Athena Dreams Design

Places I Once Was .:. Sacred Life

I have been revisiting memories of some of the places I have lived, and Greece has been speaking to me loud and clear these past weeks. Maybe it is the changing of the seasons .:. spring into summer .:. maybe it is the blooming flowers and trees, or the clear blue skies, but I have often found myself these days, back in Greece.

I lived in Athens for a bit more than a year. Most people make a face as if to say "ick", and ask why I didn't live on an island. I did do that too, but Athens, I loved Athens. Each neighborhood a village unto itself, unique, individual and identifiable. I loved the white wash buildings, the noise of this particular city, and the sun, and the most of all the people.

I loved moving to a place where for a while I didn't understand the language at all. I could sit outside at a taverna, and hear voices but was not able to take in most anything that was being said. There was something freeing in it, something unnameable about it that I loved. I was there taking it all in, and yet, I was somehow just slightly removed, just slightly beside myself, not understanding, and allowing myself to revel in the non-understanding.

We take words in: bits of conversations overheard, the radio or television on in the background, conversations with all sorts of different people, all day long. My mind is constantly working on the words, the ideas, the thoughts. My mind never seemed to take a full rest from all these words until I moved to a place where the words I took in were only sounds. Melodic and beautiful sounds that formed a soundtrack for my first few months in Athens.

For more Sacred Sundays, visit here. And visit some photographs of Athens here.

Macro in May

I have been feeling like I wanted a chance to get back some of my photography skills, and found just the chance with Macro May happening on Flickr.

Aaahhh, a reason to get my camera out everyday
a reason to remember to carry my camera with me wherever I go
and the opportunity to share my images with a large and growing group of people, many with skills much above mine, which I Love, as there, right there before me, is the opportunity granted to learn from those who do something better than I can at the moment. Win/Win all the way around.

I discovered last week that I was so excited everyday, to take photos for Leya's colour week, and am just over the moon happy to find an impetus to continue on with the photographs.

I have found that in these days of our overly busy lives, that I can have the very best intentions to "do" something, "create" something, "try" something new, and it often goes by the way side, in the stream of all the things that I have already committed to doing.

Motivation.
Joy.
Learning.

The 3 things I need to propel me forward . . .

Oh, yes,
and one more,
Commitment . . .

The 4 things . . .

Calling all Altars

Some altars from around Flickr.

I've always had a fascination with personal altars or shrines. The altars that people create for any number of reasons or purposes: for prayer, for remembrance, for growth, for change, for beauty, for collecting precious items, for anything.

If anyone has a personal altar or personal "sacred space" or special spot to share, I would love to see photos of it. E-mail or by comments.

Spring has a Way About Her .:. sacred sunday

Spring has a way of tip-toeing in
and spreading the contents
of its travelling trunk
full of surprises and wonders.

Three friends
on a sunny spring afternoon
having a talk
drinking some tea
feeling the warm breezes
on their uplifted and open faces.

Long flowing skirts
wide brimmed hats
and parasols
all set to go out
for a spring afternoon picnic.

Spreading a blanket in the warm sun
having a sip of lemonade
a sun warmed fig or two
and all the time in the world
to talk of all the thoughts

they have been saving up all winter long.

To live so completely at home
on the earth and in the sky
would that we all
could adopt the habits
and the mysterious ways
of the Magnolia
on an afternoon in spring.

Read more Sacred Sunday posts here.

The "Things" that make Us Who We Are

I love a good shelf.
I love a good windowsill,
oh, and a mantelpiece too.

There is something so wonderful about cleaning and rearranging all my "things" that all live on these horizontal spaces in our home. Putting some things away, and taking out other things .:. I was that girl who would rearrange her bedroom once a month : move the furniture, take down old drawings and put new ones up, rearrange my glass animal collection (oh!), rearrange the boxes and jewels on my bureau, and all the little "things" on my windowsills. I have always had a thing for things, probably the reason my studio is in the state it's in.

So, I was thinking about all my things, and how I need to part with many of these things, and it truly is changing a lifestyle for me. That probably sounds just too ridiculous, but when I started thinking about when this "thing" collecting started, I couldn't remember a time when it wasn't a part of me. I have even packed "things" and moved them far far away with me. These "things" include stuff like stones, and bones and shells, and broken jewelery, and pieces of wood, and basically, things that have charmed me, have intrigued me, have given me something and so, I befriended them, and moved them into my various home(s).

I am still cleaning my studio and this little story is not holding me back, it just got me to thinking about the things we (I) collect, and bring into our (my) lives, and then, before we (I) realise it, all these things have taken up way more room than one could ever have believed.

I took some photos of our mantelpiece. I wanted to start looking at all my things with different eyes, and sometimes when you take a photograph, it lets you see the real space, not the space that you have somehow come to see it as. I hope that makes sense. There could be less things, but I love all these things, all collected or given to me by those who know my true inclinations. Yes, that's a cow jaw on the mantel, (sent to me from massachusetts) beside the last one in a set of cranberry crystal champagne glasses that belonged to by grandmother. I love juxtaposition, (and I love the word too), but even more that that, letting completely disparate elements rest beside each other, and form a relationship.

In looking at these 2 photos I realised, that looking past all my "things", that those two words juxtapose and disparate form the core of most all of the artwork and writing I have ever created.

And so, new ideas are born, from all the things I have carried around with me, for so many years. What a smile that brings...

Because We Can Dream

Hope
is the thing
with feathers
that perches
in the soul,
and sings the tunes
without the words,
and never stops at all.

-Emily Dickinson

I have been having those wonderful flying dreams, not the ones where I end up falling, but the ones where I am swooping and soaring, landing on roof tops and soaring some more.

Aaahhh to have wings,
and be able to glide,
to be light as the air
to let the breezes carry me along.

I have been thinking about all of the fabric pieces that Christo has created and the sound of the wind passing through them, and so, these thoughts brought me to feathers, and then, to flying in my dreams.

Added on Friday: These images can be seen in more detail (and with photographer credits) at Flickr in the Feather Mosaic

Lime [green] is a Thirsty Colour

It's not just the lime fruit that makes it thirsty either... Green is so richly full of moisture, when I see lots of it together I want:

a walk in a warm caribbean rain shower
my barefeet in the dew filled grass of a summer morning
a handful of peridot stones
a moment to read under a shady green tree
my lime green rain boots from when I was 8
a (very late) summer sunset in Scotland

what are your lime green moments?

Burgundy .:. A Different View of Red

Burgundy stretches across such a range of hues .:. it starts with a deep and dark red, and moves towards the purples and the eggplants. It is rich and warm and luscious and can be irridescent and so full of flavour, and the rich, heady scent of fall and early winter.

Burgundy makes me think of rich velvets, brocades, early sunsets and deep shadowy light in the woods where the leaves have changed to flaming reds. Burgundy is a mulled wine on a cold evening; a fully burned fire in the grate, just before bedtime; it is the scent of apples turning; and the smell of beets roasting.

Burgundy is warmth and richness, heavy, woody herbs and your favourite book read under a soft silk and alpaca blanket. Burgundy is comfort.

Scenes from a Late Autumn Birthday

There is something so much better about a Monday when it's a birthday and you have pushed all your work aside (deadlines or not) and your best and most favouritest guy has pushed all his deadlines aside, and it isn't raining, and there isn't one reason in the whole universe that you shouldn't step out into the hills, walk a bit and breathe the air, listen to the birds, and the grasses move in the wind, and feel so very happy to be alive.

I was thinking about this old song by a band called Talk Talk that I listened to at college. Some line about Life is what you make it, with a thumping bass line, and I remember singing it all the time with my housemates, but can't recall the whole song now. Made me want to dig through the garage and find my old box of cassette tapes that I couldn't bare to part with...

And I was thinking about how things come and go, ebb and flow, move and stay still, and where I fit into that pattern, right this second. Not tomorrow or yesterday, because our place in the scheme of things changes with every second, with every new breathe, but right now. Right now.

Life keeps unfolding, and it's a miraculous thing, even when you're not sure what the next un-fold will bring.

Pink .:. Brown

Pink and brown has quite the following. The two colours are almost as ubiquitous as the slightly less famous turquoise and brown. Pink and Brown are a warm on warm combination. It's a chocolate and cherry blossoms combination. It's a brown leather boot and salmon coloured skirt combination. It's a camelia still blooming in March combination... It's an earthy and frothy partnership. That old favourite, things that don't at first look like they would go together, and then you lay them side by side and feel warm and smiling inside . . .

Some beautiful stationery
Rock out with a very loud punk Band
fabrics and patterns by the fair Amy
Art and more art that makes me feel Happy

Wallow in the beauties of the Pink .:. Brown