cliodhna’s wave

A girl stretches upwards to reach for the moon; through the red earth and the stones and the hardness of pushing through she stretches and feels for the silver coolness of the moons light pulling her into the night.

The night is cool and dark and welcoming. It is not scary in this night, it is full of life, full of the life that comes out in the darkness and out of the heat of the daytime sun. Animals watch her coming forth, they are witnessing and waiting and encouraging with their breath and giving her energy to complete the journey.

I was reading the other day about a dog who was helping a war veteran with his panic attacks and I have always thought that dogs were such unconditional love beings. We are lucky to have them in our lives. This is Pala who is a sweet loving snuggle monster. Her fur is soft (and sheds everywhere!) and she likes most of all to be curled up in a lap or an the bed beside me. I spoil her.

We are surrounded by animals giving us love and encouragement, even the small creepy ones or the ones that bite.. they are just trying to tell us something, its not our fault if we don’t understand them.

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my work room is on the second floor of the house and directly outside a huge green tree grows. It provides shade from the sun and gives a wonderful green light into the room. The birds love it also, the tiny sparrows and the large black magpie type birds that shriek and squak and make liquid notes when they are courting.

I looked up from my machine and say these two sitting about three feet away. They stayed for a few hours, courting each other, staying close, grooming each others necks, fluffing up wings and feathers and then smoothing them down again. I got a few pictures of them. I hope they build their nest there, that would be too awesome!

The quilt provided me with a reality check the other night. I sat in front of some tv show drawing and cutting out the paper patterns that I would sew the fabric onto and at the end I figured ’sure, I’ve loads done’ but when I put them together to see my heart quailed at the very (very) small section of bed that they covered. If it takes that long to cut out the paper patterns how long is it to get the whole thing done!!!!

It is at this point the artist must toss all fears and considerations of time out the window and just do it. I mean, I once spent three months doing nothing put cut up paper stars for christmas decorations… (I was broke, out of work, bored and had a pair of scissors and a huge mound of paper that was already in squares.. what else is a girl to do?) The kitchen looked incredible after I was finished

and to the two dogs in the title? they are getting restless and need a walk.. better go.. x clio

a wet cloudy day in the mountains, it felt like being back in ireland! I went for a walk and took some pictures, it is so different in the rain, much cooler and refreshing after the hot sun.

Back in the mine again. Back with my dogs, the big lump and dancy dog, back with the food from the cantina and some amaranth bars I brought with me which I am just now tasting and are a bit yucky, though that might just be the taste after vanilla sweetened coffee.

I had a dream this morning about a shriveled head which had been torturing women chainsaw massacre type or the saw or like those horrible ‘chase ‘em down and cut ‘em up’ films I don’t watch. Anyway I had him in control and was trying to drown him in water but he wouldn’t die. I was trying to suffocate him but the water was just a puddle. In my other hand I had control of the whip/chain he used. I decided to put him in a jar and fill it with water and close the top and drown him that way. I put small hot chilies in on top and a snake I had caught, though the snake escaped and got cut in half before I could close the top. He was potent, this head that has been torturing me and making my life a misery, small and mean and concentrated and I realized at one point during the dream that he couldn’t torture me, I was powerful, I had power, not like the other women he had tortured, I was a witch and I knew what I was doing.

That was the point of the dream, to realize he didn’t have any power over me. I was a lot bigger than he was and I was powerful and I knew it. The head of course is my mind which has been judging and beating me up since forever and the mind has invested a lot of control in maintaining the belief in us that we are our minds, we must believe what it tells us or we will die. The mind is the only thing that might die and it is terrified of this. It’s a very nice realization, to be able to separate from those thoughts that sneak in the back door and start chopping at me with a knife. I was feeling crap a few days ago and I could hear in my head a voice telling me ‘you are a failure’, ‘you have failed at everything you do’ ‘you are crap, you will never succeed’; usual stuff, heard it a thousand times before, the difference being though that before in the past I would try not to listen but a tiny part of me was wondering if just maybe it was true, after all who knew better than I what I could do or not do.

This time I suddenly realized that if this were someone outside of me were telling me this with the same intention of hurting me and keeping me down I would never speak to them again and I wouldn’t listen to them and probably, after I got over being angry at them, feel sorry for them that they had so much judgment in them. I guess I have been in a abusive relationship for years but it all went on inside me.

sometimes it is only later that I can look back and see why I did a picture and what it meant to me at the time. My first exhibition was full of pictures like that. Lost and lonely characters populated strange landscapes and looked helplessly out of the picture searching for something but they didn’t know what.

I didn’t know what I was looking for at the time either. I thought it was a boyfriend probably, someone to love me when I couldn’t love myself and avoided relationships. Lucy is me and the dog is me, I am running away from my own inner dog, the part the unconditionally adores me for me and will gaze in my direction with big round eyes. Dog owners know exactly what I am talking about.

Of course I didn’t realise this at the time, I just knew I was unhappy and painting the pictures and doing the embroideries was a way of getting it out in the open because my natural state was secrecy and I needed practice in being open with the world. I look back on those pictures now and there were a few I am still happy with and a few I see where they lack finish but at the time they were perfect and doing an exhibition and putting them out in the open for the public to see them was the best medicine ever.

My dogs make me happy. They are such pure emotional beings unfettered by reason or what ifs or any of the other things that stop us from being truly happy in the moment.

I have a big slobbery Rottweiler called Cubo who just wants the love. He comes over, barges in between my legs and then with a sigh collapses slowly down onto the ground at my feet. If I move away a few feet and stand still he slowly gets up comes over and does exactly the same thing again.

I have a rescue puppy called Pala who is the dancy dog. She wiggles and turns and dances her way over to me her tail going in circles and her happiness overflowing. I am trying to train her a little but to get her to sit is an impossibility. She collapses onto her back legs in the air, smile on her face. She follows Cubo everywhere and sleeps curled as close as she can to him.

They are happy when we are there and they wait patiently for us to come back when we are not and, except when the kitchen is cooking lunch or breakfast (we live in a camp at the moment for miners) they are my two shadows. Of course when there is food available at the camp kitchen they are a permanent fixture at the door and selective hearing comes into play.

the rain starts at approx four o clock every day, the roads turn into muddy rivers, muddy rivers occupy any available downward trajectory. Its cold and wet and the thunder and lightning complete the picture.

All the creepy crawlies are coming into the houses to find dryness. Paul got stung by a scorpion. It fell from the ceiling onto his head. He sits up in the darrkness saying ’something just landed on my head’ and then OWW, something stung me, man that stings, $%#@#$, Light goes on and there it is, an alacrane, pale brown, bout an inch and a half long. Two of us sitting in the bed at four in the morning wondering was it the really dangerous kind or not. He was fine after an injection. He also saw a huge centipede in the sink and there are spiders everywhere…..

I finally saw a whole turtle today after days of just heads dissapearing under the water.

A swallow, who has a nest beneath the house, drinking water sitting on a wire.

A wonderfully coloured beetle. I actually thought it was a fake one until I picked it up. There also dung beetles with big horns on their foreheads a beautiful iridesant blue. as long as your thumb.

There are loads of lizards here, tiny small and so fast you rarely see them. This guy was doing a chest stuck out thing and I wondered what he was doing until I caught a glimpse of smaller brown one dissapear beneath a rock and this one after it. So I guess rainy season is courting season for the lizards.

Another picture of Cubo and the newly named Palo. Palo means spade and Cubo is bucket so I have a bucket and spade, perfect for the beach! Actually they both have the mange and I have stuff to inject them with for the next seven days. I tried to do it but the needle looked so big I chickened out. Paul can do it, he has emergency medical training, he has actually done injections in the past. I was feeling slightly guilty about giving Cubo mange by bringing the puppy home but the vet said he had it for longer than I have had the puppy. All the dogs here, or at least some of the scrawny ones that skulk around my house have it.

they are honestly.. well ok, in the top five I have seen in my short time on this earth.

The first one I saw at an animation shorts festival a few years ago and have been wanting to see it again but didn’t know the name or the makers. Its the story of the world told through the eyes of two rocks sitting on a hill watching the times pass by. here is the link to the animation. You can make it into full screen.

Das Rad

The second one I discovered on a the telly one night and tells the story of the dog who didn’t want to be a dog and has the help of a gecko to realise his dream. This has minor cult status amongst my family and some friends. By irish film maker Rory Bresnihan.

Guy’s Dog

ok, go watch and enjoy.