Tag Archives: photography

Finding my sweet spot

So, as an artist, what do I most want to do…do I want to present it all on an equal footing, as though you were standing there in that garden with me, getting to choose which blade of grass to examine closely next? (I tend to think that would make me into someone who delivers visual information, documentary fashion…but not an artist.) Or do I want to share what I, personally, focussed on and so experienced there because it was so high-frequency it overwhelmed me with love and appreciation of life and I want to dole that out like a tonic to all the world? The same goes for life, do I want to see the whole picture, or do I elect to find my own personal sweet spot and choose to stay there, as much as possible, modelling this way of being (not that this is why I do it) to anyone who cares to notice how good it can feel to be this way? Why do I suspect there’s more to this topic than meets the eye; that there’s pure alchemy at work when we, each of us, elect to seek out our own sweet spot and make it into our home, our very way of being, the thing that determines how we spend our time, what we give our thoughts to, how much joy, love and gratitude we feel every day… Continue reading

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Amsterdam – where left meets right

There’s something crystalline about places that formed along strictly organised lines masterminded by great architects…and then softened over time. It’s not the history of the places that draws me per se but the process of succumbing and melding with something more fluid, after the event of their creation, that beguiles me; it’s where they are at now that appeals. Like a cup overspilling, the colour and creativity of human life that they burst with – now – is like that liquid I refer to, although it’s not; its more energetic in nature, it’s a feeling that manifests as beauty…. Revisiting Amsterdam, having some epiphanies about what creates the unique energy of a place along the way. Continue reading

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Seeing the world

Its a classic time of year for me to be adding a load of eye-catching nature pictures to my newsfeed following long winter walks. To those of my friends who don’t live in my part of the world, or even a similar climate (and there are several), it may seem as though I live in a completely DIFFERENT world, but I don’t…not really.

I started doing an online photography course yesterday and I loved it when the teacher described how she saw a feather hanging off a branch in a pubic garden and pounced on it with her camera. Her friend said to her “How did you SEE that?” and she replied “How did you NOT?” I’m just the same and, like her, I would have then spent the next half hour angling different shots at this feather while my friend scuffed her feet around wondering when we were going for some lunch – I do that to my family all the time – but its not that I’m trying to force the beauty out of a subject. Its already there…its everywhere, its just a case of being receptive to it, to really see it, to notice it wherever it presents itself. Continue reading

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The yin-yang garden

This is all the same winter garden as experienced during a period of less than three hours, first in day and then in night. Notice how the deep dark velvets and jewel tones sing out mostly in the daytime, the … Continue reading

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Glass butterflies

I noticed something very distinct about Amsterdam and that was how the layout of its main canals, in a layered horse-shoe shape, divided by roads and intersecting canals that fanned it out like a turkey-tail, reminded me of an inverted tree of life or rather, a tree of life labyrinth. I have talked about my labyrinthine experiences walking around the streets of various towns many times before and here was another example showing up in my experience. The labyrinth can be an extremely powerful way of encountering portals at the points where energies intersect and seems to invite multi-faceted experience into your awareness through these portals; which serve as an axis-point between other dimensions (you could think of such a portal as the truck of a tree connecting dimensional “branches”). So, in effect, you can find yourself standing in an ordinary physical “place” when suddenly your three-dimensional “reality” (which starts to take on symbolic significance in ways you didn’t notice before; these everyday things are now”clues” to make you sit up and take notice) seems to intersect more fluidly than ever with other dimensions that you can now perceive.These power nodes train you in multi-dimensional awareness and so you familiarise yourself with its potential in ways that you get to take with you through other walks of life. When you encounter these power-portals, you feel riveted to the spot as coincidences of circumstance “speak” to you in a multitude of ways, offering new layers of deeper meaning and understanding to what you ordinarily encounter with your five senses. Continue reading

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Graceful journey: a Scandinavian experience

When grace happens to you, it is like a moment of poise that you just know is exactly where you were destined to be; one you will never forget and will continue to draw upon at times when life drags you back into its slip streams. Like portals between layers of space and time that tell us we are unfailingly on track, can’t even be off-track if we tried, these appointments with our own self-created destiny are powerful nodes of experience that communicate back and forth across time and space and make life feel unimaginably coherent, even in the midst of the most tragic or unexpected things happening around us. Nothing can truly shake us out of this sense of coherence once we plug into this personal journey of the heart. There is true power and strength to be found around so many unlikely street corners on such a journey through life; one which takes us far closer to the true epicentre of our own heart-maze than anything we could experience from following somebody else’s guidance on where we should be going, what we should be doing. Listen to the advice, yes…but the listen to your own inner guidance first; and take some of those detours down less trodden streets and be amazed at what shows up in some unexpected places. That’s when we realise that grace is, ultimately, an inside job and entirely portable, wherever we happen to be. From that space, we realise, place is just a matter of perspective; that the inner work is where it all happens and that, through the attitudes we adopt, we really are the true architects of our world, the creators of our own skyline view and (when we allow life to unfold for us) we are always, unfailingly, in the right place at the right time. Continue reading

Posted in Ancient sites, Art, Art technique, Birds, Consciousness & evolution, Divine feminine, Gardens & gardening, Health & wellbeing, Holiday destinations, Installation art, Life choices, Life journey, Personal Development, Photography, Symbolic journeys, Travel, Walks | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

In search of waterfalls

Something called me back to the Brecon Beacons and Wye Valley this year and I responded to it like a knee-jerk impulse (since we hardly needed yet another trip this busy year…), booking it almost before I had time to … Continue reading

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Life force

Its been a week of rescuing small creatures; first a dragonfly caught in the bathroom of an arts centre, bashing against a closed window that was sealed shut all except for a finger’s width of a gap; an adventure to … Continue reading

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One walk, many skies

It was one of those bright and reasonably warm February afternoons where the sun is acute and golden in a bright blue sky yet it was already working on producing some wonderful contrast, whipping up clouds into monumental formations, sculpting … Continue reading

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