brutal bone gnaw withering cold… i set off on my bike across the tundra twixt b&q and bishopstone… still air, yet brrrr the wind chill from the velocity of my own whizzing, had to slow down to lessen the shriek shatter ice cream head passed a poor little dead shrew on the path (i love the word shrew, none of that Roman flounce, a simple country saxon name befitting the creature) no bigger than a teasel, i could empathise with its last words frozen to lips… ‘unloveable. too small. big cold’ lacking gloves, i’d gone with a stripey sock on each hand, zig and zag, berated by puppets as i pedaled forever sartorially flummoxed by winter! summer it’s sandals, cargo pant shorts, a 10 year old moth eaten t-shirt, what could be better?! nowadays it’s all about layers, chunky knit colourful sweaters… ‘cept i don’t have any… jumble sale strewn, lurid acrylics, something of the dressing up box… widow twanky at the tour de france even the sea can’t be bothered, usually a hurly burly, giving it a ‘bit of this, a bit of that’ but today a half hearted lap, lap, the sound of someone gently closing a patio door dreaming of a giant knicker elastic powered catapult to hurtle me to the tropics rhythm of the seasons, means i can write the same post every year! and not worry about it yet… headed home… thinking of a friend from the prairies each leaf, every bush, frost licked to brittle needle diamonds a tree with arms flung up, fractal, exultant, here midst the whisper beauty light winter
late crop, some of the final few home grown blushing toms, from outdoors, bare earth, picked last week after i got back from spain not been outside yet this morning, but kinda presuming the plant has finally keeled over and curled up its (toma) toes? almost december?! such a mild, benign even balmy year (benign here at least, can’t imagine the polar ice is faring too well) curiously all the other plants stopped bothering around september, yet this one had a growth spurt, roots must have blunder rummaged through into a realm of some of my deluxurious home made compost (obv poorly mixed) fruits galore! like most folk, and being somewhat of a late bloomer myself, i’m always heartened and enthusiastic about lost causes anyway back to snuffling my way through a horrible cold… and a project delivery which won’t stay delivered… sigh, grumble… but hey tomatoes!
I was back in Granada last week… long waffly post warning
…………. Such an ancient, powerful, spiritual place… where beauty and history are so preposterously tangible. First time I’d returned since living there in the caves for 3 months, ooh mbe 23 years ago where i went after prague, before south america and all the life changes that flowed from those adventures
chasing the ghost of my younger self, the uncanny feeling that i’d turn a corner midst the muddled streets of the albaycin, enter a square and there i’d be, sitting on the pavement huddled amongst friends, laughing, drinking… dogs, juggling, guitars, djembes and indeed not that much has changed, around sunset, gatherings galore in the plazas, the spanish anarchist look will always be dreadlock mullet, drizzled with copious quantities of black garb crusties and colourful pantaloons! this thing of beauty!
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this time i was just there for 2 days, the first day a tourist amble around the beauties of the alhambra… never been in autumn before, the burnished colours of leaves then the next day, a slow mosey up through the albaycin… a menu del dia in plaza lago… heart of the gitano quarter blaring music, kids arriving on scooters, being scolded, then leaving, everything a soap opera, community, stories played out on the streets. Onto the next square, cafe con leche, beer, a game of chess in the sunshine whilst listening to a rag tag busking band, the dipping and quirky almost arabic rhythms, the fiddler, he was like puppetry dancing, smoking whilst he played, a huge column of ash jauntily dangling from the end of his fag finally, for sunset, the slow climb up the hill to the church
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a haunting and powerful sense of place, our stories somehow written on, absorbed by the landscape, there goes Rhona, dragging her wheeled granny shopping trolley, a scratched parched dry path, cutting up and across the valley, past gnarled dog eared cactii, off to fetch water from the fountain at the church, high on sacromonte else sitting in a plump red chesterfield, outside K&R’s cave in the shit valley, fire blazing, Rasta, their dog, tongue lolling, persistently panting up and down the hillside after a stone, whilst claire squawks some cheerful story now, lying on the bed, thinking long on muddled memories and the far flung shores of yesteryear
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elegaic, i tell many stories about the caves, and that time, broad strokes, colourful, chaotic… too much borracho, the reality of it was much more complex for me, Granada always has a strong, dark energy… Sacromonte, only holy fools would dare to live on the sacred mountain mostly, thinking back, i am happy for such crazy adventures, for the heart connections… and grateful to all the lovely folk who looked after me
so it was, this time, at sunset, as we came down, winding our way along the goat paths, the alhambra glowing on the hill opposite, the snow capped sierra nevada mountains behind, lights starting to come on in the city below, the distant, somehow soothing, beep of horns i stopped to look for claires cave, within 100 meters, but couldn’t quite say which one? familiar, home… and very much not further on the hole in the wall, gateway to the valleys beyond, blocked up now, ‘ojo ladrones’… ‘look out, bandits’ then on the spur of a hill, a man stands alone, agitated, angry, he is bellowing at everybody walking along the path below, screaming at the sky, at the mountains…Maricon! Pueta Madre! all this amidst the manifest beauty , the subtle fading light. Granada
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leave it here? ha… should get on with work, wallow on, till fade out what are we? but the triangulation of all our human relationships? the social ties that tether us, i doubt it what are we? put your ipad on shuffle all songs, the spool that comes out? nope rather, somehow, we are all the people that we love, when you turn to a friend, begin to tell a story, a story a thousand times told.. yet your own voice summons a goose bump excitement, the thrill, catch fire, as sweet smelling Roses endlessly blossom and entwine with our words Granada ………………. ….. oh and pics couple from last week, and a tiny sample from the one film of kirsts that somehow survived xx
off on an early morning flight… not this early, soul always thrusts us awake before we would either need or want boy flew away on his adventure last night too… enjoy!!!… now, midst the gloom, surreal tip toeing about the house, feel like, time slip, i’m bleary eyed up to be out on my post round delivering mail leonard has gone, sure everyone will be posting, tis facebook… not in my opinion an occasion to mourn, somehow feel that, more than most people, he managed to powerfully inhabit his own life. impressive. and has left us some beautiful words. who would want more from life? but yearning, we always do. thank you. this version not quite the simone one, but the one we grew up on, currently bizarrely ‘watching’ this, with no sound, as no headphones and don’t want to wake sherbailey don’t really need volume, etched, powerfully evocative of sitting around after sunday roast, as a teenager, whilst mum and dad played mournful ancient songs once again. doffs dapper hat. thanks mr cohen, all that beauty
ah not a great day… again … political glumness, even less hope, if that’s possible, than before, of the progressive inclusive political agenda the world so badly needs emma played a version of this at dance (i think! might have been something else, i was somewhat busy dancing)…. the song is buddhism innit
Spirit is the upward flowing energy, of air and fire wheras soul, is the more female flow to ground, that of the elements of water and earth soulful days we’re living through
the perils of easy street sea serene, placid, yawns to the horizon only the soothe wash of its voice, which entices, then intones ‘do nothing… be nothing’ as unbeknown, grandmothers footsteps, it wriggle creeps up the beach behind me
‘windfarm’, just a phone snap from a few weeks back, shakily taken from the top deck of the bus, as we wallowed along, on the cliffs near saltdean i love this pic! they’re building the windfarm out of the port, so always a few bright orange windcats bustling about, joe the boy down the road is a big fan, i don’t know how practical the project is, gotta be a good start, and makes sense that affluent, progressive, pleasant brighton should be wind powered (plenty of lentils, pulses and opinions, so fart and hot air powered somedays too!) but photo more about hubris, just a minuscule speck lost in the majestic ocean, turner-esque, enthralled by light, the sea in all its power and majesty… a capricious mutable beauty
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tho today its a bit of a pea soup out there, i can’t even see the sea, so am loitering pointlessly on here, when i want to be out on my bike! oh and i poured the holy well, blessed water from the festival into the ouse yesterday… said a few simple words whilst watched over only by a white egret, no doubt singing cohens ‘bird on a wire’ it was around high tide, so i quite like the notion of not knowing whether the spring water would head upstream to lewes, else to merge immediately with the world straddling sea… water is oneness ‘love like water always flows to the sea’
tenderness, the peach golden glow of dawn beneath a light mist, i emerge sleep befuddled from tent, to pause, then breathe, a majestic tree stands alone in the field. center. nary the slightest stir of air, stillness manifest a single leaf detaches itself, begins its slow fall to the ground, no flounce, without pirouette… ‘there is only grace’ whilst it drops through the canopy, a dry dead leaf rattle, as it jostles and brushes against the other leaves to the ground, surrender… drip by drop, scale by scale, leaf by leaf… necessary. this, the giving up
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dancing in the woods… am i going to roll around in the dirt and leaf mulch? of course! take a pile of leaves in hand, allow them to waterfall out and cascade down to cover me personally, looming grief, lots to ponder and summon in this autumnal season to end the dance, face down, nose buried in earth, the warm, sweet, foetal fungal smell of rot, a body lies atop me, this comforting weight, others her heartbeat above, ‘Her’, mother earths, slumbersome heartbeat below
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a ring of shaggy ink cap parasol mushrooms, minuscule dew daubed cobwebs… a fractal, fine grained beauty, life energy moves in swirls and spirals else catching leaves, usually a tumultuous floundering giggle, this time one came almost to hand a perfect tiny oak leaf, lobed, i made a wish, then later, a gift to the sweet natured pregnant woman i’d just been chatting with, ‘for you and your baby’
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aww had a lovely time at the festival at emerson, so many vibrant, fascinating folk to chat with. to eat together is always is a boon, a blessing and a bond… delicious yum grub too!…. to be few, yet many.. .. a lovely gamut of workshops, summoned most of the possible moods, singing, dancing, water energy… soothing music… oh and a powerful ritual too… an honour to try to hold space for the testimony of so many women… each of them expressing a unique blend of emotions… such courage, honesty and openness… let this sadness too, flow to earth… healing no picture this post, words mostly shared for myself, autumn, obviously, often an inner time but mostly… thank you x
