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Showing posts from August, 2014

Hokusai says

The Great Wave off Kanagawa - Painting by Katsushika Hokusai Hokusai says look carefully. He says pay attention, notice. He says keep looking, stay curious. He says there is no end to seeing. He says look forward to getting old He says keep changing, you just get more who you really are. He says get stuck, accept it, repeat yourself as long as it’s interesting. He says keep doing what you love. He says keep praying. He says every one of us is a child, every one of us is ancient, every one of us has a body. He says every one of us is frightened. He says every one of us has to find a way to live with fear. He says everything is alive – shells, buildings, people, fish, mountains, trees, wood is alive. Water is alive. Everything has its own life. Everything lives inside us. He says live with the world inside you. He says it doesn’t matter if you draw, or write books. It doesn’t matter if you saw wood, or catch fish. It doesn’t matter if you sit at...

Wrong answer!

Too much

Photograph by George Angus When we moved to Barrowfield last year, we did so with too much stuff (See Matilda’s post Moving heavily ). There were mitigating circumstances as we stated before: it was years of living, by four different people and in different locations coming together – Matilda, me, Oupa Frans and my dad. There were two workshops, one pottery studio and four houses with all the tools and possessions associated with each. Add to that my father’s reluctance to move and our efforts to take into account that his belongings acted as a security blanket and all could not simply be taken away from him and you end up with all that arrived in Wakkerstroom and here on the farm at Barrowfield. And that despite everything that has indeed been sorted, discarded or sold. Too much. That is not the way we want to live. There is a dissonance between our possessions and our spirituality. We want to travel much, much lighter. Gradually things have settled in these past few ...

Today (2)

today i will... today i will give my desire for permanence the day off and sit in a chapel made of twigs and spit today i will give my desire for certainty the day off and dwell in the place of not-knowing today i will give my desire for security the day off, open the windows and  let in the breath of fresh air                                                               Stacy Stall Wills Probably a little more serious than the poems in the previous post on Today ( Today - 1 ). But there is a similarity.  In all of them there is a certain child-like quality, a letting go of the rules, a sense of adventure and an implicit critique of those elements that we deem part or even essential for a good, stable life. We detect a longing to be free from all the trappings we’ve got ourselve...

Today (1)

Today I want to post the first in a series of poems on “today”. Lately they just came to me, so I have to listen. Let’s start at the basics. To all of us who are – or trying to be - so good, still model children – even at 50, always striving, pillars of the community, heavy-laden with the burden of Ought-to’s.  Today TODAY I will not live up to my potential. TODAY I will not relate well to my peer group. TODAY I will not contribute in class.   I will not volunteer one thing. TODAY I will not strive to do better. TODAY I will not achieve or adjust or grow enriched      or get involved.   I will not put my hand up even if the teacher is wrong      and I can prove it. TODAY I might eat the eraser off my pencil.      I’ll look at clouds.      I’ll be late.      I don’t think I’ll wash. I NEED A REST.           ...