For the Men of the Gleision Colliery

Still trying to get a handle on watercolour 

I started to doodle calligraphic marks with a fine brush
and a lovely inky colour

mixed from ultramarine and burnt sienna.

I soon realised the emergent schema was born out of the dry stone walls 

of my beloved homeland of Wales.

Truth to tell even now after almost 40 years
living away from the hills of home

I still carry the ache of longing  the Welsh call hiraeth:

which can only be translated approximately 

as a deep yearning for home.

Even now every distant dog barking instantly transports me

to the place where it is the sound of farm dogs 

calling from the opposite side of the valley.

As I dabbled on with the subtle tones of the watercolours

I re-walked the Cefyn road;

a road flanked by the old stone walls, that heads over the top of the hill

to fall into the valley village of Hafodyrynys,

past the old farm of Ty Sammy where my father was reared,

and the chapel of Cefn y Crib where both he and Mam rest now.

Through the ache of memories came this other more recent ache,

for the miners,and families of those killed and injured
at the Gleision Colliery,

in the Swansea Valley.

Every mining community, of which mine was one,

knows the heart stopping danger of men working
in the low, wet, narrow seams

of the Welsh coal face.

   I offer these words I wrote some years back, now in memory of

  Charles Breslin, Phillip Hill, Garry Jenkins and David Powell

who lost their lives in the Gleision,

with the prayer that they have found their longed for home at last.

Hiraeth

The wind is sloughing through the curtains.

Hearing it I am no longer

in this house with the neat garden

And the traffic hum

sounding from the by-pass.

I am somewhere along the valley top,

Along the lane,

or in some room that opens,

(no matter how dark in itself)

onto the shining light of the hills.

And I myself,

The real and inner me,

is soaring out there

among the creaking branches

on the bare hill top.

Dry and rustling in the reeds;

soft and sighing in the grasses;

chuckling sinuous in the streams.

And it is all me.

And freedom is  in the sound.

My one true breath.

Wider than the world.

Higher than the sun.

Weightless as a life
held here no more.

*

Perhaps you could also join me in praying,

in whatever way seems good to you, 

for the 3 miners who were rescued  and will be suffering in their own unique way.

God Bless

Calla Lillies and Cyclamen Still Life

The calla lillies my brother brought me the other week had me reaching for the watercolour paints again.

Not having a heavier weight paper to hand 

I used what I had, 

which was a smooth finished lighter weight more 

appropriate for line and light washes.

Consequently I had to take care not to overwork the surface

and could neither build washes nor lift paint

as I would have liked.

Still it's interesting to see how the different paper affects the outcome.

God Bless

Zentangle 38

This week's callenge from http://iamthedivaczt.blogspot.com/ is called 

Paradox.

I really enjoyed Margaret's tutorial on how to do it,

but didn't have it near me when I tried to put it into practice so not sure this is right at all.

Perhaps it's the wind blowing around the house,

but I keep thinking of the shape of the tangle as bunting or prayer flags.

Here they are all snarled up by the wind!

Improving Your Memory?

A friend recently sent me this joke.

(The picture above has nothing to do with the joke.

In fact it's far from a joke and I never intended it to be here.

Explanation at the end of the  post.)

This is the joke -

 An older couple are having a few health problems.

During a checkup, the doctor tells them they're physically okay,

but they might want to start writing things down
to help them remember …

Later that night, while watching TV,
 the old man gets up from his chair. 

'Want anything while I'm in the kitchen?' he asks.

'Will you get me a bowl of ice cream?'

'Sure..'

'Don't you think you should write it down so you can remember it?' she asks.

'No, I can remember it.'

'Well, I'd like some strawberries on top, too.

Maybe you should write it down, so as not to forget it?'

He says, 'I can remember that.

You want a bowl of ice cream with strawberries.'

'I'd also like whipped cream.

I'm certain you'll forget that, write it down!' 

Irritated, he says, 'I don't need to write it down,

I can remember it!

Ice cream with strawberries and whipped cream .

What's to forget?'

Then he toddles into the kitchen. 

After about 20 minutes,
the old man returns from the kitchen

and hands his wife a plate of bacon and eggs.

She stares at the plate for a moment, and asks,

'Where's my toast ?'
           

It's true,
 things do tend to "slip your mind" a bit more the older you get;

though of course I wouldn't know about that yet. (Ahem)!

In school we used the faculty of memory quite a bit , 

learning tables, poetry, and lots of stuff by rote,

but I'd not done anything like that for years.

Recently  however, I started to memorise scripture.

Quite a bit had stuck in my memory through the years

but I've never set out to really learn it this way before.

I decided to tackle the book of Ephesians,

and simply write out a verse at a time learn it and add it to the rest

as soon I feel I've committed it fully to memory.

It's going slowly, 

not (to my surprise) because I'm finding it hard to retain, 

but because I'm finding
 I want to linger with one verse for a good long time,

and there is no hurry.

This method of reading scripture is rather like lectio divina*,

in as much as you are slowed right down to let the words 

and the life in them sink deeply, 

to be savoured and enjoyed.

"ENJOYED!

Now there's a word!

NOT A WORD A LOT OF PEOPLE ASSOCIATE WITH THEIR IDEA OF GOD PERHAPS?

I've been struck by the repetition, in the opening verses of Ephesians,

at just how much God takes pleasure,

actually finds pleasure,

as in ENJOYMENT,

in GIVING to us.

THAT IT'S HIS WILL AND PLEASURE TO BE A MEANS OF GRACE,

i.e.OF GIFT AND OF GIVING TO US

through, and in Christ.

 (Good definition of grace - God's Riches At Christ's Expense)

Now because I can never look at anything
without seeing the other side of it,

I know only too well that much of the stuff of life 

is anything but the gift we would want.

There is suffering, and pain,

darkness and desolation. 

I've written and spoken about the mystery of this
at length elsewhere, 

but just for now I want to encourage you to look for 

the "gift" within the hard place.

Sometimes,

(and I do speak from experience), 

for one reason or another we are too overwhelmed to do this.

Just the act of even metaphorically lifting our eyes is too much.

The psalms are full of folks just like us,

who feeling bereft of everything,

even their faith,

still cry out to the seeming void.

If this is you, then don't berate yourself.

Don't be afraid if you find yourself berating God.

His heart is still towards you, 

and FOR you, 

even now;

even in this.

You may ask me,

(especially as I am not immune from darkness myself)

how I can be so confident?

Maybe just because I am so familiar with darkness.

And that even so, 

given I stumble and struggle from time to time still, 

I am somehow, 

despite myself,

  kept, and brought through the darkness 

to know again the fullness of the "gift",

and the pleasure of the giver.



May we find the gift of joy in
the gift of life today.

God Bless

Oh yes, the drawing at the start of the post 

is taken from my journal and for some reason,

though it wasn't done for others,

I feel it's important to share it . 

It's my experience in the recovery room back in May. 

The chap in the centre is the anaesthetist, 

then there's me,
 and the two nurses caring for me in recovery. 

It's an attempt to show those moments of struggle

when one's body has to all intents and purpose shut down 

accept for the mind that searches,

in it's panic, for a means to get out of this place.  

It was at that moment that I knew,

not for the first time, that we were not alone, 

and that as dark as it seemed,

there was light unseen yet present,

in the One who is both giver and gift.

He is the real centre of the drawing.

P.S.  if you want to know more about the lectio divina method of reading scripture click on 

/http://www.lectio-divina.org/

The Creative Process (My Version)! and Zentangle 37

Dropped hubby off at the bowls club

where he hobbles off on sore legs to be a volunteer groundsman 

with some of his friends, 

and I hurtle home determined to paint today.

I reckon I have a few hours before he will ring

(at my insistance) 

for his lift home.

I have that

 "about to burst if I don't slosh some colour around" 

feeling that I have been trying to organise in my head,

so that when the time comes to
put it into practice I can be methodical
in the approach I want to take.

I can visualise the colours I want

to arrange into groups for their tonal values, 

but scotch the idea of working in oils 

because I know that will take too much time

so I decide to use pastels and getting home,

dash up to my studio to set myself up.

When my eyes light on the scene above 

I remember that the last time I was in here ended

in a hurried departure for something pressing.

 Not unusual, and no excuse,

because this space is in a constant state of chaos.

I notice in horror that I have very unusually
not cleaned my brushes

and they lie caked in hardened paint 

which will take precious time to clean.   

 

I shove stuff around 

to make space for me 

and the plant

I've decided to paint.

Not for the first time 

I wonder why my waiting materials

get mixed up 

with fascinating things

like this crown off a poppy head.

I covet the luscious, rich,

immediate pigment of the pastels, 

but even as I access some tinted pastel paper

from the rack I know they will not satisfy my need to 

"slosh around"

and foolishly opt for the unforgiving yet enticing
medium of watercolour.

Have an inward moan at hubby 

who has been using my guilotine 
and left a pile of paper shards

on my working surface. 

A flea bite compared to the chaos I've left

but it's a handy means of 
venting some of my irritation at myself.

I hurriedly stretch the paper and descend to the ground floor

to bring up my mobile and the house phone 
so that I catch hubby's call when it comes,

finish drying the paper with a hair dryer,

and  notice with annoyance that the tape
holding the paper has lifted.
I know the paper is going to cockle now,

even before I start.

Set up table easel 

to at last start to slosh,

but I'm frayed and annoyed.

Water colour needs thought
and mental review of colour and process,

and the free, fresh, light-filled colour 
that can be achieved with this medium

is lost before I begin.

But I do have a slosh

resigning myself to an unrefined dabbling

that will be far from what I've been mentally planning, 

but will at least be in touch with the colour I crave

 I watch the glorious colours blend into mud,

hear hubby enter the house two floors down and am thankful he got a lift home,

while despair that it's that time already. 

  I scratch my intials with the brush handle
onto this little 8"x8" misshap

and only now wonder that the habit of signing 
everything is so engrained. 

After our lunch eaten in the still sunny garden,

I climb back up to the attic 
and against my better judgement can't resist 
reaching for the brush and
ladle on more pigment.

Just lemon yellow and alizarlin crimson. 

Merely a different colour mud I decide,

and make up my mind,(not for the first time),

  to be more disciplined or give up.

I step back and look for something good. 

Well, the tonal values are intact

but the singing colour inside my head has been submerged.

But then if you set yourself up to fail...

At least with the Zentangle challenge I can do it anywhere!

This is number 36 
and the challenge is to work on grids,
and is called "Kiss my Grids"

 by Laura who set the challenge on

http://iamthedivaczt.blogspot.com/

 I think my grids are inspired by the bars in Spain 

where the walls are adorned
with heavily patterned mismatched tiles

and you can sit with a glass of wine,

a selection of tapas, 

and try and guess the age of the cold meats and sausage

hanging from the ceiling .

Aah!

P.S.  You may wonder why,

if I was so pressed for time 
I stopped to photograph my chaos.

  I guess it's because making myself stop and see,

and think where I am,

sometimes helps slow me down and talk sense into myself

.

  It could have cleared my brain enough to have known

 getting prepared for another day might have been more sensible.
Sometimes I just want to do what I want to do though...

Sound familiar to you?

Got to go now.

Hubby has a bowls match to play in thirty minutes and
he's called up the stairs to say that of course,
he could catch the bus...

God Bless

The Struggle of Faith

  Beautiful light is born of darkness,

so the faith that springs from conflict is often 

the strongest and the best.

R. Turnbull 

God Bless

 

Zentangle Challenge 36

This week's challenge from

http://iamthedivaczt.blogspot.com/

has shown me how little I know about tangles.

I really must research the multiplicity of designs 
instead of making up my own

as my inventiveness is so limited.

Why reinvent  the wheel after all?

All  this being said this week's challenge is to use the design called

Assunta.

I love the story of it's invention.

Do take a look at blog mentioned above and read about it.

Anyhow here are my attempts.

I think the garlic I'd used last night crept into this one.

This next one is so different and just a sort of blizzard of Assunta

Oh well, back to the drawing board as they say.

Have a good weekend.

Especially if you are a Brit looking forward to a Bank holiday.

God Bless

Easy Corner Brightener

Just picked these lovely glowing harbingers of autumn 

and made the same easy posy for the house

that I used to when I was a girl back in Wales.

In case you haven't done it yourself yet,

just pick a large round nasturtium leaf that's a bit bigger diameter than your vase.

Fill vase with water and pop your leaf on top of the vase like a lid, them gently poke the nasturtium stems

  through the leaf wherever you want

to form your arrangement.

The leaf will will act as your natural flower holder.

Guess you knew all that already didn't you?

Thought I'd share it in case you hadn't thought of it yet.

God Bless

P.S.  If you don't get back to me on Disqus I'll never know how much you know and how much I've got to learn!

Never Totally Trust the Weather Forecast

You know I was having a bit of a pity party about not being able to get out and about
yesterday on what the forecaster's had said was to be
the only good day of the week?

Well they didn't get it right at all!

Though we did have the forecast rain in the night,
today dawned bright and sunny and warm.

Better yet

I got out and about!

It is only a fifteen minute drive from where we live to the lovely old  town of Kenilworth,

home to an ancient castle, abbey ruins,

and some of the loveliest quintessentially English cottages,
so off we went.

The photo above is the restored Abbey ponds.

It is the site where the abbot of the original Abbey of Saint Mary's, and his monks 

would have kept their stock of fish to live off.

The pool is drier than we have seen it for some time.

Usually we can watch a heron or two fishing from the edge of the reeds,

but whether it was the children thronging the Abbey Fields that put them off, 

or the dryness of the pool, they were not in evidence on this,

my first visit for some three months.

Interestingly the brook

that runs alongside

the footpath bordering the pool

didn't seem very depleted at all

and our walk was accompanied

by the chuckling water song

that I love to hear.

There is usually a dog or two

enjoying a good splash here

with as like as not a disgruntled owner

trying to entice said canine friend

to leave the water,

come ashore,

and head for home.

This spot running near to the old castle walls is one of the doggy favourites but today the children won out
and made it their own.

Our short walk took us past the castle walls,

and I stuck my camera through the railings

to take this shot of the interior.

It was in this castle that Robert Dudley entertained

Elizabeth the First

in the hope of wooing her to be his wife,and

herein is the root of the castle's mystery.


In 1560 Earl Dudley's wife Amy Robsart

fell to her death,
and despite his acquittal it is still believed that
his urgent desire for a royal wife

may mean that

she died here at her husband's hand.

(Can you imagine the spooky mood music?
Sadly I'm too technically challenged to supply any).

*

Below is the dried up moat, at the side of the path I stood on to take the photo of the castle ruins.
As you see it is full of reeds and bull rushes at present, but soon to be re-filled by the autumn rain no doubt.

So there we were back to the car,

with still enough energy to make a brief call on some friends

who have been poorly.

When I came to think of it I was believing more

than the negative weather forecaster yesterday.

At some level I was listening to the ominous whisper

that I wasn't going to regain my strength this time around,

and it was this that had really been weighing me down.

                                        I know I'm too prone to listen to the promises of doom,

hardly able to credit that what I fear are merely shadows

that I am not meant to live within.

If I'm physically below par,

I recognise it's even more likely I'll have to struggle to stay positive;

yet even as I write that I remember 

the many many times I've been granted

the grace to have joy 

in the most unlikely of places.

I remember the words of Is 43:2:-

"When you go through deep waters, I will be with you.

When you go through rivers of difficulty, you will not drown.

When you walk through the fire of oppression, you will not be burned up; 

the flames will not consume you".

Living Bible translation

Why on earth do I build my days on believing weather forecasts

or my own gloomy, disatisfied thoughts?

May you be wiser than I.

God Bless

Thinking Small

 

I took this photo some weeks ago after a rain storm.

It was one of those days when sunshine lit 

the raindrops to diamond brilliance

as they sat there all fat and full.  

This morning there had been no rain.

What moisture there was seemed to be the remains 

of the cool night dew.

Still, as I ate my morning toast on my favourite bench at the top of the garden  I came face to face with the abundant leaves of some nasturtums which are flinging themselves in all directions

over the edge of a large tub,

and saw there were 

some shy droplets left on the leaves.

Quite hard to spot compared to their flamboyant friends aren't they?

Still as the saying goes

Small is Beautiful

The question is

do I really believe that?

In these days when my life is cut back by physical weakness to that smaller space that I should have become used to by now,

why am I so easily discouraged,

and disatisfied?

I, who can remember praying some fity years ago,

for just enough strength to get out of hospital,

keep house, and care for my child,

and my husband am now

 a grandmother, and great grandmother,

still asking, 

"More please".

 

Not that there's anything wrong with wanting more health and strength

 of course.

It's the smack of ingratitude that makes me uncomfortable.

The hiddeness of my small life often chafes though,

even while I know it's value. 

 Isn't it our hidden self that's the true self after all?

"For there is nothing hidden that will not be disclosed, and nothing concealed that will not be known or brought out into the open."  Luke8:17

But oh, it is sometimes so hard to settle for

the hidden place

when I know there is so much I might contribute,

so much I could enjoy,

in that wider world,

more

at the centre of things.

I do not of course mention how much I might be appreciated as well.

A faint echo that has been playing in my mind comes to the fore.

“Be faithful in small things

because it is in them 

that your strength lies.”

 Mother Theresa

 

 

I trace my disatisfaction back

to the weather forecast that told us

today would be the best day of the week,

and that after today

rain was sweeping in.

The fact is haven't the stamina to go out and

"make the most of the day", .

and my own disatisfaction is stopping me

making the most of it right where I am.

Yes, I'm a slow learner alright.

I get up and make my way through my sunlit garden

 to the washing machine that chimes it's need to be emptied.

I have the liberty to do it at my own pace.

There is no rush.

No demand on me greater than I choose to make for myself.

Beginning to learn again.

God Bless