Mystic tendencies

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Monty,

I realise that had I been alive in the grim days of the witch-hunts, my 'mystic' tendencies may have got me into deep water (literally).

The spiritual aspects of life defy our incessant wish to scientifically categorise and rationalise every experience.

Demonising and witch-hunts continue to this day.

The things that make me feel alive are not 'evidenced based '.

Today I felt alive by changing the colour of a picture frame. I knew it wasn't right, it was a gut thing, a response to the autumn light in the thinking room.







What makes me feel alive is the garden slipping into Autumn. It has tipped past primping. The large conifer is soon to be cut down, and I have some anxiety about the hole it will make in this small garden, but at the same time I know it will regrow and become cloistered again.


Although most people know me as a nurse, I am an artist - that is what I am. I wear the uniform and struggle to do my best, but it is not the real me. All I want to do is draw the mountains. They call me to sketch and etch them into my memory. Then I can carve them into plaster, scratch and hatch and run pigment into the cuts... It makes me feel part of this living landscape.



It may upset some to know that I forget about their health problems, but I simply cannot carry the memory of them all.
God carries everything - the anger the disappointment the hatred and outrage the murder and the greed. Perhaps you think that God is the cause of it, after all that seems to be the zeitgeist. In a sense that is the right interpretation.

We are fragile

I am fragile

It is a beautiful fragility.

Paul.


Comments

  1. Gardener in the Distance15 September 2013 at 09:57

    Paul, nobody should have to carry a uniform into their privacy. We all have to shed uniforms, or should be able to, or else we don't have any sense of privacy, and maybe any sense of self.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Paul Steer15 September 2013 at 13:21

      Yes, that is true. It is more difficult when you live and work in a small community like this, people see me and my fellow labourers as never off duty. What I want people to know is that my job is not me, it is a small part of who I am. That is why my garden is such a sanctuary.

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