sometimes the soft lights
of evening soften the lights
of heart, soul and mind
Softening
Month: April 2024
Portobello
Lovely, albeit fiercely cold (wind chill factor 4 degrees centigrade), to have lungs full of clean sea air tonight. Sandcastle-building children and happy burrowing dogs don’t seem to feel cold and they, actually, always warm one’s heart. As for the wild swimmers – well each deserved a medal this evening. Well done them!
Sweet imaginings
Do you ever have a ‘tinkering’ sort of an evening? I do. I love them. A bit of lyrical music. A bit of baking. Phone call with an old and valued friend. Pen and wash representation of an Edinburgh lamppost on a thin notepad which – here and there, over the course of a couple of hours – ‘spilled’ into a little collage of imaginings, part memory, part experiment, all absorbing. The other day I came across an encouraging thought on Instagram (or ‘Insta’ as David Kanigan writes it’s now called 😉 ) …
We don’t draw to make perfect representations of reality. That’s what photos are for. Remember that!
Thanks, @linescapes.drawing. Somewhere in my subconscious I must have accepted your invitation / encouragement to a warm evening’s tinkering. Who knows? – perhaps a bit of 3D may develop with a little more dabbling …
Something in the air
Ricoh GRIII – click photos to enlarge
Blossoms, blue sky, cloud and sunshine made for a fabulous Sunday in Edinburgh today. Days that look like this one make people’s spirits soar. From cherry blossom walks, to the Royal Mile and onward to Waverley Station, Princes Street, or a peaceful ten minutes on a bench in St Andrew Square – Edinburgh (anywhere, really) comes to life under the sun!
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The people watch
Ricoh GRII – click photos to enlarge
The late Catalan architect Enric Miralles’ complex and – I think – fabulous Scottish Parliament Building and Gardens in Holyrood, Edinburgh, opened in October 2004. Sadly Miralles died before its completion. Gorgeously designed seating, together with bottle-like symbols in walls and imaginative lighting, represent ‘the people watching.’
History and poetry engraved in surprising places, coupled with warmth of welcome from everyone from reception team to police and security officers, further the impression that this is a House of and for the Scottish people.
Close proximity to the (newly re-named) King’s Gallery, to the Palace of Holyroodhouse, and to Salisbury Crags and Arthur’s Seat, bring together ancient and modern, nature’s forms and skyscape, and a quite extraordinary array of brave and inspiring architectural eras and design.
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Lakeland Spring
My heart of silk
is filled with lights,
with lost bells,
with lilies and bees.
I will go very far,
farther than those mountains,
farther than the oceans,
way up near the stars,
to ask Christ the Lord
to give back to me
the soul I had as a child,
matured by fairy tales,
with its hat of feathers
and its wooden sword.Federico García Lorca
Dodging heavy rain showers in Lakeland during Easter week, I’ve been glad that strong winds dried up my lawn enough for its first mow of the season. Still somewhat bare, I always love to see the signs of Spring’s unfurling, and in just four or five weeks from now the apple trees, shrubs and flowers will be their fuller selves once again. The cycles of life – my own, and the complexities of nature all around us, have surprised and delighted me anew every year since childhood. Trees and flowers in bud take me home to days of joy and daydreaming – on a garden swing suspended from a cherry tree, and to the scent of last September’s fruits being prepared for apple and blackberry pie …
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An interior place
You make a poem with words – but you also build an interior place when you write, a place where your intuitive voice may awaken and thrive
John Fox
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