Light deepening

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A Thousand Mornings

All night my heart makes its way
however it can over the rough ground
of uncertainties, but only until night
meets and is then overwhelmed by
morning, the light deepening, the
wind easing and just waiting, as I
too wait (and when have I ever been
disappointed?) for redbird to sing

Mary Oliver

Mid-morning in Lakeland – the light deepening, the wind easing – and I find myself wondering whether the late, great, Mary Oliver ever visited England, Ireland, Scotland or Wales. Driving down from Edinburgh bright and early today, I listened to a brief radio segment about a music lover’s neighbour not being especially bothered if he didn’t hear music. Not anti-music, just not much in need of it. And mindful of all that Handel’s Passacaglia (and more, oh and more!) brings to my life, I found myself also reflecting on my love for, need for, poetry. If it were not, I would miss it! – for every time I’m moved by, touched by, the sight, sound, scent, taste or touch of something, my heart, soul, mind and body are grateful for poetry’s being holder, explainer and expression; grateful for poetry’s being the diving board from which we continue to move gladly ‘to create’ – and thereby the more fully to live.

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An extra dimension

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In this city rich in many glorious contrasts, the quiet presence of fog in Edinburgh over the last few days has added an extra dimension. The sea haar touches everything – rendering some things unseen and others seen with sharper clarity. Edinburgh has an inner life like yours and mine. Sometimes deep and clear. Sometimes fathomless and foggy. Sometimes brushed or moulded into life with vivid colours on canvas, in ceramics and in sculpture, and in conversation, dance and embrace, celebrated and lived and worked in innumerable creative studios. Sometimes smiling broadly. Sometimes a touch on the solemn side. Sometimes fringe. Sometimes mainstream. Sometimes softer, in watercolour, or in the poetry or the prayer of those who have meditated amid the throng in St Andrew’s Square. Sometimes alive with the pipes and with song. Sometimes contemplative beneath a soft blanket of silence. Here are architectural wonders enough to invite reverie and myriad imaginings. And in a day or two the city and her inhabitants will recall being touched by the softness of these days, and will open arms to welcome glad sunshine again, and autumn’s reds and gold. Edinburgh. Edinburgh. You are touched by – and you are – an extra dimension …

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Portobello

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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!

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Sweet imaginings

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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

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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

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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

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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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Dynamic earth

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Dynamic Earth, beneath Salisbury Crags, Holyrood, Edinburgh

Let the worries be quietened
let the gladness be celebrated
let every dream inside me
find its path and dance purposefully
joyfully, toward this world

I have a story I have never told:
once, when I was dreaming
I looked up at the firmament
and saw the vastness and knew
I was a creation made of stardust

I am still a creation made of stardust

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Revisiting: Entranced by the light

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Portobello, Edinburgh

One of the joys of keeping a journal is, of course, ‘flipping through the pages’ and bringing to mind people, things, places and experiences that made an impression. Today I was delighted to revisit Entranced by the light … first published here on 22nd May 2021

Time and time again, I am moved and entranced by the movement of tide and cloud and light – sometimes stormy, bracing and energising; sometimes calm and colourful and wide inside 😊

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St Leonard’s Crag, Edinburgh

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Connections

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Community is a place where the connections felt in our hearts make themselves known in the bonds between people, and where the tuggings and pullings of those bonds keep opening our hearts

Parker J Palmer

Scientists tell us that all living things make connections with other life. Trees, for example, by way of roots. Humans, by way of hearts.

We’re all aware of the sometimes unwanted complexity of connections that involve, for humans anyway, ‘tuggings and pullings of those bonds,’ albeit that they ‘keep opening our hearts.’

But perhaps it’s the very complexity of lives lived beyond the edges of our own ego that really brings us to life, widens our horizons, shows us our place in what poet Mary Oliver called ‘the family of things’ – and stretches our hearts, souls, minds and bodies exactly where they need to be stretched, over and over and over again.

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