Tuesday, April 15, 2014

Full Pink Moon...


The light of the moon was shining through my bedroom last night - the Pink Moon or Sprouting
    Moon. I hoped this was an auspicious sign of a move away from stagnating, dull repetition towards newer, lighter, brighter things...Well, the promise of difference of some kind or another. And it seems it was.
The final signatures have been traced onto the last of many, many documents; enough said. 

Pink Moon - Nick Drake 
(Mollyty -   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qgVEvjsJn6g)

                                           

Saturday, April 12, 2014

Yellow April...


Each year, without fail, I regret that I didn't pay more attention to the month of April. Just before the plants and trees have fully burst out in May, we have this discrete month that marks the end of the cold period and during which many of the most interesting transformations take place.


And each year, I admire the dandelion clocks as if I'd never noticed them before, and look at the dandelions themselves in a different light.  Once you remove the 'weed' label, their infamous resilience is a source of admiration too , as is their jaunty cheerfulness as one of the first flowers of spring.


 I don't actually like the colour yellow, but it seems to be bursting out everywhere in nature, in defiance of the sober colours of winter, and the subtler ones of spring too. Hopefully, it will grow on me, just as it seems to grow, or invade, everywhere else...


Lawless dandelions seem to stake their claim over every space, to the point that they form bands of yellow that run parallel to the legitimate vegetation in the vineyards here.


This bold, brazen yellow ultimately gives rise to landscapes of nebulous forms...


These contrast the stark outlines of the vines - all of which looks striking in the late afternoon light...


And of course, which runs alongside the vast expanses of yellow from other crops - in this case colza...


Not only is this breathtaking to see, rolling out over the landscape, it also perfumes the air with a very delicate scent. Unfortunately this isn't the only air-borne substance at the moment - the allergies have been truly atrocious this year - but I'm trying not to let that spoil this yellow-fest!

Thursday, April 3, 2014

You know my keys won't fit the door...

Not a work of art, but I like it because it has lasted all these years - over 30 - and been everywhere with me...

The spring has encouraged the daddy-long-legs to drift into my room at night. Their funny, feathery flight is driving the cats wild as they stalk these beasts around the varied flotsam and jetsam that has accumulated on every surface. As I love butterflies, dragonflies, bees and beetles, many of the objects that the feline furies invariably crash into during their frantic hunt are associated with some form of insect. Trying to sleep in this pandemonium is quite an experience, and in addition to this animation I have been kept awake by anticipation of a Momentous Moment of Closure.

More of the same...
 This afternoon I was expecting to sign the papers to shut the final door of all those that have been closed over too many of the last years. It was called off at the eleventh hour due to the love of pounds, pennies and principles as the King really had been in his counting house. After years of falling down an Alice-in-Wonderland tunnel, wondering what is illusion or reality, what is outsized or shrunk I thought I was about to land on solid ground. But no, it might still be some time before I'm finally grounded. 

 I Had a King - Joni Mitchell - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LcGvR1OumjM

 
The song above was in my head when I woke up one morning, right at the very beginning of this long, long process of door-slamming, when I thought I'd carelessly lost the key, and had let myself get shut out on the wrong side of the door. How mistaken I was - the key never did fit; I just took years to realize...

                                            I Had a King - Joni Mitchell

                                                 I had a king in a tenement castle
                                                 Lately he's taken to painting the pastel walls brown
                                                 He's taken the curtains down
                                                 He's swept with the broom of contempt
                                                 And the rooms have an empty ring
                                                 He's cleaned with the tears
                                                 Of an actor who fears for the laughter's sting

                                                                   I can't go back there anymore
                                                                   You know my keys won't fit the door
                                                                   You know my thoughts don't fit the man
                                                                   They never can they never can

                                               I had a king dressed in drip-dry and paisley
                                               Lately he's taken to saying I'm crazy and blind
                                               He lives in another time
                                               Ladies in gingham still blush
                                               While he sings them of wars and wine
                                               But I in my leather and lace
                                               I can never become that kind

                                                                    I can't go back there anymore
                                                                    You know my keys won't fit the door
                                                                    You know my thoughts don't fit the man
                                                                    They never can they never can

                                              I had a king in a salt-rusted carriage
                                              Who carried me off to his country for marriage too soon
                                              Beware of the power of moons
                                              There's no one to blame
                                              No there's no one to name as a traitor here
                                              The king's on the road
                                              And the queen's in the grove till the end of the year

                                                                     I can't go back there anymore
                                                                     You know my keys won't fit the door
                                                                     You know my thoughts don't fit the man
                                                                     They never can they never can