a pause

in this RnR time i've been taking these past couple months to shift my orientation from looking back to looking forward, one of the challenges has been keeping a good healthy routine when i don't have to get out of bed and go to work...my sleep pattern has improved greatly of late and on days like today i have a little list of things to do with writing for pleasure in the afternoon as my reward for productive mundanity...

so, this morning, accompanied by good tunage,
coffee has been consumed.
correspondence has been written.
i have clean clothes again and my jeans no longer smell like a chip shop in portrush

still to do...
resume needs editing
room is a tip and needs major tidying...
no longer needed belongings need to get bagged up for charity
so while i potter, here's some photos from the north coast... (as i bring some order to the chaos of my little room i'll muse on last night's launch of ikon co:ordinates... i can't believe we made it, but we did and it's great...)







LB,x

tenderness

tuesday, clements botanic...

i spent much of the past week at the Soliton sessions, which included a trip to the north coast for a residential. the sessions are designed to bring together those involved in emerging church movement for conversation... there was much conversation to be had and friends to be made from GB and USA... unsure of where to place ikon in this movement, if at all, i gradually let go of didactic questions and relaxed into the process by allowing myself to be surprised by people... i found much to contemplate and consider...

::

hello to those new friends who said they'd be dropping by this way to look over my shoulder... you know who you are... looking forward to hanging out in the future and the possibility of collaboration... keep in touch...

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most talked about album of the week in my little world...

rosie thomas' these friends of mine. just sublime. feels like the sound of wanting to touch another's fingertips with your own with tentativeness and tenderness and the sadness that you can't, or won't, for fear you would lose your soul to love...

favourites so far...

much farther to go
kite song
her achingly gorgeous cover of REM's the one i love
these friends of mine

::

also on the turntable: aaron espe's my whole life. aaron played a set as opener for juliet turner at the soliton sessions. his guitar playing was deft and beautiful... i think i fell in love for just a moment, which might explain why i was tongue tied when i approached him to buy a copy of his album... ah, boys with guitars...

this song was so simple...and so lovely...

Melody

Melody
come speak my heart
now set me free
melody
come out now
and carry me
melody
you've got a story in you
set it free
melody
you'd be a fool to let it be

so i'll take my chances on you
and i'll be romantic with you
and i'll face the consequences with you
come on melody

melody
you've got a story in you
set it free
melody
you'd be a fool to let it be
so don't give up until you've tried it
do anything, but don't you hide it

and i'll take my chances on you
and i'll be romantic with you
and i'll face the consequences with you
so come on melody

::

right, ian mobsby's here for coffee and chat.

later...

LB,x

something 'bout...

well, right now, nothing...

i spent yesterday afternoon in part processing some thoughts and enjoying being back at my keys...and a fairly varied and lengthy post was composed...

that has got lost in the ether...

so i have to decide if i want to rewrite from memory the post that resulted or just let it go and write something different...

needless to say there were some music recs in there and some greetings and salutations to new friends who said they'd drop by and peer over my shoulder as i splurged on this space....

those will definitely be redrafted and posted.

lesson: if in compose mode on blogger while off line do not let your mac battery run down to zero.
lesson learned.

grrr.

LB.

letting go...

Was at Whiterocks beach yesterday morning just after nine a.m. Frost on the sand. Thick mist wrapping itself around the castle ruins and the cliffs. mystical and freezing, surfers like black ninjas looking brave and fragile in the relentless heaving and pounding surf.

We walked with a guy named jim, a beachcomber, storyteller, geologist, environmentalist... he told the ancient evolving story of the landscape and the first people to arrive on this coast 9000 years ago. he told us his own story and of the people he has met, of his conversations with his God.

We took large rocks, as big as we could hold, and stood and faced the surf.

I stood at the back of this group of figures.. all motionless... all facing out to sea... their still forms silhouetted against the waves. in our standing and gazing we felt the weight of our burdens. One by one each turned and silently thumped these rocks into a pile on the sand.

Jim choked back tears. on this freezing beach surrrounded by wild ancient dynamic beauty, what was more beautiful than this memorial to our burdens? i saw it as an act of witness to our acknowledgment that we are heavy laden and we long to make peace with whatever will help us lay them down.

this morning those stones will have long been washed up by the surf, our act of togetherness in vulnerability and courage dismantled by the sea... i will think of that beach and know that in that mystical place where land meets sea in neverending collision, lies a rock, a rock i named, offered to i know not what, in a living daring act of prayer, that will shift with the waves, lie heavy in the sand... a solid, black piece of the earth, it is holding my burden, a silent offering, like an intercessory candle in a church...

::

love has been the cause of all this suffering
what has been our loss has been its gaining
so lay your burdens down
burdens down

::

LB,x