Just a beautiful room, with white panels. From here.

Dreamy, whimsical picture books and animations by the hugely talented Shaun Tan.

 

 Old commons photos. (Source unknown)

 

Convincing myself that one day I might be able to make something like this. (Source: roots&wings.)

 

Travelling vicariously through Israel, to the sea of Galilee via the lovely travel blog of David + Sarah.

 

Waiting in rapture for the new Middle East album, which comes out tomorrow. They are like nothing else.

Can't wait to have a celebratory listening with the Freest Man on Earth :)

 

New print/illustration. When I have been sitting down with a pen and paper lately, all I want to draw are plants and vessels. Things that grow, and things that hold water for things to grow. I've been drawn to

sea foam greens

warm earth yellows

rusty reds

light mint

deep navy

calming grey

I love these colours and I love when I see them as I go about my day. 

It is so awesome to be able to create something, and just be completely swept up in drawing, or playing music, or constructing with your hands, or writing just for the sake of it. I think it is one of the best feelings there is, when you forget about time and your incessant thoughts take a backseat and you are just completely focused and there.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 

On that note, there is a great article here on creativity and its importance in shaping a rich, whole life. 

I read it in the paper on Sunday and it kind of jolted something in me, reminding me again of just how much I love being creative in any way, and how it's something I'd like to make more time for.  The article is basically about how in the act of creating we get to know ourselves better.

It's funny how a lot of people seem to think that they're "not creative types" and how the idea of creativity has become pigeonholed as a purely visual/art-based process. But it's not so limited.

I think anything you do that engages you fully, that you put something of yourself into and makes time sort of cease to matter, is something creative.

I know of one writer* who describes it as more of a state of being (which he calls flow) rather than a type of activity and I think that's telling. One way you can tell you are in a creative state like this is when the end product isn't really the point, because the process is so consuming and enjoyable in itself. So that could be anything really- from tinkering around under the hood of a car, to arranging flowers. The content is different but the state of creativity is the same. And it's such a wonderful thing.

* The very-hard-to-say Mihaly Csikzentmihalyi, who also gave a really interesting TED Talk on creativity which is well worth listening to.

 

Without a doubt one of the best talks I have seen on TED, or anywhere on the net for that matter. 

John Francis (aka the Planetwalker) stopped using motorised vehicles and stopped speaking for 17 years as a protest action against the environmental devastation he witnessed in a Californian Oil Spill in the 1970s. He earned a Phd in land management and walked across the US, as well as down to South America with his banjo as his companion.

I love what he says about how being silent showed him that he had never truly listened before.

His story, and the warmth and joy with which he tells it, make me happy to know that there are people like this in the world.

(image from saturnneversleeps)

To do.

Learn how to knit mittens.


Go for a walk every day.


Take care of my plants: new soil and a lot more attention to watering (oops).

Cook this (again).

And have a go at making these.


Finish reading the Brothers Karamazov.


Create beautiful things, like this.

Have a beach picnic with friends, like we used to.



Spend more time with the people I love. And actually "be there".


Be kinder to myself (= worrying less).



image credits. 1. cinq. 2. mdashing 3. unknown 4.+ 5. jamie oliver 6. porter square books 7. amy blackwell 8. original images 9. original image (taken on the spotmatic) 10. unknown.

A teaspoon of Mother Teresa: for when you don't know what to do when faced with all the suffering in the world.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

"What can you do to promote world peace? Go home and love your family."

"I have found the paradox, that if you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only more love."

"It is a poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may live as you wish."

"Never worry about numbers. Help one person at a time and always start with the person nearest you."

"Being unwanted, unloved, uncared for, forgotten by everybody, I think that is a much greater hunger, a much greater poverty than the person who has nothing to eat."

"Each one of them is Jesus in disguise."



"In the West there is a tendency to be profit-oriented, where everything is measured according to the results and we get caught up in being more and more active to generate results. In the East -- especially in India -- I find that people are more content to just be, to just sit around under a banyan tree for half a day chatting to each other. Westerners would probably call that wasting time. But there is value to it. Being with someone, listening without a clock and without anticipation of results, teaches us about love. The success of love is in the loving -- it is not in the result of loving. "

"Be faithful in small things because it is in them that your strength lies."

"Let us not be satisfied with just giving money. Money is not enough, money can be got, but they need your hearts to love them. So, spread your love everywhere you go."

"Live simply so others may simply live."