breathofgreenair

Fire in the Clouds

Posted on February 15, 2016 by greenmackenzie

It had been snowing on and off all day, lying on the high ground above the snow line. The shifting layers of snow clouds drifted carelessly across the sky without much drama, until the sun began to sink towards the earth. Watching from the outer edge of an ancient hill fort, I saw the Suns fire catch in the clouds above the Pentland hills, beside Edinburgh. The flames moved as though through bone dry tinder, engulfing cloud after cloud into their wild bright heart. Brilliant and astonishing flames which caught my breath and held my eyes in unswerving awe, until the whole sky had caught fire. The beauty of a fire lit sky over snow clad hills left me smiling hours later at the bright memory, etched into my mind. Moment by moment it shifted, and in the shifting was the beauty, there to be breathed in with each passing moment. The fire of sunset clouds will never repeat itself in quite this way again, but I will climb this ridge again looking for new beauty each time. Thinking that we already know what something looks like can blind us to the fresh beauty of life revealed daily around us. Stay open, enjoy being surprised by what the day will show you, and try to drop the jaded assumptions that we’ve seen it all already! I had certainly never seen a sunset cloud fire quite like this one before.

As this wasn’t a planned photography outing I only had my iPhone with me. Lesson learned, take the camera always, as something wonderful and surprising is bound to turn up!

Posted in mindfulness, nature photo, spiritual | Tagged clouds, Edinburgh, landscape, mindfulness, mountains, nature, photography, relaxation, scotland, spiritual, sunset, winter | 51 Comments

Ice Heart

Posted on February 10, 2016 by greenmackenzie

Mountain heart of ice

Casts her cold dead spell tightly

Unwoven by Spring
A cairn field high above Loch Garry, marking the passage of the thousands who visit the Scottish Highlands each year, travelling through the Cairngorms on this high pass. Cairn etiquette demands that you should always add to a cairn as you pass by, and if you add the highest stone you can claim the luck of the cairn. This ensures its survival, despite winters best attempts to sweep the earth clean each year. Some stone cairns in Britains hills are very ancient indeed, marking the paths and passes used by our ancestors for thousands of years. Routes for moving cattle and the dead. Places where the veil between life and death feels thin, and where human feet have touched the skin of the earth, many many times over. Walk softly in these places.

You can see some more cold places at Cees weekly challenge

Posted in ancient sites, mythology, poem | Tagged cairns, Cetic, druid, Haiku, magic, mountains, myth, poetry, scotland, snow, travel | 46 Comments

If you have time…..

Posted on February 7, 2016 by greenmackenzie

If you have time, come away with me now to the top of the hill at the back of the house. We can climb the rough stone path between the lichen stitched rocks, chasing the very edge of the day, up onto Frithard, the height of the deer park. From here we can see the world laid out beneath our feet, and we can taste the salty breath of the ocean. We can pause and rest a while, and watch as the day slips away behind the mountains, leaving traces and smudges of light in his wake.

If you have the time, we can sit here a while, watching the shifting patterns of light within the clouds and on the water. We can chose to watch the colours of the setting sun bleed into the drifting clouds, and to hear the silence of the empty waves. We can notice the soft breeze across our skin, growing cooler with the fading light, lifting the lips of little rippling waves. We can feel our own warm breath sliding softly out of our bodies and into the sparkling air around us. So many sensations can fill our minds and our bodies in this small short moment of time, and yet in the fullness comes a deep peace and a stillness.

But only if you have the time…..otherwise you may have countless unfinished tasks on your ‘to do’ list which just cannot wait a moment longer. You may have countless chores crying out loudly to your conscience to be done. Your head may in fact be so full of things to do, keeping you so busy, that you couldn’t possibly squeeze in another thing. That would indeed be a shame, as this beautiful play of light, sparkle and shadow will never be repeated again. Never again will this exact blend of beauty and colour move across this stretch of water, with the wind just as it is now, over these exact tides, with the sun setting at just this angle. So stunningly beautiful it takes my breath away to a place of utter bliss, just thinking of it now. So I urge to leave those dishes unwashed and that floor unswep, those clothes un-ironed, just for a little while, and jump fulheartedly into the beauty of this moment. Run away with me to the top of the hill, and enjoy the release and joy of living fully in the moment. Everything else can wait, there will always be another time to sweep that floor, but never another time for living this moment of our ever passing life, and bathing in the fleeting shifting beauty of our world.

Embrace just being, fully in this moment, at the edge of the day, at the edge of the stone earth. You will find out something magical about time….it can stretch itself

Posted in mindfulness, Plockton, weekly photo challenge | Tagged islands, landscape, mindfulness, nature, photography, postaday, relaxation, scotland, spiritual, sunset, time | 54 Comments

Brides Snowdrops

Posted on February 4, 2016 by greenmackenzie

Brides white followers

Rising caped from frozen earth

Melting hearts and soil
Bride is the Scottish Goddess of Sunlight, Spring and Summer, and she emerges from winters frozen earth on Februaury 2nd, known as Latha Feill Brighde in Gaelic Scotland.

Posted in Celtic, elemental, poem, Uncategorized | Tagged bride, Brighde, Celtic, druid, festivals, Haiku, Imbolc, poetry, scotland, snowdrops | 46 Comments

Vibrant Pittenweem

Posted on February 2, 2016 by greenmackenzie

Vibrant Pittenweem, Fife

There’s a beautifully vibrant wee town, tucked away in the East Neuk of Fife, which has reinvented itself many times over the years. It’s name, Pittenweem, is a mix of Pictish and Scottish Gaelic words which mean The Land of the Caves. (Pit- Pictish for place or piece of land) (na h-Uaimh – Gaelic for of the caves). Currently famous as the yearly venue for the renowned Pittenweem Arts Festival, it plays host to over 100 artists over a 2 week period in August, and the venues for displaying and selling work are unusual to say the least. When I visited last summer it seemed as though every available inch of free space within the town was displaying something, and that included a lot of private houses. The doors are flung open and venue numbers are posted all around the town inviting crowds of art lovers to come in and take a look.

Art displayed inside a house

Most of the houses host the work of just one artist, and stepping through the old wooden doors you are treated to one surprising exhibition after another. Often hosted by the artist themselves, most of whom are delighted to discuss their work and techniques, there’s a lot to take in and be inspired by, and after a while I was drawn back outside towards the simple beauty of the historic whitewashed and burnt umber houses and their red pan tile roofs. This costal town washed by the North Sea was once a bustling herring port, and the red tiles were used as ballast in the holds of empty ships from the Low Countries (Belgium and Netherlands), who came here to load up with the ‘silver darlings’ or herring. The crow stepped gable ends of the buildings ( called corbie-steppit in lowland Scots) were another influence from the Low Countries, which gives this vibrant town its distinctive and pretty look.

Vibrant Pittenweem house

Decked out with fluttering bunting and washed in that soft vibrant light which bounces off the sea and back around the historic painted buildings, it is the perfect venue for the yearly exhibition. Almost a work of art itself, there are many delightful little surprises waiting to be discovered up and down the steep cobbled streets and wynds which thread up and down the hill from the harbour. Hidden away in a tiny steep lane is St Fillans Cave, once home to a Celtic monk and later an Augustinian monastery. It is thought to be the origins of the first settlement on the site, although I’m certain our hunter gatherer ancestors would have known of the cave and made use of it and it’s fresh water spring.

Pittenweem sea front during Arts Festival

Back down at the sea front makeshift tea and coffee venues offer a space to sit and watch the waves rolling in and to chat about the artistic merits of everything on display. This year (2016) the festival runs from Sat Aug 6th – Aug 14th and you can find out more here.

view from inside

Find more vibrant posts to cheer you up on a dull winters day here at the WP weekly photo challenge.

Posted in art, travel, weekly photo challenge | Tagged Arts Festival, festival, Fife, historic, history, Pittenweem, port, postaday, scotland, travel, what to do | 66 Comments

Winter Bones

Posted on January 26, 2016 by greenmackenzie

All night he rattled

The dead sapless tree bones while

Spring slept safe below

Posted in elemental, nature photo, poem | Tagged art, Haiku, landscape, mindfulness, nature, poetry, scotland, snow, trees, winter | 36 Comments

At the Edge of Dreams

Posted on January 20, 2016 by greenmackenzie

Somewhere at the edge of dreams, at the edge of night and day, a golden hare races through the dappled flowers and grass. Chasing the shadows between sun and moon he runs over the mountains curving paths at the very edge of our awareness, trailing stars in his wake.

The long dark fingers and shadows of night reach for his golden fur, and he runs onwards, towards dawn. He beckons us and dares us to follow his wild path, far from the known world, along the edges of our dreams. He shows us how to trust our deepest instincts when we don’t understand the world around us, when we’re reaching for something new. Will you follow?

This is another of the paintings I’ve been working on for the exhibition ‘movement ‘

Posted in art, Elemental tales, mythology | Tagged animal, art, dreams, fairytale, hare, magic, myths, painting, totems, watercolour | 69 Comments

Life in Winter

Posted on January 18, 2016 by greenmackenzie

Winter holds the hill

Whitewashed steely lifeless fields

Life’s flame flickers on

Posted in mindfulness, nature photo, poem | Tagged Haiku, landscape, mindfulness, mountains, nature, poetry, scotland, snow, verse, winter | 48 Comments

Live for the Moment

Posted on January 16, 2016 by greenmackenzie

The phrase ‘Live for the Moment’ encapsulates much of what we are trying to achieve when living mindfully. The idea being to move away from living in our minds and our thoughts about both the past and the future, and instead to focus on what is actually happening around us in our life right now. A good technique is to shift away from thinking, and to move back towards our senses, and what our body is telling us is happening around us in this moment. Feeling the breath moving in and out of your body, feeling the breeze across your skin and seeing the colours and shapes of the landscape around us are perfect mindful practices. For me, getting out into the beauty of nature, and walking through it with the dogs is my favourite mindfulness practice. It can free the mind from endless cycles of worry, guilt or long to do lists, and instead opens a space for pleasure and joy.

This painted stone sits on the top of Berwick Law, itself a prominent pyramid shaped hill lying in the flat rolling fields of East Lothian, on the edge of the Firth of Forth. It was a beautiful gift to turn and see the words after the steep uphill climb as I stood finding my breath again. It seemed that Molly was showing me the message, and it brought a smile to my lips. What was even more poignant was to discover later that the words had been painted by a young man I knew who had died from his cancer the previous year. He had painted these words in all sorts of places while living his last year of life as fully as possible. Finding the joy and beauty in our lives and the world around us can be as simple as this message. Chose to shift your focus and come back into the lived moment, this moment, this breath. Look around you with curious eyes and notice what has been sitting waiting patiently for you to find.

You can find more words and letters at this weeks WP Photo Challenge.

Posted in mindfulness, relaxation, weekly photo challenge | Tagged dogs, hills, mindfulness, nature, photography, postaday, relaxation, scotland, signs, spiritual, walking | 55 Comments

Chasing the dream

Posted on January 14, 2016 by greenmackenzie

We all move in and out of dream space each night and each morning. This movement between the conscious world of wakefulness, and the unconscious world of dreams and symbolism is a transition between the known and the unknown. All such thresholds bring a sense of uncertainty, and vulnerability, along with the potential for change.

There can be times in all of our lives which leave us stumbling in confusion, with very little idea of what is happening. At times like this, dreams can bring us clues or symbols to help us find meaning in the unknown land. Symbols, like this hare, can rise from the wisdom of our own unconscious to guide us through the uncertainty towards our unfolding future. What have your dreams been telling you recently?

This is a watercolour I was working on over the weekend, for an exhibition with the theme of movement. It’s not finished yet, but I’m sure he’s trying to tell me something!