds within their lens.

Even now the smell of the earth and the undergrowth is a sweet memory that will get me through the busy days ahead.

Taking flight

The family of swans living on the lake are nurturing their fly-by skills at the moment. The resident small family also seem to be babysitting 5 extra cygnets for the last few weeks. Where have these new babes come from and why? I don't know.......

Every day they circle the lake in flight formation. I am usually so drawn to the sound of their wings and the power of this sight that I am too late with the camera, but will keep working on it!

As it happens there is a moody Swan Christmas Card for sale this year. This was a shot taken on dark November day last year. (A bit of poetic license was taken with the editing, unlike my usual naturalistic restraint and to be honest lack of photoshop skills!)


Feel free to have a browse my friends!