Random wanderings and wonderings

Many apologies about not showing up here or on your pages to say hello. I miss you all.


However, I am struggling to keep all my balls in the air. Three new University projects and not much time to complete them, the re-design and rewrite of a small grassroots NGO website, a new yoga class, regular visits to my parents and oh grom extra pressure at work.


So just a few photos from my morning walk, a few quotes that make the balls seem lighter and random thoughts strolling off the pages of my journal.


"Why is it impossible to know nature? That which is conceived to be nature is only the idea of nature arising in each person's mind. The ones who see true nature are infants. They see without thinking, straight and clear. If even the names of plants are known, a mandarin orange tree of the citrus family, a pine of the pine family, nature is not seen in its true form.


An object seen in isolation from the whole is not the real thing."

The One-Straw Revolution - An Introduction to Natural Farming.
Masanobu Fukuoka.


Sometimes when I am feeling blaahr and don't even feel like taking photos it is good to just point the camera at everything that invites my eye to dance and accept the invitation.


In me there is a dog that has been kicked a lot. It is not good allowing this dog to take over when I make decisions, meet new people or decide that everything is not quite going the way it should. All my inner dog want is love and affection but my inner puppy is a better interface to the outside. Once she gets home she can share her bounty.


Deep inside there is a space which I need to remember.

It remembers that all I need to do is what I know to be right and trust and all will be well. Like a small child who knows she is loved it recognises that although I might occasionally be wrong I will not be punished because how can you punish a child who does not know that what she is doing is wrong?


I catch Shanti's red yellow fur glowing in the sunlight and the sun catches the steam rising out of my cup. It is better to just place my head back on the pillow and drink it all in. Jumping up to fetch my camera will break the enhancement.


"The cosy, smug security of the antiquitter is to be avoided at all costs. Quitters must not be frightened by the potential cataclysmic outcome of a particular quit. Disaster beats stasis - better to be a rolling stone than a moss covered rock. Furthermore, the result of a quit must never eclipse the joy, beauty, and pleasure (even if it be perverse of the quit itself. A well-executed quit is its own reward."

The Art of Quitting -When enough is enough.
Evan Harris.


What will the African Anthropologist in my class say next? He finds such creative ways of arguing against the western art of facilitation.


If we are always making up goals and projecting them into the future do we run the risk of missing out magical happenings not defined in our future? Can we occupy both spaces? The projected one and the here and now. (Inspired by the African anthropologist)


Is it possible to turn the inner critic into a constructive inner critic?


After my lecturer over-rides my objections and moves our class times from nine to eight on a Saturday morning, and I don't have the courage to protest further, I suddenly starts mistrusting her and all the other members in my class. I no longer feel like sharing and I find the topics contrived and boring. The girl to my right turns from funny and amusing to outright irritating.


I want to use the skills learned from facilitation to better understand the part of me who fears criticism and feels vulnerable. On the one hand the feeling enables me to sense peoples emotions and motivations and feel compassion, on the other hand it makes me want to run from the room until I reach a quite place where I can hide.


"You need to claim the events of your life in order to make yourself yours. When you truly possess all you have been and done, which may take some time, you are fierce with reality."

Florida Scott-Maxwell


"The value of the personal relationship to all things is that it creates intimacy and intimacy creates understanding and understanding creates love."

Anias Nin.


Yearning for my future and wanting to hide under my bed often manages to squeese into the exact same moment in time.


I want to heal the skinless vulnerable place that makes me slink towards the upstairs toilet where I sit and wait for the powerful somebody, who I've been told is judging me, to stop holding on to the door that I need to pass through in order to get to my office.

And then while I sit there, staring at the wall, I start laughing first at and then with myself. I pull myself up to my full height because deep inside I know who I am. I regally stroll downstairs and I smirk down at his bald spot as I step around him. Hah!


Being trampled on by three adoring wolves all wanting to kiss and be kissed on the nose heals the deepest sadness.

The in-between field

It has been a strange couple of days.


Last week Tuesday I was called in by my project manager and taken to task. I was told that the client have decided that I am delivering no real business value, I was given a whole list of new tasks to do and I was told that for the next couple of months I need to prove my value to the business. All of this with no prior warning or any previous indication that anyone was unhappy with the quality of my work.


My reaction was to take this as a sign that it was time to take the leap out of the corporate world and into something for which I feel real passion. Development work especially research being done about the effects of mental health on poverty and exclusion. I also yearn to go back to University full time so that I can finish my studies in seven instead of eleven years.


I spent a lot of time working on my CV and had an informal meeting set up with some one from the World Bank. About an hour before my interview I found a quite space, stilled my being and from the depth of my heart, there where all my best intentions live, I asked for that which needs to happen to happen.


A few minutes later I received a call that my meeting was postponed till next week Tuesday. Two hours later I had an interview with the manager of the manager who dropped the bombshell a few days earlier. It turned out that the opinions he voiced were mostly his personal interpretation and that he has recently been taken to task for not managing my work as well as he could. I was further told that my manager turned down the suggestion that I be moved onto another project.

So where does this leave me? Honestly I am not sure.


At night I walk down the sandy path leading to the gate. I stare up at the sky looking for answers. Trees stretch their ink black branches towards a sky which cradles pinpricks of light in its palm. The sand is cold against the thin soles of my slippers. Pale tree shadows remind me of the beauty of impermanence. My heart fills with hope.


Days are starting to lengthen. Spring is peeking at the building blocks for her future creations. The sun is warm on my back. Three wolves effortlessly turn the corner without slowing their speed or breaking their rhythm.



Back at University I am happy with my results and have started defining the parameters of a small three months research project. I will investigating the relationships between gardening and mental health.


We will be be celebrating Guru Poornima on Sunday – a celebration that is held on the full moon to celebrate the relationship between guru and disciple.


And a book is opening me to the changes in my life:


“One night as I wandered, I collapsed in exhaustion on a hill overlooking the harbour, finally dozing against the trunk of a large tree. I lay there, neither asleep notr awake, until dawn. I can still remember it was the 15’th of May. In a daze I watched the harbour grow light, seeing the sunrise and yet somehow not seeing it. As the breeze blew up from below the bluff, the morning mist suddenly disappeared. Just at that moment a night heron appeared, gave a sharp cry, and flew away into the distance. I could hear the flapping of its wings. In an instant all my doubts and the gloomy mist of my confusion vanished.
*

Everything I had held in firm conviction, everything upon which I had ordinary relied was swept away with the wind. I felt that I understood just one thing. Without my thinking about them, words came from my mouth. “In this world there is nothing at all….” I felt that I understood nothing.


I could see that all the concepts to which I have been clinging, the very notion of existence itself, were empty fabrications. My spirit became light and clear. I was dancing wildly for joy. I could hear small birds chirping in the trees, and see the distant waves glistening in the rising sun. The leaves danced green and sparkling. I felt that this was truly heaven on earth. Everything that has possessed me, all the agonies, disappeared like dreams and illusions, and something one might call “true nature” stood revealed.


I think it could safely be said that form the experience of that morning my life changed completely.”

The One-Straw Revolution – An Introduction to Natural Farming. Masanobu Fukuoka.

One field closes and another opens.

I apologize for my absence.

I had one of those interviews at work that left me wandering through my house and wondering on chairs staring at the wall.

It might turn out to be the best thing that could possibly have happened but for now I am still trying to make sense of it all.

I hope to be back soon with good news.

We went for a walk today, slipping into a field where a fence usually keeps out human feet. The dogs found a missing fence pole.

We saw a huge flock of guinea fowls, a blue crane, a lot of yellow grasses and an owl.

The owl was a bit grumpy at being disturbed during her morning snooze.

ps. Go see the yellow at Bohemian creations. And the lovely post before the yellow.

pss. After reading all your wonderful posts filled with letting go, trust, hope beauty and laughter I laugh in the face of fear.

I hopped in my car and while driving towards Indian food and underneath a sickle moon I sang along to Bob Marley.

If you are the big tree
We are the small axe
Sharpened to cut you down
Ready to cut you down
Oh, yeah,

These are the words
Of my master
Keep on tellin' me, o-oh
No weak heart
Shall prosper
Oh no they can't, hey, and

Whosoever diggeth a pit, Lord
Shall fall in it
Shall fall in it
Whosoever diggeth a pit
Shall bury in it
Shall bury in it
If you are a big tree
We are the small axe
Sharpened to cut you down
Ready, to cut you down

Small Axe - Bob Marley

Tralalalalala Tralalalalala Soul captives are free.

A day gone missing

My day drifted away.


I'm not sure where it went.

Sleeping late walking the dogs having coffee with flo's brother in the sun outside at a table tiled in yellow red and blue racing through the new harry potter although I have a wonderful new book containing the letters of a guru to his disciple describing the awakening of the kundalini reading blogs wearing only one dog eaten slipper because I am too lazy to search for the other one cooking potatoes baking them in the oven eating them with garlic herb salt yoghurt and tomato chutney.


Now I need to leave my computer to visit my parents and I have not taken the dogs for a second walk or written the most beautiful post in the world.

Sigh.

I'm not sure

You know the feeling that you get in your heart when you see someone you have a crush on? The sharp sweet tug towards the one you yearn to love?

Today I visited a group of crèches in a township about an hour's drive outside joburg. Broad dirt roads, small brick and corrugated iron homes with cleanly swept yards, yellow grasses, people sitting together in small groups and clear blue winter skies.

My eyes takes some time to adjust to the light inside. Rows of eyes stare at me from bright green, yellow and red plastic chairs. I step into a second group where the almost babies sit. When these eyes rests on me they fill with tears. Three of the five starts crying with fear. Who is this strange tall person?

We are putting together small photo stories on each crèche. Once the children realize they can see their image on the small digital screen once the photo is taken I am quickly surrounded. I disappear into a group huddle. They scream with delight when they recognize themselves or their friends.

We stop at the local church to take photos of a group of ladies. They are the mothers of some of the children in the crèche. Funds have been raised for them to participate in a beading project. They get money for each bracelet they produce. We need to put together a small profile on each to show to the sponsor.

After taking their pictures I take pictures of the children sitting outside in the sun. They are serious about the poses they strike. A boy of about twelve winks at me in a slightly cynical fashion.

Inside a group sits with their teacher. They too are serious about their studies.

Next we visit a crèche called happy kids. At first they are skeptical. But the magic of seeing themselves in the small digital window wins their favor. Soon I am surrounded by small faces and arms. All want to see themselves. One manages to twist himself into every photo. A small scuffle ensues. I land flat on my bum. Laughter everywhere.

The teacher gets everyone to sit at their desks. Every time the flash goes of the models cheer.

Everyone wears new bright hats. Delicate flowers surrounded by the frames of their hoods. My heart expands and starts aching.

It is six hours later and still my heart is awake. I cannot describe the feeling. But I am aware of it all the time. It is as if it wants to expand and fill my whole body yet hide deep inside itself.

Past truths

Journal entry 1999


I walk outside to grab a look the the sky clothed in a beautiful dusk sunset. Great skies. So big. I was about to turn back inside but thought. No. Stay. Listen to your soul.


Then from above the pine trees, through the pink sun, under the grey blue skies and half sickle moon three geese honkingly flew.


Two in front and one behind.

As they cleared the top of the moon one cried out and the last one joined the first.


I wish I could find a way to describe the wind moving through the trees. Maybe it is not wind. Maybe it is everything speaking to one another in one continuous movement of atom to atom. Air to air ending in a soft burst past my ear.

I just know that something in my heart that was rigid and unmoving has no choice but to respond to the gentle pattering of leaves and their flickering light and shadows.


Leaves and my feet on the ground and beautiful grey and green arms reaching up and out. Filled with moving pattering green in front of a sun blue sky. A big round white cloud hovers in the background.

What does the little yellow green bird see? Does he see me? Does he think? Or is he but an extension of whatever he is surrounded by?


For mitzh.

Justice for all

I spent the weekend reading a book by Alice Miller on how we are taught as children that only certain parts of us are lovable. We are often loved more for our abilities than for being all of who we are. Soon we start to despise everything but these characteristics, not only in others, but also in ourselves.

We compare ourselves with everything and often feel less or more lovable than that which we perceive. When recognizing that we are complete and worthy of being loved just because we are we can experience the joy and diversity inside and outside of ourselves.


“Contempt simply evaporates, having lost its point, when it is no longer useful as a shield – against the child's shame over his desperate, unreturned love; against his feelings of inadequacy; or above all against his rage that his parents were not available.

[...] we have to despise everything in ourselves that is not wonderful, good and clever. Thus we perpetuate the loneliness of our childhood: We despise weakness, helplessness, uncertainty – in short, the child in ourselves and in others. (Miller, A, 1997, The drama of being a child)

Like many behaviours contempt and exclusion are learned from others, often our parents, who learned it from their parents who learned it from theirs. With practise any learned behaviour can be unlearned which might eventually result in children who are no longer taught to feel contempt for parts of themselves but knows that all their facets and emotions are acceptable and lovable. Certain behaviours might not be acceptable but every human being should be loved for who they are and not for outward signs of behaviour.

The child in me has been coveting the pink rocking girl button. I have told myself not to be silly. That it does not matter. However I have realized that it does. So I am seizing this button for my child. She giggles with delight.

And now I get to nominate the girls, and boy, who rock my world. All twenty six of them, because how could four blogs ever communicate the fabulousness and range of the women I admire? I humbly offer this award to my muses.


Bohemian creations : The picture of her kitten's paws makes me go all soft and happy and her posts are filled with green and sun and wonder.


Fortune and Glory : She eats asparagus for breakfast and writes with such sensitive thoughtfulness that I can almost feel her thoughts soaring past.


Getting it wrong : She applies her self with humorous determination to everything she does. She moves and shakes.

Guilty with an explanation : I laugh and laugh and every now and again I cry a little bit. She also owned a wolf and we are therefore in a strange sort of a way related.

Gumdrops & Bubble Thoughts : Her words delicately dance across the page, glad that they have reached perfection.

la vie en rose : Her poetry speaks to my soul and the everyday shyly reveals its true colors to her lens.


My Marrakesh : She fills my days with glamor and beauty yet she is also a slice of rye bread with goats feta and olives. Like a true Persian carpet she is rich, colorful, filled with delicate details and made to bring joy, not to be placed in a glass box.


Running on Empty : I can almost taste the deliciousness of her words. She cares. Her words smile.

NotSoSage : She lives her beliefs and eats burgers with sage. I feel as if we have already met. Soon we will talk as if we saw each other only yesterday.


Shilly Shally, Dilly, Dally? : Like a hero of old she resonates with a longing to find her true way. She is also funny and honest.

Shimodas Dream : She writes about growing up and I am transported into a world I never dreamed existed.

Sticking to the Point : Her self portraits blow me away, she buys small aprons with flowers on, goes to book readings and shows me street art.

Thailand Gal : She goes boldly where I won't even go with myself. And questions and searches for her truth. She does not offer easy answers and through her explorations my own answers appear.

Third Story : Her poetry, her class of girls, her photos and her world makes my heart yearn for answers. She finds beauty where others would see none.

Crazymumma : She has lived, her love for her daughters shines through her words and her posts are filled with a richness and empathy that comes with knowing.

Creative.Mother.Thinking : She sings, posts about creativity and hag rags and her life seems filled with a sunlit integrity. After reading her posts I always realize that little steps lead to greatness.


Under the Ponderosa : Her world is filled with trees and rivers, bicycle rides and birds. I go there and I rest in nature and enchanting happenings in her home.

waiting on the front porch : She is filled with courage and caring, questions and stories, vulnerability and strength.

writing as jo(e) : Her writing inspires me to keep writing. Her world inspires me to keep living.

Little Pea : When she is sun and sea she is sun and sea and when she is winter and sick she is winter and sick. She never takes herself too seriously and she loves Peanut.


Synergy Weblog : I am so in love with this man, his dreams and his work.

Capacious : She is funny and gritty and always says something that surprises a shout of laughter from me.

A fanciful twist : She adds a twirl here and a curl there and everything becomes light , fun and wonderful.

Tired Mummy : Often when I am ready to give in to the mean-spirited side of me, I read her words and I am ready to stop struggling and just be.

One plus two : No matter what she writes about she writes from her heart. Her words are never bigger than she is. She is always passionate, always Jen. Growing closer to who and what she loves.

Flutter Crafts : She is as fragile and magic as moonlight and yet she is as powerful as the sun. She is a mermaid who sings to an ocean of beauty.

Each one of you are so different yet I would not have it any other way. You allow me to see through your eyes, learn from your dreams and laugh with your words.

Oi, the afternoon is gone and I have not even told you about my weekend, sitting in the sun reading, watching the moon rise over the hills while standing amongst the ruins of a settlement long gone, seeing the dogs jump into and out of the river again and again and rolling and jumping through the fields and me doing soul searching and findings answers in my dreams.