The Art of Just Being...

One of my favourite works of art (among many, I might add!) is this sculpture by Albert Toft called The Spirit of Contemplation.

She sits, somewhat overlooked by her modern counterparts and the rush of the new, in the Laing Art Gallery in Newcastle upon Tyne.

I've known her for over thirty years.   We are old friends, she and I.

When I first caught sight of this life-size bronze, I thought her impossibly beautiful and unattainable.   I wanted to be her.

I might have spoken before about my aspiration to have been an artist's inspiration.   His muse.   I think the time for that has fled.

But the spirit still gazes unseeingly out at an unknown future, lost to contemplation and reverie.

Who she was to the artist, Albert Toft, I do not know.   I can find little about him online.

The shock of the new.   L'Art Nouveau, as it was at that time.

And this leads me to ask, what time do any of us take for contemplation in this day and age?

Most of us run from task to task;   from work to home;   from bus to tram to pounding the pavement;   from thought to fleeting thought, to ennui...   From one demand on our time to another, in fact.

I am asking you to take a few moments out today, mes muses, to just sit and be.   Not to do.   Anything.   Other than breathe...   I am asking for just a few minutes of your time.

Spend them in contemplation, as I will do.   Observe your thoughts as they pass though your mind, but do not allow them to derail you from just sitting and being.   Concentrate on your breathing.

In.

And out.   Focus on the out breath.   The exhale.   Make it as long as you can and feel those tense muscles across your back, chest and shoulders begin to loosen.

Let those thoughts go.   There will be ample time to attend to them when you cease your contemplative moment.

Merely sit and close your eyes to the world.   Still the mind.

Breathe.

And be...

For, after all, we are human Be-ings, as opposed to human Do-ings, non?

Tell me how it goes for you?!   Do you feel a little less fraught?   A tad less anxious?   I hope it for you.

A la prochaine, mes bloggy blackberries - Well, we're in October already, non?!   Blackberry time.

See you in the hedge-rows!

To the Internet... And beyond!

I haven't posted much recently, have I? Since my laptop breathed its last in the Priory for Addicted Laptops, and I've purloined this lovely beastie from my son, who really has greater need, but then his old laptop still works. So, until he gets home for spring break, or whatever it's called here in the UK...

When I was without my laptop, which I've only had my paws on for just over two years, I'll be totally honest I felt somewhat bereft.

I missed what was happening in 'the world'... I felt a little out of touch, isolated - Especially given my rural location, and my lack of a meaningful job at the moment - More about the interview laters...

How much of our own self-worth these days is now wrapped up in our on-line lives, do you suppose?

Do you even think about it, mes bloggy chums?!

Apparently, the way we think and how we structure our time is changing as a direct result of our capacity for social networking. CLICKIE. I know mine has. Our children have the attention span of ADHD gnats, as a result. And yet they're not any less intelligent than those of us born in the Sixties', or Fifties', or whatever we're owning up to in terms of age this week!

We who only had draughty Public Libraries for refuge once a week, levering our forms into the heaviest chairs to study at, next to the, sometimes smelly, homeless man who had come in from the cold to read the papers. (Now he probably uses a Blackberry or sits in the Internet cafe... Ok, I'm being facetious).

To continue - We with our access to weighty tomes and encyclopedias - in said Libraries... We who had pens and paper, not screens and keyboards. Our kids are probably just as bright as we claim to be, in fact. Thank Goddess for that!

But our lives have changed irreparably as a result of social networking, non?

Last week I spent a lovely afternoon at the Coast with friends - We went to Crusoe's in Tynemouth - The weather was unseasonably good and I was surrounded by people I've worked with - recently and in the past - who mean a lot to me. We've all met one another at various (and vicarious!) stages in my life (and theirs...)

What we all have in common is that we all talk on Facebook. And now friends from my past have made new friends through me and each other, courtesy of (mainly ripping the tiddle out of each other!), social networking twaddle and chit-chat... Without it, they'd probably never have had the opportunity to meet one another...

One dear friend whom I met in my twenties even brought her sister who's now a dear friend too, and I'd only ever met her before virtually!

It made for an interesting afternoon, as we all got along, as conversation waxed and waned, and we each treasured some authentic real-life moments that had had their fledgling beginnings in black and white...

Friends are to treasure, no matter where we may encounter them in life.

The Ruby in the Smoke...

This weekend, I am in the midst of chaos that I am about to flee!

Decorators are moving in to Crawford Towers to wreak havoc and to restore calm. And I am off to London for a few days rather unexpectedly.

It turns out that my perpetual hen-pecking of GJ has borne fruit and he is condescending to allow me to accompany him on his business trip, amid some glowering, a knitted brow or three, and 32 gritted teeth...

Now that Grizz is safely ensconced at Uni, you see, I need not remain at home to mop brows, rustle up beans on toast, and wrestle stray socks... I am... Whisper it! Free.

I have a little remaining annual leave to take before December, with little chance of carrying it over to next year, when they are going to close us down in any case, 'in principle', so I am taking advantage of GJ's business hotel booking (a Holiday Inn Express, so no untold and breath-taking luxury for la Fhina!) to piggy-back along to the Smoke to see the sights.

Yayyyyyyyyyyyyy!

On Friday, I might even be returning to a haven at home of Redcurrant Glory and Egyptian Cotton, Mellow Mocha and Natural Calico, Raspberry Diva and Fresh Mist.

Pinch me, I could be dreaming. All those rich reds and luscious creams. And that's only Bea's of Bloomsbury! I've already arranged one sweet rendezvous with my fab non-bloggy friend, Sarah, whose gorgeous fizzog I've not clapped eyes on in years, so that will be a real treat.

Ciao mes belles! Mwah! Mwwaaahhh!