I Am Making Progress

Edinburgh Castle

I have been away from this blog for some time and for the very few that take time to read I apologise. It seemed pretty pointless taking the time to write when nobody was taking the time to read.

Then I thought again and here I am. Thanks to those if any who read this. Even greater thanks to those who take the time to comment.  I will read it as I write and I comment in my mind in the process, so I have realised that nothing is meaningless.

Life has been interesting in the time I have been away. I cracked two ribs after slipping on the ice while running. I was attacked and badly bitten by a dog, while running. Maybe it is not writing a blog I should stop, but that is another story.

I have been painting very different  from my normal artwork, one person said I was almost painting normal, but more of that on the other blog.

All in all I am making progress as age slowly but surely catches up on me. My head is buzzing with abstract art, which one day will find its way onto canvas, but yet I am at peace and enjoying the new found art. I am making progress!

Now this reminds me of a tale, one I maybe need to contemplate.

Yen Hui said, "I am making progress."

Confucius asked, "In what way?"

Yen Hui said, "I have given up doing good and being right."

Confucius said, "Very good, but that is not quite enough."

Another day, Yen Hui saw Confucius and said, "I am making progress."

Confucius asked, "In what way?"

Yen Hui said, "I have given up ceremony and music."

Confucius said, "Very good, but that is not quite enough."

Another day, Yen Hui saw Confucius again and said, "I am making progress." Confucius asked, "In what way?"

Yen Hui said, "I just sit and forget."

Confucius was startled and asked, "What do you mean by sitting and forgetting?"

Yen Hui said, "I am not attached to the body and I give up any idea of knowing. By freeing myself from the body and mind, I become one with the infinite. This is what I mean by sitting and forgetting."

Confucius said, "When there is oneness, there are no preferences. When there is change there is no constancy. If you have really attained this, then let me become your pupil."

Yes I think I am making progress, not because I am trying to but because I have stopped trying to.

This blog is linked to my other. Pen and Ink

Wild Waves and Wild Thoughts

Wild Waves

When I retired and moved to this part of the world I was in fact returning to my roots. That being so it would seem that I would find it easy. The opposite was in fact the truth. There is some truth in the fact that you can never go back, life is an onward journey.


I thought I knew this place so well, the place of my boyhood. The place where I built gang huts with my friends, now covered by a housing complex. The friends had moved on, married and geographically separated. I was both a retired minister and retired teacher. Yet when I had left here I was in fact a butcher. The reality hit me I was a retired person and I had to do something. The one thing that I still did was sit as a judge in the court. A time consuming task, but not one that was going to fill the time created by retirement.

So it was that I found myself one day walking the coastal path on a windy day with the waves crashing on the rocks. I rushed home that day and painted “Wild Waves”. I did so in a frenzy using not brushes but my fingers. It was almost a new beginning. I saw that it was possible to express inner feelings with paint.

This painting sold the day I took it to hang it. Somebody saw me begin to put it on the wall and offered to purchase it there and then.

This time of incapacity has meant me looking back again over the three years or so I have been painting. As many of you know I have gone through a tortured period of struggling to find where I am heading with paint.

Susan suggested adding words to some of my paintings. Reluctantly I decided to give it a try. I am not at all sure that I am any use at all at writing poems but I thank her for prompting me in that direction. It has made me sit and think and to see my paintings in a new way. To feel again the emotions created. I am enjoying the process and finding it interesting that some of you are putting ideas into words that lie behind some of my words and paintings that I have thought and felt yet never said.

How glad I am that I have kept going in this blogging world, right now it is so helping me on the therapeutic road of recovery.

Now I have one very serious request. For those who read me on a regular basis and know me well please tell me when it is time to move on from the poems and thoughts.

This blog is linked to my other where I look again at the artwork above. Alone With The Wild Waves