How hearts break

Carboard boxes
Hold the grief
Which I fold
Aound the broken
Glass and silent dreams

Needle and thread
Stitch my voice
Around my heart
Swallowing the past life
That now no longer exists

What the Island Told Me

A year ago today, I stood on the edge of the caldera over looking Thirasia.

I was in Santorini

I was with my friend.

I celebrated and reflected. 

I inhaled the oceans breath

and I fell deeper into myself

re-emerging from the sea

inhaling the spirit of the island.

This was no longer a dream.

In time the heart heals and experience drapes our backs with a cape of gold.  I live this  life, with the intention of imprinting the earth with my unique spirit.

As I look deeper within I see the shadows of myself, and realise without the dark there is no light, the light I  hold deep within my soul.

I am grateful for the year I have just lived, more so than any other year

I am alive

THE FLOW OF LIGHT

I twitch my toes
and shake my foot
I cross my fingers
to catch the hope
I count my breaths
to ten and back
I miss my mothers family
and hold my heart
I dream of darkness
and deny the light
I fight with the space
and fear to let go

Aquamarine Seas

Do I have a right to stamp my feet and scream and cry because of failure? 

I have failed, because I did not see.  

Now I have to process and make sense of this loss......  

She sold her reflection for four hundred dollars

Beauty held in her palm

Paper twirling with blue markings

In the summers breeze

A conversation with her hands

She sold her reflection for four hundred dollars

While standing on foreign land

She paid for coffee

And the movie where trees have faith

She writes about the inner pantomime

Her love of his music

And her dreams of flying

She sold her reflection for four hundred dollars

But her soul is now seen for free

SEEING THROUGH THE PAINT

If you paint, write, do mosaics, knit - if it's solving that part of your brain

 saying,  'I need to do this,' you've won.

Albert Brooks

"What do you do?" I was asked.   This woman had the warmest of smiles.

"What do I do?" I repeated aloud, I knew this was not a question about the Energy & Water industry which had given me a career for the past seven years.  I could feel myself begin to shake.  

"I don’t know" I felt out of my depth. The writer in me was silenced; the visionary who captured photos lost her vision.

I wanted to say :

“Ask me what I WANT to do.” 

But before I knew it my words were no longer trapped and I half-halfheartedly answered.

“Oh I write poetry, and I have a blog” very uncommitted to my deep rumbling voice that had been breathing in lines of poetry for quite some time.  But realising in this moment I didn’t really believe I was a poet.

Then my mother chimed in, “she takes photographs.”  I looked at my mother.  Or should I say, glared at her.

I take photographs like a real amateur, I felt like saying.  On my Samsung phone, uploading onto Instagram.  The social media force captured me and I began sharing photos, 3007 images  later I was a true Instagrammer, it was a social pass time, sharing photos with my friends.  Capturing moments in my life.

That was until my friend Marie practically grabbed me by the hand and took me to print my photographs for the first time ever.  She said “Sarah, you take photos of things most people just walk past.”

I realised that this had become my way of seeing, a way of knowing, and a new way of being.

So there I stood in the middle of the art gallery, humbled to be in the presence of an artist who believed in story telling through art, who described to me the freedom that comes from saying the words “I am an artist” something I had never done, but something I know my heart so wanted to speak.  And then she spoke of how she would love to teach art classes to people who want to be creative.

I almost jumped up and down.  That’s me, that’s what I want to do.  Learn about art, and create art in a non-threatening way, in a rewarding way.   I know, more than anything that there are few things that bring a level of calm over me (music, showers and theater shows) but mostly above anything else I know about my life, when I am creating something I am in another world.  It’s a feeling I crave and am obsessed by.

Before I knew about it, not more than a month later, I was sitting at my first EVER painting class. In a warm kitchen, and above me a glass roof, it was a winter afternoon and even though the day was gloomy and cold, inside this room, it was warm and comfortable.  I felt really calm, really happy and blessed to be surrounded by women (who I now know and see as talented creative women that inspire me to be better, create better and experience creativeness in a new found way) and here I was sitting beside my best friend Marie, and watching her experience this as I was filled me with so much happiness. 

And then, for the first time ever I began to mix colours.  I couldn’t believe that you can take one colour and by adding the smallest amount of another colour you then create another colour….to me that is amazing.

I am an observer, I love watching other people work, concentrate, get lost in their thoughts and their doings.  I loved watching these women and I found I loved that equally as much as being a part of creating.  I loved watching our teacher teach, and show and guide us on this path, and mostly I loved the joy in her face when we got something, created something and enjoyed our little creative moments.  To me, me feeling all this was a credit to her teaching.  Week one was all joy for me.

Week two we began the class with a 90 second exercise to draw/paint an object in front of us.  I had NEVER drawn like this before, looking and seeing objects in their true form.  90 seconds seemed to go on forever, and I couldn't believe that I could draw by seeing, rather than thinking what I should be drawing.  

This followed with an exercise of drawing by looking at the object but not looking at the page.  I was dictated by my thought “Sarah, you are already visually impaired, draw how you SEE” this came really naturally, sound and feeling took over, I could hear the edge of the pencil scrapping along the white paper.  I could feel the pull on my eyelids, trying to close and do this in darkness.  This time 90 seconds was not long enough.  The final exercise was possibly, one of the hardest things I had done. 

No looking at the page and using our non-dominant hand.  I felt paralysed.  I couldn't put the pencil on the paper.  It felt really unnatural “I can’t do it” looking up pencil hovering over the page.  But I closed my eyes and sat in the darkness, before I knew it I was drawing.  It freed me, it freed me from the pull of not doing it.  After 90 seconds I opened my eyes and looked down, I was astounded how much of form can be drawn with thought alone.

Then we moved on to learn about shadowing and tone, when I say “to learn” we are talking very informally, looking at pictures, the teacher talking about technique and having a go.  This is where I learnt my self taught lesson, of, less is more, and was able to translate the voice in my being into an image of a bowl.

Week three by far was the one of great experiment, texture and background and discovering how important a background is to any good foreground.  I loved the idea of creating the less important bit to create the important bit, loved that.  Being with others who were as excited as me and watching how we each see and navigate the creative world differently was a great experience. Yet again feeling terribly inspired.

As week four approached, I felt an overwhelming amount of dread, Saturdays and painting had become my favourite thing in my week, and painting had become my new way of seeing.  Between classes I was thinking about the ideas in my mind and the need to get them out.  I was thinking about colour and paint brushes and wanting everyone to feel my joy.

The thought of that ending created a sense of sadness in me I never felt before.

But I realise creating art never ends, it creates more opportunity. The classes were not ending, they were only beginning.

I am an extreme believer of serendipitous experiences and the earth creates 

experiences to guide us, protect us and give us what we need.

Here I was where my best friend believed in me and my photography.  Where she was the first to understand it as a way of me seeing. This set me in a new direction.  

Going to see an art show by an extremely talented woman, who has always inspired 

greatness in me (thank you Sarah!).  

Being with my mother and my aunt at this art show (and both of them being two of  my greatest believers).

And finally meeting, Anna, who in her own right too is a talented artist.

  

These people and those circumstances landed me in a position where I was asked a question I consciously had never answered before from my heart.  That question presented and opportunity and THAT opportunity allows me to be a student of Anna's.

And already, even after four weeks, she has been able to 

teach and share and provide me with a new and exciting way of SEEING. 

                       

  

Suspended in mid flight........

It is 9pm and I am alone, on my return flight to Melbourne, and although the past 4 and a half weeks I've been allowed the luxury of reflecting on my trip, it is now at 35000 feet flying over Istanbul, I feel a sense of myself connecting with the enormity of where I have been for the past month.   

As I head home, I feel like I'm returning to the person I need to be.

I have spent an enormous amount of my life feeling, thinking and believing  I can BE better, but in Santorini I was stripped bare. I couldn't hide from the nature of the island, and the deep confrontation was myself, and on every occasion where my boundaries were pushed I became extremely aware of my heart.

Waking on the first morning in Oia, I walked out onto the landing of our villa.   I stood and became suddenly aware of the silence.  Looking across the caldera the view of Thirasia, the natural enormity astounded me.  My heart started thumping realising my life had become visions of man made spectacles.   My once connectedness to nature had ceased.  Yet again something I was so unaware of.  Childhood memories of the King Valley come flooding back, the silence of the place reflected images of my childhood.  It was so present I could feel it beating in me, moment upon moment in my ears.

This was my heart.

How could two places, geographically so different be so similar in my being.  Mornings in the King Valley, where dew and mist draped the earth and the sky and mountains met.  The sun slowly would rise behind our house and the deep green rising to life from the night time fog.  The sun would break the darkness.

Eyes closed now the vision so clear,  even though I am conjuring a 20 year old memory.  Cobwebs snagged me on my morning walk to our outside toilet and the brown of dead leaves blowing in the cold of breaking dawn air.  The silence indescribable, and there I was in Oia, feeling those same feelings where my voice was no longer larger or stronger than my thought.

That was my heart.

Blame it on me

Older than
The light that
Shines from me
Like the stories
That will stay

I call
To the darkening

        winds

Tell me how you feel

Today I learn the lesson about intention and expectation.

Instinct will always guide you if you allow it to be a voice worth listening too.  Instinct will give you clues, instinct will always serve you the best laid plan to protect you.

I have never been one to look within and only see the light that shines from me, I always see my dark, my shadow.

But the intention with me is to always live a life with goodness. I  always give people the sun, I see that we come from unique places and recognising that is gratitude alone, not the outward level of praise is required.

I love life...

my soul

The heart of the

Mountains beat
               Deep in the valley
While kings weep over
Tree tops

Chaser

Gravity pulled
Me to the ground
                 As your scream

Suffocates

Like clouds that cling to my

outside

What is in my cup.....

I thought the begining of this year had left my spirit but I feel like I have just pulled back the past and wrapped it over my back like an old wooly jumper that smells like burnt out fire embers.

I keep dreaming of the people.  Why am I so overcome by my own emotion  even though I removed the past life.  And now you blow around like smoke, weaving across my heart

And I hold tight onto the flesh to make sure the beat is there.....

                        

When will you fold away into the dark......

Cup, not
Defined by my
Truth

From the Apartment

To the darkness that rages deep

To the gut turning YOU create

To the anxious heart you shake

I remember

Clutching at my flesh and

Weaving it back together

With golden thread

Making myself whole

To the pain you stir

To the memory of what was

And what you did

The uncertainty now returns

And MY heart needs mending again

YOU are in the dark of me

Price tags

The dress
Walked
In the shadows
Draped
In

Lies

The Writing Process Blog Tour

 The secret of life is to fall seven times and get up eight ~ Paulo Coehlo

I have become part of the Monday Writing Process Blog Tour.  The aim of the tour is to bring together writers and readers from all corners of the globe answer four questions and then invite other writers to do the same.  Bee Williamson invited me along.  She has always been a believer in me, featuring me in her blog.  Thanks Bee, I feel totally honored for your invite.  You can check out her blog at:

http://beesboutiquebooks.biz/wordpress/

So the questions...

What am I working on?

I am always working, writing I think is almost like breathing to me, even when there is no physicality in the act, I am always thinking and looking for inspiration.  I have recently begun a mentorship with Maribel Steel, a talented writer, but also a personal inspiration, is guiding and nurturing me on a journey through poetry.  My deep desire is to be able to combine poetry and photography, essentially create art.

How does my work differ from others of its genre?

My poetry is primarily based on a stream of thoughts, usually I take an initial image, or place in time, feeling and then run with it.  I think I am still in the developing stage, refining my thoughts and articulating the power of a single line.  I am not entirely sure I differ from others in the poetry world.  I in fact think each poet/writer, in their own right, is different.  But what I do hope with my writing is that I have the ability to move something in someone, that’s it, it’s pretty simple, I am not in this for writing fame or big publishing, just to be able to touch someone and move someone.

Why do I write what I do?

I write to free my inner voice that seems to have little room for expression in the world I live.  I write to show, to be free, to discover, to feel and ultimately grow.  If this was posed as the question “WHAT IS THE ONE THING YOU WANT TO DO” writing would complete me.

How does my writing process work?

Inspiration is like sunrise.  Just before rising, it hovers on the horizon, peeking slowly over, and then suddenly it arrives, inspiration hits.  I am not a late night writer (I love my sleep too much) I don’t wake during the night inspired.  I am my best early morning, fresh mind, open heat and poised pen.  I am always finding inspiration walking the streets, on the tram, under the sun, in the fresh air, I pull out my phone, head to Google keep and start taking notes of what I see, and what I feel.

So that’s how I begin...with heart and mind.

And now I invite Rashma N. Kalsie to take part.  Rashma is an Indian writer-playwright based in Australia. She is the founder of Indian Diaspora Dramatics Association, a registered incorporated association in Victoria. She represents Indian dramatic tradition in Australia in the capacity of an MAV/MTC Ambassador, 2013-14.

She is the co-author of Ohh! Gods Are Online.. published by a renowned Indian publishing house, Srishti Publishers in June, 2013. Her book has received media attention and appreciative reviews.

She has written several plays. Her original play, ‘The Lost Dog’, was recently produced with the help of funds from the Council of The City of Greater Dandenong. The play was acclaimed by the press and received well by the audience and journalists. The production was reported widely in newspapers (Leader, G’Day India, and SBS Radio) and reviewed by Indian Link, an Indian-Australian newspaper. The play script has received over 1000 hits on an Australian theatre website, where it was first posted. Rashma had produced and directed the play. 

She was recently invited by Women Writing for (a) Change, a foundation that runs 8 writing schools in USA. She presented a talk on play writing and production, ‘From the Page to the Stage’, to a group of writers in Cincinnati, Ohio where the Foundation has its head office.

She is an appointed editor on Passionate 4 Prose, a website for writers.

She has contributed to e-zines like Garamchai.com, in the past. Her write up, ‘How I Used NetOrbis.Com To Produce My Play And Go House Full In 40 Days Flat’ received a 100,000 views on NetOrbis.com, a social media website. She contributes, by the way of interviewing artists and writers, to Straight Talk on NetOrbis.Com. Her poem, “Remains of love”, was presented in a poetry program on Phoenix FM 106.7 MHz, Bendigo.

You can check out Rashma and her talent at:

http://blogtounblock.blogspot.com.au

In the new world

I removed the past life
Where I survived on you
You blew around like smoke
Weaving across my heart
Making sure its beat was there

jealous, manipulator, toxic, neurotic, user, difficult, paranoid, negative

Black is
The wind caught between
           Its the hollow space
Holding onto echoes and the emptiness         
Black strangles the spirit             From the bird                                     

Black longs for connection     From the loneliness             

Black is the secret           Black is the memory         Black is the thought

Takes a boy

Her cloth draped
Over her arm
Sunlight fell from
The place nobody
Ever walked
Throw her heart
To the wind
Kiss and make
Her dying sunsets
Break