hewn…. taciturn… part chunky Knitware, part Rock… all troll post lunchtime swim, i’ve recently succumbed to the ubiquitous cold, that snot phelgm lurgy, so haven’t been in for a few weeks… the water remains disappointingly balmy… but crikey, flayed by the wind afterwards autumnal exhaustion everywhere, so its been a blessing just to be able to loaf about entertained by my bleak, elemental, pudge eyed gruff-ness… see, i don’t only play the Romantic Hero
Rhona: Guapo!
ha! indeed, could, possibly, only be more guapo with an icicle hanging from the end of my nose xx
toes!… what are they actually good for!? counting stuff when we run out of fingers turning the bath taps on, adding warmth, when too lazy to stir from our wallow slumbers oh they are just so blooming far away!…. i in my lofty eyrie… but hey, thats just the megalomania of head thunk close the eyes, shut those peepers, allow consciousness to sediment settle grounded move one toe at a time, feel the involuntary flinch, a spasm elsewhere in the body… else the grip and relentless puppeteering of the jaw feet are so connected ode to toes, odour of toes! what i really like about them is the reminder that once we were different, that upended we clung to branches, cheerful reversal that we peeled fruit, picked nits and our noses with them… the monkey that forgot to dangle yes, a reminder that we were different, but also that we need not, indeed will not, always be the same… toes, time and tide keep turning …………. reflexology… i haven’t received any in years! the hands off of covid a golden age, when i could guarantee that at least one friend a year was training in either massage or reflexology… miss dat wriggle them toes. riddle them toes. clay, the squidge between, on the self build an earthship course … more incoherent muttering… this little piggy went to market, this little piggy stayed at home, this little piggy had veggie sausages….
feet wings! a little bit odlaw, a lot Roald Dali! x
‘Sainsbury Newhaven have both fuels, no queues. Closes 6am’…. in keeping with the mildly apocalyptic flavour of the zeitgeist, odd when you find yourself getting out of the house, absurd early, on the basis of some random message off the internet… worked tho i’m fortunate in that i seldom ‘need’ to drive anywhere, but now have enough to comfortably trundle up to see mum and back today… yesterday was the first proper brutal winter storm of the season, wind batter and howl… i didn’t go outside, my achievements can briefly be listed as: smudged the entire house with palo santo… watched squid games Friday tho i was up in stanmer park, helping out on the ‘self build an earthship’, fab! took this snap earler, thinking the greasy morning light made it ‘gannet in an oil slick’-esque but the river was calm, a few birds were tweeting in the trees comparative affluence is a buffer… climate catastrophe looming… a not very helpful, slightly befuddled post!
peach purple banana smile… colours and flavours of autumn …………. Rose Quartz… i was in one of the crystal shops in the North Laine earlier (one feather? two feather? red feather? blue feather?… as the goodly zeus would ave it!) gawp idle, thrumming in front of a phalanx of Rose Quartz crystals… a friendly assistant (something mayan? arabic?), the waft of palo santo, came over to help i just said, oh i dunno, ‘heart chakra’, she went ‘aww’, so we both stood there for a minute… crystal bathing, a good natured communion ha! should imagine they get folk like me in there every day, never going to buy anything, but cheerfully enraptured made me remember days loafing around the british museum… loitering in the room of the aztec crystal skulls… periodically some freak would meander in, occasionally wearing a skull t-shirt, and just, well, oscillate with reverence!… kindred! tho never having bothered to articulate the notion (too obvious!), but, like most people, i know there is spirit in everything this shining vibrancy, coalesces most strongly around certain places, people or things… usually sacred places… the sri meenakash in madurai, buddhas eye at the great stupa of bodhinath in this country its mostly nature… an ancient yew, the sea at sunset, turquoise tangerine, a medieval church in the woods… this sacred land best to cheerfully acknowledge it wherever we can… a crystal shop in the laines… on facebook? ha, possibly not! x ooh now i’m thinking of the mothers sacred colour in auroville, that was some hue of peach?… pantone panndemonium!
equinox blessings… autumn is upon us. new season, new hair do, same old me where the day is equal to the night, yes, and the same wherever you are in the whole world! the universal kindred equality for us all really struck me… pompous is important, and well meant a moment of equipoise, of noticing, whilst the tide of light recedes at hurtling pace in meditation this morning the yak distraction of thoughts, tumultuoustumultous so, for a change, i just sat with the subtle, glow gold warmth of the heart lots of time down by the sea… go gentle x
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word splurge!… i usually imagine i know what i wish to say, but such the clamor and jostle of thoughts that it ends up suprisingly other but hey, just the ludicrous imperative of self expression!… for me it’s words, dancing (ha! tho seldom words and dancing together, what’d that contrariness be like?!)… ever envious of the ease of musicians whats your fave way of creating? xx
holy grail… blackberries, strawb and chilli plant such a weird soggy british summer, damp squib, with wondrous bits!… everything a few weeks late… impossible to know whether it’s too early for blackberries or too late? schrodinger blackberries! huge swathes of Red ‘uns, mingled in with others coated in the grey, Rabbit fur fungus of disappointment enough for crumble… and a few for freezing for smoothies into the autumn… lovely …. but a brief update from yesterdays evening word burble, the actual harvest
oh! and early 90’s yha card… complete with passport snaps, havel on the back of a matchbox and a clutch of Paris metro tickets
lambent evening light… seaford head, the distant cliff, but a lazy peach smudge, daub thumbed across the horizon the sea, a softness, ease in and out of being through the stillness, from the dizzy far below, sound rises like wood smoke trudge crunch as a man makes his way home across the pebble shingle splatter scamper of the mackerel, tails fork tongue flicker across the water…. these sea speakings Blackberries and Hawthorn Hips, knotted Red and Black… fluffed, the firework fiesta of Old Mans beard hollow sonorous knell of a wood pigeon look! my head! lumpen huge as some easter island moai Hoa Hakananai’a… stolen away to languish, across the sea, snug smuggled within the British Museum home now… lacking much (anything!) to say… greatly liking words, enjoying the fruitful unimportance of it all…i consult the motto on my Rose Geranium Yogi tea bag: ‘let us be kind and compassionate to remove the sadness of the world’
i miss my purple wizards robe with the sumptuous carpet lapels
RP: Ha! Had forgotten about this one. I must have been struggling to draw your eyes x
indeed, nowadays you’d be struggling to even see my eyes, let alone draw them! you wuz alright at that art nonsense… free careers advice… mbe open a gallery or something? xx
Wolf Spider with Rose Bay Willow Herb, Thistledown and ermm i want to say Tansy, but its probably just some type of cheerfully deluded Ragwort bleaggh i mean Wasp Spider… have Wolves on the brain at the mo! i thought wow, that must be a wasp spider, without even knowing such a thing existed, google agrees… such marvelous gold hoops, even along its legs beautiful the subtle interactions of nature… the web all soft eiderdown with the wind blown thistle fluff… lost its sticky!… no self respecting fly is going to fall for that!… they’ve got myriad amazement fractal eyes… tho possibly a slightly squiffy one might think of it as a suitable place for a lie down? kind of feel for the spider, all that miraculous effort, ruined! it’s a bit like when you hang the washing out… and immediately boot a muddy football splodge against it… futile fussball chore! beautiful this morning up Castle Hill… i managed to cycle and then hop up the last bit, foot on the mend, but not not skippable about on yet x
Al: I thought at first this was a poem by you.. Great pictures
ha, sorry to disappoint!tho all words yearn to poetry, just a matter of jumbling them up in a beautiful ordersomething like ‘myriad amazement fractal eyes’ is clearly a thespian type, fallen on hard times, embarrassed to voice over a dog food commercial purely for the dosh x
tootsies… i’ve hurt my foot… nowt serious, i hope! just some niggardly bruising, probably won’t be skipping the light fandango for a couple of days was out jogging up the cliffs yesterday morning, you know how it is, plod pant, grumble and wheeze up the steepest section then, when a-top, time to exult in the view, out and away across the majestic ocean… except don’t… best to keep staring at the lumpen earth … clodhopper down a rabbit hole … presumably the one folk keep talking about nowadays? was pretty much as far away as you can get, so had to hobble, painful quick step home in time for work odd how i can spend 4 days at a festie leaping about like a loon with an absence of mishap… but 5 minutes from front door, caramba! reflect on what a spectacular joyous miracle our bodies are! only really acknowledged when they sporadically malfunction you may well perceive me as a slightly balding, impressively wrinkled fellow, marooned somewhere in middle age? yet actually a teeming throng of cells, bacteria and fungii, a harmony of the highest kit kaboodle! honed by several billenia of evolution we are amazement in motion. tis awesome brilliant to be alive! …. anyway watched princess mononoke (writing it is easier than pronouncing), what a fabulous film! suspect rest, telly and biscuits is wisest
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