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Post-siestal aims…

A siesta: a short sleep taken in the early afternoon, usually because the climate is hot – it’s taken as a break or time-out from the heat of the day. It also relates to a break after a heavy intake of food at a midday main meal.

If you’re like me then your days might often include heavy intakes and the heat of daily doings.

Yes, a change is as good as a rest, but occasionally a true break from our ongoing daily deliberations cannot be bettered!

Thanks to my wife, we were recently lucky enough to make the most of a break away in the sun.

Akamas Peninsula Cyprus
Akamas Peninsula Cyprus

Post-siesta observations:

While away for 10 days ‘time-out’ in our sunny suspension, among many other things, I appreciated the below:

  • No digital distractions – twitter, farcebook, email, etc

  • No drip-fed music – bbc, or any other more vibrant popcorn, etc

  • A remove from habitual routines: imbibing socialmeja frippery, tracking cycle-rides, surfing the net, watching tripe on the box etc

  • Refocusing and adjusting perspectives on habitual activities, worldview/s, mindset, social sphere etc.

Yes, all of the above has it’s place, just as popcorn and sherbet might have it’s occasional place on a saturday night. But, for the foreseeable future:

  • I aim to prune down who I ‘follow’ on twitter

  • I aim to considerably ignore, to the point of not using, the demigod ‘farcebook’

  • I aim to not “wake up to” the BBC or other piped stupefery

  • I aim to not compulsively track routine cycle rides, and not wear ‘cycle clothing’

  • I aim to be more selective of what’s being fed to me via ‘the box’ and boxlike tablets

  • I aim to review personal ‘community’

  • I aim to remember the sights, sounds, and smells of our 10 day siesta

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Siesta…

Busy, tomorrow, yesterday, must,
Ambition, solution, target, trust,
Importance, whether, should be, later,
rules, expectations, compromise, sin…

Siesta, siesta, siesta, siest…
Sun, scorched sand,
Sea, breezed land,
Cyprus, siesta,
and a perfect simple caesar salad, with relish,
and an ice
cold
beer.

JPR Cyprus 07/2013

Feet

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Words…

This month’s “Wordle” – voila…

WordleJune2013

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…Senzenina…

Half of the choir {Global Harmony} had a delightful evening overlooking Rutland Water on Friday night.

We sang a dozen songs in a splendid garden in Manton, at then culmination of a safari supper.

Here’s just a snippet: 3 Songs from Africa – (it’s a poor recording on a mobile-phone but better than nowt)

Senzenina (starts 1min 22secs in) is a favourite of mine – (with me on the call and the choir doing an elevating job of swelling the melody ) – I love this song.

It featured in the mediocre film ‘The Power of One’, as part of an excellent sound track. The film is an adaption of IMHO a great 1989 novel of the same name by Bryce Courtenay . This book is on my personal top ten of influential novels.

Interestingly the lyrics of this version of  Senzenina translate to: What have we done? Our sin is… What have we done?

My sentiments exactly.

P1050140

and another…

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Three Poems…

3PoemBMsI have been asked to produced three visuals to accompany the reading of three poems at the forthcoming Methodist Conference – July 2013.

Considering that listening, watching and doing, are all ways in which we can realise new things, these visuals hopefully provide another dynamic to the text of the poems.

The images will be displayed on large screens and will also be supplied as a handy bookmark for reference and contemplation.
You can see the pics here

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

“Love” by George Herbert.

LOVE bade me welcome; yet my soul drew back,
Guilty of dust and sin.
But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack
From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me…

“The Kingdom” by R. S. Thomas

It’s a long way off but inside it
There are quite different things going on:
Festivals at which the poor man
Is king…

“How everything adores being alive” by Mary Oliver.

What if you were a beetle, and a soft wind
and a certain allowance of time had summoned you out of your wrappings,
and there you were…

click titles for poems

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New handlebars

New Bars: XLC City + Trekking handlebars
New Bars: XLC City + Trekking handlebars

After two years of riding, slowly realising new perspectives, and challenging my own preconceptions and assumptions, I have made another change to the routine standard.

Two years ago my bike came with a stock straight Specialized handlebars, with a 8° degree back sweep.

They’ve been good, but I occasionally fancied a more relaxed position and over time I’ve considered changing the bars.

My riding style over the last two years, has changed from:

i. Trying to co-exist with traffic, riding a bike with a similar driverly attitude and outlook.

to,

ii. Aiming to being more aware of place and adopting a more contented, mindful way…

There are a lot of alternative styles of handlebars on the market – I wanted something more comfortable that allows me to sit up more. Seeing the 45° sweep of the Jones H Loop Bar  on a friend’s bike, I admired the unique classic design, but shivered at the unique classic price tag.

I was looking for something with a similar sweep.

I came across a few makes that had a similar spec, but the basic simple set below at £12.50 (delivered) stood out like an option too cheap not to try!

The XLC City + Trekking handlebar is made of “6061 aluminium”, they state that they have an “cranking of 59°” and a width of 610 mm. Not sure what a cranking means? I guess it could translate to a sweep of 31°.

Whatever… they are great!

They enable a more upright sitting position.

The new position seems to enable a grip and pull on the bars that helps exert more pressure on the pedals, when you need that extra surge.

With new Ergon grips I am really chuffed with the new set up.

 

Just what I was after.

New Bars: XLC City + Trekking handlebars
New Bars: XLC City + Trekking handlebars
The old bars.
The old bars.

 

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Birdsong…

What do you do four days into man-flu and not able to sleep in the middle of the night?

Stick your phone outside the window and press record.

Dawn Chorus: recorded from 3.45am June 1st 2013

Can you identify any of the birdsong?

My Sound Cloud account has lapsed but here it is on my Google Drive here:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1mLJI4mEZyHtVJgKx3u4SW1kuHAlxZ74L

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“How everything adores being alive” by Mary Oliver

A friend has be considering this poem recently and asked if i had any images that might go with it… (thanks R.)

How everything adores being alive”  by Mary Oliver

Being-Alive-1
What
if you were
a beetle,
and a soft wind

and a certain allowance of time
had summoned you
out of your wrappings,
and there you were,

so many legs
hardening,
maybe even
more than one pair of eyes

and the whole world
in front of you?
And what if you had wings
and flew

into the garden,
then fell
into the up-tipped
face

of a white flower,
and what if you had
Being-Alive-2a sort of mouth,
a lip

to place close
to the skim
of honey
that kept offering itself –

what would you think then
of the world
as, night and day,
you were kept there –

oh happy prisoner –
sighing, humming,
roaming
that deep cup?

Poem featured in:
“Why I Wake Early” Beacon Press.

Amazon.

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May 2013

A respite where we might suspend disbelief in sunny weather – May 2013.

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I dreamed a dream…

Just watched the film Les Misérables DVD, hummm… Great performances and some great songs…

I then watched 15mins of a David Bowie documentary, hummm…. that’s more like it… buzzzzzzzzzzz.

Maybe it was due to the small screen, perhaps it was one of those films designed for the cinema experience? The start of the film hooked me in but by halfway through it lost me.
Romantic claptrap. I wanted more… having not read the Victor Hugo novel I felt that this was possibly a merry dance on what truly is a much bigger creation. As a stand alone work I found it seemed like spicy popcorn and cheap wine. Nice but no cigar.

In contrast, the brief glimpse of some David Bowie interviews got me buzzing.

20130526-000424.jpg

I have recently wondered if my current medication is affecting my perception, reaction, or emotional reception to stimuli? I used to shed a tear at the least little thing on tv – drama, film and even pop tv might hook me in. But now I think of it, I can’t recall the last time a film got me going, either identifying with pleasure or sorrow.

Is my suspension of disbelief being affected? My experience of Disney Paris was not affected, but that’s sensory overload, you can’t fight the mighty saccharin Americana Mouse and friends.

Am I in the grip of the old academic ‘paralysis of analysis’ chestnut? I don’t think so – more recently I feel under-analysis and the failure to engage is a more likely.

So back to what’s changed… neurones… brain activity… hummmm….

Finally, Bowie, fantastic, creativity…. Reminded me of Matt, Simon and I experimenting with audience/performer relationships in Cheshire… Experimental sound, speech, movement, oh… to experiment and create again….
It seems ‘life’ can kill the dreams you might dream…

“Those who do not weep, do not see”
“To love another person is to see the face of God.”
“It is ourselves we have to fear. Prejudice is the real robber, and vice the real murderer.”
“Often when we think we are knotting one thread, we are tying quite another.”
― Victor Hugo, Les Misérables