nettle heart

gotta love the nettle-age, snot coloured punk superstar of the spring!
in some rustic, bucolic fantasy he’d gather dainty lace doilie fashion around the fringes of the woods
nah round here they loiter in huge clumps on any patch of wasteland, a vibrant fresh green swathe carpet covering broken glass and rusty shopping trolleys
broken ground, nettles love to be around humans, alledgedly they came over with the Romans… rust iron, sacred to aries, god of war and this months heavenly ruler
like many masculine energies, often maligned, theres also a tender, benign side
i tend to pick them with snip scissors and holey cotton gloves… the holes not on purpose but the occasional frisson of a sting keeps you woke!
tingle-age even now, a very very mild electric shock
what shall i do with them? juice most likely? but possible pesto, fricasse?… not let them languish too long at the bottom of the fridge anyway!
blessings on the sunshine and my current freedom to roam up the cliffs… respite from the collective energy field of worry x

seeds are good

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sEeds are good… sEEeeeeds are good… as surely the shamen were singing?
traditionally my drabbest photo of the year… i mean its lumps of earth… tho some might well argue my usual slew of selfies border on tedium
but, but seeds… think of the awesome potential!
the eagle eyed may well have spotted the pots are somewhat crudely in the shape of an Om… i chanted the universal seed sound, Ommmmm, over them afterwards… biodynamic innit!??
I don’t really know what i’m doing, but bung them in some soil, sunshine, water… we all flourish better with the right conditions
the most fun bit is always planting last years toms (i have perfected the rare november / never fruiting tomato)… just burst the old fruits over the the tray and admire the seedy slobber gloop
i tend to mark them with little cardboard signs, which rot at the first watering, so then i have no idea, when finally they pop up, which seedling is which!
this year as well as the usual toms, chillis and miscellanious squashes i’m trying runner and dwarf beans
anyway first day of home alone for me, grateful, amongst so many other things for a back yard and the sunshine
strange times, no idea where all this is going, stay home, stay healthy, love to y’all x

urbane

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Urbane! Kurt Urbane. At my best, from a flattering aspect, i am a kindly and charming soul…
if you were to meet me in a cafe in some far distant land (as some of you have), why then i would amuse and bamboozle with oft uttered anecdotes…
smoothe like sea glass… some suave weather beaten leathery lump o’ wood?
love to talk, yet also to listen… world piques us curious… together we make something…
first on the dance floor, and often the last to leave… when i hear the sound of my own laugh, why it makes me laugh even more!
What be the wisdom of age? why a certain baggy capacity, a knowing that i am enough
braggard, smug egotism? of course! but thats just a single facet, not so hot on days where the usual neurosis, renders me near incapable of tumbling out of bed…
apparently my love of selfies is a feature of libra ascending? and in snaps nowadays, it’s a choice twixt smiling or having eyes! happy or eyes? eyes or happy! bastard choice
yes, the visage of somebody, thus far, blessed with benign circumstances
… and that ‘capacity’, a result of all the times life has threatened to capsize, yet the love of others has somehow buoyed me up
we are stronger for the beautiful enduring nexus of our connections
of course life and time will ultimately chew us all up, we all know that
but yeah, in the beautiful, brief boon, of the lull of now, why, best surely, to enjoy being you?!!

………………………………..
less words, more likes, but always i enjoy the song of my own saying
hmm ‘urbane’, for a pic in the countryside? isn’t it ironic… alanis morissete stylee!

reply to Rhona

ha! thanks love, my eyes radiate a benign cosmic charm… or not… have to rely on the subtle sunset light nowadays
i also have the dilemna… smile and have no eyes? or eyes and no smile… eyes or happy… happy or eyes?! difficult when you just love to guffaw!
anyway if you guys are ever over sussex way pop by and stay… plenty of room for the family… be great to see ya (it’s been a while) xxx

reply to Hannah

Thanks… Wellington bootifull… Was up to me midrift in mud (slight exaggeration)… But, obvs, always worth it for a selfie… Holi looks like it was a blast! Xx

india blah 1

just back from a walk up the cliffs, sometimes there is a softness to grey, coaxing colour from the landscape, the lull of early spring birdsong… today tho, but a grim grey bludgeon, scalpel rain and a wind that would gouge yer eyes out! welcome home
the gorse tho was defiant in all its custard finery
here then are a glut of the rest of my holiday snaps… such a blessing to have been away for a month… sunshine! adventure! overnight trains and buses! fabulous grub! beach sunsets!… loved pretty much every jot of it!
for the curious (and to jog my memory!) places visited:
Mahabalipuram – 1500 year old sculptures, pool, republic day
Tiruvannamalai – Shiva fire mountain, huge ancient temple, Sri Ramana ashram
Auroville/Pondicherry – going inside the matrimandir!! scooting about the old colonial town and along the beach promenade
Patnem, Goa – hanging with May and the gang, beach sunsets, yoga
Alleppey – Luca, Snehar, Johnson, tourist boat drig/fting thru the backwaters
Ammas Ashram – Super full power hug, Hannah and Al
Varkala – beach galore, Alix and Tim
Munnar – Malabar Giant Black Squirrel, tea plantations
Madurai – Sri Meenakash, gorgeous carvings, mad rituals, Mahashivarahti
Mysore – grand palace, deveraj market

the 3 most sacred places i visited, in no particular order, inside the matrimandir, ammas ashram, sri meenakash… all were happily no photo zones
albums of course gain no traction on here… no matter, i am, as ever, happily solipsistic x

madurai… southern tamil nadu… it’s one of the smaller gopurams (gateways) to the sri meenakash temple… ancient place, riddled with the most astonishing sacred carvings… all day long there are pujas and rituals, it’s a living temple so no snaps inside
i first came here when i was 23, was overwhelmed by its energy then… not much has changed x

india selfie

Aw last of my selfies with locals posts, as waiting in Bengaluru airport for flight home, after a sensational (sense sating?) cram chock full month of bedlam and adventure! Wonderful!
A group of affable and affluent students from Bengaluru, outside the Grand Palace in Mysore. ‘what is there to see if I go to Bengaluru?’, collectively they shrug ‘eh nothing?’… I’d met them inside, they were fab, the most snap and photo opportunity obsessed group imaginable… I was hunting for the Holy Grail .. me taking a selfie of an Indian secretly taking a selfie of me!
Bog standard snap, but also, possibly, indicative of change… Most of them are women… equality in India is a complex beast… yet in 6 trips here across 30 years, I can count on the fingers of one hand, the number of casual conversations I’ve had with local women (not business based natters, or people born in the diaspora obvs)… It’s just not done. Not important in itself, natch, but somewhat indicative of the broader, weird disparities in opportunities here. Family. Religion. The astonishing, enduring power of customs and the straight jacket of social mores… Oops don’t want to over indulge in secular, soap box sermonising! A huge diverse land. What do I know.
The boy approached me first, yet the girl was but a nano second whisker behind… They both spoke excellent English (many many Indians do… And a greater number don’t!), these two were knowledgeable about my country, curious to know more, and proudly told me lots I didn’t know about theirs. Travel innit. Smile, chat about stuff, laugh! Warmth. Buoyed up by our beautiful shared humanity X

cheese

Say ‘cheese’, say ‘squee-ee-ze’… India partakes in its daily attempt to set a new world record for number of sentient beings in a confined space (ala 1970s Blue Peter phone boxes and minis!)… this time as we wend our way around hair pin bends, tumbling down through the Tamil Nadu foothills of the Western Ghats (think Alp sized mountains, without the cable cars, neglected due to continental proximity to the humongous himalayas)… on every bend, there is a collective flabbergasted ‘oof’ of crushed torsos, overlaid with the higher trill of women’s voices… I one of the the lucky ones… with a seat, through dint of having been stuck on the bus, forever, since it and seemingly times beginning… India has a knack of making you feel like a speck amongst a billion, whisper it, soto voce, Kerala and most of the western states, do not have the sense of the high tempo madness… the numinous of the Nadu…. for all the senses the dial turned to 11… ego bamboozled midst a soup of sensation… pounding bollywood tunes, pong of armpits, a bird of paradise blur of colourful saris
a day of contrasts: dawn amongst the tea plantations of munnar, awash with myriad green… watching the malabar giant black squirrels somersault amongst the top of the highest trees… fighting off the equally black crows… truly giants, the size of a monkey, kali black with the fiercest of red trimmings!… a loooong bus journey, 6 hours when it should have been 3… to end guzlling masala dosa, lawks the flavours, just outside the majestic gopurams (gateways) of the Sri Meenakesh temple in Madurai…. proper cream crackered. g’night, snooze good x

Sith Robin

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‘The Shape and the Shaping of Wisdom’… Indian Geezer, in a full moon party T-Shirt, comes up to me in a restaurant, whilst I’m guzzling a somewhat delish vegan buffet with Alix and Tim, he says ‘sorry to interrupt, but are you by any chance 1028 milligrammes?’… I just about have enough savvy to appreciate it’s a lsd reference, so presume he’s either trying to sell me some, or wants to buy? anyway conversation trundles along, apparently I am a dead ringer doppelganger for a legendary trance dj… who’d a thunk it… blooming old school hippies!… confusion resolved, turns out in his younger days, our new found friend was a tamil rapper, from madurai… he proceeds to give us a stomping, passionate, nailed on lyrical rap! bravo! on querying the lyrics it’s a conscious spiel, as to how we have to honour the sunshine and the farmers for our food… groovy… nowadays he works with a more jazzy collective and plays us a song off his phone, cinematic buzz… Next talk turns to his youthful adoration of eminem, shows us how he has the same tattoo on his left hand… says that gandhi would have approved of eminen! kinda ‘authentically, living out, and telling, the story of his life’… in the background, his gentle shy wife is holding the baby…. bubba gets in on the act, gurgling and smiling chubby cheeked adorable… quite a presence, for such a small lumpen thing… baby is called ‘Sith Robin’, which means, the shape and the shaping of wisdom… dad then takes a selfie, so, in time honoured fashion, I get him to reciprocate and snap one for me… ‘chinni’, sugar, is the tamil version of ‘say cheese’… before he leaves, as a finale, the fellow sings us the sweetest, most soulful of tamil ballards… a beautiful timbre to his voice, a powerful resonant song
anyway, just thought to share, on the hoof, this travelling vignette, from 30 or so mins ago xx

1028 mg?