Friday, January 02, 2009

Ready or Not




TIME... has brought a New Year...

... once a White Tailed Deer walked..





seconds... minutes... hours... days... weeks... months...

... once the Oak grew green...




...stretching... reaching...

... once an Acorn fell ...




Father Time neglects no one...

Once a sugar cane root delved deep...





...cycles... infinitesimal...

...... once a Maple stood tall....



***



Francis Bacon (Lord Verulam), 1561-1626, English Essayist, Philosopher... wrote:

"....Philosophers should diligently inquire into the powers and energy of custom, imitation, emulation, company, friendships, praise, reproof, exhortation, laws, books, studies, etc.;
for these are the things that reign in men's morals; by these agents the mind is formed and subdued.
Out of monuments, names, words, proverbs, traditions, private records and evidences, fragments of stories, passages of books, and the like, we do save and recover somewhat from the deluge of TIME...."



....Onward we march.......

Gwen Buchanan at Desideratum Art and Jewelry Studio, New Brunswick, Canada

42 comments:

Anet said...

Oh Gwen, Happy New Year to you!
I was thinking of you the other night and thought of how I've been missing your art post.
I hope this New Year brings you a bounty of inspiration for your art and blessings glore for you and your family!

Arija said...

Old Father Time stops for no man or woman... and a good thing too, I'd rather be mortal than have to watch the folly of the world ad infinitum.
If you mail me your address, I'd like to send you something.

sandy said...

Nice post and happy New Year to you all!

Anonymous said...

We have walked through life
Seen many sunsets
Seen many sunrises.

And through all this......

Our hearts sang a song,
shared the joy.

And this New Year....

I pray for all the years ahead,
for all the happiness you'll share.

Happy New Year my friend. Thank you for keeping our days bright and allowing us to see life in your light.

denise said...

Nice. I needed that.

Happy New Year!

BLACK AND WHITE said...

Masterwork! Happy New Year to you! Peaceful days!

Lovethiscottage.blogspot.com said...

And the best new years wishes to you Gwen, full of creative pursuits and hopefully economic rewards. ( Reading your post Jim says he likes his Bacon with over easy)

Leanne Pizio said...

Happy New Year to you. Can't wait to see what the New Year brings for you this year.
Thank you for the beautiful post.
L

cathyswatercolors said...

Your post had the feel of,the march of time. Very steady, abiding, marching on...Or on a lighter note as the hippies used to say HEAVY MAN.:0) Very lovely post Gwen.

Guillaume said...

Happy New year Gwen. That was a lovely post.

Gwen Buchanan said...

Thank you Anet, You are always an inspiration ...

Ah yes the folly, Arija... Why has this become the state of things... I ponder this almost every day...

Sandy... please send some of your heat our way..

Shelley that was beautiful!!!... and that you shared it makes it even more special..

Denise, i have most often found it hard to accept the passage of time.. wishing for time to stop periodically so I can catch up

Bk/Wh, Thanks, Peaceful days would work...

Kathi D, Bacon over easy and eggs sunny side up... work never takes a break from time, does it?

Leanne, You are too kind, Thanks for that ... I love your work...

Shicat, I have to get into the rhythm of work again.. If only I had more time!!!... how about you...

Guillaume, Has time taken you back home across the ocean yet.. I will have to come over and see...


Thank you all so very much!! I wish each of you a very Happy and fulfilling New Year!!!

Ruth said...

I enjoyed the simplicity of the images, especially the oak.

The first day of January I felt that there was so much of the year left, and Time would move slowly enough to make the most of 2009. Today it's the 3rd and already close to the end of it. We have only this moment, ever, yet so much of life is spent worrying about and planning for the next, or remembering and regretting the last.

Gwen, I wish you a year of living in the moment. I'm so glad I know you.

mansuetude said...

Francis Bacon *1561-- such a long time ago... it hits me sometimes, reading St. John of the Cross, Rumi, and last week Plato... that so much "voice" and energy is stored as wisdom (a form of love perhaps or light) in words in books on earth, waiting for us to enter them, to open them with our own light.

You have shared a lot of those small glints of wisdoms and light this year, thank you.

Happy New New Year.

Seth said...

Happy new year gwen. Another thoughful post to start 2009. Loved seeing the shots of the same tree -- time and evolution in action!

flyinamber said...

Lovely post and watercolor and beautiful photos of the tree..
looking forvard to lot of your artwork and beautiful words here in this year I wish you days full of the inspiration and creativity..best wishes to Max and John,too!

Gwen Buchanan said...

I am so glad I know you too Ruth... You give me pause to consider friendship... sometimes being of a hermetic nature I draw inside too much.. You always open the door...
so true about worrying about the future and regretting the past... This year we should start thinking about just plain living and as much as I find this hard to actually do... possibly be a bit selfish(but in a good satisfying self fulfilling way).. I haven't learned this yet.. Motherhood has drilled into us to always think of others first.. I think sometimes we need to nurture ourselves much more than we do.. Our inner soul... our burning light source... we forget our own little self sometimes... after all who knows our own self better than our own self... we really need to listen to its truth...
Time is fleeting and time is forever...time is all around us at every moment before and after our days on earth..

yes indeed... as you say.. we have only this moment ever....
Thank you....and may this year bring you time...

Don said...

May 2009 bring you lots of times to remember fondly. I have enjoyed your blog and am glad I found it in 2008. Ruth and I were trying to figure out how we found your blog but I'm afraid that memory is lost in the sands.

Gwen Buchanan said...

Thank you Seth, This Oak tree gives me such pleasure and wonder ... Storms has torn branches from it so it tilts at the strangest angle.. it amazes me that it can even acquire enough sustenance from the sandstone rock it clings to, to survive at all.. yet it does.. there is a good feeling about that... happy new year to you...



Dada, Funny thing in each photo a Raven sits in almost the same spot... almost as if he never left it and the leaves fell around him...
I appreciate you visiting me from so far away... I always feel more alive when I see the seasonal change come to your part of the world.. it gives me hope it will soon be here... waiting is not always easy though... All the Best to you,your beautiful girls and your Ferret companions... and I hope to see much more of your artwork...


Mansuetude, Your outlook and observations are always enlightening and challenging... yes so many words here waiting for us.. it is hard not to gobble them up all at once.. but that would be senseless and for not.. hopefully time will allow us to savour, contemplate and absorb them, in the time we need to..
A year of happiness to you...

Don, I recall finding you (just before you got your chickens) as you talked about many old doors stored in your barn.. and I am always taken with doors.. where they go.. who is behind them.. where they lead.. the lives there.. the mystery...
I am so glad your door has opened to me.. I wish you a most wonderful year of discovery...

laura said...

Happy New Year, Gwen. Lovely photos and provocative observations! I love your skull drawing ... My friend in WI sent me some skull bits (small, of what, I don't know!) that I found on a walk in the woods there ... perhaps I should try to paint them!

annette emms said...

Dear Gwen, a magical series of pictures and your words, as always , fit perfectly.
Time is such a powerful thing, sometimes kind, sometimes cruel, just as your pictures show.xxx

Ruth said...

I agree with you utterly and completely. My mom's mantra was 'death to self' - and I'm afraid I didn't know how to make that work in any kind of positive way for myself. I was released from that 'biblical' teaching (not sure it really is, but she thought it was) when I found a verse in Isaiah: 58:11 -

And the LORD will continually guide you, And satisfy your desire in scorched places, And give strength to your bones; And you will be like a watered garden, And like a spring of water whose waters do not fail.

I don't consider myself a Christian now, I don't follow any religion, but I sometimes find solace in words from sacred texts, just as I do from any texts that are meaningful.

Now my mantra is: you will be like a watered garden. That I can make work for me.

Jacky said...

Beautiful post...especially taken with old Father Time. Lots to think about there.

Gwen Buchanan said...

Laura,The best of the new year to you too,... I have been waiting for a skunk skull since last fall... poor little thing met his end on the road near our house.. I drug him to the ditch and buried her slightly and marked the spot... I'll go back in the spring and recover what remains... by then the soil creatures will have picked her clean... and I'll take what is salvagable and put it with the porcupine, crow, sheep, etc. skulls I collect... Then she'll dwell in a place and be admired in a way she never would have thought... I love these things...

Hi Annette, we never know what Time has waiting around the corner for us, do we?... Just have to try to be prepared for it... try as we may though.. I don't think we ever truly could be...

Thank you Jacky... I find this time of year leads to a lot of thinking... hopefully it will lead to doing...

Pamela Terry and Edward said...

A new year of possibility. May yours be filled with all sorts of joy!

rauf said...

Gwen, i told some one recently that if you wear a black cap you become invisible to God. you can do anything you want. And i watched a TED lecture by Julia Sweeny. Its on Youtube. Very witty she is. On the morning of her 7th birthday she meets her parents, happy birthday dear says her mom. Dad says she is seven now and she has entered an age of reason. What is that ? and she is told that God would be watching her from now on. She immediately rushes to her younger brother who is 6 and tells him that he has one more year to do what ever he wants and God will not be watching him.

http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=OtIyx687ytk

The only wish i had was to escape from time Gwen, not from God, as i have always been running and rushing all my life. i had no desire to remain young as i was an old man at the age of 12. Actually its people near you who make you feel old. Ruth for instance, is the youngest in the family and all treated her like a child and she remained young for ever. My case was different, even my teachers used to consult me, that made me feel very old.

i often wondered what the students would think while studying my skull. How would they know that there was music in my head always.

Francis Bacon is listed under funny deaths. He froze himself to death. He was experimenting on preserving chicken by freezing and froze himself in the process. i think he died of pneumonia, heart broken.

i see that your blog is one year old, so happy blog birthday Gwen.

Gwen Buchanan said...

Rauf my Dear, is this your way of lightening me up.. well you have done it..although I believe the frozen chicken story to be controversial... very sad ... a man dying for his love... of science... but I guess it gets some people's attention who would not otherwise pay attention.. through SHOCK.. sort of like most commercials these days...oh please do not let me go on about television commercials... actually I just canceled my signals to receive TV... can't take it anymore... too brain numbing!!

I am not as wise as you Rauf but I felt old since I was young too... but then again there are times when I feel younger than my children... figure that one out... no wonder Ruth calls you her brother.. I feel you are my brother too.. Were you the oldest?.. always having to be good and set the example and try your hardest.. and not disappoint... you love to learn, right?... and you love to share with others... funny the things that are placed on children without anyone actually realizing the outcome... You have become a modern day Philosopher... who knows many worlds first hand, from the inside...excellent wit... I admire this... and enjoy your words... whichever side of the debate you take at a given time...

... I am thinking we must be receiving the same waves somewhere through the air, maybe its the ocean currents, as my head is always full of music, too..keeps me company... rhythms, lyrics, tunes... songs I never heard of.. but I like them... I should write them down... Do you write them down? Do you have a book full or two maybe? The songs are limitless aren't they.. I wonder if two people who don't know one another have ever invented a common song in two different places at the same time.. probably not, the chances of that happening, well that would be a miracle wouldn't it? They don't happen too often.. It might make the Guinness Book though...


I love TED.com .. the ideas... makes one think... I haven't seen this one (Julia was funny)... I steer clear of anything related to religion/God.. I have never been a follower of anything, but I remember mentioning this before... I am an observer, watching interactions, listening... it doesn't matter to me if people call me names if I don't believe what they do... I have been an outsider from whenever I started to think... I am accustomed to it.. but I don't go up to peoples doors and force my beliefs on anyone either...

Rauf have you found a place where time will not find you... if you do please let me know... and I'll think on how to decipher from your skull that you have music in your head... by the way, what kind of music do you listen to from inside there? maybe I've heard it!!

Gwen Buchanan said...

Ruth when I read your verse (I just changed the word Lord to "thinking Self").. Hope that's ok.. anyway...

when I read this, I gasped... I instantly closed my eyes and sighed a deep breath of relief... or had the sense of pressure leaving...It filled me up with a source that is hard to explain... It was beautiful!!!

I so agree about texts ... it is amazing what words can do...
If we spoke a different language how do you think we could achieve the same response, being this far apart?... Language is truly a Gift... Thank you!!

Ruth said...

Ohhhh, I'm soo happy you felt the same relief that I felt from that verse. Excellent idea to replace LORD with Self. I believe if there is divinity, we are it. Many of us don't know it, or tap into the riches or understand that it's ok to talk about ourselves that way. Even the New Testament says "we will be like him" meaning Jesus, and if he is a son of God, then so are we, according to the Bible. But I don't need the Bible to tell me that's so.

Life is such a wonder. This skull, anything in nature showing the remnants of a life, that then gives life to another. This is what I am thinking of these days, and will post a little about it later in the week.

When I reflect on blogging, and how we are still getting used to this medium for making friends, I find that I can't explain the value in words. But I know inside that I am expanding via these connections. Some say: This isn't real! But when something inside you quickens because of words or images someone shares half way around the world, what is real? Words only point at things anyway.

And now I have this image of rauf's skull and your skull and the music dancing and leaping in those rooms. Ah, what a world!

Gwen Buchanan said...

Ruth, yes, blog connections, near and far, I find it so eye opening... points of view from many lives, to widen our own...

...so search and ye shall find is true... and it's at our fingertips for our minds amusement and contemplation...

I'll be looking forward to the post you are working on.

Debbi said...

What a beautiful blog. I love your artistic sense and writings. Thank you! Happy New Year.

Gwen Buchanan said...

Thank you Debbi, It was a pleasure to see your work... marvelous...

Thanks to your too Pamela, Let's hope that happiness dwells with us all!!



I wish you both a wonderful new year too, with many new discoveries and mysteries opening to you...

Debbi said...

Thanks Gwen! I will be stopping by regularly. Have you read the poems of Mary Oliver? If not, I think you'd really like them.

rivergardenstudio said...

What a wonderful post... poetry for my heart... I am always thinking things like ... what walked along this river before me... we have so much to learn and your wrote about it so beautifully. Roxanne

Gwen Buchanan said...

Debbi, I appreciate your Poetry suggestion.. I went on a little search and found Mary Oliver... I really relate to it.. Thank you so much!!!


Hi Roxanne, you live in a wonderful area of the planet... with all those wide open wild places... such beauty.. take me with you (if only in your thoughts) the next time you go...

Serena Lewis said...

Another lovely post, Gwen.

As a devotee of Eckhart Tolle's 'A New Earth' philosophy, I am learning to live in and fully appreciate each Present moment, rather than dwelling in my past or worrying about my future. Present moment is all we ever truly have....the past is but memories and the future hasn't happened yet. Time keeps on moving.....

Happy New Year to you and your family ~

ArtPropelled said...

Lovely post, Gwen. I love the photo of the lone bird in the bare tree. All the best to you and yours for 2009.

Anonymous said...

Hello Gwen, Happy new Year to you and yours... very insightful post... thank you for the pause in a busy day! Thank you for your kind words on my calligraphy post, I really appreciate it! xoxo, Kathy

Gwen Buchanan said...

Thank you Serena, your philosophy is a good practice... the Best to you...

Hi Robyn... interesting to find simplicity in complicated things isn't it... a good year to you...

You're welcome Kathy, I love calligraphy.. and you do it so fine...

Anonymous said...

Hi Gwen and Happy New Year. I've really enjoyed reading the post and all the comments. Very many inspiring snippets to start the year with. Did you get my email by the way ? Just checking 'cause I'm not sure if you received the one before Christmas regarding the beautiful earrings....asti x

Gwen Buchanan said...

Thanks Asti.. the best of the New Year to you too..
So happy to find out that "Out of the Blue" arrived safely to you.....
I enjoyed seeing your latest creation... can't wait to see more...

jo horswill said...

...and here you are giving such wonder and beauty to us all again. I look forward to sharing 09 here with you Gwen. Jo xx

Gwen Buchanan said...

Thank you Jo, I welcome your visits... may your special wishes come true this year!!