Buttery

Sorry if this makes no sense but–a bit like how you talk when you're outside in the cold–it'll be quick as I should currently be halfway up the M5 to attend some family moments. Needless to say, they were right about that icy blast!

And on the theme of family moments and kindling, my sister has just come home after working in Spain for a few months. She sensibly–and perhaps inspired by that spanish earthiness–came back to Bristol prepared with a big fleece, and wrapped up in it as we strolled around the docks after our own private Christmas lunch at the Buttery (outdoor café on the docks, and one of the most special places in the world). She had a kind of pied piper effect on the swans, it was magical.

Frosty-snowy-icy-bacon-sarnie-chilly-toes-extra-sugar-in-that-tea-please-good-to-have-you-home-our-g....quick let's get inside again....brrrrr!

Gotta dash!! Happy Christmas people. xxx

{Today's Soundtrack: Bon Iver again, has to be.}

Kindling

Driftwood kindling, which–tied up with a bow–made a sweet birthday present for someone who doesn't like fuss. Almost too pretty to burn!

They reckon we're in for an icy blast in the next couple of weeks, and an end to this rain we thought had no end. Hopefully some of those rich, blue winter skies will clasp us around the lungs and make us stand up a bit taller – so refreshing, those vast, open spaces of thin winter air.

Not long until the shortest day now, then unfurl the sails and cruise on downwind all the way back to summer. Icy blasts in mind, winter storms and not forgetting the season's poetic licence, the early part of the voyage will certainly require some warm sparking up of fires, either real or of the heart. (Now, where did you put that mistletoe?!)

Strike a match, and make mine a whiskey mac.

{Today's soundtrack: Friendly Fires}

The Rules : II

My little lion, how reassuring it is to find this picture, the poppet. (Look here if you want to know what I'm talking about.)

Laterally thinking today, I'm trying to come up with an indie/folk reworking of a fairly serious old carol 'cause I have to play it on Sunday for lots of people, but it's really hard. The syncopation is challenging, which is a problem as I have to steer a drummer and bass player too - as if I know what I'm talking about - ha! I've tried building in some open chord progressions so it's not so gloomy, but forget where they are and trip up, and now my fingers really hurt and my voice is going like I swallowed gravel for breakfast! I'm stuffed, but so is my bassist as I'm transposing but can't work out the new key. Latest is I'm thinking that for most of the set I'll ditch the guitar and lead three-way acapella harmonies instead. hmm... do you think I should reel this in a bit??

Oh flip. Anyone got a spare teacosy I can wear to distract everyone if I stuff up... ?

{Today's soundtrack, oh yes we're back and this I love:

Mumford & Sons - Little Lion Man + Sigh No More}

Soundtrack Crisis

Right. Help required.

Plugging the ipod into an unfamiliar mac to charge, forgot to turn off ipod sync in a thoroughly empty itunes. Guess who's ipod was wiped?

Breathe in, breathe out, repeat until calm.

Now, all is not lost as obviously I have my library back home, but this doesn't contain tunes from two prior lappies that blew up/got stolen. Sadness, and grief!

NOW, this is where you come in. Can you recommend your favourite soundtrack of today so I can go and have a listen and build that library back up again??

All comments welcome! Thanks x

{Today's Soundtrack: . . .    ?!   . . . }

Passport Booth

Passport booths are a good metaphor for life – at least the old fashioned ones were. You get to have another go if you stuff up. What a relief. Who do we thank?

{Today's soundtrack: Elbow - The Seldom Seen Kid}

Pinko, Dog, and the Orange Badge People.

Just in case you thought things had become slightly serious, here are a couple of little characters to lift the mood slightly. They are from a place I used to live in. I moved from that home recently after 10 years, which felt sad but a relief too, not clinging too tightly to it/stuff, and making a break for the next chapter, whatever that entails.

Introducing: Pinko, Dog, and the folk on a little orange badge who shelter together under a brolly and always make me think, "hmm, cute."

An antidote to those colourless, lightless moments – we all need funny little allies in this life, hey? Punctuations of colour with strong, bold character, but soft too, and a bit daft. My best friends are like that!

Last Post? Let it be known, I don't speak much french, don't think about death all the time, and am prone to being seduced by the surface of things. Aren't we all? Am I in good company?

{Today's soundtrack: Angus & Julia Stone}

Un Coeur Gross

[To finish on Joseph]


: extract from journal - 12.04.09 :


Easter Sunday - Vers L'église church.

A most surprising experience. Simple, protestant celebration in a beautiful, small church, all in french. I caught enough of the sermon to gather what was being shared – Joseph of Arimathea. The vicar spoke of Joseph's big heart, and how his heart was like the tomb from which Jesus was 'ressucité' – resurrected. He contained both death and life in his heart, with HOPE for the Kingdom of God to come. (Luke 23:51).

The vicar began his sermon by placing his hand on his heart, feeling for his own heartbeat.

"Le coeur symbolisé la vie, et la mort. C'est un cadeau, chaque jour. Joseph de Arimathea avait un coeur gross...," and he stressed the word 'big' with his hands as if he was growing into it.

So, as I pondered yesterday, he says Joseph symbolises our hope for life, even in death.

That these thoughts of yesterday were followed with a clear reiteration is too bare-faced to be meaningless.

•

A calling to stand in the shadows with a torchbeam is tough, and can feel very bleak. If this is you, you are in very good company. Our response to this call has to be a work in progress, heartened by knowing the greater your experience of suffering, the greater your capacity to love. You learn gradually that hope will always have the last word.

Hang in. Hang in.


{Today's soundtrack: me & my guitar}

More About Joseph

[Fearing the last post turned sober thought into trite meandering.]


: extract from journal - 11.04.09 :


Easter Saturday – Switzerland, Sur le Buis

Today is the Saturday between Good Friday and Easter Sunday. It is a day of rest. We rest with the difficulty of things, and the challenge of situations unresolved.

When Joseph [of Arimathea] came to take Jesus' body down from the cross, wrap it up and bury Jesus, he carried in his arms the deadweight of a strong man. The effort it would take to do this is one of fierce will, the sort of effort that is possible when the end goal–the ultimate vision–is clear in heart and mind. If I run a long race, the vision that gets me through the most gruelling parts is that of crossing the finish line and enjoying the victory of achievement at the end. For Joseph, he must have had some vision of the ultimate achievement beyond today in order to physically carry Jesus' body off the cross and into its tomb.

Joseph was the only man on the council who opposed the sentencing of Jesus. He was 'a voice of one calling in the desert'. How would his protestations have been received at council, and what would observers have made of his behaviour at the cross after Jesus died?

Joseph displayed a tenacity that relied solely on his hope for redemption, and yet what he carried of that hope was a deadweight, bloody carcass. For us, there are equivalents everyday – smaller, quieter echoes.

Today–Easter Saturday–is often, for me, the most difficult day of Easter. It is the liminal space where decisions or events determine a separation from the old, familiar way, and where the new way is not yet known or established. The new way is not even glimpsed, but we hope for it with all our hearts because one thing is sure: it would be a difficulty too far to live with the nothingness–the inconclusiveness–of things as they stand today. It is not even about being satisfied, complete or whole, but experiencing the powerful hand of redemption at work. That is what we hope for with Joseph.


Luke 23:51 "... he was waiting for the kingdom of God."


{that day's soundtrack: melting snow}

Dreamer

This image is from a little medieval church in a tiny village somewhere in the Swiss Alps. I sat there last Easter and pondered hope in the face of everything against it, as demonstrated by the big heart of Joseph of Arimathea. He carried the bloody corpse of Jesus in his arms and tended to it, because he believed death was not the final word. This is what I was thinking about when I found a big, red felt heart on the seat in front of me, and these pew-ends seemed to me to be the shape of encouraging angels, so I photographed them to remember being so moved by a story of hope in the face of death.

For a person blessed with imagination and thought, the physical world around you is only a starting point. There are–metaphysically–things not yet existing which will indeed come to pass. How do I know? Because this is what we persistently translate into music, brushstrokes, sculptural form and lyrical adventure, and keep doing because it keeps unlocking things for people. This is how we take a scribble of thought and sweep it into a beautifully crafted line with form and expression, assembled into a compelling vision.

Some questions:

Why are we compelled by art and music?
Because the thoughts and visions they contain can resonate with our most inexplicable longings and articulate hope.

Why are we not–even after everything–immune to hoping?
The answers to our hope (mine at least) often interrupt my straining at the leash by arriving from a totally alien direction with a gust of new, unbelievable life. This has taken me quite by surprise a number of times and captivates me into hope proper, believing not only that anything could happen, but occasionally does.

If hope is your greatest strength, is it also your greatest weakness?
Say, for example, you spied a handsome stranger one day as you stood by a tea urn backstage somewhere, and you sensed he spied you, and then as quickly and without a word passing, he disappears because he has a life to live that bears no relation to the fantasy you have suddenly created. Hope says he's not married, or doesn't prefer boys, and that its possible he could be your prince, and proceeds to colour in the pictures for you. Irresistably irrational, you are helpless in Hope's arms.

Hmm, angels on my pew...

...a voyage into the fairytale wilderness it is then with nothing but a pencil box for company.


{Today's Soundtrack: Bethany Dillon - The Acoustic Sessions}

Adrift

For a while, I've been captivated and swept up in an ocean of progression, harmonies and new beginnings. Music has been my only way. Words simply weren't enough–using them implied understanding, which would have been misleading–and photographs would not be caught.

It started with a single note back on February 8th (I remember clearly), then a chord, and a progression which escalated and diminished, and was then sustained. There has been a significant interruption in the rhythm of wave against shore, but this is the nature of shifting sands. So, I somehow found myself in the middle of this swilling ocean clinging to my guitar with nothing but a voice, and nothing making much sense. Let it come, was the advice, so I did just that, as I cast adrift.

I'm on another shore now–one which I couldn't see or imagine the last time I was here. For all the bewilderment, grief and disorientation in change, music has been everything – my ship. That's not such great news for this space (at least short term) whose life is about photographs and words, and I'm sorry about that! But music teaches me that not everything can be held on to, or pointed at, and if you cling too hard to pictures your scenery can never change, as it must.


{Today's Soundtrack: Bon Iver - For Emma, Forever Ago}

Unfolding

"I would love to live like a river flows,
carried by the surprise of its own unfolding."

Chatting today with a new friend, we mused about different seasons in life, mourning the loss of those past while grasping the purpose in those current. He asked me what season I was in now, and without too much hesitation I answered, "Spring". I was trying to remember this quote and got the words all mixed up, so regret stumbling my way through a potentially eloquent moment!

Hopeful spring, it's impossible to detail precisely how the plants will grow or what shape the flowers or fruit will be. And so it is that we are–like the river–surprised by the unfolding, captivated and compelled to keep moving forward. It's the nature of growth.

As occasionally happens, I am sorry for such lengthy absence. I could say I've been busy (true) or have been frozen in Winter (also true) with nothing going in and nothing coming out. Either way, I hope the arrival of Spring will cause some fresh unfolding.


{Today's Soundtrack: A student's seranade}

Something Gentle

Do you have about eight and a half minutes to watch a short clip? If you do, you will probably, after about the first two minutes, find yourself leaning on your elbows, fists propping your cheeks up with a sweet grin appearing on your face feeling like nothing really matters quite as much as you thought, except those things which you thought didn't matter.

It's absolutely delightful.

Elizabeth Cotten - Freight Train


{That was today's soundtrack}

Like a Child

I've been reading some interesting thoughts from Desmond Tutu on how much faith it takes to walk on a pavement, whether or not you believe in God. The point was that–even if you are an atheist–life cannot be lived without faith. It takes faith to drive your car and believe that everyone else is going to drive sensibly. It takes faith to put food in your mouth and trust it will not poison you, and faith to step onto the street believing that the ground will remain firm beneath you.

If you do not believe in God, you are still a person of faith.

With this in mind, can anyone tell me why the word 'faith' has become such a dirty word? Sometimes it's all we've got. It's not weakness to admit this, it's beyond strength and takes courage. It turns you into a child again, which isn't wrong, but it does go against the grain when you've spent your adult life working out the sense in, say, evolution, only to discover it forces you to make an off-putting case for oppressors, the sort that suck away all the world's resources for themselves, or systematically murder off people living on land they want. What stops people doing those things? Faith, that this rubbish is not the final word.

Faith tempers the arrogance of the fool.

Say a prayer, go on, don't be shy.




{Today's soundtrack: Pete Seeger - Oh, had I a golden thread}

{ extra soundtrack }

A special new year kick, I heard this on the radio on my way home from climbing the other night–it summed things up and made me clench my teeth and fists a bit firmer! It's been out since December so don't know why it's not being broadcast from rooftops everywhere with the volume up to 11, drowning out some of those miserable journalists.

{Florence and the Machine - Dog Days Are Over}

Blue Doors

So, winter time, here we are. It's all a bit frozen with nothing coming in and nothing going out, isn't it? At least that's how it feels much of the time. It takes a lot of grit to insist that there really are little streams trickling in–hidden as they are under layers of ice. However, after reading the Jan18th post on this page, I'm reminded that winter time is all about life being very still, necessarily so in preparation for the seasons ahead. And it will always be!

Standing at doorways like these I feel a curiosity about what lies concealed, ahead or around the corner. This is how my winter view feels, but I know there's something special in the waiting and dreaming that is intentionally so. Perhaps this desire is what shapes life when it does come pouring in again.

With this in mind, let's try not to lose heart over a freezing economy, lack of sunlight hours, society in hibernation or seemingly unanswered prayers. Friends, hold your nerve! These times feel hard relatively speaking, but there's nothing happening now that you can't deal with. It's winter, and rightly so before spring presses up its shoots...

...such as a black man elected American president while those looking on remember being disallowed from travelling on a bus in the 1960s because of their colour.

Anything is possible, but Winter has to come before Spring.





{Today's soundtrack: Fleet Foxes}