Hello friends.
Look where my sister linda and I have been..
Vancouver, Canada.

Staying with Steve and Ann
in their 26th floor apartment
in the centre of this beautiful city.

We left Springtime at home in New Zealand,
but here it was unmistakably Autumn. 

We had such a wonderful time.
We visited the Anthropology Museum and loved the indiginous art.

We found ourselves in the middle of a film shoot as we explored the city. 

The city is clean and spacious and reminded us a little of home. 

Vancouver is a great walking city with lots of surprises,
like the Steam Clock.
(Oamaru .. eat your steam punk heart out!) 

We loved the water taxi ride over to Granville Island.

We spent an afternoon exploring the lovely Van Dusen gardens. 

Ann took us on a racoon hunt right there in the city. 

How surprised we were when these enchanting wild creatures
joined us on a Stanley Park walk! 

We ate pumpkin pie and pumpkin cheesecake.
and drank hot spiced pumpkin lattes .
We also ate Beaver Tails
up in Whistler!

Steve detoured off the highway on the way to Whistler,
hoping we might spot a bear, but it began to snow.
The higher we went the more the snow fell.
The bears, Steve said, would be hunkering down for the winter.
Now Linda and I live in a no snow place

so we were very excited despite no bears.
We stopped the car and played in the snow
and laughed with happiness as the soft snow fell on us. 

Whistler was a magic.
We ate Beaver Tails, hot and delicious with maple syrup.

Now eating Beaver Tails was a new treat experience,
and so too
was Bubble Tea!
I've never tasted anything like it.
Would someone please bring Bubble Tea to NZ!

Back in the city, Steve and Ann took us up Grouse Mountain.
Snow had fallen the night before. 

It was like being in a Christmas card.
Linda and I felt so blessed to be in this snowy wonderland. 

The mountain in the distance , glowing in the sunset,
is Mount Baker, USA.

Linda and I returned to NZ on Friday.
 Warm Spring is here,
green and lush,
but my head and my heart are full of happy memories
of beautiful Vancouver.
Thank you Steve and Ann
for a wonderful two weeks !

xoxoxo

Every time I climb a tree
Every time I climb a tree
Every time I climb a tree
I scrape a leg
Or skin a knee
And every time I climb a tree
I find some ants
Or dodge a bee
And get the ants all over me. 

And every time I climb a tree
Where have you been?
They say to me
But don't they know that I am free
Every time I climb a tree?

David McCord's poem
came to mind
as I watched the boys nextdoor
climbing the lovely old tulip tree.
Two boys are hidden amongst the welcoming branches
already
(or it may be the black skirt of Margaret Mahy's
Witch from The Cherry Tree..)
and I'm thinking

Oh to be sitting in a tree up high
out of sight..
dreaming of sailing ships
and far away places.

Old Grand Daddy tree
smiles at the
scrambling and clinging
and joyful
adventuring...


I'm  remembering
a childhood of great freedom.
Oh yes,
and plenty of skinned knees
and scraped legs.
No lasting scars
but sweet, sweet memories.

...just a doodle...

Forever
travelling
pilgrims,
whether
we like it or not.

Even when I sit perfectly still
or shut my eyes and sleep..

our planet goes on travelling around
our day star
at 66,600 miles per hour.

Little wonder I am a restless wanderer
at heart.

'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.