Buds and Dewdrops

One of the joys of the Lake District is the spectacular landscape and, of course, the changing reflections of the seasons.
My friend Gill lives in the heart of it all which is a privilege she recognises.
Her photography provides me with a lot of inspiration for Blog items.
The theme of these two photographs is dewdrops and buds
They also capture something of the change from Autumn to Winter.
There is also a hint of the Advent theme of Light.

Here’s what Gill has to say:

On birch in Grizedale Forest, misty sunlight shines through the dew.
Nature’s Advent with sparkling jewels.
Light dazzling on bare branches above the russet bracken.
Looking closely, each dewdrop hangs from a bud …
There is more…
There is hope, promise, presence, glory – Advent longing ..
The trees and shiny dewdrops call to mind Christmas tree candles, St Lucy’s crown lights and Advent Carol tea lights,
The Advent ring.

The darkness is pinpricked with moments of light as we move through this season towards the glorious light of the Incarnation – the birth of the Christ-child.
The birth which comes with the renewal of our lives through  new hope, joy and expectancy….
In the gloom of our present world we long for the bright presence of God to spring us into a deeper meaning of our humanity.
A meaning  of which Nature shows us signs of being almost here in bud and dewdrop and in Advent waiting.

Photographs by Gill Henwood – Autumn in the Lake District

[Mr G and Gill Henwood]

Understand – Refuse – Resist

Carrière des Fusillés Intro to poem
 
In the summer, I visited friends in Brittany. Amongst the places they took me to was near the town of Châteaubriant.
Just outside the town is a war memorial at the Carrière des Fusillés.
It is a Memorial with quite a story to tell.

In 1941, the Nazis occupied this part of France when a member of the French Resistance assassinated Feldkommandant Hotz,
the Commandant of the German Forces, in Nantes. As a reprisal, the occupiers arrested 27 hostages and took them to a nearby quarry where they were shot. All were members of the French Resistance but none were involved with the death of the German officer. A further 23 hostages were shot elsewhere.
On the morning of 22nd October, the hostages were driven from Choisel Internment camp to the quarry.
All refused to be blindfolded and as they travelled to their death, they sang La Marseillaise, the French National Anthem. The youngest were 17, 19 and 21 and the two eldest were 58.
After the war the Quarry became a place of memorial and today, there is a sense of quiet brooding there. All of the 27 men are commemorated in a moving display around the quarry, telling their story. Each display board commemorates three of the hostages – they were shot in threes and are remembered in that way. The path then leads to an amazing sculpture by the artist Antoine Rohal, completed in 1950. (See above; photo by Mr G)
For me, visiting the quarry was a profound experience and in the quietness at the end of the day it was possible to reflect on the human cost of war. The price so many paid in so many ways. Individuals, communities, countries and our world.
Every act of violence, every war, every hurt inflicted diminishes our humanity but also has immense consequences for all who share our planet with us.  As we are beginning to realize, there is a cost. There is also a debt. Those like the men who died in that quarry in 1941 have a message for us. I’ve tried to express this in the following poem I wrote the other day.

Understand – refuse – resist

Our voices cry out from the ground where we fell,
Comprendre – Refuser – Résister !
The principles of our stand,
written in the blood of our sacrifice.
The message from our yesterday to your today:
Understand – Refuse – Resist!

Your world accepts too much;
making compromises,
and so collaborating –
without heed to the consequences –
for you have forgotten to remember…

Listen!
Our footsteps tread the ground behind you.
as you hurriedly try to flee your realities.

But we are your reality!
Do not try to escape the past
but in the stillness of our final resting place,
hear our urgent whisper –
for it is about your future and that of
your broken, fractious and fumbling world.

Let our message speak to your acceptance.
Remember and repent – turn away from
your hate-encrusted world and back to God.
Work together and take up our cry:

Comprendre – Refuser – Résister !
Understand – Refuse – Resist !

[Mr G]

Lunar Incantations

I have been a friend of Kay Gibbons for quite some time but recently I have also got to know her art as well. She recently produced the Calligraphy art above. I asked her if she would write something about the personal and artistic process involved

Lunar Incantations by Kay Gibbons

…..’half past three,
The lamp sputtered,
the lamp muttered in the dark,
the lamp hummed ;
‘Regard the moon,
La lune ne garde aucune rancune,
She winks a feeble eye,
She smiles into corners,
She smooths the hair of the grass….
The moon has lost her memory ..
A washed out smallpox cracks her face ….

                                                                            T. S. Eliot, Rhapsody on a windy night.       

These descriptive words about the moon inspired me to explore lunar imagery in Eliot’s poetry , especially in this poem, Rhapsody on a Windy Night.

I attempted to paint an image but was dissatisfied with the outcome and left it for a couple of days . When I returned I could see within the image ‘the moon smoothing the hair of the grass,’as in the lines of the poetry  and I played along with the drawn lines and emerging image before me.

I added the words and their imprecise lines seemed symbolic of being lost in the dark of the night, partially visible by the light of the moon across the landscape. A happy accident for the Calligrapher within,  to be able to add a sense of meaning to something which jarred against my need for the perfect line.

My process is one of thought and quiet meditation lifted with the joy of a babbling brook when it all falls into place and my understanding of Eliot’s words is satisfied by the art before me … tinged with a niggling desire to tweek a bit here and there as Eliot would have done too ..

T S Eliot inspires within me a creative welling response to a dialogue between word and image; between poet and artist.
I am delighted to encounter and explore Eliot’s poetry with its imagery and translate it into my own visual interpretation born out of a lively response to his own expression of feeling and emotion.

My work is a personal visual translation of Eliot’s  words and intonations, the incongruities, the dichotomies, the discordant resonance inspiring a intriguing , meditative yet playful reflection on his words . Poet , Artist . Artist , Poet .

The arid dry texts of the ‘A’  level set texts transitioned during lockdown into a passion to interpret visually. Eliot’s words with my own subjective interpretation onto the artists paper .
A dialogue between words and pictures .the pouring out of creative energy in response to an emotional , intellectual stimulus.

An interplay between two destinies ..
Poet and Artist

And so in the dialogue between
La lune and Earth .

Kay Gibbons.

[] Kay is an artist who lives in Oxfordshire. She will be exhibiting there next year.
You can find lots more of her art on Instatgram – kaygibbons_art.glass.sculpture.

Sheltering, waiting, nurturing

Mid Autumn Reflection
by my friend Gill Henwood who took the photos.

Brambles along the ridge track, Grizedale Forest, are aflame in the pyrrhic victory of autumnal mid-November.

I’m reflecting along the way about glory in the natural world
as leaves fulfil their task of nurturing the trees for this season,
of sheltering wildlife and shading the forest floor.
Trees and their undergrowth are gradually withdrawing their summer lush greens,
through autumn russets to the stark beauty of their varied branches.

The brambles arch and scramble below,
creating spiny sanctuaries for creatures to nestle down out of danger.
Birds and mice have mostly taken the blackberries and carried their seeds
further along the forest edges and field hedgerows. 

Creation is readying for the burst of life starting after midwinter in only a few weeks’ time.
Primroses are flowering already in sunny spots, unseasonally warmed.
Bulbs are waiting, biding their time, just below the leaf litter.

Advent is not far from us – our time to get ready,
to prepare for the explosion of new life into the world at Christmas,
the coming of the Christ Child as the new era dawns and continues…

Gill Henwood

Stir up, O Lord,
the wills of your faithful people; 
that they, plenteously bringing forth the fruit of good works,
may by you be plenteously rewarded;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.