Election Day

For centuries, the bee was the ultimate symbol of well-governed industry. Observers interpreted bee society as a judicious model for that of humans, all about order and everyone being able to contribute and mutual benefit and being stronger by working together.

Now, this was in the days before David Attenborough, and all those studies of the bee waggle-waggle dances. There are aspects of bee-life we probably wouldn't want to emulate... rigid class systems and the killing of baby princesses, for starters. And no-voting, unlike our own society :-)

Yet as an aspirational thing, a guiding star, I do like the idea of well-governed industry.

Family Day

Gorgeous afternoon with my sister: after lunch, she surprised me with a treaty visit to the Mandala Spa. Glass or two o'champers, fabulous massage (yes, we felt kinda like the Boneless Chicken Ranch afterwards) and many giggles.

I was conscious this morning that a friend of mine was marking his mother's anniversary today. Last year we visited her grave together, lay bright flowers down as the wind whipped about us. And the thoughts helped me to stay in the moment and treasure the day even more.

Bubbley

Some days are just so effervescent, it's impossible for anything to hold you back.

Iris

In Springtime, planting teeny bulbs and seeds is one of my favourite things to do; you pat everything down amongst dark earth - bursting with potential energy - and wait as things grow beyond your sight. Today I was at home pretty much throughout the day, and happily witnessed two impossibly blue irises unfurl into flower.

Ah,  the little iris, which takes its name from the Greek Goddess of the rainbow (and is sometimes translated as 'eye of heaven'). In floral-speak, it symbolizes eloquence. In medieval times it had associations with kingship, with its three petals representing faith, wisdom and valour, and obviously the fleur-de-lys is based on its purdy unfurling of petals.

 They are such strangely beautiful things :-)

Represent eloquence, eh? Here's hoping for some productive writing time this weekend!

Shared time

Amidst rain-showers and dreary weather, today included the concocting of various lunch plans for the week ahead with friends and family.

Ah, the delights of laydees who lunch :-)

Sanctuary

During my lunch today, I visited The Sanctuary for the first time. It's a place devoted to stillness and presence and general all-round mindfulness. I sat out in one of their gardens, with dried grasses from winter swaying, and a little fountain playing, and gossamer cobwebs glistening, and sparrows all chirpy, super-busy with the building of homes.

Most restorative. And oodles of movement, for a place all about stillness.

I'm thinking this could become a Monday thing :-)

News from the cottage

This winter's amaryllis blooms a little late, but its beautiful soft hues are worth the wait.

Dubh continues in her habitual bringing-in of things that she has found outside. Sometimes pretty things, like a shell or a pebble. Sometimes she's on Tidy Towns duty, carrying in plastic wrappers, which she neatly drops into my coffee mug. Grrrrr...

And sometimes, it's kinda random; her own little raggedy art.

Time to surrender

A busy start to the week: we're moving offices, which involves bursts of packing/unpacking, bursts of 'regular' work, and bursts of extreme flumpiness which only caffeine and sugar seem to mitigate.

Currently, our lovely new sunshiney office is at the phase where it looks worse before it looks better. Baby steps :-)

Anyhoo, I'm taking a moment out to be quietly inspired by the beauty of 14th-century Persian poet/mystic/seer Hafiz:

I wish I could speak like music.
I wish I could put the swaying splendor

of the fields into words,
So that you could hold Truth
against your body

and dance.
I am trying the best I can

with this crude brush,
the tongue,

to cover you with light.
I wish I could speak like divine music.
I want to give you the sublime rhythms

of this earth and the sky's limbs
as they joyously spin and surrender,
Surrender

Against God's luminous breath.
Hafiz wants you to hold me

Against your precious Body

And dance,
Dance.

♥

New homes

Last year, to mark this day, my family went for dinner. We chose a seafood restaurant in Howth, and I recall the meal featuring all kinds o'treaty delicacies. I saved an oyster shell from the evening: wrapped it up in a napkin, scrubbing it out when I arrived back to Baltimore.

As coincidence would have it, I just picked up and unpacked the shell yesterday - I had stashed it in my teeny gardening trolley, which was finally collected from the Garage of Storage. The oyster shell lay amongst oodles of mermaid's tears, crafted by oceans over decades, in blues and greens and pinks and endless shades in between.

And now, to find the right spot in my little cottage for such evocative gifts from the sea...

:-)

The weekend cometh

...or if you work part-time (à la me), it may have already arrived. Heading out for a day with family. Hoping the weekend ahead is fresh, inviting, nourishing...

Photo: Carlingford, New Year's Day 2011

Have a lovely weekend, all :-)

Painting a thousand words

Ah, photos made for a caption competition :-)

Day of Candles...

...really, isn't every day Candle Day?

However, it is 2 February - Candlemas and Groundhog Day - again. Buds are budding, sap is quickening, light is increasing.



Photo: Carlingford, New Year's Eve 

"Thousands of candles can be lit from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared." - Buddha

I hope the year ahead is filled with light for all :-)

 

Threshold of Spring

by R M Rilke

Harshness gone. All at once caring spreads over

the naked grey of the meadows.

Tiny rivulets sing in different voices.

A softness, as if from everywhere,

is touching the earth.

Paths appear across the land and beckon.

Surprised once again, you sense

its coming in the empty tree.





And in belated, blog-catching-up kinda news: