Guests, Ravens, Art and Housework

The Raven - thief of hearts

He appears on the outskirts of our land. Our guests arrive and catch sight of him gliding over the brash. We look: in a sweeping motion of unspeakable elegance, dark and clever, he joins the sky and the earth, and we are lost.
In the deeps of his feathers lies embedded the mysterious presence of folk-lore. A lure, a spell, old old stories that have spun around with the human cycle of life, turning around and around in our minds. There lurk fear, bewitchment, and terrible loves, and fairy tales.

Later he is seen in the garden - keeping a sensible distance away from the house full of people and dogs having fun - but there all the same.

The naughty bird quite stole our hearts!

The picture is of a linocut I made a little while ago

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Housework & Art (two incompatible activities)

Here is a landscape painting I am working on at the moment. I have been hard at it since the guests left. One morning I scrubbed the house madly from top to bottom, tidying thoughts as I tidied the sock drawer. I missed my friends when they went, how empty a place gets when you have been used to it being full and noisy and cluttered.
Then it was down to work with painting. I was a little apprehensive about starting again - missing muses have been a bit of a bother lately - but once I began, the fillip to my soul of all the recent joy and fun and trips to the mountains and photographs and pebbles kicked in and I got through a terrific amount of work in one day. The photos are terrible as by the end of the day I felt too tired to fuff around with the tripod, and when I say fuff around I really mean it - no tripod was ever intended to be the shapes that happen when I start with it! This was the most presentable one of the lot.

Guests

Photo: Pingu

The last ten days have been filled with guests. Paying guests in the Farmhouse from home and abroad; two lots of friends staying with us; and a great big handsome black raven who appeared and stole our hearts!
It has been a busy and delightful time, catching up on all the time which seems like no time which has passed since we last saw one another. Lots of fun and laughter and some more serious thoughts too, wine and food to share, there were planned days and wonderful out of the blue days.
It's all put quite a spring in my step!
The photo was taken by my friend in Glen Lyon, high up in the hills. The waterfall icy cold, springing from an ancienct glacial bed of great tumbled rocks and pebbles which have faced the sky night after night for millions of years, until they are impregnated with star dust. They sparkle and shine and glitter in the sunshine. What a stone knows is inconceivable to us.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>