A Thought:
I watched the sunrise this morning. As the tops of the trees were touched by light, so the shadows of night dissolved and hidden forms rose out of sleep and stood boldly and ready to face another day.
The scene never ceases to amaze me. It is the ancient story of life itself as it moves from being not seen to being seen, from being unconscious to being conscious, from night into the light of day.
I enjoy sketching ruins. They are wonderful retainers of memory. This is a sketch I did of a cottage in Ireland.
On my early morning walk. The gradual appearance of trees through the mist.
A Thought:
It’s strange how our eyes always tend to seek out the horizon. Some of the most iconic pictures we have are of people shielding their eyes and looking out towards the horizon. Perhaps it’s because deep down we know there’s always more to what we actually see and experience. Perhaps it’s because we are awakened to the truth, that behind all things, there are hidden depths of other realities waiting to be explored. There’s always something more beyond the horizons of life. The territory of the invisible is profoundly real.
I love to sit in our back garden and watch the sunset, often with a glass of wine in my hand.
A Thought:
Icarus flew too close to the sun and fell from the sky when his wings melted. When to keep your distance, and when to allow yourself to get close in life, is a matter of careful discernment.
The Namibia landscape in Southern Africa. I had the privilege of living there for two years. A land of wide-open spaces, vast skies and mystery. I did this with a sepia pen and coloured pencil.
Yesterday I was engrossed in watching the shadow of a cloud slowly move across the slope of a small hill. It was a moment of sheer beauty. It got me thinking of the landscape and the intimate relationship it shares with light.
It has this wonderful gift of being able to receive the light into itself and to immediately begin to shape it in diverse textures of shadow and colour according to all the nooks and crannies and angles of the terrain. It’s as if the landscape becomes an artist using light as the paint to produce a portrait of itself. I’ve often seen what I can only call breathtaking creations flowing out of this sacred and intimate relationship.
Yesterday morning early I was sitting in our lounge sipping coffee and listening to the wind blowing. As it caught the eaves of our home I heard its characteristic and mournful lament. It’s a sound that always touches something deep in me evoking what I can only describe as a sense of deep loneliness and longing.
I think at some level of our humanity, each of us is alone longing and pining for something we don’t really understand. The wind is a master at putting us in touch with this hidden and mysterious aspect of ourselves. I suppose it does this to us because in itself there are unreached realms of longing and mystery. There is much humanity in nature and nature in humanity.
