'Make sure you go to The Atrium
to see The World Press Photo Awards'
wrote Marion from ArtsPost
on her Facebook page.
The exhibition finishes tomorrow.

So off I went.
The sun was shining
in our peaceful city.
I was feeling happy and free.

2011
Press photograghs from a year on this beautiful planet.

I joined the slow moving crowd.
We walked in silence
as we passed from photo to photo.
I could sense that others were experiencing
the same emotional response that was dawning on me.

Suddenly I had the crazy thought I was in a holy place,
a cathedral.

I was walking the stations of the cross..




It was the photograph of a mother and son that triggered this feeling.
 The Madonna ..
a Muslim mother comforting her son.

I sketched her quickly
to remind me
the Pieta is not a historical happening.
It is life.

2011
tsunamis
and war
and hunger
and sadness..

the media
brings all this into our homes every day.

Today no written words were needed .

I wandered home in a pensive mood,
through the campus of Wintec
and gathered a handful of fallen treasures that lay in the gutter.

The cherry blossoms fluttered in the breeze like scraps of soft silk.

The tui and the waxeyes have sipped the nectar
from the kowhai flowers,
  now scattered like a golden carpet.

I brought these scrappy relics of early spring home with me.
While I sipped my cup of tea
I made a mandala and
pondered
on the
world I live in,
so mysterious,
so full of
pain
and beauty.

I gave quiet thanks for brave journalists
who bring us face to face with the rawness of life
that otherwise I would have no knowledge of,
living as I do in a comfortable bubble of plenty and peace.

  

quoteflections: A Renaissance of Wonder

I've just arrived home from Bookclub where we discussed this month's book..  Bill Bryson's  A SHORT HISTORY OF NEARLY EVERYTHING..
and these quotes from Quoteflections seemed the perfect way to sign off ..


quoteflections: A Renaissance of Wonder: Wonder is what sets us apart from other life forms. No other species wonders about the meaning of existence or the complexity of the unive...

A new spring day dawns.
 There is a fresh and cool peacefulness
and blue sky beauty


in Aotearoa - New Zealand. 

Land of The Long White Cloud. 

The starling
sits unknowing
on my television aerial,
warming himself in the early sunshine.
If I turn my TV on
the news of the world will rush into my consciousness.
I will be aware of the violent clashes in the world
over territory and belief.
The starling
feels the warmth of the sunlight
and listens to the soft trills of his fellow starlings
sitting in the still leafless oak tree.

I attack my desk calendar.
Too many old year pages outweigh what is left of 2012.
There it is.
Today.
24 September.
My sister Shirley's birthday.
12 years older than me.
There's a syncronicity of numbers this year.

It is also the Feast of The Mother of Mercy.
I send blessings to all Sisters of Mercy,
those strong, wise women
who taught me more than they will ever know,
and will always be sisters to me.

I note a discarded page
with words scribbled down while I  listened earlier in the year
to a radio lecture
of  Glenn Colquhoun, GP and a favourite NZ Poet of mine.

"I don't want to know the answers to the big questions.
Doubt.
I love the doubt.
The not knowing
is where the ache and throb of us is.
Knowing the answers
is dangerous and controlling.."

I love his words.

We truly know so little.
We are the story tellers struggling to find meaning.
If we believe this,
then all the stories of the world are beautiful..
all the attempts at explaining why we are here and how we got here
are beautiful,
and to be celebrated.

"Religion is the map. Life is the journey",
says Joy Cowley.
"We need a map, and as life is lived we write our own."

The saddest thing is to see the bitter fighting and violence in the world
all because some are sure they know the only truth.

Today I will live like a starling.
He doesn't even know he doesn't know.

While I walk in the sun and look at the clouds and flowers of spring,
and listen to the spring madness of birds in love with life,
I will send love to the world,
especially Shirley and The Sisters of Mercy,
and pray for sanity for this planet of ours!

PS:  I have to admit, even the starling fights for his territory
and chases the tui when he visits.

Spring Gift..

Ding dong,
rings my doorbell



and there they stand,
two small neighbours
with a bunch
of springtime.
 

Arum lily white
and English Bluebells blue..
tied up with a finger knitting bow, handmade.

and the sweet sweet scent
that fills my room.

How sweet the day is
all of a sudden.

Josie's Door..

My friend is painting her house.
How do you like my door
she asked
as we arrived.
It was early spring dark
and red is no colour without the sunshine.


Some of her children think it is ...
too red
she said.

When the sun shone down
we,
her friends
all grown old and a little shocking,
clapped our hands in glee
and shouted
oh yes!
Now that is a door!

That is a door that says
dance
and
be riotous.

That is a door that says
come in
come in!

That is a door that says
I dare you
to
be alive!

She laughed.
I thought so too
she said.

dreams...

Wisdom comes silently,
When eyes are looking
and ears are listening
in silence,
wisdom slips in.
 

I am often floating in water
in my dreams.
I am often pillowed on the sea,
softly, softly.
 

Little Mystic...

There it was,
waiting in my mailbox this morning when I rose.
The excitement of an arrival.
Not a surprise for I knew what was within
the brown envelope.
The whim of seeing something and knowing
it could be mine.

The wrapping itself was so beautiful and joyous
it deserved to sit and be admired.
Tied with timeless string;
 folded within mystic music.

First the tiny message
lovingly bound. 

A message from the creator.
I sense the loss she felt,
the letting go. 

I carefully unwrap the outer paper
and my heart is full of organ pipes
and choirs singing and monks chanting;
full of Latin prayers and  candles flickering;
the smell of wax and incense and the cold dip
of holy water in marble fonts.

In softest tissue,
there it lay.

Old leather and old paper,
carefully folded and stitched. 

Front and back are charts of the heavens,
maps of the universe, 

and the virgin pages
waiting for the scribe to record the journey.

Its name is
Little Mystic. 

Amazingly
it now belongs to me. 

Perfect in size to take upon a journey,
a pilgrimage.
Perfect in size for hugging to one's heart. 

The journey is planned to happen in 2013,
Universe willing.
Little Mystic waits, like me,
for The Journey to begin. 

I've been laid low with bronchitis.
I've re-read The Hobbit.




I am now re-reading Bill Bryson's
wonderful book
THE SHORT HISTORY OF NEARLY EVERYTHING.

My poor heavy head
is full of fantasy 

and wonder
regardless of weepy eyes and constant coughing
and an ever growing pile of tissues.

Outside the blackbirds and thrushes are singing
their fantastical spring songs
and I can't wait
to feel as energized as they sound.

Last night it thundered and flashed sheet lightning
and hailstones drummed on the tin awning on my bedroom deck.

The fickleness of Spring.
Warm one minute, cold the next
and pesky bugs are having a ball.

Bill Bryson
reminds me to not despair.
but instead to
 feel the wonder of being here.

Aaaachoo!
Te hei mauri ora!
I sneeze... therefore I am alive!

My blog is up and running again.

It was making ominous ticking sounds
but not loading. 

I did not sit about twiddling my thumbs however. 

I've been busy attending marvellous movies at our
local film festival. 

What a feast.
So..
Hi
from down under.
One of my favourite movies was
Vivan las Antipodas
 directed by Victor Kossakovsky.

If I could dig a hole from my place to the other side of the world
I would end up in Spain.

Where is your antipodes? 

PS:  Thank goodness for gravity!