Pain and HMS

Pain and hypermobility syndrome. Very interesting! Especially the bit about dental anaesthetic not working properly...been there!

http://www.hypermobility.org/painandhms.php

Sunset

Sunset - Rainer Maria Rilke

Slowly the west reaches for clothes of new colors
which it passes to a row of ancient trees.
You look, and soon these two worlds both leave you
one part climbs toward heaven, one sinks to earth.

leaving you, not really belonging to either,
not so hopelessly dark as that house that is silent,
not so unswervingly given to the eternal as that thing
that turns to a star each night and climbs-

leaving you (it is impossible to untangle the threads)
your own life, timid and standing high and growing,
so that, sometimes blocked in, sometimes reaching out,
one moment your life is a stone in you, and the next, a star.

Scilly Isles

Wow. The Scilly Isles are incredibly beautiful. Can't believe I've lived so close to them for so long and yet never visited. Absolutely amazing. I'll definitely be going back...

Minack Theatre, set in the cliffs of Cornwall - Many a happy hour spent here...

Porthcressa Beach, St Mary's, Scilly

St Mary's Harbour, Scilly

St Michael's Mount, Cornwall

What's living in Cornwall like?

Well, in 20 words, just like this really...

"You shout and wave to someone in the cove, they wave back, and then you realise you don't know them"

 ~ Kurt Jackson

http://fag.looksystems.net/Exhibitions/2011/216~Kurt_Jackson_at_50

Bubble-wrap Rain

perched on a solitary leaf

the world gathers

all thoughts merge, concentrated

in the spheres of fresh rain

balancing their diamond scent on

the magnified cells below

seconds alone, maybe; yet

no space for other truths or quandries

one moment fully absorbed

and each day the seconds grow

open your eyes a little wider tomorrow

to the small, the beautiful, the overlooked

the sky is unbound, and it calls

Small is Beautiful

I'm juggling so many books at the moment, trying to pick ones that are completely different so that I can dip into each for a couple of chapters at a time and feel like I've only just started reading. Re-reading Schumacher's Small is Beautiful last night, I remembered how much I loved some of the chapter openers - I love the confidence he had in putting forward his opinion, even when it was one that contradicted so much economic thought at the time, and still now.

'The most striking thing about modern industry is that it requires so much and accomplishes so little. Modern industry seems to be inefficient to a degree that surpasses one's ordinary powers of imagination. Its inefficiency therefore remains unnoticed.'

Anyone that can consider industry and imagination in the same breath is alright by me. Good book.

Her Morning Elegance

Oren Lavie - Her Morning Elegance: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_HXUhShhmY

This is such a fantastic video - stop motion at its best. How long must this have taken to produce?! I love the creativity that's gone into it; the way it turns the simplest of things into something so graceful. It reminds me of the film The Science of Sleep by Michel Gondry which I haven't watched for ages. Thanks Dikla for nudging me in its direction!

In the blindness of shadows

In the blindness of shadows

I blink, heavy-lidded

As my clouded mind shuffles through the elements

Weary with the stream of troubles

That break their voices loud over each morn.

Where are the triumphs, the glories of innocent smiles?

If the silence of dawn could be splintered, but once

With a blissful victory.

Still, I dream.

A single candle-lit beacon to gleam on through the murky days

This pinprick of glimmering hope

For a philosophy, riding forth on the sunrise, reborn.

The Good Life

 Too stressed and fed up to concentrate on much at all yesterday so I resorted to gardening. Yes – if you know me and are reading this, that’s probably quite startling news, but it’s amazing the things you find yourself considering when you’re stuck at home day after day. I’ve put my past (and failed) greenfingered attempts behind me in a mission for vegetables.

 

So far, our garden already boasts salad leaves, carrots, onions and beans – none of which have been influenced by me at all. I’ve been put in charge of two things only, in hope of keeping at least one of them alive – beetroot and potatoes. I followed the rules of potatoeing so closely yesterday afternoon that I’m feeling very optimistic. Also had a wonderful post-gardening meditation, so maybe I should try this more often. Watch this space…

Neither Out Far Nor In Deep

The people along the sand
All turn and look one way.
They turn their back on the land.
They look at the sea all day.

As long as it takes to pass
A ship keeps raising its hull;
The wetter ground like glass
Reflects a standing gull

The land may vary more;
But wherever the truth may be;
The water comes ashore,
And the people look at the sea.

They cannot look out far.
They cannot look in deep.
But when was that ever a bar
To any watch they keep? 

                                 Robert Frost

I love a good storm. There's nothing like a bit of thunder and lightning and some mammoth swirling clouds of black to make the sky seem simply enormous. Which of course it is. Didn't want to sleep through the driving rain last night, so I devoured a book: The Housekeeper + The Professor by Yoko Ogawa. A very quick read, with a deliciously simple plot. It reminded me so much of The Summer Book by Tove Jansson that I shall probably have to have my annual re-read of that soon too.

Spent a glorious afternoon drifting across Crantock beach under the most amazing clouds that were moving in every direction in quick, effortless arcs. The winds were wild, whipping the sand across the almost deserted beach and drilling it into the backs of my legs and feet with a needle-like precision. Absolutely beautiful and well worth the effort of dragging my reluctant limbs across the dunes for.

 

World View

Absolutely stunning photos...

World View - Royal Geographical Society Travel Photography

Words do not express thoughts very well

Couldn't sleep, so I re-read Hermann Hesse's Siddhartha. Love that book so much, especially Siddhartha's description of a stone to Govinda - it seems to sum up the essence of the book in such a wonderfully simple way:

Siddhartha bent down, lifted a stone from the ground and held it in his hand.
'This,' he said, handling it, 'is a stone, and within a certain length of time it will perhaps be soil and from the soil it will become a plant, animal or man. Previously, I should have said: This is just a stone; it has no value, it belongs to the world of the Maya, but perhaps because within the cycle of change it can also become man and spirit, it is also of importance. That is what I should have thought. But now I think: This stone is stone; it is also animal, God and Buddha. I do not respect and love it because it was one thing and will become something else, but because it has already long been everything and always is everything. I love it just because it is a stone, because today and now it appears to me a stone. I see value and meaning in each one of its fine markings and cavities, in the yellow, in the grey, in the hardness and the sound of it when I knock it, in the dryness or dampness of its surface. There are stones that feel like oil or soap, that look like leaves or sand, and each one is different and worships Om in its own way; each one is Brahman. At the same time it is very much stone, oily or soapy, and that is just what pleases me and seems wonderful and worthy of worship. But I will say no more about it. Words do not express thoughts very well. They always become a little different immediately they are expressed, a little distorted, a little foolish. And yet it also pleases me and seems right that what is of value and wisdom to one man seems nonsense to another.'

It is the end of this passage that I really love. The idea that the thoughts of one person can be irrelevant to another, and yet can still be the most beautiful thing to the thinker. It's one of the reasons I've only ever let one person read any of the poems I write, because I'm very aware that the words I've chosen will change the meaning for everyone. By the same token, my interest in photography has grown out of appreciating details of the world, even if just for a few seconds. You can't help but be more aware of the things around you when setting up a photo. The light, the focus, the colours - each element is considered, and even if my hands shake and I take a bad photo, I've still had the opportunity to notice my surroundings more fully.

How wise the poet who has no ears
And looks for naught but stars hidden over the earth's crust.
No blinkers guard the poet's senses as he wanders this unseen paradise alone.
Mysteries seek him out,
Searching for a blank canvas to voice their tales.

Thanks Thelma

This poem's been rolling through my mind since I did some yoga this morning. Funny how you don't read something for ages and then suddenly it pops up from the depths of memory. It's not done much for my ability to meditate, wade through a World Development Report or start writing an article on post-disaster healthcare, but there's always tomorrow, right? And Grace Nichols does write some beautiful lines...

Waiting for Thelma's Laughter

You wanna take the world

in hand

and fix-it-up

the way you fix your living room

You wanna reach out and crush

life's big and small injustices

in the fire and honey

of your hands

You wanna scream

cause your head's too small

for your dreams

and the children

running round

acting like lil clowns

breaking the furniture down

while I sit through

it all watching you

knowing any time now

your laughter's gonna come

to drown and heal us all

Widening Rings

The title of this blog comes from one of my favourite poems from Rainer Maria Rilke:

I live my life in widening rings

which spread over earth and sky.

I may not ever complete the last one,

but that is what I will try.

I circle around God's primordial tower,

and I circle ten thousand years long;

And I still don't know if I'm a falcon,

a storm, or an unfinished song.

Since I first read this poem, I've been fascinated with the idea of stretching out further and further into the world, absorbing more experiences with each circle that time brings. 

This blog is my attempt to stretch out a bit further. A place to collect my thoughts and let new ideas grow. A place for photos, music, poetry and anything else that captures my attention and allows me a new window to see the world through. I also hope to find the courage to post some of my own poems which I've been writing on and off for several years now.

For today though, the words of others fill my mind much more clearly than my own thoughts, and so, until I've got my head around how this blog actually works, I'll stick with Rilke:

Everything is blooming most recklessly; if it were voices instead of colours, there would be an unbelievable shrieking into the heart of the night.

Sunset at Watergate Bay, Cornwall