One of those flash ephiphanies of travel, the realisation that worlds you'd love vibrantly exist outside your ignorance of them. The vitality of many lives you know nothing about. The breeze lifting a blue curtain in a doorway billows just the same whether you are lucky enough to observe it or not.
Travel gives such jolts.
Frances Mayes, from A Year in the World.
You can’t give your heart to a wild thing: the more you do, the stronger they get. Until they’re strong enough to run into the woods. Or fly into a tree.
Then a taller tree. Then the sky.
That’s how you’ll end up … If you let yourself love a wild thing.
You’ll end up looking at the sky.
Truman Capote.
We were over in Holland today, in Zeeland, on a couple of their emptier beaches.
I love photographing birds in flight. And so I did.
Maybe it's animalness that will make the world right again: the wisdom of elephants, the enthusiasm of canines, the grace of snakes, the mildness of anteaters. Perhaps being human needs some diluting.
Carol Emswhwiller, from Carmen Dog.
Momo took all the balls to his bed under the stairs ... game over.
Quote found over at Terri's marvellous blog.
"But the moment I read Van Gogh's letter I knew what art was, and the creative impulse. It is a feeling of love and enthusiasm for something, and in a direct, simple, passionate and true way, you try to show this beauty in things to others, by drawing it. And Van Gogh's little drawing on the cheap note paper was a work of art because he loved the sky and the frail lamppost against it so seriously that he made the drawing with the most exquisite conscientiousness and care. ”
Brenda Ueland, from If Want to Write: A Book about Art, Independence and Spirit.
I found this extract this morning, just as I had set up my work station for the day, down here in the big country kitchen, and I thought it was surely something to share.
I have Terri Windling's blog in my google reader and most days, she has something like this to share with whoever cares to read her. She is a writer, artist, and book editor interested in myth, folklore, fairy tales, and the ways they are used in contemporary arts.
Child, to say the very thing you really mean, the whole of it, nothing more or less or other than what you really mean; that's the whole art and joy of words.
C.S.Lewis, from Till We Have Faces
Yesterday ended in a frenzy of activity around midnight ... after a long 2 days of processing a few hundred photographs.
A few weeks ago I had fallen while carrying my laptop. I was lucky and only the cd player was broken but it has taken until now to replace it with an external setup.
Last night was 'the burning' of images - onto cd and dvds.
In the end, there are only 600+ images - flying off to various friends in Madrid and Brussels, and sitting here on my desk for Antwerp too.
But yesterday wasn't all about photographs. I did stop periodically. I listened to this tv interview with Carl Jung. And, at some point, I had a craving to search for an old old favourite of mine ... Harry Chapin.
I have Mr Tanner playing as I write this, reminding me of those long-ago days, back in Christchurch, when Trevor first introduced me to Harry.
In days past, I emerged from a beautiful book by Yasmin Crowther - The Saffron Kitchen. Absolutely recommended. Also, from the same secondhand bookshop, I have just started A Round-Heeled Woman, by Jane Juska. It makes me smile. Who can resist a back cover that states, “Before I turn 67 – next March – I would like to have a lot of sex with a man I like. If you want to talk first, Trollope works for me.”
I'm loving the way it turns the notion of aging on its head.
"Do not go gentle into that good night"
We mustn't. We must live until we die. Mustn't we.
Expecting 32 celsius today ... before the thunderstorms come, around 21.00, and if the Buienradar is to be believed, they look impressive.
Now ... back to the to-do list with Harry.
I was working on a shot of a yoga gong and saw this ... in case you were wondering.