Power Dip

This arrived today - from the US - Leah recommended it last Monday and I'd only ordered it on Tuesday from a reseller on Amazon.com. Amazon had told me to allow until February 9th 2009!

As I was reading the first chapter we had a most unexpected power dip. I was just in the section where where she is describing her own journey to the type of painting she calls "Painting from the Source":

And I even had to say good-bye (power dip) to the fear of being connected and whole.

Which I must admit seemed significant to me at the time. There was a second power dip a little later when I wasn't reading - I was cutting up red peppers... I can't see any significance to that one ;-)

This copy is even signed, though its really hard to read, I think its signed by the author.

My best guess is:

For April,
Keep Painting, Goat Judy
Love Aviva Gold

Can you make it make more sense?

As I tried to post this I got a message saying

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There was more than one attempt to edit this resource at the same time. This may have been because you double-clicked a link or a button or because someone else is also editing this blog or post.

Please hit the back button on your browser and try again. If the problem persists, please contact the Blogger Help Group. We apologise for the inconvenience.

Weird! I wasn't doing more than one thing at once...

Any suggestions for what that means also welcome!

IF - Foggy

Figures in the Mist - Digitally painted in Corel Painter

One of the photo challenges I like to do is the Monthly Scavenger Hunt on Flickr. Back in May I blogged about this and showed this photo for a category of Heavy Fog:

At the time I said I wasn't wearing glasses... since then I've decided that maybe I could do with going back to wearing some for reading at least. And today I had an appointment with my optician, the first time I'd been to see them since 2002:

UK date format: 11/07/08 = 11 July 2008

What's more for this months hunt I took all my pictures using a faceted bead in front of the lens and for the category of computer I showed one with the same blog posting on it because it was about the MSH, though I showed the end of the posting, which was actually about a book I was then reading:

How's that for a well-documented synchronicity?

Here's the mosaic of all of my entries for this month's scavenger hunt using wobbly pictures:

1. Playmobil Playground, 2. Table Soccer, 3. Is it a bird? Is it a plane?, 4. Four Wheeler!, 5. Pink Power Ranger, 6. Aquarium, 7. Fireworks!, 8. Basket Ball!, 9. My Computer, 10. Tin Toy Horse Race, 11. Go faster streaks?, 12. Motorbike, 13. Skateboard, College Green, 14. See you later, Alligator!, 15. A book by a Fox!, 16. Here be Dragons!, 17. Diamond Ring, 18. Ready for the beach!, 19. Camping, 20. Cricket Ground

Someone commented that they hurt her eyes...

More Illustration Friday entries.

Synchronicity - The Mayor of Casterbridge

Jim was cleaning out the Ottoman... that's a place where things are put away and not seen again for ages... he found this crossword from last Christmas by Araucria in the Guardian. It was a themed one with a some clues based on Thomas Hardy's works. We'd done most of it but not finished it. So, as one does when cleaning things out, he stopped and sat down to finish it now. The radio was on. And what should come on but "The Mayor of Casterbridge"... shame that was one of the clues we'd solved 5 months ago! A bit late to send it off... mind you as they only offer dictionaries as prizes we never do send them off - who needs another dictionary less than a crossword solver?

Update: I've just noticed that they really did say the crossword was by Araucria, not Araucaria I wonder if it was a spelling mistake... or whether there is a move to find a substitute for the beloved monkeypuzzler before he dies... according to wikipedia he was born in 1921.

Little Red Riding Hood

Yesterday after finishing Carla's Zen Luggage exercise I noticed she'd posted something more on Wings 4 You Coaching. Its a fascinating insight into the difference between self-esteem built on one's own self-perception and that built solely on other's approval. She says that she's often encountered self-esteem written as self-of-steam! This seems like a wonderful eggcorn (Jim introduced me to these last month and I've still to entirely disentangle them from malapropisms) but Carla called it an oronym - yet another word with probably yet another subtle difference in meaning. What's more she provided a great link on oronyms.

I confess I only read the beginning of the link she provided at first... but when my first attempt at commenting on her post was refused by typepad (and indeed the whole post had disappeared too) I went back to the link and read it properly. At the end is the story of Little Red Riding Hood written out in oronyms (or homophones). This is Ladle Rat Rotten Hut. (I've provided the wikipedia link to it there). And here you'll find a spoken version.

And so another string of synchroncities begins...

I was struck by Ladle Rat Rotten Hut because in 1986 (±1) I narrated this at a works do. The rest of the team I was in played the parts. I've not seen this strange variation on the story since.

I've mentioned fate and my struggle to understand how much or indeed whether its fixed and one of the books I've been idly reading is the one in the photo above - Chance, Luck and Destiny by Peter Dickinson. It was written in the mid-70s and came, as so many of my books do, from the Amnesty second-hand bookshop, a few days ago.

Last night I got to the third section - Destiny - and he gives this diagram of possible alternative happenings for Little Red Riding Hood:


I'm wondering what the moral of this is...

Don't trust a wolf dressed up in your grandmother's clothing?
Only interesting versions of stories are told, the rest are ignored or forgotten.
Don't wear a red hoodie.
Don't trust the wild things...
All the better to see you...

Any more suggestions?

360 degrees of freedom

This is my collage for my affirmation board the final step in the exercise Carla set this week.

See my previous posting today for the affirmations themselves.

Carla called this exercise Your Zen Suitcase™ - I called it Zen Luggage saying I objected to the trademark - but then I realised the real reason why... on March 5th (the day before Carla started her "Wings 4 You Coaching" blog) Jim and I had been to the zoo. In the centre of the collage, carrying, not a suitcase but a rucksack, and acting as my sherpa, is Jim at the zoo. He is proving that his wingspan is wide though not quite as wide as the biggest birds - behind his head the sign says "Spread Your Wings" - his head is covering the Y....

I am glad I spotted this synchronicity!

Jim's support is one of the things I'd like to acknowledge and affirm, something that I value very much. I'm very glad that he is in my life.

I've also included: chocolate, a Zen zafu with art supplies on it and a magnet, someone else's lucky old shoe, a photo taken using a fisheye, a faceted bead that creates another effect, a completed crossword (mostly done by Jim!), a camera and a few other things that seemed appropriate.

P.S. This is my 360th post on this blog - hence the title of this post.

Marie Curie Charity

On the radio this morning I heard Hugh Grant mentioning the Marie Curie charity. Their nurses had made it possible for his mother to die at home, with her family around her, rather than in hospital.

They have a "daffodil appeal" running throughout March.

The last time I heard Hugh Grant on Radio 4 was ages ago when he was doing his Desert Island Discs. I was immensely pleased that he had selected as one of his 8 records "The Flopsy Bunnies". This was a childhood favourite of mine too. I'm trying to remember now how it goes... We're a happy family, yes a happy family, and we live at the foot of the old fir tree... there's Flopsy, there's Mopsy - how could they be sweeter?, funny little Cotton-tail and Peter!... something like that.

Ever since I've had rather a soft spot for Hugh Grant... And since I mostly don't remember film stars names the simple fact I can say this shows he is up there with Clint Eastwood for me! (Johnny Depp would be in there too if only I didn't keep on getting him muddled up with Brad Pitt... and if you don't know how anyone can do that maybe you'll see how weird my memory banks must be... )

Anyway, this is all part of a big series of synchronicities that are currently running for me.

Yesterday I just happened to find this on YouTube - I found it looking for lyrics to go with a photo someone had put up on flickr of a bunch of sad withered red heart-shaped balloons. The video includes Hugh Grant in Love Actually dancing around.

On Radio 4 this morning he mentioned that it might be a cliche but the Marie Curie nurses really are angels. I went out to take a photograph of a daffodil to illustrate the Marie Curie daffodil appeal and it turned out itself to look like an angel too!

Buddha is in the eye of the Beholder

And in this case the beholder is reflected in the Buddha!

I've recently been reading The Holographic Universe by Michael Talbot. In it he describes a view of the universe which I find rather appealing. Although he is very clear that few scientists accept the concept of the universe as a holograph - or holomovie - it is a model derived from particle physics.

When I was at university I took a course called quantum effects. I was studying mathematics and one aspect of the quantum effects course that really bothered me was that one of the important equations was derived by canceling infinities on each side of the equals sign - and what's more they were different kinds of infinities! Don't worry I don't recall the detail and my grasp of maths and physics these days is too limited to attempt to replicate the reasoning or even look for a suitable reference on the web. The result was that I was left wondering that they even bothered to show us such an unsound derivation - yet it was an equation that predicted useful things.

In Michael Talbot's book I've not come across any equations at all but his suggestions are wonderfully mind-boggling and definitely tease the mind of someone brought up in the scientific tradition. He also describes some of his own weird and wonderful experiences, somewhat hesitantly as he knows how hard they will be for most people, especially scientists, to credit. He is clearly looking for a scientific(-ish) explanation for psychic phenomenon and he's looking for that because of the strange things he's personally experienced.

I'm enjoying reading it.

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As most people who've read any of my blog will know I'm rather fond of synchroniciites. They are probably my favourite weird thing. When I first came across the idea I gave myself all sorts of reasons for how they must happen - from the psychological to the magic. Now I've stopped looking for reasons and just enjoy them. I also don't care if I'm stretching anyone else's sense of what might be a connection - they are synchronicities for me, you may disagree.

For the first three weeks of this month I was feeding these cats that belong to one of my neighbours whilst she was visiting her sister in Australia.


The ginger is called Ralph and the grey tabby is Ted. Ralph is quite bold, large and fluffy. Ted is much shyer but now he knows me he demands ALL of my attention. His is not cupboard love. When I was going over to feed them Ralph was very keen to be fed whilst Ted usually ignored the food and just waited for cuddles.

During the three weeks I was feeding them someone commented on a photo of one my other cat pictures on flickr he asked "Is that Ted ? Bishopston's friendliest cat !" It certainly is a friendly cat but isn't the same Ted that I was feeding at that time in Bishopston... and its the only comment I've had on that photo since I uploaded it in October.

I also noticed these in a car in our street:



A ginger and a grey koala. As I take photos of most of the things I see in cars around these streets (In-car Decorations a photoset on flickr) I know I hadn't seen them before. (And I've not spotted them since either). Can you see why I see them as an echo of Ralph and Ted? Especially since (ginger) Ralph seemed to me to be pining for his owner whilst (grey) Ted was demanding my attention.

Today my neighbour emerged from her jet lag to reclaim her key and she brought me a little present. It too was a synchronicity as it had a lizard on it as did this vase which I'd found in a charity shop last September:



I'd forgotten the synchronicities that went with the finding of the vase but luckily I'd written them up on the photo's flickr page. They also involved another lizard design though in that case of even further South - Maori. It was of a lizard tattoo that I wasn't allowed to photograph... doing a google image search on Maori lizard tattoo I found this page which says:

I chose this design mainly because I used to live in the Cook Islands, where the word in the local language for lizard is moko. In the related language of New Zealand Maori the word moko refers to the tattoos traditionally used as a form of identification, rank, genealogy, tribal history, eligibility to marry, and marks of beauty and/or ferocity. That’s the kind of play on words I love ;)

And this is the kind of loose series of synchronicities that I love!

Overcharging Synchronicity

Wow! Not a Bargain! - spotted in a shop window last summer.

For the first time last week I heard about someone being overcharged on their credit card by mistake. She'd paid £325 instead of £25 for flea spray at the vets. Luckily for her the vets spotted their mistake and have refunded her the £300.

Now, talking to another friend, I find that one of her friends has not been so lucky. She was charged £99.95 for a £9.95 plant. She only noticed when she got her statement and on contacting the garden centre they are claiming that their till shows that she bought more than one plant and has not been incorrectly charged at all. She, unfortunately, has lost her receipt....

The moral of this story is always check the amount is correct before you type in your PIN!

What I don't know is whether this synchronicity has anything else for me... any ideas?

All the answers?

Today I noticed that this book - the promisingly named "Book of Answers" has instructions for use on the back - having read them I thought the most obvious question to ask was whether the way that I'd just read was the best way to use the book. So I opened it, using their instructions, with this in mind....



It said Never!

So then I thought perhaps I'd better ask if the way I normally use the book was better. And I got:



There is good reason to be optimistic!

So I will continue to just hold it, think of something silly to ask, and open it right up.

If you would like to consult the book please leave a question in the comments and I'll answer it via the book.

Laying chocolate eggs

Golden Egg for Easter that I didn't get around to posting here before:
Images used in the original remix of Gatekeeper to Success are all from flickr with appropriate CC licenses: North Lees track by Roger B., Gatekeeper by Ben Werdmuller, Gardening Trophy by east_lothian_museums, Glum beardy man by hugovk
Eggness created with dumpr.net - fun with your photos

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Cream has just asked "Did Lucy lay them chocolate eggs, Caro? "

And next to the email alerting me to his comment was an email Jim sent me with this link - about a bird attempting to hatch some Cadbury's Creme Eggs.

So what's the message?

Should I be eating more chocolate?

Next Step Time

Next Step Time by Caroline with a Creative Commons License that allows non-commercial use and further remixing provided all attributions are given and a similar license is given on new images.
Images used in this remix are all from flickr with appropriate CC licenses:

sufi dancer in cairo by romsrini
Magen by Aeioux
old big clock by Alex Balan

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So having left Finding Water I need to find my own next step.

Regulars here will know that I'm somewhat addicted to synchronicities. Today there was an amazing one.

I became aware of SoulCollage® in the first place because Tinker mentioned that she was interested in what greenishlady and Tammy Vitale were doing with SoulCollage® cards - since then I've not seen any SoulCollage® cards from either of them, whilst I, still in my first flush of enthusiasm have been busy making them daily - and posting a few occasionally. I've become a regular reader of Tammy's but today is the first time that I've seen a new posting from greenishlady on her card blog. It's a card celebrating the creator of the SoulCollage® process - Seena B. Frost - if you visit that link you'll see that it features Seena looking like she is talking to the viewer.

I'd just opened the page when my computer spoke to me - in an unknown American female's voice - as I looked at the picture of Seena - it said

"Hello Caroline, shouldn't you be going to the shops?"

Of course this was no mystic emanation but my husband having just discovered how to surprise me like this, whilst sitting innocently with his back to me. He'd just worked out how to do this from his laptop... he'd no idea what I was looking at...

I then read on and was bowled over by the rest of the post. In it greenishlady mentions how she had a dream with a voice saying "Come!". When she eventually heard Seena's voice on tape she recognised it as the voice from her dream.

At this point, still unaware of what I was reading, my husband sent me the same message again, this time anticipating that I'd ask "what for?" after it.

The voice then said

"To get ingredients for a trifle."

I read on and discovered that greenishlady's dream had led her after 3 years to take the SoulCollage® facilitators training.

I have since been to the shops, got the ingredients and made the trifle we need for tomorrow's lunch party.

Before that though I ordered the recordings of Seena as they are a prerequisite for going on the facilitators training. I also sent an e-mail to discover if there were any places left on the next course.

What's more last night I dreamt that I was making cards using scissors which is how most people do make theirs but I've not made any like that yet - I started out cutting a few images out before scanning but discovered I got better results scanning and then deleting the bits I didn't want. Using scissors is how I'd have to make some if I was on the course. And I'd need to practice making some like that before going...

And as for the trifle?

Well at first I didn't get what that was about until I remembered that I'd woken up this morning thinking that just because I'm good at something is no reason to consider what I do as not worthwhile and maybe I should take it as a sign that its a talent to use.

I have a history of doing things because they are difficult... like embroidery - I was the worst in the class at primary school so I practiced and practiced until I was actually selling my embroideries to my class mates in secondary school... this took about seven years from the age of 7 to 14.

My biggest problem with collage, apart from the copyright issue, is that I find it so EASY. I've always felt it was cheating to use other people's lovely pictures to make my own lovely pictures. I know my mother certainly felt this and passed on the message that it is not what "real" artists do. But I love doing collage and I think I am quite good at it too... so

Maybe its time to stop pushing against the flow and embrace and really value what does come easily!

Is there something that you find easy that you aren't valuing because, for you, its simple?