New Zealand music ... I loved this song, and idea of the melting pot.
Terri Windling, from her Post - 'Going outward and beyond'
You can read the beautiful post this quote came from by heading over to Terri Windling's beautiful Myth & Moor blog.
Anne Morrow Lindbergh, from 'Gift from the Sea'.
'Distraction is, always has been, and probably always will be, inherent in a woman's life.
For to be a woman is to have interests and duties, raying out in all directions from the central mother-core, like spokes from the hub of a wheel. The pattern of our lives is essentially circular. We must be open to all points of the compass; husband, children, friends, home, community; stretched out, exposed, sensitive likes a spider's web to each breeze that blows, to each call that comes. How difficult for us, then, to achieve a balance in the midst of these contradictory tensions, and yet how necessary for the proper functioning of our lives.
...With a new awareness, both painful and humorous, I begin to understand why the saints were rarely married women. I am convinced it has nothing inherently to do, as I once supposed, with chastity or children. It has to do primarily with distractions. The bearing, rearing, feeding and educating of children; the running of a house with its thousand details; the human relationships with their myriad pulls - woman's normal occupations in general run counter to creative life, or contemplative life, or saintly life.
The problem is not merely on of 'Woman and Career', 'Woman and the Home', 'Woman and Independence'. It is more basically: how to remain whole in the midst of the distractions of life; how to remain balanced, no matter what centrifugal forces tend to pull one off center; how to remain strong, no matter what shocks come in at the periphery and tend to crack the hub of the wheel.'
Anne Morrow Lindbergh, extract from, Gift from the Sea.
The Story of 3 Birds That Rescued Themselves ...
My favourite cafe was closed the other day and I ended up at a nearby restaurant, hoping the espresso would be drinkable, knowing I didn't want to wander too much further in my search for good coffee.
Sitting there I noticed a rooster totally owning the small garden beyond the hedge in the grounds of the restaurant. It amused me. This was centre-city Antwerp.
A few minutes later I watched him visit with the pigeon you see in the series of photographs. And honestly, they seemed to be greeting each other.
I asked Vitaliy, the waiter, about them when he returned with a second, spresso and he told me the loveliest story.
The restaurant is called De Markt and the Bird Market is held weekly in the square nearby. Christoph the Rooster arrived first, after escaping the market, and set up home in the garden. They named him after the manager I was told.
Then Micheal the Pigeon arrived and he stayed too. He's named after the restaurant's Italian chef. Vitaliy told me, smiling a little, that Christoph the Rooster often 'shouts at' Micheal the Pigeon ...
And finally, I think that third bird is a Crow. He's quite motley but he moved in too and I love that. How did those birds know they could set up home in the garden of a restaurant in the city of Antwerp.
And they've stayed
I loved the story. I'll go back soon, I'll take Miss 11 with me. She's visiting this week. We have plans.
Reverence ...
The Problem With Teaching Photography ...
The problem ... sometimes your lovely clients decide they might enjoy working through your photo-phobia and take more than a few photographs of you.
But we had so much fun and I think Gabrielle captured that in her series.
And one of our lovely waiters at Douce, suffering from the same kind of phobia as I, was also captured, there in the centre.
Thank you to Gabrielle. I had to share. She's good.