The best kind of books....

" The best kind of books, however, have a delightful mystery about them. They inexplicably create powerful feelings, images, moods, worlds, and parallel narratives the farther away in time you are from the reading. They grow in time. They keep re-creating themselves in your consciousness, they keep growing, keep becoming other books, till they become part of your experience, like something lived, or dreamed, or loved, or suffered".

Ben Okri - A Way of Being Free

some books that come to mind that this extract
triggered the memory of are:

Edward Abbey - Desert Solitaire
Madeleine L'Engel - Walking on Water
Ben Okri - The Famished Road
Paulo Coehlo - probably an amalgamation of several
Bruce Chatwin - Songlines
Annie Dillard - from different books I've read
Antoine de Saint-Exupery - Wind, Sand and Stars / Le Petit Prince
John O'Donohue - Divine Beauty, and some of the
fragments I've read of Anam Cara
Haruki Murakami - again several contributing novels

I'm sure there are many more, and this list will probably be added to
as I remember one that I can't possibly leave off...but have.

These are not even books I necessarily remember in their entirety but something about them took root and remained an swell in my sub-conscious that crests into consciousness every now and then. Images that conjure a sense, or a feeling for me that has grown beyond my experience of simply reading the text. Books that have been for me what Ben Okri describes, in much better words.

Touch

It's been just another day at college. A good one though as we learnt the movements for massaging the abdomen today, so I can now do the legs, feet and abdomen. Getting there!! I know I will have more willing models once I have learnt the back!!

Just a moment to pause and wonder at the beauty and power of touch. The way it can bring transformation; the warmth and health and healing it can bring; the light of healthy human contact; the despair and distortion in its absence.

I am really enjoying learning more about the ways in which massage can help and heal and relax our bodies. I had a Thai massage client this week who is coming back again for more - always a good encouragement when someone comes back, and in less than a week! I feel very privileged when I get to give someone a massage and it enhances their wellbeing, in particular when they have not been feeling well. It is a gift that I hope to be able to develop.

It is also fascinating (though somewhat daunting with a test looming) to learn about anatomy and physiology. The human body is quite an amazing creation. I had the opportunity to go to see the BodyWorlds Exhibition with a friend when I was in Minneapolis this September. Quite an incredible exhibition that was both weird and wonderful; informative, gross, beautiful and challenging. I keep thinking of it as I look at diagrams in textbooks, it made it so much more real.

Marker of the journey

The spiral for me is symbolic of journeying.
The inner and outer journey.
Physical and spiritual journeying.
The footprints of a nomadic embracing of life.
The unbroken line symbolic of the ebb and flow of life's journey,
an invitation to live with the tides.
The cross, as well as having resonances of faith,
symbolising the vertical journeying and relationship to the divine,
and the horizontal journeying and relationship to other humans and the earth.

The location of this unbroken spiral is
at the crosspoint of the lines on my back,
where the vertical spinal line intersects
the horizontal line of my shoulders.

A permanent symbol of my journey
of the past few years, and hopefully
of a lifetime of journeying to come.

the photo makes it looks a little off centre but in reality it is centred
art:work by Robin Dutcher

Vegetables and Winter Wine

In one of my unlived lives I am an organic gardener. The vegetables are knobbly but delicious. I have a poly-tunnel, fresh salad, healthy compost, bright flowers, a stream and a sea-view.

In reality I have two skinny flower beds, that it took a friend helping to finally get me to clear the weeds. It has been too dark after work to do any more this week, but a month after clearing the weeds I have finally been to B&Q to purchase a few green shrubs and some bulbs to plant into the ground to root and await spring. I look forward to seeing the shoots pushing through, green and vibrant and blooming into purples, whites and yellows. I just need to make the time to get them planted!!

But first, the close dark winter evenings. With the change back from summer time I am now leaving work in the dark and the days seem to be rapidly shortening. My chimney has been swept and awaits the first fire of the year; which must be accompanied I believe with a bottle of red wine, good cheese, dark chocolate and some friends. It’s in my diary!

Give for free

Casa Alianza is a charity that does a lot of great work with street children in Central America, and by going through their website to Amazon ( www.amazon.co.uk) or Expedia (www.expedia.co.uk) when you are shopping there, a percentage of your purchase goes to the charity, but you are just paying your regular price.

How much easier does it need to be? So go to www.casa-alianza.org.uk and click on the 'get involved' button. Then link through to Amazon or Expedia from there. Up to 7.5% goes to support Casa Alianza and their work with street children. Easy!!

The edges of now

There are moments when life offers glimpses of otherness in the midst of the now. The nudges of future possibilities sending whispers back to the present. I have a sense of changes ahead, with all the wonder and challenge that can bring.

I re-read a journal entry this morning that was taken from
'Time To Be Real', in Ben Okri's Mental Fight:

Allow uncontemplated regions
Of time to project themselves
Into your sleeping consciousness,
Inducing terror, or mental liberation.
Much as death-confrontation
Paralyses some with despair
Makes others poison
Themselves with emptiness
But releases in a fortunate few
A quality of enlightenmen
A sense of the limited time we have
Here on earth to live magnificently
To be as great and happy as we can
To explore our potential to the fullest
And to lose our fear of death
Having gaines a greater love
And reverence for life
And its commensurable brevity.

So it is with this moment,
A gigantic death
And an enormous birth.
This mighty moment,
In timelessness

dream

"Our lives have become narrow enough. Our dreams strain to widen them, to bring to our waking consciousness the awareness of greater discoveries that lie just beyond the limits of our sights"

Ben Okri (A Way of Being Free)

Reflections

I walk around Victoria Park viewing reflections in the dusk enhanced water. The swans ripple white and the trees are a deep and darkening green. However as I walk further round I see the landmark cranes of Belfast's shipyard reflected in the East Belfast waters and get to wondering about how the miracle of reflections works. How does something that is nowhere near the water get reflected in it. The setting sun's muted autumnal rays were reflected too, and while I'm sure there is a good scientific reason for how it all works, I preferred the random ponderings of life and depth, stories and versions of truths.

After two weeks of working on an application form I reached a weekend of rest, where my red eyes told a story of late nights on the computer and increased strain on my (recently diagnosed as) long-sighted eyes. Tonight I sit typing with my brand new, bought today, glasses on.

My blog entries; fragments of which I have just shared were mostly composed in my head over these past couple of weeks. A random gathering of thoughts. Few have made it to the blog. It can be harder to share stories of places and people when you are living somewhere. The impressions of people and place are intensified, clarified, and brought into sharper relief when you are travelling. The immediacy of the unfamiliar and the enlivening of the senses. However it is a choice and a learning to live alive to the moment. It is possible to see a stained glass window reflected through a door on the buildings behind us. Moments of random abstract beauty. (Thanks Cary) This past week as winter draws closer I have also enjoyed mornings waking up to watch the sun rising from outside my bedroom window.

However as I stated in my last entry, I will be trying to blog a little more, and at least motivate myself to write even if it is only myself who will be reading this. A creative motivation for my currently settled nomadic self.

A Trip in Fall

Another Year.

My blogging habits have atrophied, but I hope to re-enliven them once more. Broadband at home and an initial posting from being (very briefly) on the road again will hopefully kickstart the process. Or else - until next year!!

I walked quickly into the cold water believing one swift move would be better than inching my way in and perhaps getting stuck at thigh level. Frozen to the spot!! After a gasp and a minute of having to catch my breath the water quicky felt very pleasant and we swam around the very fringes of the largest (surface) area of freshwater on the earth. (I will make it to Lake Baikal one day - the largest freshwater lake). The north shore of Lake Superior in early fall (as one must call it here) where some of the leaves are starting to age and die in a splendid final burst of abundant colour. You come out feeling exceptionally clean. It's like swimming in the ocean, but without the salt. Quite beautiful.

We camped in the clearing of a birch close where the trees over a campfire pointed us up towards an opening framing the bright stars. Fire gazing, red wine, good whiskey and stories of life and its paranormal fringes. Walks along a beautiful shore, rock hunting, stone skimming, photos and friendship. Fulfillment of a long anticipated experience - camping in the north.

'No such thing as bad weather...'

After a full day of rain, todays sunshine and blue skies are a welcome contrast. I was like a drowned rat after three hours walking in the rain and it was hard to imagine seeing the sunshine ever again. However as someone here quotes; "There is no such thing as bad weather, only the wrong clothes". Living so much more closely connected to and affected by the weather here in Scotland I am now a believer.

My Gran and Aunt came to visit me for a couple days. They are staying on the Island of Iona, but came back over to Mull today to visit the centre where I work. Camas is a mile and a half walk off the main road down a reasonable track, but there are some rocks and it can be a bit boggy, and both relatives are a little unsteady on their feet. So it is with great relief that I can say we have made it there and back without mishap!

It was a full moon a couple nights ago. I came out of the building after it had gone dark to imagine for a split second that someone was shining a huge yellow electric spotlight down on us. But the moon was just rising up above the hills - it was spectacular, as are the 4metre plus tides that accompany the moon!! I even braved the water and went swimming, though that was accompanied by the larger light in the sky!

Camas

Limited posting from the electricity-less beauties of Camas on the Isle of Mull, Inner Hebrides, Scotland.

The Camas Centre is located in a beautiful bay, a 20 minute walk along a track through boggy fields. You round the corner over the top of a hill on a day like today, to see vibrant blue sky reflected in a sparkling sea. Because of the full moon, at high tide the water almost reaches the bright green grass, complete with grazing sheep; at low tide not only all the rocks are revealed, but even the edge of some coarse sand. At other times of the month the tide is less extreme, yesterday was 4.1 metres!

Because it was so high yesterday the sea flooded into the salt marsh in from the bay. We took the chance of a quick half hour kayak before reflections. An awesome and surreal experience to be paddling over emerald green grass we normally walk over to get to the quarry. Looking down at a submerged living world.

I have a beautiful room in one of the old stone quarry men's cottages, with a view of the sea. Wooden floors and wooden rafters where the dust can fall through when people run around upstairs! Candle and lantern light creates a warmth in a room that is very special. I love it.

The weather is also typically Scottish. Two days ago I put on my down jacket. It had been grey or wet all week and the wind was chilling. Today is my day off and I have been sitting reading on the grass outside in a sumer top and shorts, needing to remember to put on sun cream. The mist and fog is still beautiful in boggy country, but when the sun shines, like parts of Ireland, it compares favourably to anywhere beautiful in the world.

My first two weeks I have already fallen in love with the place. I am happy to be here for three months.

Conversations with my grandmother over mocha and latte.

Reminiscences about times long before I was born. Stories that enlarge my knowledge of our family history; the things that help to shape who we are. Snippets that I have never heard before, never having spent that much time with my Gran in Belfast. In losing her sister she has a need to remember, to grieve and celebrate in story and memory. For me it is a chance to learn more about my family and support my Gran in her limbo after losing her sister and best friend.

I also get a chance to share a story I never thought I would tell my Gran; how when we used to arrive at the airport in Belfast I would have to check with my mum "which one is Gran?". Her and her two sisters are quite alike and would smother us in a flurry of kisses, perfumes and powders and I just thought it best to be sure which Gran was! The joys and losses of living overseas. Mostly joys!

Briefly Back in Belfast

The gray skies have turned to blue and the sun is warming the chill in the air. A very pleasant day, supposed to be heating up to one of the hottest days this year. Still a modest day by jet-lagged, confused body standards, but very nice.

A relaxed coffeeshop brunch to start Father's Day with the McEwens.

It is nice to be back in Belfast. I feel a mixture of settledness and disjointedness. A homecoming and visiting. A chance to be - old and new. Just time to take a moment to be and enjoy and find a rythmn of peace about the unknown. A rest into the present; pause in the uncharted journey.

Tuesday 14th - Dubai Airport

Another set of goodbyes. Some very good ones this time. After a relaxed week on the beach with mum and dad it was back to Chiang Mai for four days. Just enough time to pack, buy a few things, have a party, do a couple yoga classes and spend some quality time with my good friends.

It was a little strange to be flying out of Chiang Mai and not thinking – well I’ll be back in 2 weeks, 2 months….. This time just thinking; it was great and I’m sure I’ll see you again sometime! That cocktail of emotions that are part and parcel of travel; the sadness of goodbyes, the anticipation of hellos, new places and experiences, and the many hours of travel ahead. This time leaving Chiang Mai pretty exhausted. It was good that the flight from Bangkok to Dubai was quite empty as I got three seats to myself and was able to get a good amount of sleep.


I’ve been sleeping on the floor in Dubai airport at my departure gate and am now finally feeling somewhat alive. Airports are such great places to people watch. There is a flight boarding for Jeddah just in front of me and there are a lot of Muslims in a variety of dress getting on the flight. Quite a few in all white; some young girls and their mum in white kurtas with a dad also all in white; many little white hats on the men, some long white dresses and one large man literally just wrapped in a white sheet like at a fancy dress party. A man has just walked past in his long white dress with the all Saudi red and white head scarf held in place with a black circular band; in front of him a tall distinguished looking man with glasses and a white beard wearing a white turban, trousers and long top, stands with his three women behind him all in black, only their faces showing. Some women don’t even show their faces but only their eyes. Different cultures but still somewhat oppressive and restrictive all the same. Having met some women who dress like this in Tunisia, you should see how modern and beautifully dressed some of them are under those black chadors.

Then there is the London flight where a greater variety of people are starting to queue. The ladies covered up in black, a rotund lady in a North African style bright yellow and black sari; white men in short sleeved shirts and formal trousers for travel; high heels, trainers, jeans, t-shirts; style, comfort; an occasional jacket in preparation for London where I’m sure the temperature is not 32 degrees at 4am; and then the families returning from their package holiday in Thailand in shiny tracksuits, small shorts and pink tank tops covering not that much of the still white and substantial amounts of flesh.

Each individual, each a life being lived, each with a story to tell. So easy to look and make judgements but it is more fun when you are playing that game with a friend and making up stories to go with the people you are watching. In general however actual stories often turn out to be even more fascinating.

Time to check in to the boarding lounge.

The foamy fun of catching a wave to the shore on a body board with the sun setting a perfect golden backdrop behind the small island out from the bay. My dad and I ran through the waves while the raindrops from a passing shower glistened even as the sun shone. A beautiful end to a beautiful sunny day.

I woke up this morning ready to head out diving to the sound of rain outside my window. A good start! Most of the items in my pre-packed bag were unused; my sunscreen, sunglasses, sarong. I had fun anyway. It is hard to beat the experience of being in the amazing underwater realms of our world. No talking, more looking; just being. Though today the low visibility, strong currents and wild weather when we returned to the top which made getting back on the boat 'interesting', meant you had to keep your wits about you. I still got to make my three dives and saw some beautiful fish; seahorses, bamboo shark, frogfish, porcupine fish and another octopus! While some of the beautiful ones are nameless to me, just large schools of fish swirling around and above in the murky blue light of the ocean on a wet monsoon day.

Grey skies, early morning rain and large swell on the open sea all reduce visibility but do not dampen the joy of being in an underwater world after a year above on solid ground. An island surrounded by hard coral and many beautiful tropical fish. New fish I had never seen before; bright yellow trumpetfish, boxfish, cornetfish, lionfish... as well as many old reliables; barracuda, angelfish, anemonefish, wrasse... I was very excited to see my first octopii (three of them, though only two varieites). I am looking forward to Shark Point tomorrow.

We moved location to a beautiful small hotel right by the beach in Karon/Kata. It is downseason and still post-tsunami so the guy gave us a very good deal. We have two lovely rooms, sea view from our balconies (and mum's bed) and a nice pool, all for a tenner a night for the three of us. Not bad. We are enjoying relaxing, reading, eating and having Thai massages. The three of us zooming out to dinner on the one motorbike..."when in Thailand"!!

Having extolled the virtues of land travel we flew today down to the beach at Phuket. The rain poured from a laden grey sky. So much for that sunny welcome to the beach. The clouds parted to reveal blue sky and after a relaxing afternoon mum and I had a very pleasant walk on the beach at sunset. The surfers out on the breakers; paddlers silhouetted in the water against a pink and yellow sunset sky, full of beautiful cloud formations. A week ahead to relax at the beach, and the good news is that there are some companies still taking out divers, even though it is monsoon season!

It can be hard to enjoy your chocolate pancake when there are kids wandering around at 9pm selling photocopied books or just begging alongside the amputee beggars who have been injured by landmines. Yet you still do and are helping the staff of the cafes keep their jobs. The economy relies a lot on the tourist industry. Yet there is something so wrong in the world when people are sleeping on the streets and not having enough to eat.

Landmines are still a major problem in Cambodia, even this many years after the war is over. About 1000 people a year are killed or maimed by landmines. Victims are a common enough sight on the streets of Siem Reap and Phnom Penh, many reduced to begging in a country where there is no such thing as social security. The dilemmas of giving to beggars and not being able to give to everyone. And the kids question. It is nice to buy the pineapple from the cute girl at the stalls, but is that encouraging child labour, or just providing income to a family?


We passed through increasingly green fields under an increasingly grey sky. The rain laden clouds built up but only ripped open after we were safely in the cafe of our new Sihanoukville guesthouse. It is interesting to see a country from the windows of a bus. The wooden stilt houses and newer brick houses on cement stilts; food stalls; children finishing school and being collected by parents on many varied motorbikes; motorbikes with a double load of pig strapped on the back seats, belly up and definitely dead; flat plains and the start of some low hills that seem large in comparison to the extensive flatness of the country. It is better travelling by land than air.


"Travel is an art, and one must practice it in a relaxed way, with passion, with love. I realised that after years of going about in aeroplanes I had unlearned that art - the only one I care about"
Terzio Terzani in 'A Fortune Teller Told Me'

The four boys sat on the corner of the weather blackened stone of an out building at Angkor Wat. Two of them wore the bright orange robes of novice monks and their shaved heads reflected the warmth of the sinking sun. They were all laughing at their friend chopping away furiously up the coconut tree. Professionals; all smiled straight at the camera for their photo opportunity and it was a classic.

Digital photography has the advantage of being able to delete images as you choose, so you can shoot freely without developing costs. To my sickened stomach, it also means you can accidentally in an unfocussed second wipe a couple hundred photos! Yes - it happened to me yesterday. I went back around the main sites in the inner loop at the Angkor complex to re-take some images, but the sun was now high and the light flat; and the wee boys were no longer waiting for me!

Angkor Wat is a truly impressive complex. Man's skill and creativity; desire for power and prestige; worship and wonder. A great accomplishment, and yet my favourite is Ta Prohm, where the forest is reclaiming its place over the man made buildings. Tall trees bind their thick roots around the roofs and walls and broken stones. Even in destruction nature is beautiful. Maybe the building was the destruction and the forest is restoring some natural balance and beauty?

We passed through the flat expanses of the Cambodian countryside with an electric storm illuminating the sky for miles around us. Sheet lightning flashing out both sides of the bus and fantastic classic fork lightning ripping the sky in its brilliant race to the ground. So bright it burnt its imprint on my retina for several minutes after it had exploded. We passed through a little rain which bounced through the closed windows, but for the most part it streamed down in a dark fog on the horizon.

People are not exaggerating when they say the trip from Poipet on the Thai border, to Siem Reap is one of the worst roads in the world. Our driver was good and our only incident having to bypass a collapsed bridge which still held the articulated lorry that had crushed it. We did wonder how the bus stayed together though. My dad does not know how its axle is not dead. It was impossible to hear the voice of the person sitting beside you, the rattling was so loud. It even drowned out the thunder when the lightning was right on top of us. We arrived by 9pm after just over 5 hours of shaking from the border. Meeting some people from our Bangkok bus leg of the journey today, we found out that the bus they had been transferred to arrived at 1.30am!!!!, after two breakdowns! I guess we got lucky.

After watching a cloudy sunset from Angkor Wat, complete with orange robed monks dotted photogenically by the weathered stone columns, we made it back to our guesthouse on our bicycles before tonight's storm hit. Its 15 minute glory was bright and loud and very wet, and cooled us down deliciously!!