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When i watch a bird gliding on a thermal, effortless and free
i long to be up there, to be that bird
and yet i am also afraid
afraid that, once i notice i am flying,
i will crash to the ground
or will pass out from vertigo.
Being free - what does that mean to the bird?
Free to choose its life?
Free to be all that it is designed to be?
Free from fear?
As i spend this semester studying ethics
i am contemplating what is important
- to me, to us, to the universe
and who or what i'm responding to
when i choose to act or not...
I think that i am free to be myself (but not to be a bird)
i am not free from fear (though Twelve Step programmes say i should be able to replace fear with faith)
but i am free to choose how i respond to moments of fear
how i react to feelings of fear
and then perhaps i will learn to use the key to unlock my inner wings and fly...
Today i had a gentle start with my girlfriend Gail - now there's a passionate friendship that grew from mutual respect, shared interests and a passion for justice, spirit, labyrinths and photography among other things!
We found this card with an image of a beautiful naked woman at a gallery in the Borders and today sent it to Kate for her birthday - a passionate friendship that began back in the early 90s when Kate was doing her PhD and i was working in the university bookshop.
Then i drove up to Dunblane to visit Alison and she showed me the painting they had commissioned in Brisbane and which had just arrived back with them safely - it is by an Aborginal artist and shows a family of two parents and three children with the ancestor spirits as dolphins above. Alison and i are passionate friends and Friends (Quaker) and first met in the late 80s at university in St Andrews.
Passion is not about romance or sex or about heightened emotion or about any one aspect of life. It might be jealous, it might be angry, but it always holds love at its core.
Passionate friendship is about caring so deeply that you will work on the difficulties, face any challenges and sustain the friendship no matter the distance or differences...
Well, that's what it means to me. What about you?
Given a task i dress myself in the mantle of one who has been given something onerous, burdensome and painful to carry out. Whilst a part of me is excited by the challenge, digs for references in the obvious treasure-trove of the college library and in the less obvious arena of podcasts, blogs and the main library's economics and politics sections there is, nonetheless, a big part of me that feels immediately overwhelmed. An ever-present voice warns me not to disappoint the lecturer, tutor, advisor, friends and family while my girlfriend's and several others' voices gently remind me that i am studying out of choice, that my assignment only needs to be good-enough, that i should enjoy the process, that there is more to life than the grade on my paper.
Well i tried and now i simply have to hope!
J'ai essayée et maintenant il faut que j'espère...
It was easy to feel that it was simply another dull November day. The sky was grey, the clouds were greyer, the rain and wind kept coming straight at me. Then, as i walked along George Street from the bus-stop towards Hanover Street, the Mound and New College i looked down towards New Town and there was a rainbow, faint but definite.
And then again, as i walked back along George IV Bridge after the college library gently evicted me so that they could close for the night, i glanced down Chambers Street and there, high above the street lights, was the Moon, bright and bold, one day past Full but not quite ready to wane!
Sometimes i miss the beauty that is there, sometimes i see the beauty but don't recognise it, and sometimes, just sometimes, it hits me with all its potency and i am replete.
I can choose
to engage with,
to ignore,
to marvel at,
all that autumn offers.
I walk along pavements slippy with fallen leaves,
dirty with all and sundry
then i turn to walk along paths which track straight lines
through the Meadows
and i can kick up the leaves
almost knee-deep in places
i squat down to photograph them
and to sniff the autumn-ness
the pre-requisite for a November bonfire.
I stop to chat with a man resting on his rake
i watch a Big Issue seller selling not begging
laughing not pleading on this bright, fresh Monday.
and i chuckle at the pumpkins, cut out heads
abandoned but happy
burnt-out nightlights inside them
telling their own tale of an evening's fun.
