The Point of Vanishing & Other Dreams

Blog


In my blog, I explore the themes that weave through my stories and dreams:

the need to belong, and the fear of loss; the longing for family and home and love; loneliness and the extraordinary power of the human spirit; depression - and hope; the clarifying presence of the natural world, and ways of being awake and alive in the only moment we really have: this one.

I hope you'll follow me beyond the storytelling, and join me on this very human journey....




MoonsilverTales

"Yes: I am a dreamer. For a dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world." ~Oscar Wilde

‘I dream my paintings and then I paint my dreams’. ~Vincent Van Gogh

The following little creations are taken from recent dreams, rough hewn and unpolished, mined directly from the unconscious. They are the raw material for future Wishing Tree tales, and they are very, very short .

Friday 25 March 2016

In Unexpected Places



The other night I watched 'Wasteland'.  It was one of those films which, especially once you know it's a documentary, feels a bit like having to eat all your vegetables before leaving the table.  I make myself watch 'educational' documentaries' quite regularly, not purely for the sake of my edification, but because I know that if it's about something I'm interested in - however mildly - I will usually be glad that I did.  It's also a bit like doing daily exercise in the rain. You always feel better for it afterwards but it's not much fun at the time.

Sunday 14 February 2016

Valentine for a Crane

'All cranes engage in dancing, which includes various behaviours such as bowing, jumping, running, stick or grass tossing, and wing flapping. Dancing can occur at any age and is commonly associated with courtship.' Wikipedia
How wonderful is this:
There is a remote village in Rajasthan, India, where the Jain monks feed millions of small cranes that migrate there every year. 
The village is called Khichan.  The annual bird migration began with about a hundred cranes in 1970s, when a local couple began feeding pigeons.  Other villagers joined in and by 2014 there are now over 20,000 demoiselle cranes that visit from August to March each year.

Saturday 16 January 2016

Curiosity and 'Rising Strong'



I recently read Brene Brown's 'Rising Strong'.  I have always enjoyed her writing, but I got more from this book than from any of her others.  In particular, there were a few pages on curiosity, which resonate with me not only because of my previous blogpost on the subject.  I quote at length from her book here:

'Choosing to be curious is choosing to be vulnerable because it requires us to surrender to uncertainty.  It wasn't always a choice; we were born curious.  But over time, we learnt that curiosity, like vulnerability, can lead to hurt.  As a result, we turn to self-protecting - choosing certainty over curiosity, armor [sic] over vulnerability, and knowing over learning.  But shutting down comes with a price - a price we rarely consider when we'refocused on finding our way out of pain.