A Pause to Refresh

Dear Readers,

My computer is ailing, so I'm taking this as a Sign. Although the words are flowing from my mind I'll be putting them down with pen and paper for the next little while. Look for me again around the beginning of the second week in July.

Meanwhile, enjoy what flutters by in your life.

The Summer Solstice

Just like that moment when the tide turns from flow to ebb (or vice versa) and the sea seems to hold its breath for a while,so the solstice brings a pause between lengthening and shortening days. I thought, this is a good time for me to pause and take stock of my life, what's happened in the year so far, and where, from here on to the end, I might be going. Or want to be going.

Summer days bring good moments for musing, I find. Maybe this has something to do with the fact that I'm more likely to be out in the warm air, enjoying nature and her gifts, watching the sky and the clouds, the sunsets and so on.

These experiences led me to thinking about the bountiful gifts that surround us, that mother earth and the heavens provide. And, unfortunately, how we are ruining everything. This came home to me in a particular way recently when I read a couple of different articles on the BBC and Guardian news sites. Apparently, fashion is killing our world and it's not only our consumptions of cheap clothing but also the demand for cotton. The dyeing of denim is turning some lakes blue.

Ouch. I prefer to wear natural fibres. Plus, I enjoy fashion. I try not to buy more than I need and keep my good German garments for as long as I possibly can. Even my grandson, watching me pack a suitcase, said 'The same clothes, Nana'. Yes indeed. Still, I'm far away from the days when I owned far fewer garments. The habit of having more has crept up on me over the years. Now I'm promising myself to be as mindful as possible in future.

Meanwhile, my summer needs are met, even if I will need a new swimsuit before very long!

Summer heat

Our weather is gorgeous, but it spaces me out. So this is simply to say, I'm taking a few days writing break. You can look for me again towards the middle of next week.

In the meantime, stay cool!

Or, if you're in the southern hemisphere, be warm.

Earthquakes and Eclipses

Today, a poem for you, one I wrote last week and which is self-explanatory.

THE FIERY MOON
I woke this morning
early dawning
and out my window,
looking North, I saw the sun.
But no! of course, it was the moon,
yet gold and shining so
under a stripey cloud of grey
that I wasn't truly sure.

But I looked North.
It couldn't, shouldn't be the sun;
And what if it were?
If the earth had tilted
and changed
North to a new East?

All my certainty would be gone;
the ground beneath my feet now
twisted to a new reality.
And I'd be forced to ask myself
Why? and Whose fault is this?
Could it be mine?

What if it were ours?

I saw the moon again last night. Fortunately it was in its usual place, and shining silvery-white rather than glowing golden. So I thought about the eclipse that we wouldn't see. As a child I was much struck by the movie 'A Yankee in King Arthur's Court' (no, sadly, I didn't know it was based on a book). One New Year's Eve in South Africa I sat on our front lawn and watched a complete eclipse of the moon.
What an amazing sight that was.
Today is the third eclipse over the last weeks. That feels like strange things happening in the heavens, although presumably they're still ordered as always. I have to say, though, that the tilting of the axis that occurred with the earthquakes does feel rather scary to me.

Good habits lost and rediscovered

Is it the too-much-to-cope-withness of modern life, I wonder, that has made me lose certain good habits that were second nature to me when I was younger? I'm thinking of a couple of ones that I'm trying to re-establish.

First of all, there's good posture. Of all the physical things that impact our well being and health as we grow older, I'd say good posture is one of the most important. My grandmother kept hers all her life, and she was pretty healthy until her death at the age of 93. She walked and sat upright and looked (and was) all the better for it.

When I was still at school in South Africa, I spent a couple of years in high school before I left for Engand. The Anglican sisters had a simple system of reward, a badge for good posture. It was a small enamelled metal button, blue with a gold edge. I remember wearing it  with pride, pinned onto my blue flowered cotton uniform dress. Of course, in those days, we never dreamed of wearing jewellery to school.

All I'd needed to do was to remind myself every now and then to adjust my shoulders. And that's what I'm trying to do now, especially as sitting at the computer makes me inclined to slump. I know that's not good for my internal organs.

The second thing I'm trying to reinstate is the habit of giving my hair a good brushing. Those hundred strokes we used to do every night when we were young has long been a thing of the past. I suspect that's generally the case. But I'd like to keep my hair from thinning (as much as that's possible) and the scalp stimulation helps. Besides, it feels good!

It seems a pity to me that we can lose good habits, and yet those bad ones cling so determinedly. Perhaps the golden key to reinstating the good ones and losing the bad is simply to keep reminding oneself. And trying again.

Flower Festival

Yesterday was Whitsun, a festival of flowers. With it comes the thought that the soul is like a flower, or maybe that we see some kind of reflection of soul in a flower. I helped to create a simple event where we all brought a bloom to contribute to a bouquet (oops, alliteration is running away with me!). Although June for me means roses, our lone bush has only buds on it at present, and so I went, instead with the other flower that signals this time of year for me: peonies. So pretty they are too.

Last week was busy and it was hard to make space for something extra. And yet, if I don't make the effort to highlight the seasons of the year, time passes by me in a blur. I'll be glad to have something in June to remember when I do what I've recently started to do on the 31st December -- that is, take my art calendar off the wall and page back through the months in the reverse direction. I try to remember at least something that happened in each month. You'd think it would be easy, but sometimes... not.

This is not so much to bring closure as to bring more consciousness, to gather the harvest so that the future can more readily come towards me.

When the weather is hot

When the weather is hot and humid, my brain shuts down. In days of yore, in fact, the only creative writing I could ever manage in June and July was poetry. Since then I've trained myself, but still...

So this is by way of apology. It's not that I haven't had any thoughts, it's just that they've melted away out of my head. Hopefully, they'll flutter back in over the weekend.

Meanwhile, I enjoy the garden, do some planting, hang up laundry and spend time in the kitchen. That at least gives my husband a break.

Summertime. Summer time?

Today our temperture is going to feel like 40 degrees, with the humidity. For me this means I'm in danger of turning into a 'grease spot', as we used to say in the days when I shared a flat with my cousin in Earls Court, London. Yes, it can get pretty hot and sticky in good olde England.

So I got out into the garden early to plant some beans, and hoe the strawberries. How it works with us is that my husband does the digging and soil preparation and I plant the veg, water, and pick the harvest. What about weeding? Hmm. I'm not too good at that. Usually, I'll get help from the man of the house if he sees me toiling on hands and knees.

All this to say is that it's definitely feeling like summer to me. And at the solstice on the 21st, I'll consider it Midsummer, although, strictly speaking, that's only the beginning of this warm and wonderful season. This made me think of how many times my actual experience is in disagreement with what 'science decrees'. I suppose that's okay, seeing as science changes its mind on a daily basis (sorry, I have no figures to back up that statement!). So I wonder in general, for us humans, what do we deem more true? What science decrees or what we experience?

Edges and Corners

Today I'm wearing my Sunday worst. This is because I'm doing a bit of late spring cleaning, paying particular attention to edges and corners. As soon as I'm done here, I'm going outside to do some gardening.

Cleaning window sills and skirtings (oh yes, you call them baseboards) set me thinking about how today we use the word 'edgy'. I suppose it comes from the 'cutting edge' which I suppose has to do with knives.

Anyhow, it had me asking a couple of hypothetical questions. What do we experience on the edges of our lives? And, What do we catch a glimpse of in the corners of our eyes, or the corners of our minds?

I suppose a spiritual and/or artistic discipline works towards training us to catch and perceive the more subtle aspects of both the invisible and the visible.

Enough of the abstract! Let me tell you about a karmic meeting I had yesterday. It also has to do with corners, strangely enough. I went to do a little shopping, and arranged to meet my husband at a branch of one of our local chains of organic, fair trade coffee shops. When I got there, he was deep in reading the newspaper. I went to buy my cappuccino and then, as soon as I'd sat down, I heard a voice: "Hi Brenda."

Sitting in a corner (yes!) nearby was a member of my local writing chapter. We'd never before had any one on one time, so this felt like a special encounter. I abandoned my husband and went to sit with her. We had such a good and interesting chat, and I look forward to connecting with her more often.

I find these meeting 'coincidences' interesting, although I have to confess, sometimes if I'm tired or in a very different headspace, I duck my karma. Then, later, I feel bad about that and wish I hadn't. After all, it must take some doing to get us both to the same place at the same time. Who am I to say 'no thanks'?

Now I'm off to get carried away by.... mosquitoes!!

A Sign for 'Bless You'?

Yesterday I had tooth surgery. Circumstances demanded I drive myself to the dentist and back again. Not too much of a problem seeing as we live about five minutes away.

It was a windy day. In order not to clutter myself too much I took a small purse with me. Kind of a mistake, actually, because, afterwards, I didn't tuck the receipt in properly. So when I went to the car, the wind whisked it away, under the chassis. I hobbled around to see if I could pick it up from the other side.

While I was doing that, a woman patient from the dentist's office came outside to help. The wind took the paper again and sent it scurrying further along, under another couple of cars. She raced and plucked it off the ground.

"Thanks so much," I said, "I can't run." (having a hip replacement some time later this year)

"I know," she said.

And went back inside to fetch something, I imagine. Meanwhile, I was feeling a bit woozy, and having to back the car out of a rather tight spot, while being aware of who was walking behind me, and how close I was to the row of cars behind. The same woman realized again the state I was in. She stepped into the parking lot and indicated when I was good to go with a thumbs up. I smiled and waved. But what was really in my heart was a huge, amazed gratitude. I wished for a hand signal or sign to say, 'Bless you.'

So I've been wondering what such a sign might look like. Do you think it might be the gesture the little girl makes in that famous Picasso painting, the one where she's holding a small bird between her hands?

The Seven Things you Don't know

First of all, this was an interesting exercise, so thanks to Melanie Robertson-King who handed me the baton.

 1. I can hold a tune and stay on key better when I whistle than when I sing.   

2. (kind of following on from that). In my university student days, I used to travel regularly between Johannesburg and Cape Town on steam trains. See my website http://www.brendahammond.ca sometime next week for a blog on this subject.

3. I was on Robben Island before Mandela! There'll be a website blog on that as well, so tune in soon.

4. Melanie and I have some family history in common. That is, some of my ancestors came over from Scotland to Canada having been British Home Children, probably at the same Orphan Homes of Scotland west of Glasgow. My grandfather was the eldest of six children. He went out to South Africa to seek his fortune. Meantime, back at home, the siblings were orphaned, and so sent away to a 'better life'. In fact, they survived all the hardships and made good.

5. I speak French and used to be so fluent that I was once asked what part of France I came from. Now, alas, I'm rather rusty. I speak quite a bit of German, and understand more, and I have a good spattering of Italian. Less of Spanish, so I'd like to up that sometime. Then there's Afrikaans. Renee, the 17 year-old heroine of my novel 'Cape Town' is Afrikaans, and when you read it :-) you'll learn quite a bit about this charming 'taal'. When I was growing up in South Africa, we had to learn both of these official languages. However, because I went to high school in England (the Royal Ballet School) I never became particularly proficient.

6. Although I love to travel, and follow a spiritual path, I've never felt the least inclination to visit India or the Far East.

7. I've been inside the great Pyramid of Giza, in Egypt.

So, dear Readers, what do you think?