Impermanence 11

The theme for this week is 'rituals', framed as the start of really celebrating impermanence (for an explanation of this project, see here).

The week's prompt talks about 'celebrating beginnings, endings and transitions through ritual' as a form of celebrating impermanence. This doesn't connect for me . . . I really don't like deliberate of contrived 'rituals'. I take little notice of my birthday, my religious observance is as an 'unprogrammed Quaker', I don't design rituals for times in my life, and I hate anything that looks like a party . . . I'm one of the world's introverts.

But I do notice the natural rhythms of nature - daily, monthly (the moon), seasonally, annually . . . and cosmically (eclipses, conjunctions, etc). And of course I am, in some ways, a creature of habit, as we all are. So for 'rituals' this week, I have taken some of these.

First, my morning rituals/habits . . . one of the joys, for me, of being retired from paid employment is that I am no longer a slave to the early start and the morning commute. Even after five and a half years this is still a daily, conscious pleasure.

I open my bedroom curtains and take a few minutes to look at my garden, just a little different each day:

And then beyond my garden to the patch of allotments on the other side of the hedge, where I have a share in a plot (although I can't see my plot from my window). There is daily change there, too, and sometimes there is someone already working early in the day:

And then I sit downstairs by the window to my garden, with the first cup of tea of the day, and the newspaper (in electronic form on my Kindle):

Followed by ten minutes meditation (I'm enjoying using the Headspace app):

Later in the day . . . my sitting room faces west, over the allotments, so there is an open aspect and plenty of visible sky. I always watch the evening skies, and this week there have been some wonderful sunsets:

Impermanence 10

The theme this week is 'the rhythm of life' (for an explanation of this project, see here).

. . . but I've been a little discombobulated by this because the reflections we were sent, to prompt our photos this week, were all about the solstice, the zenith of the light, the subsequent decline into the dark . . . in fact everything that I was reflecting on here two weeks ago!

So I've been wondering how to reflect on the 'rhythm of life' differently . . .

I took one photo of the sky, of late near-solstice sunset, because I was really struck by the curved shape of the cloud, looking like a bowl, and it reminded me of Rumi's lines:

I took it as a sign to start singing,
falling up into the bow of the sky.

And then I thought about the organic rhythm of life and - at the time of year especially - of flowering and fruiting in my garden: apples swelling, redcurrants ripening, alpine strawberries ready to eat, hazelnuts just forming, blackberries flowering for autumn harvest . . .

And for a little cosmic rhythm, I photographed my sundial, with the short sharp shadows of the middle of the day at this time of year:

I'm hoping for the clouds to part one evening in the next few days . . . if they do, I can add a picture of a greater cosmic rhythm: a sliver of young moon close to a bright Venus in the western sky at sunset . . .

. . . . .

Some days later . . . by the time we had clear evening skies, the moon and Venus were no longer anywhere near each other . . . so no cosmic rhythm photo!

A summer evening in Stratford (4) - bricks and leaves

I might have called this post 'miscellaneous others'!

A summer evening in Stratford (3) - ferris wheeel

A summer evening in Stratford (2) - swans

There are a lot of swans on the river at Stratford - in late, low sunlight they aren't at all easy to photograph. But here are two individuals on the water and a sequence of one very grumpy swan on the river bank.

This swan was preening itself on the river bank - I approached softly and slowly, behind a tree, trying to get close enough for a good photo:

Then my presence was noticed:

Other members of the group saw what I was photographing and also approached - the swan turned to look:

And then stalked off in a really very grumpy huff!

A summer evening in Stratford (1) - Reflections

Last summer (but in July rather than June) I went with my U3A photography group for an evening photo walk around Warwick (see here , here , here , here). We found it such a good outing that we scheduled a walk for June this year, this time in Stratford-upon-Avon. We were very fortunate with the weather, given how unseasonal and changeable it's been so far this year. It was a perfect summer evening . . . just as it 'should' be in June (for further reflections on summer evenings, see here).

Impermanence 9

The theme for this week is 'Memory' (for an explanation of this project, see here).

As with last week, this theme again emphasises how much the apparently disparate topics of this project are actually all linked in subjective experience. The first three images in last week's post could just as easily belong under the rubric 'memory'.

But I've chosen to do something different. When I retired from working, at the end of 2012, my post-retirement treat to myself was to pursue one of the items on my bucket list, and in February 2013 I went on a trip by sea to arctic Norway to see the Northern Lights. I had never previously been further north than the north of Scotland or Jutland.

One of my former colleagues said to me: "Anyone else who retires in mid-winter goes to Australia or New Zealand, or somewhere warm . . . and you're going to the arctic!" Well, I don't particularly like heat, and can't sustain activity when it gets hot . . . and sitting around on beaches was never anything that interested me.

As well as seeing the Aurora I discovered in myself a deep fascination and affinity with 'The North' and the arctic landscape and experience. I have joked to friends that it's my Viking ancestry! I have a surname that is a variant on a Scandinavian name, and my father's family were all from a part of Yorkshire that was famously settled by Vikings. I have no idea if there's any substance to this, but I like the joke. Since that trip to Norway I have also been to Iceland and to Svalbard, and next year I will be going to Greenland.

But for this 'memory' post I'm using a photograph from that first trip:

Impermanence 8

The theme this week is 'grief' (for an explanation of this project, see here) - anything from gentle sadness and poignancy to major grief, and all shades in between. This makes me realise how much the seemingly separate themes of the weeks are actually shading into each other and overlapping.

The image of the broken bowl in Week 6, 'Vulnerability' could just as well have been in Week 7, 'Loss' - not only was a very lovely bowl lost, but it had been a gift from a dear friend for a 'significant' birthday so the loss was multiplied.

The first three of the images in Week 7, 'Loss' could just as well be included under 'Grief' this week; as could the last image - the vandalised wildlife pond - from Week 6, 'Vulnerability'. The damage to that pond stands in for all the deep grief I feel for the multitude of insults that humanity heaps upon the whole biosphere.

This week's post comes as we are less than three weeks from the summer solstice and I knew immediately what I wanted to photograph and convey . . . if I could. In these latitudes of England we have already entered the all too short season of long days, light evenings and extended, late, slowly fading twilights. These times always fill me with a poignant sadness.

There's something about how quickly after the solstice the light starts to fall away again, and then it's diminishment all the way to midwinter! A former colleague of mine used to come into the morning coffee break, every year on the day after midsummer, and say, "Eh, nights are drawing in . . ." It was silly, it was a joke . . . and it was true. And that poignant sense of loss, exactly at the zenith of summer light, is something about the finiteness of life itself, of each life, of all life.

But it's not only a feeling belonging to later life. I remember very strongly, as a small child, the loss and the injustice of being put to bed when it was still fully light outside; as a teenager, not being able to enjoy the light evenings innocently - there was school homework to be done, an early start for school the next day, exams looming. And by the time the school holidays came, it was August and the nights really were drawing in, and darkness fell all too soon.

Additionally, this year, it's been impacted by an enormous amount of rain and cloud cover - we've so far actually had very few clear, warm light evenings when it's been possible to sit outdoors, watching the light fading, and the stars emerging. This brief, lovely season will be even shorter this year.

All of this flooded into my mind as I read this week's brief . . . but how to photograph it? The weather this week has been either overcast or raining almost every day. On the one fine evening I snapped away for half an hour, fifteen minutes either side of sunset, hoping to capture something of this feeling. Out of more than 130 photos (!) this one, I think, comes closest: