hello dear reader :-)
it has been almost half a year since my last blog post. i hope you have been well.
i think 2024 brings good things.
this current post has arisen from huge BOREDOM (i.e. space and time to think and create) because, unfortunately, i am sick with COVID! over new years! how stink is that…
i am pretty devastated that i had to cancel my plans -
new years is always quite a sensitive, fragile time for me personally, full of comparison and grief.
i had worked desperately hard to find something special to do to prove to myself that my life now is good and exciting.
but alas!
i am holed up in the family bach in the coromandel with my grandfather (who was patient zero!), aunt, and mother. usually there would be many more extended family members on their way to cram into the bach but they all turned back while they still could.
i learned about leper colonies, where people who are sick with leprosy are exiled to isolated communities - a shameful quarantine. my grandpa has been describing us as one! :P
but it’s really not the worst place to be stuck.
i’ve spent a lot of time swimming, walking, writing, and lounging around in the sunshine.
summertime always makes me feel so much more embodied, more adventurous, and overall happier :-)
in each of these blog posts i want to have something valuable to share with you. an offering.
i hope to give you something that you can take away and ponder through the new year…
here is a small collection of ideas, scenes, and objects that have inspired and impacted and influenced me during this sunny, liminal time! <3
i got to visit my favourite river in the world again… Waitawheta (meaning ‘restless stream’).
i feel something so magical about it. it’s such a beautiful walk through beautiful nature beside Waitawheta with her sounds accompanying you all the way along. at one point there is a long, dark cave tunnel with glowworms that leads you to a swimming hole - rebirthed!
do you know this piece of writing, desiderata? it is quite famous. i’ve always known it as this crumpled, ancient looking piece of paper that hangs on the bathroom door at our family bach. when i was little i thought it was the original copy that they first found in 1692.
i think it has some real pearls of wisdom! the line that is sticking with me the most upon this visit:
“Be yourself. Especially, do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love; for in the face of all aridity & disenchantment it is perennial as the grass”
Perennial (adj.): lasting or existing for a long or apparently infinite time; enduring or continually recurring.
perennial plants survive for multiple years, enduring the winters and always blooming again.
i believe that is true about love, even in the face of all aridity & disenchantment :-)
for christmas i was given ‘burn after writing’, a book full of prompts that honestly makes self-reflection so fun! i do it as well as my regular journalling. i am a huge believer in the power of pen and paper.
this page is one of the less introspective and deep ones (i decided i should keep my most meaningful, private reflections off the internet haha).
do you know these people who i have boldly claimed to be creative geniuses?! these were just the first ones off the top of my head. i know a lot of people dislike jacob collier but i felt like he had to make the list.
number 2 there, marina abramovic and ulay (together, as a collaborative force): i really really recommend the documentary ‘no predicted end’ about their collaborative performance art and their perspectives on relationships and the creative process. it deeply affected and inspired me!
here is a link to it: https://vimeo.com/705760188
this HUGE sudoku page has truly kept me entertained through the lazy, humid afternoons. i’m not too far through yet…
i only learned how to do sudoku in 2023 actually. i feel like that’s a sign of a good year!
passion flowers always amaze me with their striking alienlike form. here is one solo passion flower, srurrounded by old fashioned hydrangeas.
i only saw my first passion flower maybe 2 years ago?! it inspired such childlike wonder in me.
as i was taking this picture, a passerby walking his dog asked me what this fascinating flower was - it was his first time truly observing a passion flower! he described them as “funky”. good choice of word.
lastly, i will leave you with one of the tarot cards that i pulled during a little tiny solo new years ritual.
my little handbook tells me that it represents gifts, abundance, stability, and allowing oneself to trust in others. it also may indicate a focus on control, or clinging too tightly to things from the past that need to be released.
in the full reading, there was a strong shift from swords (air) in my past, into pentacles (earth) in my future.
let me know anything that may further enlighten me if you know more about tarot than i do!
i found it a fun exercise to take these pictures and write about them :-)
being sick and bored over this new years period has made me more sensitive to the inspiration that lies within the mundane. opened my eyes more to the richness of little things. i have had time and space to better observe and absorb as well as to think and write.
some people talk about silence and stillness being essential for creativity to arise:
perhaps boredom and inspiration are intertwined.
do reach out to me, i would love to talk, and to know if anything here made you think.
lots of love and best wishes for the coming year!
freya
P.S: my song ‘new years’ - aptly named and relevant!
i still feel this way after all these years. i wrote it exactly 5 years ago today… gosh… https://open.spotify.com/track/1F3xMTWXdZ6IQt3c28eFc8?si=DKL7dkNsTW6KgxRVMKYPOg