Watching and listening

She edges across the Irish sky from the south west. Traveling on the wind, changing moment to moment. From first thing in the morning we wonder about what we are in for, what mood will our weather bring today.

Forming a boundary in our relationships, when we go beyond weather talk we are real friends. When we go beyond the comfort zone. Writing is like that too. Going down through the layers to share. Going deep sometimes, or reaching out beyond the barriers.

And when we ask how are you today of each other? Can we stand a gloomy weather report on our moods?  Can we listen to sadness and overwhelm, dark and deep thoughts, fear and disappointment?

Just like the skies that roll in minute on minute, night and day, we move and turn. I listen to these transitions everyday, the struggles of change, and seem to hold hearts in my hand while the weather rolls over, patiently waiting until the light returns.

And it does return every morning.







It's Mental Health Week 2013

It's one of those nights

It's one of those nights, summer turning to autumn, when the sun sends sideways glances at the earth and turns the day's heat into shades of pink and gold. We are walking on the cliffs at Garrarus and at each further climb towards the top field we stop and watch it disappear to the west.

The small details catch my eye but it is the larger sweep of things that I am more concerned about for once. Bits of me are blending into each other. Parts that have been kept hidden are bubbling to the surface. Work merges with life. Art merges with hope. While the light is fading on Ireland a ferocious determination is rising in me.

Rose tinted spectacles and all, I write three orders in my diary for September, Engage, Reach out, Enthuse.  The words come from somewhere, a powerful energy.

O I don't have all that lingo of dreaming and journeying, concepts in some foreign language, or maybe in code. I only have a simple phrase which says, life is short.

~Light and shade~

The light is different here. In the fields and forests around me in Ireland I am mostly under muted grey skies, downright dark grey skies and bleached out light grey skies. (I won't even start about the rain!)

Here in Australia while the sun is clear and strong, it is gone by 5.30, so from early afternoon shadows grow long and people move in and out of darkness. Everything flickers. The huge trees filter the changing light, and then suddenly it's dark.

I know there are so many iconic sights I could share today but instead I find myself looking at the light, seeking the light, forever mooching around in the small shadowy stuff. It's where I breathe.....




Written in Sydney last week.

~Transported by a plush French cafe~

Was it the purple upholstery or the gold painted furniture? Was it the light streaming in from the early morning Sydney streets? Was it the perfectly coiffed French waitress, all the way from Brittany? 

Whatever it was, the shadowy interior of this cafe transported me to where the coffee was perfect, the home made marshmallow "incroyable" and the city life fantasy complete. 

Just one cup of coffee in the right light in a plush French cafe. 

~ How to be a photographer ~

At first light, let the sounds and colours of the morning enter you. Rise when the animals take breakfast. Over coffee keep a steady hand on a long lens, chaffinches might be dropping by. Or go out into the frosty dawn, well wrapped up and remember your key this time!

At the peak of the day open the kitchen door and watch gulls rinsing their salty feathers in the pure lake waters. After a rain shower study bulging drops on twigs. Smell the sweet damp soil. Listen to the hail, how it hops off the gravel path. Wash the mud off your hands if you can't resist handling those wet stones.

Towards evening time let the fading light distract you from work, cooking or company and draw you yet again to the window or the roof top. During the darkest night sense the moon or the constellations. Is it going to be frosty or warm tomorrow? Keep some shoes close to the bed for emergency exits.

In winter follow the sun as it sets over the forest. In summer watch it move into the true west and sink behind the mountains. Track it, while monitoring the movements of the earth. Ponder her speed, flying through the universe.

Know the way light streams into the house at angles. Sit with the cat snoozing in each ray, following her from lap to sill. When the light catches a glass or the shadow of a chair falls on the rug, pay attention. Get close.

If there's a lemon in a bowl or a blue teapot, put it with a pink geranium on a green table cloth and snap it then and there. Cake is good but colour is even better and will sweeten your soul.

Most of all listen to the land. How it swells and ebbs throughout the days. How it warms and cools or sometimes rumbles in the night. How it questions you while holding everything still.

Photograph where you live and what you see. Your own trip, every day, every year, throughout your life. Be there with that camera in your hands.

Because this is the beginning of what I am learning about how to be a photographer and every other thing in life.......

~Myths, ransom and limits~

There's a bit of a warrior queen in me that wants to protect my creative space. If I could make a moat of distance between me and the world I would do it. Barricading myself into a turret room and staying there for as long as it took or until I was thoroughly weary of it.

I also know that no sooner had I closed the door, than I would weep for the loss of my life and I would tear my hair out for loneliness. Because I understand the curse of having all the time in the world and no excuses left to fall back on. But for now I rest in this confusion, leave the door ajar and continue to juggle.

I've been reading an ancient myth about Demeter and Persephone. Persephone must taste first the sweet and then the bitter juice of the pomegranate seeds which she could not resist eating in the wintry underworld. The up and down side of every decision. Her deal with Hades was that she would always return to his dark place for a third of each year. For the rest of the time she would be liberated and reunited with her beautiful mother nature, Demeter. 

These seeds and the ransoms women pay are on my mind.

Which deal must I make now? Either the one to close the door or the one to return to the light? There is always some price and even though I know that winter always returns, I want to deny it. So how do I get the balance right? 

By coincidence (or not) I met a writer on the road and I told her the story. Do you know what she said? "But it's only for one third of the year that Persephone had to endure the underworld. Is that not a pretty good deal?"

And I laughed, because yes, our lives are a big improvement on enslavement or going down the mines, and this is the same argument I use myself, all the time. I am always grateful. But if women's own creative soul had never been denied to us, if patriarchy had never dominated the world, if we were permitted to dream, would we be satisfied with any bargain that did not offer us FULL power?

Studying this myth is a rich source for delving into these questions. It is  challenging the limitations that always draw me back into the service of others and away from a personal path.......

If you are interested you can read more here Myth of Persephone

Also posted here on Vision and Verb a global gathering of women

Always an apprentice

 

Are we always beginners? I remember setting a goal to try blogging for three years. Now two thirds of the way there, am I getting somewhere?

The inspiration was to have an online studio, a sacred sharing space for an aspiring light seeker. A soothing cushion between a harsher world that any introvert would prefer to avoid. Time out to listen to the voice that comes from a calmer place, urging quietly; create, have courage, go deeper.

Aspiration, from the latin "to aspirate, breathe life into." And that's what is needed to continue at all, a pledge to apprenticeship and artisanship. To always be the vulnerable student, the breathy beginner.

An apprentice light seeker, inwardly and outwardly, strengthened every day by creative practice and soul searching. Juggling the paying of bills and reaching for the stars. Getting through the darker days as opportunities in Ireland recede and recede........Taking a deep breath, diving even deeper than before. And rising to the surface with small treasures to share.

If you are beginning......make space for a voice that will soothe and invigorate. Call it a blog if you must......you might end up listening to yourself and believing what you hear......





Note: The Foxglove Lane blog began in February 2011. See the first ever post Raining cats and dogs here. It took 2 months of blogging before there was even a single comment!

Inside looking out and outside looking in

Images can be a combination of reality and reflection. In this case the inside and the outside of my house, through a window.

The window glass interacts with the main protagonists; me, the lens and mother nature. And light, the secret ingredient, does it's own thing.....

Mysterious moments like this come and go, recorded and observed from all kinds of angles. Instagramed, blogged and tweeted.

But when you are there in that moment, the evening sky enfolds the land.  Even small birds sit and stare in wonder, and you just have to succumb.  Light becomes the only reality, reflected or otherwise.........and then suddenly it is gone again......

An encounter with a dragon

I crashed into the week with news of an unexpected piece of work which was urgently required but at the very same time an old slain dragon (one I thought had long been put to bed) suddenly erupted into fiery form and whacked me over the head with it's tail!!!

In no time there I was in the eye of yet another storm, face to face with the protagonist. I talked to myself.......... stay calm, listen, hold the line, you know what's right here..........I then wedged myself between the dragon and the mouth of the cave...........he breathed heavily..........

I noticed there wasn't too much flame..........I saw a way through.

"I'm on my own here now but there are dozens more like me coming" I roared "they are on their way now, you'd better believe me!" This was the closest I have ever come to making any kind of threat.

I saw a moment where he looked tired, his life flashed before him, he was listening........he stumbled.......he began to consider an easier option.......I have seen this look before. It happens just before an agreement is clinched, before a compromise is reached, before a dragon backs down.........

But there is always one more sting in the tail and I waited and waited, while the dragon thrashed around in the cave.......then it came at last, a final snarl. I turned my head towards the light. In the distance I saw the sun coming up at the edge of the forest.........it's sunbeams highlighted my way through.............the bellowing would stop very soon if I could hold out......

Then it happened, he faltered, slouched and there was a huge rumble as he collapsed on the cave floor spent and old. Dust rose, cleared and then silence.

For now it was time to return home, job done.

This was no triumph. There would be no celebration. As I set out on the journey back my feet would barely lift from the ground. I could only smell the heat of the battle. My head hurt.

In the forest, the light grew and the green wood filled me with damp mossy thoughts. The beauty of the world. The goodness of people, the sweet smiles of my loved ones. And that soft light and squishy path lifted my spirits just enough to remember that I would never fully harden to the world in spite of it's darkness. And anyway, here I was on my way home.

The light of new possibilities.....

The word for 2013 is light.

It opens my heart to the light in photography which I am learning is the very essence of it; to the lightness of footprint on the planet which I hold dear; and to the light of new possibilities.

From Monday morning work gets back to normal and the day job continues to throw up even more challenges than usual. At times like this the word work just feels too hard.....

So after some thought, I've decided to re-name my work, "creating possibilities."

Why? Because like so many people, I work all the time now. It is not something separate any more. Creating possibilities is a full on, full time, waking, sleeping, eating, drinking way of life. Freud said that the two most important things in life are love and work, or in my case love and creating possibilities. And now I know, maybe for the first time, that this is true for me.

Creating possibilities is what I do. Listening, learning, creating, holding and moving forward......every day.

So for 2013, light is my guide and creating possibilities is my world. Armed with the courage of January optimism I am in "bring it on" mode........ for now at least!!

Light

The sun shone on Christmas Day and beamed long rays of golden light into the house. The slow unfolding of the meal, the unwrapping of gifts, the popping of corks seemed more relaxed and cheery this year. At it's heart these 12 days are a hibernation away from the world, some solace in the darkest part of winter.

The voices that surrounded me were clear and true. Almost upbeat. A sense of turning the corner.

During the dark hours of the last week I stole time and tried to reflect on the transition to the New Year, 2013. Last year I dipped my toe into so many new things. My word for 2012 was EXPAND. Normally fairly cautious, somehow through selecting this word, I gave myself permission to dabble and dream a bit more than usual....

My word for 2013 is LIGHT and I notice already a clearer focus on what is important and what is not in my struggle to survive economically and spiritually. For that will be the challenge for most Irish people as we try to stay afloat while at the same follow our own individual stars...

When I am living with close family and friends it becomes impossible to write or take photographs. I am torn between the practice and the laughs! So although I will miss their presence and colour, I am also looking forward to that little bit of magic, just me, the camera and the light.

Returning to the sound of my own beating heart. The mystery of being here at all. The beauty of the ordinary.

Did you chose a word, set an intention, make a resolution, would love to hear about it, and if you have blogged about it please share a link?



Also posted here on Vision and Verb a global collaboration of creative women

The sea will have that effect........

I went down to the shore for the shortest time, the wind blew the cobwebs from my mind and I remembered my purpose. This next year 2013 will be precious the sea said to me. And somewhere in that preciousness is my purpose it seems.

The light circled on her breaking waves, although the sky was overcast and dark. The swelling surf roared and foamy breakers rushed onto the shore. My sister pointed her camera in every direction. Just seeing the sea made us both happy.

I remember every summer rushing with open arms into her embrace. That same vast ocean. Saying, I love you!! I am still here. You are too powerful to try to understand, so is everything. But I don't even care!!!

The sea will have that effect.......