Wednesday 23 January 2013

re-polishing the rose-tinted spectacles

Moana unbundling...
Aotearoa may be considered [by some]
to be at the ends of the earth
but
i suspect that's actually an attraction
last week we had folk from the Cook Islands and from Australia

this week
we have more West Islanders [see the 'A' word above]
from both extremes of east [QLD] and west [WA]
as well as participants from Scotland, the east coast of America
and from all over New Zealand 


when it came to the crunch
we had more applicants that we could comfortably accommodate.

it's been a wonderful journey.
full of intriguing signs and waymarkers
and serendipitous moments, such as

on one of the days at Titirangi
when i murmured something about needing to choose a poem for our morning reading
and Heidi [our gracious and graceful host] slipped a page into my hand
which turned out to be exactly the 'randomly selected'  poem i had read for myself at dawn.
[and then read it to us exquisitely]

 

here in the green heart of the Lud Valley
we revel in simple pleasures
balmy breezes, songs of beeses


exquisitely prepared and indescribably wonderful food   
[mostly grown here]

 + + +

once again our pots are heated by fire
and while we work at coaxing local colour
into cloth and paper the days pass far too quickly


this evening i too was permitted to play at the kitchen stove
and to harvest the ingredients from the garden
[for those of us of Latvian descent there are few greater pleasures
than being allowed to seek for potatoes in soft earth with our hands] 


16 comments:

  1. Aways a delight to have you here India

    ReplyDelete
  2. cold wet and soggy at this end of the sphere stuck in bed feeling weird with a fever your post raises my spirits and appetite for the first time in five days. Wow i crave that salad, i can smell that warm earth and taste those nutty potatoes. i really like that picture of mown:unmown grass mirrored in the sky. happy creating...

    ReplyDelete
  3. Sounds and looks heavenly. Temps in the single digits here in Connecticut so the thought of what to me seems a tropical setting for one of your workshops is positively blissful. Thank you for sharing it with us.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Oh to be a butterfly on a bush....

    ReplyDelete
  5. Schön, solche farbenprächtigen Sommerbilder!
    Liebe Grüße aus dem kalten Winter
    Gabi

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Dankeschön...die Pflanzenpracht und das wunderbare Wetter sind eigentlich kaum zu fassen :o)

      Delete
  6. soooo cold this morning here, minus 14, with wind much colder, schools closed. your photos are so healing. and my god, the colors, the patterning!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. the days here are the temperature of baby bear's porridge...not too hot, not too cold but just right.
      we are wearing [for the most part] traditional indigenous safety boots...bare feet.

      Delete
  7. Both poems on your 'link' have touched my soul. Thank you for a description of your experience that brought us there with you......I can feel the dirt between my fingers........

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. oh i hadn't realised it was a whole page full on that link...'sleeping in the forest' was the one i meant!

      and the earth here feels SO good.

      Delete
  8. Sitting here shivering but enjoying your stories and pictures very much...............

    ReplyDelete
  9. That looks like a Queen Anne's Lace faery ring.

    Rose glasses look good on you... and I had a feeling the poem was one of Mary Oliver's, its a good one.
    And, thanks for letting me know that I should relish digging for potatoes. As my link to my Latvian heritage was broken in the integration process of three generations. I feel that loss.

    ReplyDelete
  10. The magic is alive and well with your work. Lovely works. Mary Helen Fernandez Stewart

    ReplyDelete
  11. Green hearts, and poems, and using ones paws for spud-ing while some pots are on the boil...
    sounds like nirvana
    or one of them anyway.
    Living vicariously through you is so much pleasure!

    ReplyDelete
  12. Oh how I would love to be out in my bare feet too! I always LOVE your photos. The one with the circle of flowers takes my breath away.

    ReplyDelete