A bouquet of roses in the tulip garden

Champagne is being served in the tulip garden. Just before the happy couple make an appearance they pause for a moment at the door. He holds the bouquet of roses while she takes an elegant swig from a glass. The dress is smoothed, he gives her the flowers, she takes her courage in her hands and then they descend the steps.

I go about my day in Dublin and when I return to the hotel late that night I find myself stepping into the lift with the same bride. The two of us chat. She is exhausted. I admire her dress. She has slipped off her shoes and has them in her hand.

First thing next morning I think about the young widower Tom Meagher, waking up yet again without his love. He has just given his first TV interview in Ireland since the murder of his wife Jill in Melbourne. There are no words.

Behind Tom's sad eyes is a determination to make some good come of it, and there's a growing support team here to help him address and end men's engrained violence against women. Want to join us?


Text White Ribbon to 50300 or donate on www.whiteribbon.ie

I give them the moon and a white ribbon.......

This is a guest post I wrote for Vision and verb shortly after the very sad murder of Jill Meagher in Melbourne. This month Tom Meagher, Jill's widower has become an advocate for the Irish White Ribbon Campaign. Tom has been writing about his experiences here on the White Ribbon Blog, it is both a chilling story and a powerful piece of writing. To support their work I am reposting this today and if you want to support them you can donate here




It's October and the evenings are drawing in. Like thousands of other Irish parents my sons are surfing under Australian blue skies, drinking coffee in the street cafes of Berlin or taking classes in a New York film school. Spreading their wings while I follow their adventures from my perch on the hill.

Tonight the random rape and murder of Jill Meagher in Melbourne, 12,000 miles from home weighs heavily on me. The fragility of life and the grief of others has stopped me in my tracks. My sorrow now is for her husband Tom, her father and mother, for the friends out there. How could this man, the perpetrator, be so isolated and cut-off from any sense of reality or care, to inflict such pain?

Most days in the grassy wetlands I head out alone with my camera to meet up with one of my best teachers and collaborators, Mother Nature. It's late now but still I pound up the hill towards the forest, muttering to myself about the world, about the fear. I don't pray but I carry all the young emigrants in my heart as I walk the land. I carry their questions and their anger.....

To the west the sun is setting and to the east the moon is rising. I am reminded of other nights when I travelled the world myself. When I slept under the stars in the Black Forest in Germany and a moon just like this one hung over it like a Max Ernst painting. When I wept with frustration at having no where to sleep in Paris until a kind Jesuit found me a room. When I travelled by subway in NY chewing gum as a strategy to look tough, the most innocent looking pale faced girl on that train. 

And here, with one foot in a rural haven and one foot in the global chaotic melting pot, with questions, confusion and anger whirring.......this moon soothes and distracts. Before long I am reaching for the camera,  besotted by the sky, engrossed in the tranquility.

As I walk home thinking about them all wherever they are tonight. I imagine them under this clear sky with the chubby clouds. And then I close my eyes and with all my heart I give them the moon............

Finding portals

Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark in the hopeless swamps of the not-quite, the not-yet, and the not-at-all. Do not let the hero in your soul perish in lonely frustration for the life you deserved and have never been able to reach. The world you desire can be won. It exists.. it is real.. it is possible.. it’s yours.

~ Ayn Rand

Are you drawn to windows, portals, arches, and alleyways?  I am and wonder if it's the quality of light filtering through or if it's the promise of something?  Looking for how light is reflected, how the sun sets in the glass, what other images are captured there by the window lenses. It is an escape into a visual fantasy world. 

Along this Pilgrimage route and away from my usual surroundings there are new perspectives on photography to be discovered; looking up, out, in, down, around, between, beneath. Exploring all the possibilities and at a faster city pace. Immersed in Rome!

Photography has brought soulfulness acutely to the fore in my life and I want so much to believe Ayn Rand's words; the world you desire can be won......it exists.....it is real......it is possible......it is yours. 

It is right here everyday whenever I look through a lens......

Breakfast with a leveret and a pair of thrushes

Our young hare or leveret

One thrush stands guard

A small nap during breakfast

First shot of the thrush sitting on her nest

Every morning the young writer and myself have breakfast with the current neighbours. We enjoy watching the leveret, now weaned and left to his own devices. We used to joke about making a pet of him, especially my other half who secretly left carrots out for him!! Today the young writer remarked that he really is a pet already and you will see from his mid breakfast snooze that he is quite at home here in front of the kitchen window! 

This morning was especially exciting as for the first time a pair of thrushes have taken up residence in our bay tree. We have been watching them setting up home, one stands guard while the other works hard flitting backwards and forwards...too fast to capture.

Today I realised that I can see right into the nest.  If I get down on the kitchen floor, and use my longest zoom lens I can see her outline just sitting there. This is the very first blurry photo taken just now.......look very closely........ 

But sadly I have no time to linger and must get to work. Hopefully there will be more photos to follow! 

April hedgerows

Bumble bee

Gorse

Violet

Blackthorn blossom

Ladybird

Herb Robert

Primrose

It's three years now since I started this blog. One of my earliest posts was a photograph of creamy Blackthorn blossoms on the ditch. Today just a short walk up the lane reveals again the quiet beauty of our wildflowers. While the coconutty gorse dominates and is blooming all over the hill, along the ditches there are small splashes of colour. Getting in closer (some of these are really tiny) there are ladybirds competing for space along the grassy highway, and bees busily buzzing.......

Take a deep breath, spring is here, summer is just around the next corner, and creamy blossoms are still as good as it gets........

There are some more Irish Wildflower images here

Seeking the feminine #Pilgrimage ~ April

The city of Rome is a masculine environment. The might of the Basillicas of both Ancient Rome and Vatican Rome, the heroic figures in the sculptures of the Piazza Navonna and the Trevi Fountain. The strong backs of suited men drinking espressos at cafe counters in the early morning. Rome has a magnificent male energy which I'm sure is soaked up in litres by the beautiful sallow skinned male population of Italy.

So I went looking for the feminine.  

And I couldn't resist the beauty, the softness and the quietly subsumed presence of the feminine, always there under the surface. It's in the beauty of the young women riding bicycles through the narrow streets; in the clusters of religious women on their way in and out of churches; in the many images of the Madonna reverentially adorned with lighted candles and spring flowers and in the amazonian women represented in the mosaics of the Colosseum. 

Maybe the prominence of the masculine is all about looking back, while the influence of the feminine belongs to the world of the future? A world we are yet to fully imagine, where all that is now hidden is revealed. This is where women have often struggled; managing the balancing act between the artistry of our comfort zones of quiet knowledge, with the public world of engagement and power. 

Just before we left Rome, on our last legs from another meandering hike through the streets, we sat admiring four women holding up a beautiful fountain. Unlike many of the androgenous angels, they were female for sure!  And I couldn't take my eyes off them; their resilience, their quiet endurance, their unassailable beauty. 

Today as I look out at this Irish Spring, I know why we rest so easily in the reflections of water splashing in the puddles of April showers; why we will sit and meditate for hours on a drift of daffodils; why we are not always ready to take on the patriarchy at full tilt; how we are going about it all in a more knowing and quiet way.

And as the girl threw her coin in the Trevi Fountain and made a wish, I wondered if she knew all that too?




See more images from Rome here

Seeking light in Rome #Pilgrimage~ April

I skip the Pope's house this time. I am always cautious not to disrespect another's idea of beauty or religion, all I know is that I would never find light there. In the midst of droves of pilgrims making their way to the Basillica of St. Peter's I am as usual walking in the opposite direction, towards the pagan past.

I diverged from Catholicism when my father sent me to discuss my Easter Duty with the parish priest. Although they exerted great pressure I wouldn't come up with any interesting sins and refuted the idea of a 16 year old girl being forced to confess for some arbitrary feast day. I explained to the priest that people were basically good and anyway I had done nothing wrong...... 

Some how through steadfast argument I got away with it and never looked back. Instead I moved over to mystery as the only possible conclusion about life, death and who made the world. I fell in love with mother earth, constellations of stars, and the beauty of it all. I suppose I'm a kind of aesthetic/humanist if a label is ever needed.

That being said, I still harbour an appreciation of certain rituals and I especially love to indulge in candle lighting. These spaces where ordinary people are drawn to kneel are so full of hope in something magical and grander than ourselves. The congregation's collective adoration is soothing and healing. Throw in a bit of singing, some ethereal shafts of sunlight and I find myself connecting with something deep and unfathomable...... 

And as I say my own prayer wishing for strength and peace, my mantra for this pilgrimage is like a constant flickering flame ......seek light, embrace shade and live in glorious colour......



See the Pilgrimage Gallery here and the Rome Gallery here