I cannot believe that this beautiful year has almost ended. I've learned so much this year. I have been through a lot of emotions, highs and lows. But it has been perfection. Riding the waves, swimming in the ocean of joy. I smile at nature all around me in my Qi Gong practice. The eternal return to the source. My bones ache from working them so hard, but with hard work comes great rest. And even better play.
I just swallowed a mug of tea with Nuno; he bought us new Le Creuset mugs in the Black Friday sale. We have had our eye on these mugs for-ever. They are perfect size for a Rooiboos tea. Nuno and tea bring me infinite joy. He slinks around the flat like a cat, and he sees the world through different eyes to mine. But our hearts beat the same.
So much has changed in 9 months, and yet so little has changed too. I suddenly felt this desire to return to this website. It's freezing in my part of the world, and the rug's being pulled from beneath me. Yet I'm not worried. Over the past months, I've evolved in such a way wherein I've discovered the true source of life that flows from inside of me. It looks nothing like I'd imagined it to, and it feels different too. But it's there. And she's still there too, the girl who is afraid of everything. She is always the first to get to the phone, until the source takes the curls of her hair in it's hands and softly brushes her cheeks. She feels her feet warming and the redness fade from her cheeks. The feeling of a knot unfurling.
Life, in it's exquisite glory, feels like a raging ocean, swelling and spitting. It's unpredictable, truly, in every way. I cannot foretell anything that may happen, but only feel secure and loved in myself. And when the water is lashing against me, I am stood tall and strong, and sometimes I fall into the waves, sometimes they submerge me, dragging me under, but I rise.
I'm lucky to be in love, but the love flows from me too, and therefore all are lucky to be in me too. But I'd really like to mention the love. Why else would a girl spend a sunday making sweet butter mints. Sleeping in until noon, enveloped in purple sheets and annointed with kisses. Love makes the mundane spectacular. A kiss on a cheek erupts.
I'm worried about everything and nothing. Fleeting moments of fear, but only irrational. Learning what nasiolabal means, reluctantly. Suddenly I know my angles. But unlike before, adoring myself. Loving me because I finally know who she is, and it's not any cookie cutter shape, it's all messed up and strange, dark corners where you can't quite see, because it's got nothing to do with seeing, only feeling.
Drink up, drink well, drink from my stream of consciousness.
Love, M
I'm watching my clothes dry and listening to some CDs. Now Playing: Don't Forget Me by Red Hot Chili Peppers. I'm always shocked by how many song I know by the Chili Peps. I started a new job recently, which has been really such a dream. I'm revelling in the beauty of routine, and how it stimulates me creatively. Today I had an idea of some photographs to create, and I am trying to muster up the energy to actually make them. The light is pretty grey in London today which makes everything look flat and colourless. I'm going to create it with artificial light I think.
I'm not reading anything at the moment, which is unlike me. I've reluctantly agreed to rewatch Mad Men with my boyfriend. There are seven seasons. I'm not a TV show person as I hate comitting, it takes over your life completely and you become addicted. People often enjoy this but for me I get bored easily and find that I start entering a time warp as every day is the same. The films I watch punctuate my life. I'm literally talking myself out of watching it. It's definitely a wonderful show.
What a funny life. I'm really saying nothing. But isn't that the point of this?
Love, M
Sitting here thinking about the day. Planning the tasks I'm going to undertake. Writing my lists. Drinking my coffee. The same room that only yesterday pissed me off. I ought to take out my eyeballs and give them a rinse.
Another grey day, actually. We've reached grey season, here in the Northern Hemisphere at least. The food, sky, faces and mornings are grey. It can be tough. Sadness lingers in the air and everyone holds their breath. Summer isn't even a whisper away. And then David Lynch died.
I'm not familiar with death in the way others are. The only family death I've experienced so far was my grandfather dying when I was seven years old. And I only remember people smiling. They successfully hid the crying. I cry about him now and again, as I mourn what could have been, rather than who I knew.
David Lynch was many things, and to me he was my hero. He ripped the hair right off of my head when I watched Blue Velvet for the first time. Strangeness, validated. It's a cruel world for people who see things through blue tinted glasses, when the light of day is but a matchstick. Oh, but David knew how to make you feel safe, he said sit down and smoke a cigarette with me. Drink some coffee. It's alright to be like that.
The moment I found out that he died, I was cold and my fingers were stinging. I joined some friends at the pub, it was open mic night. Before they started to sing the chubby guy who does the announcements declared David was dead in the same spirit that one would announce a war. Red curtains hung behind him in a fitting unintentional tribute. I'd quit smoking, but for David I smoked a cigarette.
Perhaps war is upon us now. I mean in the metaphysical sense. David's death triggered a tidal wave of mourning within the community of people who desperately want to be recognised for their weirdness too, myself included. I watched the tributes (which in themselves were competitive displays of weirdness - a peacocking of otherness) and felt a sense of connection. These others feel other, which by nature divides us. The people who never found their people, because there's nowhere left to look, so quite frankly they are not looking. To us David was our people. David Lynch is our scene.
Now David and his body of work has been thrust into our consciousness once more. I suddenly found myself considering my creativity in relation to my own being. I reached for a second cup of coffee and revelled in the meloncholy of the season. What a power, man! He's really that guy. If I didn't love him so much, I'd be jealous that I couldn't be him. Even in his death he has the ability to bend your mind and make you smile.
Tonight at 8pm (GMT), to celebrate David's birthday, his family requested that we meditate for 10 minutes in a global tribute to him. My alarm is set and you best believe I will be sailing on that ocean wave of consciousness.
Thank you David! I will always love you!
Love, M
I've spent the past 3 days of my Christmas break dipping in and out of HTML induced psychosis. Sufficiently depressed from above normal alcohol intake, I wallow in the darkness of the flat. Yet there is a peace that falls upon me.
A week ago, we walked through the quiet icy woods to mark the shortest day of the year. Then Christmas came and with it Moscato, cheese and lobster tail. Now, in the inbetween, each day melts into the next punctuated only by a hot short coffee in the mid-morning and a kiss on the cheek.
I'm tired, run down and at peace. Wallowing in the space I gifted to myself, leaving the house only to look at winter's fungi or to drink a cup of Gluwhein under sparkly trees.
The website has been updated, and my plans with it too. I am solidifying my anonymity here so as to allow myself to go into great detail the topics I am researching. I notice, as an artist, that I often try to hide my inspiration, to protect my process. But the itch to share still needs to be scratched. It helps develop ideas after all.
Now the garden has started to grow, peculiarly in the dead of winter. But after my long placid walks in barren forest, I've discovered that nature does not just sleep in wintertime, rather it orchestrates a new type of dance. The moss grows effervescently on bare branches, and sour orange bouquets of fungi pour out of piles of rotting leaves.
And what happens out there, is reflected in here. Though I'm sleeping ten hours a night, there's a mycelial stirring that's occuring under my malaise.
Love, M
Recently I have realised the true power in being unknown. In being at one with the world rather than secluded on my island.
Nowadays, it is normal - even encouraged to pursue the concept of self to the point of success. Developing our own personal brand and identity in order to sell ourselves. Well the joke is on us isn't it. Because I'm not buying what you're selling, and I sure hope you aren't buying what I'm selling. Though we come in a kaleidoscope of forms and each mind slightly different to the last, we make up a whole. Denying this fact ends in misery. I no longer wish to be identified solely as an individual, as I recognise that I am simply an expression of the whole.
I've identified that it is important to me that I adjust my lifestyle in order to end my syncopation with nature. More to follow, maybe.
Love, M
Banana
black coffee (Moka brewed)
orange (sliced four ways)
Glass of Orange Juice (with pulp)
Oat flat white
2 eggs, handful of mozzerella, sliced green chilli in a white wrap
pot of black tea with mint
Though our karmic comeuppance is seemingly suppurating from every pore of this green earth, there are still pockets of light. You just have to make sure you are looking for them. He who looks, will find.
Love, M
Yesterday I found myself looking at fawns in the park. A warm, wet and windy day. I am being drawn to the outdoors. I saw a poem:
"There is a reason why walking amongst nature is most people's best advice when depression strikes.
Because walking in nature is a return to 'home'.
You are not a lover of nature, or a fan of nature, you 'are' nature.
You are as much nature as the trees in your garden and the bees on your picnic.
You were designed to live your days out in the wild with your fellow creatures and plants but progress, humanity, had different plans for us all.
And so we exist day-to-day, in our homes, but never 'home'.
The quickest route back to self, to inner peace, is bare feet on grass, arms around trees, head in the clouds and heart in a forest.
Put your bones in water, whenever you can, smell each flower you see and crumble dirt between your tired-of-typing fingers.
You are nature, go home once in a while.
It will bring you much you didn't even know you were missing."
~Donna Ashworth
Love, M
Exciting times here down in the garden. I can finally confirm that the gate is opened and the path is clear... We have flowers and butterflies. I will continue to maintain and update it as best I can. In any case, thank you for being here in the early moments of my garden's life. Patience is the most essential ingredient to growing a beautiful garden, or so I'm learning.
In personal news I am happy to report I spent a successful bank holiday weekend up north on the coast of Yorkshire with my family. It has been many years since I found myself inside a static caravan (even longer since I've been in a touring, which is now my next goal).
I made a short video which captured the essence of the trip. Those who are familiar with this type of holiday might find it nostalgic. Note the Billy Ocean tune; one singer from the caravan park's club hailed it "The Ultimate Floorfiller".
Love, M