‘i been talking with the man in the mirror’… brutal cold day here, snow fell this morning, but didn’t settle, i am nursing my poisoned elbow and glugging tons of turmeric, cayenne and echinacea tea! thoughts, as often the case, turn to our Neanderthal cousins, wondrous hominids, if your european twixt 2 and 6% of our dna comes from them (substantially more if you’ve ever been a member of Oasis) during the last ice age, they roamed and even flourished on the frozen tundra around about here, they’d have been munching muchly on mastodon bone marrow… and would probably have made light of my enchanting grumblings trying to channel some of their qualities… obv sad that both those creatures are no longer part of this world, but just, how do you hunt a wooly mammoth? how! why with brawn and stubborness, yes, but much more importantly with ingenuity, guile and cunning… and beyond even that, with the help of our friends! being human, we amount to nothing without each other. mahayana baby
aw and of course, all i know of neanderthals… and much of what it means to be human, one of the best of books!
beauty dwelling on loss… ah the 5 of cups, always one of my favourite tarot cards, came up in a reading for a friend a few weeks back, then i was telling my sis about it, so have been mildly pondering minor arcana, so on a pleasantly worldly scale, none of the overwhelming grandiosity of some of the trumps, but to my eye also profound as a daydreamy cancerian i’m drawn to cups, the suit of water, of emotions… often the problem of procrastination and pondering… emminence grise is always keats, with his beautiful melancholia this card always makes me think of hamlet, the black prince, tho the Rider Waite Smith image is possibly a bit ‘scottish widows’ a figure contemplates 3 cups spilled, in the distance a bridge leads across a pleasant river to a tree thronged church, the sky is light grey and nondescript as the figure has its back to us we naturally associate with them, are drawn into their world, so are inclined to ask, what is it that we have lost? it’s actually a fairly benign card, in this moment she has neglected to notice the 2 cups left standing, focusing rather on that which is lost (‘And no more turn aside and brood / Upon love’s bitter mystery’), yet we all know that in time, she will pick up the remaining cups and proceed across the river to whatever new adventures will unfurl where will that path take us? from the image most likely a warm and human place So a gentle reminder that however bleak things may seem, it may well not be as bad as we imagine? even the forbidding cascading black cloak has subtle hints of blue and heart chakra green… Sorrow, but not quite despair… and if it is despair, which often it may feel like, that is not all the energies that are present curiously when i was thinking about the card on my bike ride i remembered it as 2 knocked over and 3 standing (the other way around!), so have tended towards a rosier interpretation it’s a useful card for anyone of middle age… waaggh so many things that have been lost! ha, just thinking now, theres something of gloomy introspection here, keep expecting her to glance around and smile… often when i am sad i go off to some amazing natural place, but despite the introspection, theres always a slight element of ‘hope someone notices how poetically beautiful i am’ i think many folk would be infuriated with her… ‘stop your moping, get on with it’, but hey the ‘live in the moment gurus of perpetual positivity’ are ten a tuppence (inflation used to be a penny) sometimes the past is important It is only cups, which, with a rich beguiling brew of dreams and memories, reminds us, that yes, there is sadness, but nothing which we truly love can ever be lost fractal hologram realm, sweet ponged perfume of the myriad petalled Rose of the Heart
big noses, big heads… a bust of a homeric hero… and er, a well chiselled lump o marble oh and with the beautiful hathor one, there was a somalian-esque museum attendant working nearby, she was rocking an amazing head of lush fountain flowing hair, egyptian queen regal!
triffid! er triffid-odil? crocodile? daffodil! had almost forgotten that yes green things do-eth grow… then up pops one of these nod head sunshine flavoured smile emojii’s… pic is a bit grainy, a la the big foot ness monster… but ya get the idea seems remarkably early? another sign that the seasons are scuppered… but at least hope that the long plod through darkness may not be entirely endless … lovely afternoon away from work up at the permie plot in stanmer, unite the beat were running a tactile and funky sound workshop too good fun, i was on lead watering can… slosh splosh rhythms, plus you get to soak all your fellow band members too!
snowdrops keep falling on me head… tra la la
James: Exciting ~ the wave will spread oop north from you before we know it. I’ll get my speedos out the loft 😄
murk. yes murk, presiding deity and chief emotion of the season the beach a rhapsody in beige, demerera sand, sea of uncouth sewage, sky? indistinguishable, but a tipple more grey yet, reluctantly shrugging off my dislike, soft landings, a glowing, form summons forth from the soup!… bask in this subtle candescence, world, and mind, abides in a richness of pattern … couple of pics, then head to lidl for chocolate, beer and pistachios! ha, yet, woke up this morning, with the intention of full heartedness, like when singing? then found myself sobbing whilst juicing vegetables no harm. sorrow, grief, loss – a certain sweetness, inevitable and natural part of our humanity… acceptable poster boy, for the horsemen of low mood? plus, the salt of tears adds a taste frisson to the brew of beetroot and broccoli stalks meditation, yoga, tax return, a robin singing atop a bush, first small stirrings of green, rummaged down, there amongst the mud. murk
aw hugh masekela has died, abiding memories of being on a kibbutz, aged about 20, hanging out with the SA hippies, Luke, Anna and Carrie, working in the kitchen… cranking Wimoweh up to full volume, grooving to the trumpet solos, flinging saucepans and dishcloths to each other in time with the rhythm! bizarrely all we ever listened too was pat metheney and hugh masakela. will be playing all day. RIP back to work!
mauve grey, grey mauve, but never mauvais. Ajna. realm of clarity and imagination. sea in tumult. sea in spate. the clack then see-e-the of the white be-marbled ocean wind very much against, ha, on the bike bash, long slog home
hannah: Oooh, cycling into the wind makes me angry! #angerissues ha! We need to get together sooooooon! x
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ah but counter balanced by the super bionic, full power, thrill of the wind behind!! heading for home, i just get my dogged determined head on ‘this too shall pass’ ooh yes, hi time i met the bairn (before he heads off to university! ha) you working at the mo? xxx
batten down the hatches! wind, rain, perpetual january… programming in the loft, as tho storm tossed sodden, marooned, far, far out to sea the dubious and lurid solace of early 90’s rave anthems! unleash the crusty jugglers x works better with the music on!
Heather: Haha go rich! I’m sure those Bermuda shorts look familiar, are they still being worn in the dancefloor?
Charlotte: Nothing better that 90’s rave……..a good throwback !!
26th June… Laurie Lee shares my birthday… ha, no m’dear, not quite the same year a somewhat blowsy and overblown Romanticism, the Cancerian daydreamy-ness, a reluctance to allow more than a smidgin of reality to impinge haven’t read any of his books since teenage years, in retrospect, ‘as i walked out…’ ,his tale of youthful wandering in spain, was quite influential better than sharing a birthday with stalin.
lees writing cheerfully weaves across the border twixt sublime and twee… bucolic, rhapsodic english pastoralism at its warmest heritage, before the notion was invented, saved from being chocolate box by the rhythm and tenacious life wormed deep within his words…. sunset in flower-full may
…prompted by listening on the bus to brighton and back… plummy but often lush
