the most beautiful thing

 

 Jake being a banana tree

~

My boy, the most beautiful thing ever to come out of me, without a doubt, hands down, 

no contest.

I didn't really know what love meant, until I was given the privilege of being his Mummy. 

 ~

TheWeighing of the Heart

What does the heart weigh?

More than the pull of your small

hand on mine?  More than your head's

light heaviness on my shoulder?

Under the tender pressure of sleep

my old wool jacket becomes

your memory of consolation, comfort,

that ancient sweetness of love and tweed.

Remembering this, watching you,

I lose my place entirely, not knowing

whose the head, whose the sleeve,

whose the big hand and whose the small.

The Ancients measured a good heart

against the slightest puff of down,

in the gleam and glitter of delicate scales.

Like Thoth, we watch and wait.

What does the heart weigh?

Less than your head's tiny burden,

for lighter than a feather is love

and this the Egyptians knew.

- Maura Dooley

Want to read about other people's beautiful things?  Go here.

And to read Fiona Robyn's novel The Most Beautiful Thing, go here.  It's available for download for free for today and tomorrow only.  Enjoy!

Little feet, big feet

~ rolling up trouser legs and wading in a fountain in a park with your favourite person

On the gravel of the pavement...

a face in the skin of a crushed berry

The perfection that is Catness

Yoshi, who lives up to his name

Heart

~"There is a crack in everything, that is how the light gets in..." - Leonard Cohen

(The book is True Love, A Practice for Awakening the Heart by Thich Nhat Hanh)

this moment

~ wherever you are

a child's eye view

Walking to the playground, Jake stops to look at the sky.

"Oh look Mummy!  Those clouds are moving really fast!" and then, a moment later,

"Mummy, how does the sky float?"

Ermmm...good question.  Anybody know?  Apparently gravity (which was my answer) is not the correct one.

a blade of grass, a drop of rain (some beautiful things)

~ at the bottom of the stairs leading to the garden, a tuft of grass growing as if out of the concrete ~ on each blade, perfect orbs of light, translucent droplets of rain

the most beautiful thing

What's your most beautiful thing?

Next Tuesday 24th April, there's going to be a blog splash...a whole bunch of people will be blogging about their most beautiful thing, inspired by Fiona Robyn's novel of the same name.  I'll be taking part, and will be posting one beautiful thing each day until then.  How about you?

(Incidentally, I've read Fiona's novel and it's very good indeed.)

everything is acceptable

I have begun another project, a drawing one this time...

everything is acceptable

Fantasy wishlist: Dream Daddies

Just in case you think I've been gettin' too serious lately and suspecting that I don't know how to have fun...

My friend Kate over at beforeiforget wrote a blog post called The Daddy Issue.  I suggest you go read it then come back here...

Okay...so since I read her post shortly after my Scintilla post all about my Daddy breaking my heart (boo hoo), I was positively tickled by her list of famous Daddies she'd like to have in her life and was inspired to make one of my own.  Here goes...

My Daddy...Bill Nighy 

(need I say more?)

My Step-Daddy...Billy Collins 

(a funny poet, what's not to love?)

My Grand-Daddy...Gandhi 

(just look at that smile!)

And my Sugar Daddy...Gabriel Byrne 

(I've always thought he was a bit of alright and he just seems to get better with age...

now I think he may also be my fantasy therapist, after watching him in In Treatment)

I just want to say that I love my Dad.  Despite all the heartbreak, we have as good a relationship that I imagine we are able to have.  But hey, a girl's allowed to dream...and it's told me things about myself and the kind of men I'd like in my life...things I don't think I'd really thought about  too deeply...plus, don't tell me you aren't thinking up your own list...

And here's some more love

Two posts in one day....ooooh!  Aren't you lucky ;-)

There are many reasons why I love going to the cinema with my friend Mad...one of them is this: whenever I hear a gorgeous piece of classical music in the film, I can just lean over to her and ask, "What piece of music is this?" and she'll know it - just like that.

We went to see The Kid with a Bike yesterday - fantastic film by the way, and when I asked her the above question about the music at the end, she replied: "Beethoven, 5th piano concerto I think, the 4th one's good too..." Naturally, she was right.

Love love love...it never gets old

I don't care what your faith or religion is, what your name is, where your home is, whether you're enlightened, multi-talented, an uber being with a great mind and a great following, lowly or high in 'status', wear labels or make your own clothes, buy from supermarkets or pick your own peas, work in an ivory glass tower or sweep the streets...what good is any of it without love, without kindness? 

"For love is action.  It is not saying or wishing or hoping or longing.  And it is in the details."

"Any part of the world completely seen is the world.  When we come to glimpse being in this way, no one is surprised by the fullness and the emptiness of things."

"...we must begin loving everything by loving ourselves.  With breath we begin and end life.  With breath we feel another breathing next to us.  There are no thoughts attached.  We just do it.  Can you not also feel the breath that is more deeply in you than you are yourself?  It is love.  Breathe it and you breathe everything."

(all quotes from St Nadie in Winter by Terrance Keenan)