cliodhna’s wave

The day is clear and sunny and the air has a bite in it. It is Ireland at her best in winter… the sharp air makes everything brighter and more defined, shadows are stronger and highlights are brighter.

I went for a walk with my camera… I am surrounded by brown at the moment, brown, and blue where the waterlogged fields reflect the sky. : Of course I should really get out at sunrise, which in winter is not difficult seeing as the sun rises so late. The hard part though is just getting out of the bed on a cold morning and braving the chill outside a nicely insulated house!

Warm sepia tones of the dead grasses

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Texture of dead foliage with the hardness of the barbed wire

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Wood, gnarled and worn by weather

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The ditch is full of life,

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Dark umbers and burnt sienna’s in a boggy ditch. Life moves slow in this ditch

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Now this, would make an incredible tapestry

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yellow shells shine out like flowers in a field, small and unshowy but when you look closer there is so much colour

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The water reflects the sky and the sand and brings all the colours together

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I sit on a rock for a few minutes, eyes closed, listening to the world around me. The water is gently lapping the shore, the birds wheel and cry as they skim the rocks, in the distance out to sea the waves crash against the rocky promontory. Nice place to be, caught in the centre of movement that becomes stillness. I find the place where time stops and open my eyes to the sparkling sea.

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the house from the beach

So, by hook or by crook, I am not sure which, I have found myself living in north-west Ireland for the next three months. A stormy, rocky, wave beaten, wind scoured, almost desolate, treeless, sideways landscape it is too. Yesterday, were it not for the rain battering against the french doors into the back garden I could have imagined that the ocean and land had traded places and and the squalls of rain were sea currents and the birds being tossed here and there were fish. the view from my back window the beach down from my house The birds fly backwards, its easier and doesn’t get their feathers ruffled so are we going or what? the beach at the end of the road I went down to look at the waves and crossed the rocks to get nearer. The ocean is a scary heaving beast with a life of its own and a casual disregard for all things small. I would be a pebble, an annoyance, a fly, a speck of dust to it. The waves got closer and sprayed me with sea foam.. I got scared and backed off… a lot… to the safety of the grass. The waves are huge here closer and closer

The rock here has fossils in them. Apparently they are famous for it.

Louis the dog

I have a dog and a cat into the bargain, which stops me missing my own dogs and cat too much (though I still look forward to getting them here) and there is a stove to warm the house. Perfect to make art and relearn my songs on the guitar and dream away the nights as the wind howls outside. There is silence now, but I can hear the waves thundering onto the rocks in the distance and a clock ticking somewhere in the house and the dog sighs as he sleeps. And to top it all of two fields away (to quote Margo) is Ellen’s Pub which has a session every Friday night I will go when I have a few songs mastered and when Paul brings my fiddle to me from the states.

Good Night!

I found these photos. They are from my window in mexico and the two doves hung out for ages on the branch, playing and preening each other.

I have started using feathers in my embroidery. Exploring the texture and general fluffiness and yumminess of them with gold and silver fabrics. Trying to capture in visual terms bird song, the richness of a note that hangs in the air for a second and vanishes.

Greenwitch sings alone in the heart of a tree, and yet not alone for in the heart of every tree there is a greenwitch singing. Her eyes are green with gold sparkles and her skin is the mottled green of moss. Her heart is pure gold and shines through her eyes and it is from her heart that her love flows and gives energy and strength to all growing things.
It is for greenwitch that the flowers stretch their heads to the sky and the sun. It is for greenwitch that the spiders spin their webs and do their dance of death. It is greenwitch that inspires the song of the birds and the whirring wings of the hummingbird and it is greenwitch that the donkeys love as they amble their slow way across the mountain.
Rain falls for her and rivers run and she sits at the heart of everything and sings her song of life. She is the weaver and she is the warp and weft and the fabric emerges from the loom in a thousand colours and in threads of silk and gossamer and gold and silver.
She is me and you and everything around us.

My new years resolutions/aims/goals are

to be healthier, to eat healthier and do my yoga more often, join a gym and learn how to run. To do the next reiki level and start offering it to people and accept the changes that come into my life from taking this step forward for myself.

to keep creating my art and move forward one little step at a time, I will take the opportunities that are given me but I am going to stop pushing and pushing like I am forcing something into creation. I don’t have to make something happen, all I need to do it ask and I will be given the opportunity. Also I accept the pace I am going at right now.

I welcome abundance on all levels into my life. I live connected to my heart and the knowledge that we are all one and living and constructing this dream together. Be happy in my life with myself and with Paul. Explore life and welcome all its changes and forms.

happy new year everyone! x cliodhna

this picture is about the judge that lives in us. I find him very strong sometimes. The guilt that tells us we have done a bad thing, the voice that says we shouldn’t have fun, should be more successful, more happy, more creative, more talented, more whatever. It is also the voice which judges other people too. We judge outside of ourselves so we don’t have to face our own perceived shortcomings. The judge in the picture is not touching the ground because he is not connected with the earth but lives entirely in the mind.
There is healing going on here too though, my higher self sees the judge giving out to the small child and is sending healing energy.
Down with the judge! We are all perfect just the way we are…

The next picture is tears. I find I go straight to tears whenI am doing emotional work. Part of it is buried anxiety or hidden fears or old sadnesses that I haven’t faced and which have built up and part of it is fear of letting go, the mind wants to hang onto to its control as long as it possibly can. I have actually gotten quite accepting of crying in front of people and very accepting of other people crying. I am happy to sit and be a witness, give support and just let them go through their process.

I am sitting in my parents house in Ireland writing this and it is beautiful outside. A perfect irish summer day. Sunny, calm, birds singing. I am going to have breakfast and then go for a walk in the mountains.

x clio

I had a dream years and years ago and I was sitting beside a canyon looking at an old leatherbound book which had the words “Where dragons be and how to find them” written on the front cover. I was looking at the index page because of course I wanted to know how to find them when up the canyon a huge bird came soaring. It dissolved into a thousand pixelly parts and then reformed facing towards me and took off past me with such power. I was left sitting there with my mouth open but no-one else saw it in the dream. I never did find out how to find dragons, guess I wasn’t supposed to know that information at that time.

I have changed a lot since that time. I lived in my dreams back then, It was quite cool for a while, I could dream on order and I had all sorts of mad strange lessons and journeys and I think looking back I was learning a lot on a level I didn’t know about. Time came though when I realized I wasn’t capable of holding down a proper job or manifesting all these dreams I had into reality. I was so afraid of failing (or succeeding) or making mistakes or not being able to live up to my own dreams and my knowledge about myself that I was stuck in this world and so I made the decision to come out, to quit obsessing about my inner world and start manifesting in my outer one.

The thing I know about myself is that I always get what I ask for.. always.. and this is not from an ego point of view, it amazes me sometimes when I look back and remember ‘Oh yeah, I asked for this, cool, thanks universe’. Of course this cuts both ways, I remember being frustrated with myself that I wasn’t in touch with my negative emotions, I was living on the surface all the time. Boy oh boy did I have a doozer of a year and a half after that wish but I came out the other side wiser and more in touch with myself and more accepting of my negativity and smarting from a few painful lessons.

So to come to place I think of as the Jonathon Livingston Seagull place. To learn how to ‘not ask’ but to stand so still you can traverse time and space. To learn how to be in that precious space of peace where creativity flows without hindrance, without judgement or comparison or fear or dissaproval. To leave ‘trying’ behind and just be. To let myself do that with my art and my pictures but also my life. Let it flow to where it needs to go so always I am in the right place , and the right place is always here.

I feel right now I am on the beginning of a cycle, cool feeling, I am planning work, wanting to get down to it. more oil pictures, these pictures I’m doing for threadless will get turned into embroideries. Patience, plant some seeds and see what sprouts. I said to someone recently my lesson is slow development and patience with myself is something I have had to learn. Let things develop slowly, don’t rush, don’t push, I will get to where I want to go to eventually with my stuff well learnt and well prepared, with calmness and in heart.

I am settling with Paul also, wonderful feeling of deepness that I always just accepted I would probably never find and of course scared the shit out of me when it arrived . Just to make ya’ll jealous here is a picture of the swimming hole we were in recently and I was swimming in a looking around at where I had found myself in my life saying “Cool! thanks universe”

born from the old the new comes flying forth, a rabbit leaps upwards in green growing plants, seeds yet to be germinated wait for their time to take nutrients from the earth and burst forth into life.

x spring time!

…and the cock crew at midnight, witching hour, space between yesterday and tomorrow, a tiny space of now.

I slept and did not hear his clarion call to the world, that caused small animals to look up in wonder and large ones to feel the pull in their bellies. I felt it in my bones though, and dreamt of tidal waves and earthquakes and great winds sweeping the earth.

In the chicken coop an egg was beginning to hatch, the chick following blind instinct to hit out at the darkness surrounding it, to crack, to break, to push outwards. Imagine! all the world this chick has ever known is about to get as big as eternity.

But then, the world is the perfect size for each of us and we should not be afraid of the spaces between the stars.

x cliodhna,

to all us little chicks pushing out and breaking out of all the world we have ever known!