It's raining in New England.
Yet it is entirely beautiful. My background is Portuguese and English, two very seafaring cultures. I'm drawn to this place with it's endless shorelines, seafaring vessels and crab cakes. Picked up a lost chunk of my soul here for sure.
Blackened haddock for dinner. Could have eaten two of them. Just the cries of seagulls had me at hello.
Wish you were here.
xo Gillian
The other night I had a lucid and vivid dream. My eldest daughter and I were hiking through Amman...not through the bustling streets or city centers but in the hills. And there were trees. So many towering trees.
In fact, it was a forest that did not exist really in Amman. But such was my dream. I was photographing the trees with her; they were immense. Some over 400 feet high. I recall being spoken to by some unseen voice, a voice that wanted to know why exactly I thought it was okay for this forest to be cut down. I couldn't put into words why I felt that, I only knew that it would be okay.
My opinions were met with disdain, I was scolded. Chastised. Made fun of for my views. {I didn't let it faze me. Really. I kept doing what I was doing. The opinions of others met with my immunity. Such a lovely, empowering feeling.}
I kept hiking until I discovered I had lost my camera equipment. Including my iPhone, which is also, by the way, a camera of it's own right.
We kept up our search for the cameras while we hiked through these trees. Looking up gave us vertigo...the trees were so overwhelming. Then there was some immediate danger. The trees were going to be cut down and we were right in the middle of it all. I told Olivia not to worry; that to have faith that all would work out fine. We'd be safe, that much I knew.
A short while later we then discovered lush and fertile crops were growing right where the trees had been cut down; and in numerous stacks the trees were tied together in neat little bundles.
The unseen voice returned. It told me I had been right all along. It also told me to look in my purse. I opened it up to see my camera equipment had been there the entire time.
***
I pondered this dream for days. I consulted the oracle. Then I consulted my best friend who gave me the perfect interpretation. She was 100% correct. I'll sum up her analysis by telling you this:
I believe in myself. I've had people who would disagree with the way I do things. They talk, they snicker. They think what they want to think...it's their drama. I don't deal with other people's drama well, I never have. I like to worry about what I'm doing. So that said, initially the overwhelmment I felt resulted in me doubting my abilities. Doubting myself. A darkness came over me in the form of fear. Ridicule. Anxiety. And yet...by sticking to what I believed in, a fruitfulness ensued. A ripe time of fruition was available to me. I was, for lack of a better word-"proven" right.
So naysayers, excuse me while I go harvest my crops. I'm not searching anymore. I've got all I need. It's (the light, & it's) been with me all along.
xoxo
p.s. The same is true of YOU. Stick to what you know. Believe in what your heart tells you is right. And you too will yield abundance from the seeds you have planted. YOU WILL. Have faith.
Since the world is what we make it...why not make it the best possible place? A place with only room for pure truth...
breathtaking beauty....
...and the greatest of all virtues, love.
This day I am seeking. Seeking whimsy, sunlight, and the solving of puzzles. I'm seeking out illustrations of a stylised and artful entymological nature, as I have inklings of getting a honey bee tattoo. I love them so, and after seeing one on the wrist of a woman this week I couldn't help but think of the reoccurence of this symbology in my life...my daughters are the honey bee and the olive branch. Perhaps both together in a small sepia design somewhere hidden would be ethereal.
What is interesting to me besides the images themselves representing my two beautiful creations, is their inherant meanings. The honey bee is symbolic of untiring work, hope & the soul. The olive branch is victory, longevity & honour. It above all is a symbol of peace. Which is what we all need, don't we?
Truth, beauty and love exist everywhere. I hope on this Sunday you find it lurking in your newspaper, 'neath the sheets whilst you dream, in the cry of an eagle soaring overhead or in the gaze of a large white coyote who visits in the night.
When you were born, you cried and all the world rejoiced. Live your life so that when you die, the world cries and you rejoice.
~Cherokee Proverb
XOXO
All pictures taken by Gillian da Silva in Petra, Jordan. March 2010
Our hearts are in a botanical space, lit up with violets & hummingbirds in a pale & lovely symmetry. Singing with valour and glee they beat uptickingly to gather up armfuls of mossy trees...as lilacs perfuming our very air.
These are our choices.
Allowing for the prana flow, the wild climbing of vines, the shock-waves of love that pulsate chuggingly from our raspberry-hued engines, the clapping of hands and the breaking-it-down Charlie Brown's, & the walking amidst paths of our own making {the ones lit with violets & happy hearts} rather than some pale version of one forged previously for us.
This day was lime marmalade on rye, margarita cake & rhubarb martinis. What an organically imbued palette of gastronomy! Our friend and neighbour hollered over the fence, "Cake and martinis?" Well, duh! Of course! See you after we get home from the park.
Skipping back from sunwashed swingsets & 'neath a singing cicadan moonrise...our hands & fingers hammocked, intertwined as if lingering lakeside at a cottage midsummer afternoon. A familiar place. A place where the happy hearts of family dwell. Kudos to my friend for the superb rhubarb martini. Sheer perfection!
Hope you've made your own conscious choices. {To do such a thing is a magnet for divine prosperity!}
Let there be light.
xoxo
Sometimes there is subtle charm in the mood of things tossed down. Seeing it through your lens romantizes it to a degree. But the natural light of a Sunday afternoon is as exquisite as a languid swim in a glaucous blue pool {slowly hands extending fingers then dragging back along the surface breaking the tension; a kind of painterly stroke}, or the tides flotsamming untold treasures into the surf for you to scoop up into expectant palms.
I see the need for flash photography. I just prefer natural light. Natural light offers a truth that flash does not. Even in midday when deemed to be at it's harshest, there is a reality about the light of the world that I simply love.
I had a lazy day doing absosweetly nothing. It was a day to relish. Responsibilities were relinquished. Long black Indonesian Djarum's were smoked {a passing fancy}. Today the record for longest text message conversation likely went to my best friend and I. Sometimes hours passed before we responded to each other, sometimes seconds...wherever it lay, we simply picked up where we left off.
Tomorrow will be a day of more natural light, productivity, and reading angel cards. Yes, I've come to adore such preternatural hobbies. One must embrace oneself, despite what the world thinks...after all we are finite vessels. We must fruition through our hands and mouths the gifts we've been chosen to share with each other.
We'll make our art the best way we see fit. Shouldn't we?
xoxo
p.s. Now three minutes of meditation as homework. I seriously have homework for meditation class! Isn't that brilliant? The other day my friend emailed me to let me know that I appeared to her in a dream, with pink hair and my eyes on a sparkling fountain of shooting stars in the night sky. I had a quiet smile, and neither of us spoke. I love that because I'm almost at a place where I feel the need for words lessening. When one is close to truth in nature, words are absolutely pointless.
I can't think of Japan and not think of the woman centered in the photograph above. {Japan is one of her favourite places on the planet.} This shot of Christine and fellow traveller Donna posing with local Jordanians, taken by me last year on a photographic safari through the country of Jordan led by Tara Bradford.
I'm wondering how Japan will fare after all that rushing water has stilled; after the initial shock of being devastated takes hold of them, testing their resilience. I can barely concentrate on anything else; stuck on news headlines and up-to-the-minute reports. It seems as of late that the colour has been desaturated from our world. Though it is on the other side of the globe it still resonates deeply with us doesn't it? We are one, and tragedy often points that out for us if we've tended to forget.
There is a current trend in my life. I'm connecting to people in the real world. Oh I love this medium don't get me wrong. It is a very wonderful and precious thing to me, this online life. It is such a meaningful thing to seek out like-minded individuals who lift us up-give us something to aspire to. But in life, often times we are disconnected from our living and breathing fellow human beings. Recently it has been a key point in my awareness to embrace moments of conversation, of dreams shared, meals over red wine & spiced tea, eye-to-eye soulful connectedness to my children {listening-really listening}, and of course the sound of my own breathing. Yes lately I'm embracing the simple act of breathing, and reflected in that notion is a timely meditation course I will be attending. A serendipitous meeting with the facilitator has resulted in this for which I'm grateful.
I've also surrounded myself lately with my beloved earthy things; fresh flowers, bread baking, housework. Phone calls to fellow bloggers-yes! Fellow bloggers! For once I wanted to tell them my thoughts instead of leaving them as comments.
Ideas are sprouting up from the deep sea of my mind that have me really wanting to get my hands in the dirt a-planting {spring, finally}, my brushes a-arting, and my markers a-illustrating. I fell in love; deeply, longingly and inspiringly in love with the Monarch butterfly last year {courtesy of a good friend, thank you Dianne} and can think of nothing else but harvesting those eggs again and raising more Monarchs this year. The very idea of it has me bursting with glee like a child about to go in a candy store. Now I'm sure if you ask my neighbours, they'd much rather see me out with a spade in my hand come springtime. They've endured the ill terrain that is considered my backyard for nearly two years since we've moved in. So won't they be pleasantly surprised to see the breaking of the dirt with a shovel? Never have I lived so long without flower beds or trees. Moving here, working countless hours and raising young girls has put some of my passions on the backburner. {I'm so used to gardening ordinarily that a huge void is lurking in my life that needs to be filled.} A gardener needs dirt on her hands. Plain and simple. I miss the smell of the soil too.
All these simple acts of the everyday add up to lots of little handfuls of awareness. Like taking water into cupped hands from a running faucet, ready to drink. These awarenesses are building blocks of my good life. I keep the Japanese in my awareness too; for I truly feel that it is healing to do so.
My children watched Bridge to Terabithia for the one millionth time this weekend. In the story, the little girl writes a timely poem that she reads to her class. I won't spoil it for you if you haven't seen this gem of a movie. But I want to share with you her words because the author of this book Katherine Paterson really nailed it. I thought of how fragile our human existence is, and how we all need to preoccupy ourselves with the little handfuls of gratitude and awareness while we have them...
"I’m moving gently forward over the wild and beautiful unexplored world below me. I am floating in silence and breaking it up with the sound of my breath.
Above me there is nothing but shimmery light; the place where I come from and will go back to when I am done here.
I am diving. I am a SCUBA diver. I’m going deeper past the wrinkled rocks and dark seaweed toward a deep blueness where a school of silver fish wait. As I swim through the water, bubbles burst from me, wobbling as little jellyfish as they rise.
I check my air. I don’t have as much time as I need to see everything, but that is what makes it so special.”
– Bridge to Terabithia
The bread machine works. It actually works! I made a delightfully sweet whole wheat loaf today and couldn't have been more pleased. There is a domesticity settling in to my bones now that the crackling cold wails outside (wanting to sap moisture from my skin and brittle my hair into straw.) My only comforts being my children's laughter, my family & my music. It plays on, warming the very air with each note. I found this photograph of our old office space, it reminded me of a dream-a watercolour awash with it's own notes of green and hazy happinesses. The swirly 85 year old glass still intact and hosting a paper solar system, but minus Pluto sadly. The kids found out about dear old Pluto and so therefore have left it out of every collage, drawing and paper scale model. But let's not forget that star. After all, it is still a star right?
Melancholies seep into my bones too, future ones. I'm already reminiscent of today and tomorrow, days which are filled with joy & an ease that is expected when ones children are so very young. The world's problems have yet to weigh that heavily on their shoulders. I laugh at work when talking with my friend about retirement. We both smile big whenever we think of it. We expect to retire soon and why not? I'm tired of the old model of waiting until you are 65. I will retire and then become enveloped in the joys of my family and my hobbies and my life. I'll travel with them. I'll travel without them, pop a postcard into the mail for them. We'll paint, hike and journal. Bake more breads. We'll do these things because we are young enough to enjoy them without the aches and pains of being past our prime. Hey, it is only a dream right now. But tell me, wherefore would we be if we didn't plan the manifestations of tomorrow? Toiling out our days as per our forefather's notions? Still sadly and unnecessarily believing that money doesn't grow on trees? Well it does. In plenty. Take your bucket to the tree and go fill it, you'll see.
Then climb that ladder to the stars, the ones that sparkle and shine with the promises and seeds planted of your tomorrows.
xoxo
Let me preface this post by telling you I just hit my right elbow on the corner of the refridgerator, and my funny bone reacted with an explosion of pain that was worthy of quite a few expletives. I still rub it now, it serves to remind me I'm not giving enough...why else would I have hit it?
The tree above reminds me of a tree in my dream about ten years ago. I was looking out of my (at the time) loft window, it was snowing gently, fully. Fat flakes. Coasting down. Softly white, under a bluish-grey night sky. I looked across the road, and a friend of mine in the loft across beckoned to me, to join her. She was having tea in her attic, and would I join her? Why of course, I replied, as I crawled out the window, onto the sturdy branch of an old tree in my front yard. I climbed through the tree effortlessly, and it wasn't until I got to her attic, that I realized I hadn't even left my own house...only my consciousness had gone across. I knew this because looking down at myself I had no form. But I still had vision, and speech, hearing. All those things. It was as real as if it really happened, and I sincerely think it did happen.
Trees hold miraculous powers, and so do dreams. I have a personal theory about them actually, I think dreamtime is our time of learning to focus our minds (or conscious selves), to get lucid, to get control. We upload and download during our "unexplainable by science" sleep time.
Funny how science fails to explain sleep. A seemingly most basic of necessities. We couldn't exist without sleep. Not for long anyway. So I ask you...is consciousness dependent on sleep for its own basic needs, much like our bodies depend on air to maintain our physicality? For ages we've been trying to explain the function of sleep for us to survive physically. Science can't explain it. They CAN'T. So, is sleep then for the soul?
Yes. Yes it is. :D
Okay, clearly I've had too much time to ponder this. A song, one I'll always love. It's me, my cigarettes, my red lipstick and my doc martens. I'm 14. I'm a dreamer. xoxo
p.s. by the way, I no longer smoke. It's no good for the soul! (One must remain clear.)
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