Category: Uncategorized

Place: The Dome

Poison: Chai Latte

Favourite Things: actually sitting and writing in a cafe

Life as I know it has been so unique of late. Living an hour from the city, Married, pregnant (yes that’s my secret)…The routines I frequented to write and ponder the random and sublime have been completely disrupted.

However as I find time to sit and sip, think and write, I’m excited about the possibility of forming new routines, to bring about change.

I actually sent my manuscript of Capture 2, to a friend this week to read and critique and it feels so great to have actually done something towards that goal.

When life takes its toll, when seasons change, do everything you can to recreate new routines in the midst of change, to focus on the important rather than the urgent.

Facebook, twitter, tumblr seem so urgent, but actually taking time to write, read my writing again, edit, spell check and then post is worth the effort, as some of my loyal readers have encouraged me.

So I’m going to get back on the writing band wagon and try once again.

Thanks for your encouragement girls.

Standby…

From

Mrs V and little v

Place: the boardroom

Poison: long black

Favourite Things: the newspaper, printed, not on a electronic device

I am bursting!

Can’t explain why…its a secret. However spring is in the air, a baby dolphin was born in the river across from my work and the sun is beaming.

I have read the first chapter of my friends Jeff and Julie Crabtree’s book ‘Living with a creative mind’ and ideas are swirling, fasting than they have in a long time.

Winter has darkened my outlook, however spring is promising the new, the yellow, the bright and delightful.

Sometimes creativity blossoms after a season of hibernation. Sometime spring blooms and there is no reason why. The best thing though is to maximize and mobilize creativity when it rises, whether from a reading, a blog, a magazine, a picture, a conversation, a song, a painting or a moment.

Capture when it surfaces, just like a floating bubble, it might be awhile before it comes by again.

Inspired!

Hope this might spark something in you…

Love

A

place: the imp
poison: long mac
favourite things: my husband

This blog is really just a place for me to creatively vent, its not edited, its not refined and its not pretty.

I have stopped writing for a while because I was criticised by few people about the quality of my blog in comparison, to my former publication Capture 30 days.

How funny, that so many of us, allow a little bit negativity, to stop our creative process. I struggle a lot with worrying about what others think. Im desperately trying to change this weakness, but with creativity its even more epidemic.

I posted a photo on facebook this week that stated ‘To live a creative life we must lose our fear of being wrong.’

It’s so true. I even had someone write something critical on the photo I pasted online and straight away I regretted putting my thoughts out there.

I’m sure there are other readers out there who stumble with approval addiction. I know I’m not the only one, because there are so many creative people who struggle to put their thoughts online, because there are so many critics in the dark dimly computer screen lit rooms, with no accountability for the sharp arrows they throw at others to make themselves feel somewhat superior.

Ahh, that feels so much better to get that off my chest and I promise my rant is not aimed at any one in particular. I am venting towards the cowards who pull people down, out of their on bad sense of self.

How much more inspiration would be released into our world if people felt the fear and did it anyway!

Some winter woes

Lovin

Mrs V

Place: on airplane DJ571 Syd to Perth

Poison: nougat

Favourite Things: my bible

Well today marks my final flight, after 3 1/2 months travel, Long Service Leave. Ten flights later, four countries encountered, many friends visited and thousands of photos snapped my heart is sad and happy all at once.

Sad because all good things must come to an end and happy because I’m flying home. As I reflect on my time away, I was driving to the airport with close friends I teared up because I had this sense of disappointment that maybe I didn’t get the answers I was expecting from my voyages. As I have read, written, pondered, wrestled and rested on this flight home I now realise the answers are hidden deep inside my heart.

The answer that I have been looking for is held in the hands of hope.

See as I left my desk for my sojourn, I was a little heart weary. My life was a little war-torn and inspiration came like a shooting star, very rare and always fleeting.

In this moment though, what has replaced my trepidation and caution is a heart that dares to hope again.

‘Hope is rare, but we don’t need much of it to experience it’s power’ Erwin McManus

What I return home with, is a glimmer of hope. That the future is possible for those that trust and hope beyond today.

What I return home with is a sprinkle of hope, upon a lake of despair that I find the world swimming in.

What I return home with is a awakening of hope for the future and it’s promises.

If today you find yourself hope-less, I offer this scripture that has often acted like yeast in my soul.

Lamentations 3:18

“I said to myself, “This is it. I’m finished. God is a lost cause.” It’s a Good Thing to Hope for Help from God…

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“But there’s one other thing I remember, and remembering, I keep a grip on hope:

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“God proves to be good to the man who passionately waits, to the woman who diligently seeks.

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“It’s a good thing to quietly hope, quietly hope for help from God.

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“It’s a good thing when you’re young to stick it out through the hard times.

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“When life is heavy and hard to take, go off by yourself. Enter the silence.

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“Bow in prayer. Don’t ask questions: Wait for hope to appear.

(The message version)

Hope has snuck up and tapped me on the shoulder with a cheeky grin, promising that no matter the future that life is full of the unexpected, and that in itself is an adventure.

No matter where you find yourself today, I hope my humble natterings may have ignited in you even a little shimmer of hope.

I truly believe it’s contagious.

Hope-full!

A

Place: singaraja

Poison: water

Favourite things: our new friend katut

As we drive around the whole perimeter of Bali, I am once again overwhelmed at the enormous need and the poverty of the third world. At the same time my mind wanders to the future and the new season I’m about to enter and all the things I would like to achieve when I get home.

One thing in particular is renovating the shack, the bathroom being retiled and improved. As my mind dreamed about the possibilities, we drove past two nameless women, bathing naked in the river and the juxtaposition of my thoughts of the future and the reality of the vision of my present, was quite disarming.

Here I am dreaming with the capacity to achieve this dream of white tiles, a bath and shower and these women everyday, strip down naked in public and bathe I’m the water hat the whole villages waste flows into.

Something is terribly wrong with this picture. How do I change it though? I can’t transport these women to my world and how arrogant of me to think that my pictures prettier.

Maybe their daily ritual of sitting without the women in the river, chatting connecting, the freedom of fear and self conscious body image, is far more healthy than my sterile, white hygienic ritual of perfection.

As I look in my mirror I reflect on the images that Hollywood has portrayed as beautiful, whilst they sit their none the wiser enjoying the mountain view, with no mirror insight.

I can’t change their reality, neither they mine, but we can learn to let go a little and our western pursuit of perfection and success maybe isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

One day soon I might just go bathe in the river…hoping that just a little of my western ideals are softened just for the day.
Soften me please.

A