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Archive for March, 2010

Wild orchid spotting

Posted in from the dark room, photography on March 29, 2010| Leave a Comment »

Here’s one of my favourite activities – finding wild orchids. They tend to be really small and not so easy to spot, then when you get down on the ground to see them up close, they’re consistently, amazingly, beautiful.

wild orchid

wild orchid

wild orchid

wild orchid

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4 pebble meditation

Posted in from the dark room, from the living room, photography on March 25, 2010| 5 Comments »

Thich Nhat Hanh teaches a lovely meditation practice for children, and points out that many adults like it too.

He calls it “four pebble meditation” and here’s how to do it –

Collect four pebbles and keep them in small bag.

4 pebbles in pouch

Each pebble should remind you, in turn, of a flower, a mountain, still water and space.

Take the first pebble in your left hand and say “I see myself as a flower. I feel fresh.”

flower pebble

colorsplash rose

Repeat three times, then lay the pebble down.

Take the next pebble in your left hand and say “I see myself as a mountain. I feel solid”

mountain pebble

After the storm Ben Ledi

Repeat three times, then lay the pebble down.

Put this pebble aside, and take the next one in your left hand, saying “I see myself as still water. I reflect things as they truly are.”

still water pebble

loch and sky

Repeat three times, then lay the pebble down.

Put this pebble aside and take the last pebble. “I see myself as space. I feel free.”

space pebble

brightest moon

Repeat three times, then lay the pebble down.

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Entry phone with a sense of humour

Posted in creativity, from the dark room, photography on March 21, 2010| 1 Comment »

where the sky gods live

Who do you think might answer if you press the top button? (use google translate if you don’t speak French)

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Let’s play

Posted in creativity, from the viewing room on March 18, 2010| Leave a Comment »

As adults we tend to forget how good it was to just play.
Have a look at these orange balloons at play……they’ll remind you how good it is to play, and, especially, to play with someone else who you feel connected to!
(seriously, isn’t it easy to imagine that these two balloons are ALIVE?! Just watch they way they move)

(I made this little video in Cassis, Provence, then set it to a little of the soundtrack of Amelie)

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the beauty and the importance of impermanence

Posted in from the dark room, from the living room, life, photography on March 17, 2010| 2 Comments »

blossom

I listened to a Thich Nhat Hanh talk yesterday. He said, without impermanence there is no life. I hadn’t thought about that before. He said, without impermanence the seed will not become a flower.

Without impermanence we wouldn’t get to enjoy these beautiful blossoms every year.

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the colour of rock, the colour of water

Posted in from the dark room, photography on March 16, 2010| Leave a Comment »

coloured rock

water colours

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A tulip moment

Posted in from the dark room, photography on March 15, 2010| Leave a Comment »

Try this.

click on this photo and you’ll be taken to the original I uploaded onto Flickr. Click on it there and choose the “all sizes” option on the top left above the photo. Look at it in the biggest version available.

tulip

Isn’t it amazing? Isn’t it as if there’s a whole universe in there? In that single flower? Look at the colours. Aren’t they astonishing?

I hope you enjoy this little tulip moment.

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Bormes les Mimosa

Posted in from the dark room, photography on March 14, 2010| 1 Comment »

Every Spring in Japan the Cherry Blossom appearance is a great event. Thousands of people go out with their cameras and photograph the new blossom, the parks are full of strollers wandering around, stopping to look at the blossom-laden trees. The front pages of the national newspapers in Japan carry photos of the first blossom and the nightly TV news tracks the spread of the blossom through the country day by day. We don’t have anything quite like that in the UK, or anywhere else I’m aware of actually, but there’s a little village in the South of France which is named after it’s spectacular annual blossom and this year, after several years of wishing, I’ve managed to make a trip to see it.

Let me show you around.

The village is Bormes les Mimosa. Here’s what the village looks like during the blossoming of the Mimosa trees.

bormes les mimosa

Let me share some photos of the Mimosa with you, then I’ll show you some of the village.

mimosa

sunlit mimosa

sunlit mimosa

mimosa

Sadly, I’m not very good at describing scents but the scent of this blossom is really lovely. It’s everywhere in the village making the whole place seem both sweet and fresh.

Here are some overviews of the village

bormes les mimosa

bormes les mimosa

palm trees

bormes les mimosa

bormes les mimosa

bormes les mimosa

The old village itself is a medieval village with winding, twisting little alleys climbing up the hillside. There are loads of tiny passageways and stairways making it a wonderful place to go exploring.

bormes les mimosa

blue shutters

bormes les mimosa

bormes les mimosa

blue pots

bormes les mimosa

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1, 2, 3

Posted in from the dark room, from the living room, life, photography on March 13, 2010| 2 Comments »

1 step
2 steps
3 steps

Walking along Cabasson Plage yesterday, the sand was so sparkly I couldn’t resist taking off my socks and shoes and making a few footprints.
Actually, the sand was so firm it wasn’t easy to leave a footprint at all. I was happy with final result though……and with the feel of the cold, firm, silver sand beneath my feet.

As Lao Tzu said “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” I wonder where these three steps will take me now……

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The delusion of separateness

Posted in from the dark room, from the living room, life, photography on March 8, 2010| 3 Comments »

I’ve stumbled across this quotation twice in the last seven days. It struck me as interesting first time. It struck me as important to share the second time.

A human being is a part of a whole, called by us, universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest… a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.

Einstein

Kyoto

Are you ready to break out of this prison by widening your circle of compassion?

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