Caislean Oir..... A Contest of Beauties...

I've been giving some thought to Jackie Morris' recent post of 'A Contest of Beauties' - please do go and have a look at what its all about and see some of the links to beautiful things that are growing there...
I may post some more considered thoughts later if I can untangle what it is I would try to express about this, but lately having been focussed on the dark, turbulant and difficult, to be reminded and to take notice anew of all these things of beauty, and to think on what it is we perceive as beautiful has been good for me...
For now, because beauty to me in all its forms must provoke an emotional response or connection, a moving of the soul, a welling up of feeling, a filling up of the heart, I will share this song by Clannad which always stops me in my tracks... music is a great conduit to the soul...

(There is also a rough translation of the Gaelic in the comments just under the youtube clip which is lovely to understand as you listen to that beautiful language)

Totems, Talismans and a challenge...

Reading Jackie Morris' post this morning about the mysterious contents of her beautiful bottle pendant got me thinking on the things we hold precious, about Talismans, Totems and Amulets, and why they should give us strength when we need to hold fast to something...

If you would like to take part in Jackie's intriguing challenge please do hop over to her blog Drawing a Line in Time... and find out all about it...

(picture from Jackie's blog)

As the contents of that mysterious bottle, which struck me as a Talisman, drifted around my thoughts all day I began to remember a vivid Dream I had years ago - a dream of shapeshifting...

At this point I should mention I was thinking about Buzzards. Buzzards have become a very special bird to me over the years... and in my deepest darkest times of turmoil and depression which I suffered for ten years before being gradually persuaded I was worth accepting help, watching the birds soar circling overhead with their wilderness cries and savage joy at the pure elemental freedom of the winds, would calm me and give me strength.
Also in times of intense physical pain, visualising strongly a Buzzard circling effortlessly poised on the winds against a blue, blue sky, would help me rise above the pain and detach myself from it.
But anyway, less of the heavy stuff! Point taken I guess is that Buzzards have become my Totem and my strength...
So back to the Dream...

I began in a thicket, confusing and tangled, I was a crow, my wings torn and constricted until all at once I broke free into sunlit green transformed as a Buzzard on strong brindled wings.

I felt my strength, gloried in my strength, wings muscles beating and an exhilerated joy at the sheer freedom of flight, so vivid.

Then in a heartbeat I was myself, struggling at the base of an impossibly steep green hill, wanting so badly to reach the heights and the clean savage winds, the more my frustration grew the steeper the hill became and the greater my despair.

Another heartbeat and I was again a Buzzard rising on thermals, unfettered and wild circling effortlessly far above the green hill, flying for the sheer glory of freedom. Another beat and I was myself sitting sitting at the summit, feeling the wind thrill through me in exhilerated joy, until finally I flew back the way I came, once more feather clad.

The feeling of flight in the dream was so real, so vivid, it has stayed with me for years... so I guess in an extremely long winded fashion I have come to the contents of Jackie's wonderful bottle!
If I were to wear such a treasure I would wish for an elixir, a spell or potion of shapechanging... whoever should wear it of course would have a different form, their Spirit-guide. My eldest daughter would have the amber quick, fleet fair-footed fox. For me of course a feather, but it would need to be no ordinary feather...
We just happen to have such a feather, a feather of arcane mysteries...

There is a small Griffin who sleeps on our very messy piano guarding a small pot of treasures. We often wonder if he comes alive at midnight to fly around our house in the dark hours, and then one day we found the tiniest, softest brown feather...

So it must be true!

This is what I would keep in the bottle to give me the power to take a brindle-winged form, soar the wide wild winds and glory at the Skysong.

What do you think is in the bottle?

A young Dragon for World Book Day....

All week this week at my eldest imp's school they are doing lots of book and story related activities for World Book Day which is on the 3rd of March.
Today they all got to go to school dressed as a character from their favourite book, and Elora chose 'Tell Me a Dragon' by Jackie Morris, a book both my imps enjoy immensely... they love imagining their own wild dragonkind and pore endlessly over the endpapers which are completely filled with wonderfully coloured Dragon's eggs of all shapes and sizes, all in various stages of hatching out!


We've got lots of Jackie's books and I enjoy them as much as the children do... in fact it was discovering Jackie's books that first inspired me to find the Children's Illustration courses that have got me started in the direction I want to go.
It was also Jackie that inspired me to start this blog... I know lots of you already visit hers which is here at Drawing a Line in Time

Elora made her costume with a little help from Grandma after school yesterday, so I got a very Dragony surprise when I arrived to pick to the children up after work! As you can see she's a rather mischevious young hatchling! But luckily she hasn't got the hang of fire breathing just yet...


She's got a good roar though!!

She's requested melted gold for breakfast which is apparently what Dragons of her kind drink... Hmmm might be a bit expensive raising a young Dragon hatchling I fear!!