following the LIght.

Thursday, September 25, 2008

drinking from the river lethe

am finding what i'm getting to and faster than i thought i would. must be a mind addled by lyme's disease, let's me slip away from the temporal plain more easily. and i find myself wandering about with odd images, angels in all forms, and the sun cooperating. and this passage from The Republic appearing just when i needed it.

"...all the souls had now chosen their lives...they marched on in a scorching heat to the plain of forgetfulness, which was a barren waste, destitute of trees and verdure; and then towards evening they encamped by the river of Unmindfulness, whose water no vessel can hold; of this they were all obliged to drink a certain quantity, and those who were not saved by wisdom drank more than was necessary; and each one as he drank forgot all about all things....about the middle of the night there was a thunderstorm and earthquake and then in an instant they were sent upwards in all manner of ways to their birth, like stars shooting..."

The Republic -Plato- Jowett translation

and here we land our wings in tatters, our faces confused, half angel half human, or rather, all angel dreaming to be human, wandering about, trying to trick away the effects of the forgetful water and remember who we are. remembering in our sleeping dreams but brushing them away until something jogs our memory and little by little the light is let in.

so here are the pictures that came, the drink from the river and the landing on earth. or something like that, i think words get in the way from now on. so whatever, it certainly is the most fun in this world to wander around a farm with angel wings and a pinhole camera! and i seem to be moving backwards so the last photos i posted would come after these. it's not linear so there we go.

xxx

Monday, September 22, 2008

on duty angels

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Off Duty Angel

The ideas for these images are coming to me in bits and pieces and then they emerge, seemingly, of their own volition.

This is what I know. The opera singer has stayed with me. he planted a seed that seems to have taken root. The idea that maybe he was only there in my reality. Or I should say jerry’s and my reality as we shared the experience. That maybe my lovely little opera singer was an angel of sorts. hmm. well what is an angel exactly?

The first piece of the idea urged me to find some angel wings and so I did and put them away not really knowing what I would do with them. Maybe use them with models… try to find a way not to be too trite with them. explore this idea of an angel appearing in an unexpected fashion.

yesterday the early morning light was so stunning it pulled me from my bed. i grabbed the wings and my camera and these are the images that came.

In the meantime life has been a wild ride. wild enough to have me gripped by some un-namable fear in the middle of the night and so i spend my time floating with the shadows across the ceiling, watching the curtains billow in the wind and talking to myself rather than sleeping. trying to shake it. to find consolation.

then this morning i opened my email and found Paulo Coelho's newsletter. it announced that now it is permissible to download texts and use them and so off i went to see what i could find and here it is the first one i came upon.

When angels talk by paulo coelho
Nobody is courageous all the time. The unknown is a constant challenge, and being afraid is part of the journey.

What to do? Talk to yourself. Talk alone. Talk to yourself even if others think you have gone crazy. As we talk, an inner force gives us the security to overcome the obstacles that need to be surmounted. We learn lessons from the defeats that we are bound to suffer. And we prepare ourselves for the many victories that will be part of our life.

And just between you and me, those who have this habit (and I’m one of them) know that they never talk alone: the guardian angel is there, listening and helping us to reflect. - paulo coelho

well, that's something to think about. in the meantime the angel looks tired obviously she doesn't get to sleep either. too busy listening to the midnight mitote in my head. (mitote is the toltec name for the thousand voice blabber that goes on in your head vying for your attention)

perhaps this is why one of the angels looks a bit scary. she's saying enough already. be in the moment. sleep at night. remember all the enthusiastic prattling about living and loving as much as you can!

so life is wild both high and low and in the meantime here are the wings i've dusted off and i'm excited to see where they will take me.

Saturday, September 13, 2008

another look

i'm thinking about what i wrote yesterday. to keep the idea of singing dancing living all i can live with all the love and compassion i can and then something else. something bigger all at once.
be in this world and not of it, kind of thing.
these are the feelings i've been tumbling around with and then this morning i picked up
The art of Dreaming, by Carlos Castaneda and found this:

"I want Freedom. Freedom to retain my awareness and yet disappear into the vastness."

and that's part of it. part of this inarticulable idea i'm working with. in the meantime
here are some images. they might get at it better than words. maybe. and if not, that's okay too.

Friday, September 12, 2008

To live's to Fly

Because you just never know what’s going to happen next. Flying from Montana and the sweetest wedding imaginable to the bedside of my dearest person on the planet.
Because there is no controlling anything, might as well spread my wings and leap. Because in the end for me there really is only one purpose in being here and that’s to live with all the grace and love I can fit into my small body. My wild heart.
And that can be a wild crazy ride. It can take my breath away. It can hurt deep down hurt and then be so sweet it makes my teeth ache. And then I just dance. I mean standing in the kitchen, I have to dance and sing and just go on and live and love deeply and fiercely. And look at this place we’ve been given to learn about all of this. It’s a wild fierce beautiful planet we get to work out our wild hearts with.

And Townes Van Zandt wrote this and it’s a good answer it seems.

To live's to fly
All low and high
So shake the dust off of your wings
And the sleep out of your eyes.

So shake the dust off of your wings
And the tears out of your eyes.

And I say this. I love you beth. I love you so!!!
Xxx

Saturday, August 30, 2008

the greatest adventure

Wednesday was our 25th wedding anniversary. It was silver. That is the tradition apparently. Somehow in this lifetime I missed the instruction book. I am the one who forgets anniversaries. And so jerry began reminding me about this event several months ago. The conversation went something like this.

Twenty-five years. August 27th. It’s a big deal. A meaningful look would come darting my way. A warning. This is not something to forget.
I know it is. Of course I won’t forget!!
Should we have a party?
Okay if that’s what you want.
We are supposed to have a party.
Okay. But I don’t really like parties. I mean if we have the people we really love then that will be a dinner not a party.
Disgruntled sigh from jerry’s corner
Okay, I said again, obviously something very wrong with me. We will have the party.
But then in a tiny whiny voice I added. Why do people whom we hardly know care about our wedding anniversary? Do we have to do that?
It turns out no; we don’t have to do that. We are having a dinner with our dearest friends and family who are close enough to come. It’s truly wonderful and here’s the thing.

I was never the girl who planned my wedding. Who dreamed of the dress and the house to follow. I dreamed of wandering and adventure. I dreamed of no fixed abode. Of no fixed man. There were so many cute ones. Why settle on one. I dreamed about the adventure of life and if there was someone with me then how grand. And then I met jerry. In England, and he just seemed cuter than the rest. We went to Sicily. We had such a grand time. The dream of adventure seemed to pale without him, and so how startling that I was the one who got myself married, to a guy from England, when I was 24. And then immediately began popping out these most precious people who were my children. I mean, what a thought. When I was 30 with two babies I realized it was not a thought but my life. I woke up with a start. I had given up adventure for domesticity. Huh. Not my plan at all.

So waking up, or what I thought of as waking up, can be a bit uncomfortable for those around you. They are all still sleepy and woozy and cozy in the former dream. They usually aren’t so keen for one person in the pod to start rearranging the covers and finally springing from the bed altogether and declaring that the light has dawned and it was time for us all to wake up! Snap snap!! But Jerry, looked at me silently, and slowly climbed out of his dream and said. Okay. Now what. Always. Every time.
No matter what gauntlet I have thrown down. He has calmly picked it up. Silently but sweetly shown me to be wrong over and over again in my assumptions about love and that the unruly wildness at the heart of me does not have to be tamed in order to love.

So really this is what I come to. I am married to the most extraordinary man. Some consciousness greater than my understanding obviously gave me guidance. I have been a ruthless rearranger of the covers. I have behaved in ways that would have caused almost every other person I have ever met to abandon this dream of living with me a long time ago. But jerry peele has stayed. He has stuck true to his word. He has been the most loyal and abiding friend.
We have moved from London, to Bermuda, to NYC to a farm in ancramdale and millions of houses in between. And just as many incarnations of ourselves.
He has loved me through thick and thin. And because of him I have learned that the great adventure I thought I was searching for has always been right here. The great adventure is love.
I suppose I go on and on about unconditional love. Te ammo. And here it is.
Wow.
I am humbled with gratitude.
Happy anniversary, jerry peele
Te amo truly. Te amo te amo.
Your errant and untraditional little wife
iva
Xxx

Sunday, August 24, 2008

slideshow of teo images

this just seems like fun to me, to add a slide show of the photos from mexico and so here they are.