My Granny the Philosopher

Posted on August 26, 2012 by greenmackenzie

My Scottish Granny used to say to me when I was upset…”It’s not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters”.

I remember dropping a little jug of milk I was trying to place on a tea tray in her scullery, when I was a little girl. The floor was hard flagstones, and the little jug was delicate bone china…you can imagine the resulting chaos and debris….and my hot horrified tears.

Spilt milk….

Granny must have heard the smash, and she swept into the room all smiles…”I never did like that little jug, I was given it by a jealous maiden aunt when I married your Grandfather, and it always made me think of her pinched mouth and furrowed disapproving brow.”

I breathed out a little, and together we picked up the little broken shards of china…

Then she called in her dog…..”What a lucky boy, look at all that yummy milk”.

Making the best of it

I had always loved my Granny, but that day I knew she would always be able to make anything which happened all right…just by accepting it and finding something to smile about while she delt with it. So I always quoted her saying to myself and others when unexpected things upset lifes careful plans. Imagine my surprise to discover that the phrase I quote as Grannys is actually from the first century AD!

It was a quote by Epictetus, who was a Greek stoic philosopher, and now that I have discovered him I beleive that either my Granny was his reincarnation…..or that she had read his work. It is possible that she had read him, as my family have always put a heavy emphasis on education, and my Granny was one of the first women to attend Edinburgh University at the turn of the twentieth centuary……still it has left me a little bewildered and wondering what else she might have plagerised…..

But it also speaks to me of choosing to look at life in a way which keeps us open to the possibilities of creativity spilling out of disruption, chaos or the unforseen. Lifes plans often come unravelled, but something new can usualy be created from the unplanned ripples, or waves…..if only we can open our eyes.

The Ink Dark Moon

Although the wind

blows terribly here,

the moonlight also leaks

between the roof planks

of this ruined house

                                        by Izumi Shikibu

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Edge of the Day

Posted on August 22, 2012 by greenmackenzie

I walked this evening towards the setting sun, and it’s soft apricot light which filled the sky and made my heart ache with an unknown longing. It was as though I could feel the earth turning beneath my feet, and I was walking through the edge of the day, and its ever shifting light.

The dark shapes of the trees leaned across the sky towards me, and the bats came out, stunt flying as though to impress and shock in one sweep.

This picture is taken in Plockton, Rosshire, from the hill at the back of our house as the sun sets over the Isle of Skye.

Here’s my poem…….

The Edge of the Day

I walk a little faster

as though I could catch up with the receeding light

as if my urgent ache could connect with the endless rolling away of the sun

that I might be pulled gently on the fleeing breath of the day

over the lip of the horizon

and on into the endless mouth of brightness

the perpetual day which rolls across the earths face

rolling ever onwards into some unseen future

and the soft apricot light which spills up over the edge of the day

into the coast of the night.

All the blueness of the sky

washed out into softness

and the deepening shadows of darkness

filling in the shapes of trees and hills

Until all that reaches out towards me is receeding light and dark

Until the night wins and I fall behind

Slipping off the tail of light

drifting into the night

and the first stars revealed by the growing darkness.

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Tolerating mess

Posted on August 19, 2012 by greenmackenzie

Yesterday a friend popped over, and she said she didn’t know how we could be bothered with the mess the dogs make…..now admittedly our home wasn’t looking at its best….we had been for a long 2 hour beach walk and our three dogs had brough back generous helpings of sand to attempt to recreate the beach in our front room…however it got me thinking about how differently we all approach mess.

Willows sand puddle

In my mind mess usually follows on from having had some fun, having lived a little, and the only way to avoid mess would seem to be not to live much. So we could avoid walking the dogs on the beach, and this would save us the beach reconstructions which inevitably follow….but we all love beach walks, and the dogs make it more fun…always. The other option would be to avoid owning dogs, but I’m afraid that I just can’t imagine such a life, and how much less fun it would be. A third option might be to shave the dogs, but that would just be wrong on so many levels. So tolerating the mess seems the only viable option for me.

To be honest I don’t usually give the mess, which tumbles, with as much certainty and regularity as the earth rotates around the sun, from the dogs coats in generous scatterings across the house, much thought. Regular hoovering sorts it out, and it’s just a part of life, like eating and breathing. But my friends comment has me thinking that not everyone is like me….probably safer for the world that way….and that perhaps some people avoid situations and circumstance specifically because of the mess generated. I do know somebody who doesn’t have kids, because of the mess they would make of her beautiful home. This seems so sad to me, as she is missing out on the joy and wonder of opening her life to share its creativity with another, whether that’s a child or a dog…or perhaps just another person….but we are all different and we make different choices.

I know somebody else who hates trees, because all they make him think of are the leaves which he will certainly have to sweep up come Autumn. So it seems that some peoples thoughts inevitably turn to the future and to the work of cleaning up which might be generated by objects or events. When I think of throwing a party I’m thinking about the fun and laughter, the drinks and the stories, the food and the memories…..I guess somebody else might think of the mess that will have been generated, and the effort of tidying up. I took this photo after celebrating a rather large birthday in my home a few years ago, and I took it because it made me smile when I came down in the morning and saw the debris of the fun we had all shared the night before…..

The surest way to avoid mess would seem to be to live alone, and to avoid change and the experiences which life is just waiting to throw our way. It also feels to me that creativity and mess are intricately linked….to create anything you need to make a mess. Just think of baking and all the flour dust, of painting and all the splattering, of an open fire and all that ash, of gardening and all that mud….but would I give up any of these things because of the mess? No way!! And now that I’ve noticed this I fully intend to embrace and enjoy the messy bits just as much as the (nearly/possibly) perfect outcome.

Making mess is liberating at some deep level in my soul, precisely because of the fun that goes hand in hand with it. So next time I’m in a messy home it will make me smile more than one which looks as though no one has been there…(usually I feel a little intimidated in a super clean home, and I’m thinking about what this clean and tidy person would make of the mess back at my home)…Life is for living and mess is for making…..and I certainly have a high level of tolerance for mess……so I will embrace it and enjoy 🙂

Now I feel I need to be clear that this doesn’t mean I like my home to be dirty…..I just don’t mind if it’s not perfect. After all life is usually far from perfect, and living life fully usually involves a fair degree of messiness, at all sorts of levels. Perhaps it’s just that I can accept the mess as part of the whole 🙂 More mess means more fun 🙂

Here’s the leftovers of a more recent nights fun…being enjoyed by our Bengal cat….

and here’s a wee poem about lifes mess……

The Whole Mess … Almost

By Gregory Corso

I ran up six flights of stairs
to my small furnished room
opened the window
and began throwing out
those things most important in life
First to go, Truth, squealing like a fink:
“Don’t! I’ll tell awful things about you!”
“Oh yeah? Well, I’ve nothing to hide … OUT!”
Then went God, glowering & whimpering in amazement:
“It’s not my fault! I’m not the cause of it all!” “OUT!”
Then Love, cooing bribes: “You’ll never know impotency!
All the girls on Vogue covers, all yours!”
I pushed her fat ass out and screamed:
“You always end up a bummer!”
I picked up Faith Hope Charity
all three clinging together:
“Without us you’ll surely die!”
“With you I’m going nuts! Goodbye!”
Then Beauty … ah, Beauty—
As I led her to the window
I told her: “You I loved best in life
… but you’re a killer; Beauty kills!”
Not really meaning to drop her
I immediately ran downstairs
getting there just in time to catch her
“You saved me!” she cried
I put her down and told her: “Move on.”
Went back up those six flights
went to the money
there was no money to throw out.
The only thing left in the room was Death
hiding beneath the kitchen sink:
“I’m not real!” It cried
“I’m just a rumor spread by life … ”
Laughing I threw it out, kitchen sink and all
and suddenly realized Humor
was all that was left—
All I could do with Humor was to say:
“Out the window with the window!”
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Weekly Photo Challenge (Merge)

Posted on August 18, 2012 by greenmackenzie

I love the liminal space of the beach where land and sea merge in an ever-shifting mix.

….especially a sandy beach, which is a perfect merge of both water and earth

….and in the distance the ocean and the sky merge at some indiscernible point

I always feel at the edge of reality on a beach……. and this one in Applecross is facing West from the edge of the Scottish mainland, looking across the sea to Skye and Jura, whose peaks you can see merging with the clouds which have snagged on their tips. And yet that edge has no clear line, no certainty.

It is the end of the day and the suns light is begining to diffuse itself among the lightening blue of the sky…..and so day begins to merge towards night.

There are no harsh edges to the start and end of anything on a beach, just a beautiful in-between, which seems to open the doors in my mind which often lie shut between waking and dreaming, between awareness and unconscious, between imagination and reality. It is impossible to be a dualist on a sandy beach…everything swirls together into endless potential……at least in my mind.

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Golden Age of Journalism

Posted on August 16, 2012 by greenmackenzie

I love this doorway….

It spills out of the bottom of the old towering sandstone building, right in the heart of Edinburgh, which used to house the local newspaper – The Scotsman. It is minutes from Wavelry Station, where the great and the good used to spill into the city northbound from the London trains and south bound from Inverness.

A few steps futher, with a left turn and you are puffing your way up narrow cobbled alleys towards the High Street, and the Old Town, while turning right has you on Princess Street in the middle of the New Town in moments. I imagine journalists in the past rolling out of this door and bumping into their next story in a matter of minutes. The High Court, and the Sheriff Court are mere yards up the High Street, and the pubs surrounding them would always be full of stories of the days preceedings.

Somehow I imagine journalists in times past being more woven into the daily lives of the city’s inhabitants, rubbing shoulder to shoulder with the criminals and the judges, with the shop keepers and call girls, with the butchers and the grave diggers. Sharing a beer or a dram and laughing together. In my imagination this would give a vibrancy and an imidiacy to the stories, which feel sadly lacking from the bland pages of todays offering.

Some might say it’s a reflection of the loss of local inhabitants and characters in the centre of the city, but somehow in Edinburgh I feel they are all still here, it’s the journalists who are missing….shut away in their shiney new modern building next to the Scottish Parliament, but dislocated from the beating heart and life of the city. It all just feels too corporate and bland.

I remember visiting the old Scotsman building in my youth, and being in awe of the huge printing presses and the type setters, the smell of the ink and the vast rolls of blank paper waiting to be covered in stories. It was pure magic…and this door was the secret rabbit hole into and out of the warren.

Or perhaps I’m just living in an imagined golden age in my head…..

… Now morn, with bonny purpie-smiles,
Kisses the air-cock o’ St Giles;
Rakin their een, the servant lasses
Early begin their lies and clashes;
Ilk tells her friend o’ saddest distress,
That still she brooks frae scouling mistress;
And wi her joe in turnpike stair
She’d rather snuff the stinking air,
As be subjected to her tongue,
When justly censur’d in the wrong.

    On stair wi tub, or pat in hand,
The barefoot housemaids loo to stand,
That antrin fock may ken how snell
Auld Reikie will at morning smell:
Then, with an inundation big as
The burn that ‘neath the Nore Loch Brig is,
They kindly shower Edina’s roses,
To quicken and regale our noses.
Now some for this, wi satire’s leesh,
Hae gien auld Edinburgh a creesh:
But without souring nocht is sweet;
The morning smells that hail our street
Prepare, and gently lead the way
To simmer canty, braw and gay;
Edina’s sons mair eithly share
Her spices and her dainties rare,
Than he that’s never yet been call’d
Aff frae his plaidie or his fauld. 

    Now stairhead critics, senseless fools,
Censure their aim, and pride their rules,
In Luckenbooths, wi glowring eye,
Their neighbour’s sma’est faults descry:
If ony loun should dander there,
Of aukward gate and foreign air,
They trace his steps, till they can tell
His pedigree as weel’s himsel …
Robert Fergusson

from Robert Fergusson: selected poems, edited by James Robertson, (Polygon, 2000).

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The Power of Softness

Posted on August 15, 2012 by greenmackenzie

I took a long walk on the beach today, streaching my legs into long strides, and my toes deep into soft sand. There was a lovely breeze, and most other walkers were wrapped up in warm jackets and boots, I think because of the overcast sky, rather than the actual temperature.

Walking at the waters edge I enjoyed the shallow waves rolling in across my feet, before ebbing back into the endless ocean.

The feeling of the waters restless motion was soothing and freeing, and lines of gentle waves foamed into life before breaking into bubbles across the sand. The sound of the breeze mingled indestinguishable from the swish and foam of the sea, and I was swept into the liminal space between the hard earth and the rolling sea. A space which is neither here nor there, which is in constant flux and flow, where change is the only constant…and I felt myself let go. Let go of the tightness which had somehow gathered unoticed somewhere deep within my being.

Letting go and surrendering the need to hold firmly to myself, and embracing the liberating relief that there is nothing to be done, I remembered this beautiful poem

Nothing in the world

is as soft and yielding as water.

Yet for dissolving the hard and inflexible,

nothing can surpass it.

The soft overcomes the hard;

the gentle overcomes the rigid.

Everyone knows this is true,

but few can put it into practice.

Therefore the Master remains

serene in the midst of sorrow.

Evil cannot enter his heart.

Because he has given up helping,

he is people’s greatest help.

True words seem paradoxical.

LAO-TZU

Tao Te Ching, chapter 78.

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Eileen Donnan Castle

Posted on August 14, 2012 by greenmackenzie

Eileen Donnan Castle.

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Pictish footsteps

Posted on August 14, 2012 by greenmackenzie

We took a walk along the shores of Loch Duich to this amazing iron age broch. Its called Caisteal Grugaig (or Dun Totaig) Broch, and is well off the beaten track on a lonely peninsula, looking across Loch Duich and Loch Alsh towards Eilean Donnan Castle. The contrast between the heavily visited Eilean Donnan and this almost forgotten ruined broch is imense, and hugely satisfying. You can’t just park your car and jump out…..you need to put your walking boots on and follow an ever narrowing track towards our ancient history.

I was blown away with how old this place was…..it was built by the Picts, who were the original native inhabitants of Scotland…this means it was built before the sixth century AD, and lots of it is still standing. As we explored I kept imagining whose feet had trotted up these ancient stone steps, which curl up around the inside of the circular walls.

Unlike its better known cousins in Glen Elg, just over the hill, much of this broch is uncleared, which adds to the atmosphere. It is cloathed in moss, ferns and lichens, and seems to rise from the earth itself. Crouching inside and peering out of a window across the sea, I had a sense of how safe you would feel protected inside this ancient stone tower.

We sat in the ‘guard cell’ inside the stone doorway, and drank warm tea from our flask, wondering who had eaten and laughed inside these walls, wondering what stories had filled the air we were now breathing. The stones were fitted so well together that they had needed no mortar to hold them in place, and it made me think about other ancient sites on the distant continent of South America, built so long ago and yet still standing tall. I guess these ancestors of ours knew a thing or two about working with stone…..things which seem sadly lacking in modern building techniques. It got me wondering how many of the buildings which we construct might still be standing in 1,500 years for our descendants to marvel at…..

I love feeling myself pulled back into history, and into the minds and lives of the countless generations of people who walked the earth before us. This poem speaks to me of these aged yet ageless ancestors who we barely know, yet whose blood races through our veins….

The Song of Wandering Aengus

I went out to the hazelwood,

Because a fire was in my head,

And cut and peeled a hazel wand,

and hooked a berry to a thread.

And when white moths were on the wing

And moth-like stars were flickering out,

I dropped the berry in a stream

And caught a little silver trout.

 

When I had laid it on the floor

I went to blow the fire aflame,

But something rustled on the floor,

And someone called me by my name.

It had become a glimmering girl

With apple blossom in her hair

Who called me by my name and ran

And faded through the brightening air.

 

Though I am old with wandering

Through hollow lands and hilly lands,

I will find out where she has gone,

And kiss her lips and take her handd;

And walk amongst dappled grass,

And pluck till time and times are done

The silver apples of the moon,

The golden apples of the sun.

By Yeats

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Wake up and spot your pearl…..

Posted on August 9, 2012 by greenmackenzie

Wake up and spot your pearl…...

Today I found myself talking to someone who is going to die soon. A mother of young children, wife and scholl teacher…but she has run out of treatment options for her cancer.

It left me wondering about the fragility of life, and reminded me that I must grasp the challenge of life and get on with being alive and experiencing the world while I can. So often I will spot something which inspires or moves me, and then I move on and forget the beautiful pearl I have just seen.

It makes me think that I must wake up and follow my inspiration…wherever it might lead…..the challenge is to stay open and to let go of the busy pre-planned nature of so much of life….

This is a photo I took a couple of mornings ago in my back garden. The sun was up and begining to warm the air, but the grass was still carpeted in tiny shimmering drops of crystal. I was held in awe for a good 10 minutes before the dogs came crashing across the grass and sprayed the dew in all directions…..

..and this led me to remember an old favorite poem…..

The Bright Field

I have seen the light break through to illuminate a small field for a while

and gone my way and forgotten it.

but that was the pearl of great prize, the one field that had the treasure in it.

I realise now that I must give all that I have to posses it.

Life is not hurrying on to a receding future nor hankering after an imagined past.

It is turning aside like Moses to the miracle of the lit bush.

To a brightness that seems as transitory as your youth once,

but is the eternity that awaits you.

By R. S. Thomas

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Sticky Willow

Posted on August 7, 2012 by greenmackenzie

Having spent the afternoon wrestling with the sticky willow (also known as Goose Grass) in my garden, I have found new levels of respect and of hatred for this cunning weed. I swear there was none to been seen this time last week…yet today as I strolled around in the sun enjoying the newly opened flowers I suddenly spotted some. Once I had spotted it growing through one plant, I cast my eye about…and guess what it was doing a take over bid.

I’m not sure what Sticky Willow gets called in other countries…or in other parts of Britain….let me know…:-)…but this week seems to have been its week here in Edinburgh!

Having filled a whole tub with its clawing grasping stems, I retreated, battle-scared with red whip-lash lines crisscrossing my arms and legs…only to discover that my hair and my top were liberally coated in the tiny green jagged pearls it calls seeds…arrggh!!

There is something very grounding about wrestling with nature…and somehow she always wins, or comes out on top 🙂 It always leaves me feeling acutely aware of my smallness, and my impermanence. I’m not sure I would make such a strong come back as this little green devil does year after year …….So I wrote a poem to reflect my mixed admiration and hatred…..

In Admiration and Hatred of Sticky Willow

Long, lean, green limbs,

Arching and reaching through the planned plants structures.

Small green sticky pearls,

Waiting to catch or hook a ride on passing coats.

Climbing higher, and higher on borrowed strength, towards the elusive sun.

 

Sticky, scratchy, pesky weed

Cunningly weaving and ruining the planned plants structures.

Binding claws cling stubbornly,

While spindly hidden  roots slink anonymous in shade.

Scrabbling higher and higher on the backs of all, towards stolen light.

 

I surrender to your greater might,

My soft pink skin, no match for your barbed structure.

Fierce red lash lines,

Send me running seeking salvation for my poor wounded flesh

Reaching higher and higher on the wooden stool, towards the soothing gel.

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