RUBY LENT LOVE

Originated by MaryT, check hers for today.

The theme of last Tuesday has inspired me to right more about love. The agape kind of love this time.
More specifically about the important work done by thousands and thousands of housewives, women of small means, but great love and will.
According to my dictionary they are "Women volunteer workers who provide non-professional care and service for the sick and convalescent".
In short; there's no accurate English term for these extraordinary women.
Through out the years they have gathered money and built hospitals for tuberculosis patients, orphanages, recreation centers for housewives, and in the later 3 decades they have done a tremendous job for people suffering from rheumatism. They also have several school for educating nurses.
How do they manage all this? Amongst other things by selling these special lent feather brushwoods. First they gather birch brushwood in January.
Then these hen feathers are neatly tied to the brushwood with metal threads. Other women go from door to door to sell them. Both Gunnar's mother and my friend Liv have been members of this association. It's a lifetime commitment.
Norway has been a officially protestant country for five hundred years, since the days of Martin Luther. Nevertheless we celebrate the Catholic lent. This Sunday was "Bunsunday". Eating fat food to prepare for the long fast. Then comes Bluemonday, Shrovetuesday and Ashwednesday. Further doesn't our fast go. We still have the redletter days, eat buns with whipped cream and buy the lent brushwood.
The brushwood being part of a pagan fertility celebration dating back to the ancient Romans. Gently whipping of the wives was supposed to maintain their fertility. Barbaric? Guess so.
The remnisance of the paganism has helped sick, poor and chronic ill for a century.
That can't be bad at all. The feathers of the bouquet of this year was bound by a woman of 82.It's a fidelity to one's dedication and a love for one's next one just have to admire without any reservations.

Today the first mouse-ears sprouted on the birch.
Luke 6:38Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.

TURN TURN TURN

There is a time for everything.
My physiotherapist yesterday set my feet free.
You shall go and stay how you like.
There is no RIGHT way of using your feet.
Just be aware of how you are using them, and how you feel while doing so. Avoid what's making you hurt or tense.
For almost 60 years I have been told that I go, stay and move wrong.
I've tried to adjust in every possible way, only ending up tying my muscles in always harder and more painful knots.
In the blink of an eye my therapist broke the spell.
I'm now looking forwards to also enjoy my freedom elsewhere. Doing what I believe in,
paying close attention to how my deeds make me feel.Then adjust my behavior according to that.

So wonderful to be a work under construction!
Busy being born.

VULNERABLE YOUTH

Being young is such a painful, vulnerable stage in life.
It was to all of us, I reckon.

This poem of William Butler Yeats has been "mine" since I discovered it at the age of nineteen.

When You Are Old and Grey

When you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

.

Visit teach Mary at http://sepiascenes.blogspot.com/

POST VALENTINE

Dutch Valentine stamps.
A Monastery brother painted this icon of St. James. Be doers of the word, not only listeners" is written on his parchment roll.
A heap of nice icon cards.
Letters from brother Ole. throughout the years it's become a trunk full.
The nice drawing of two apples and the cards.

Valentine is long gone. At least 3 days gone. The stores have sales on heart, cards and special chocolate & flowers.
I first thought I might be too late writing about Valentine post festum.
Then it struck me that if love - all kinds of love- shall be limited to a one day season, we are in deep trouble.
Paul spoke about love like no one before or after him..

The Greatest Gift

¹ Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. ² And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. ³ And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing.

I have only one brother in the flesh. I certainly love him.
I also have a brother Ole, a Benedictine monk. Living in a monastery in the Netherlands. He is also dear to me. I have known him for 40 years, followed his ups and downs and seen him finding his place in God's garden. He's given up all his worldly goods, even his family farm, to become a Benedictine brother. Yet he loves his books and works as a librarian and a gardener in the Monastery. Lately he's also taken up icon painting. These days they are having a major indoor remodeling of the buildings. Lots of things has to be thrown away. Brother Ole know about my interests too, so he's saving cards, old calendars, an icon, a drawing to be sent to me. "I know you are a collector," he writes. I find his consideration a nice gesture. He makes me feel seen and remembered.
I'd rather have these gifts from his heart than things that anyone can buy.
Only the stamps have to be returned to brother Frans. He's also a collector.


http://workofthepoet.blogspot.com/

A SEPIA GOODBYE

http://sepiascenes.blogspot.com/
I always was my daddy's girl.
Tied to him by innumerable bonds. Here we had traveled six hours by boat to get to the ophthalmologist. I was three and my dad taught me reading and writing on that trip.
As years and tears go by, I realize that in life's versatile areas of knowledge,learning,skills,ethics, love, no one has had this immense influence on me like my father had.
To cell and backbone marrow level, that is..
After finishing gymnasium, I wanted to work for a year, to find out where and what to study. At the age of eighteen I became a teacher for half a year. Just past nineteen, I decided I had to try something else. Got a job in an old fashioned psychiatric ward. There was a nurse and me, taking care of 30 men.
My parents did not like me to leave home in that mission. My father had to go to his office. When I came down the morning of departure I found this message.
We didn't know of Valentine's back then, but the date is February 14th. The paper has not been manipulated. It has had its place in my Bible all these years.In my 51th year, I in three days managed to break both wrist and ankle. Diagnosis osteoporosis. My dad came to town comforting and helping out. He was 79. Gunnar caught this precious moment..
Thank you, EG Tour Guide, for helping me out with the pictures.Wow,I even managed to sharpen my Ruby homeoffice collage. By and by I will get better.

PRAYER

I hope that all of you will post this somewhere on your blogs. All you are asked to do is keep this circulating. Even if it's to one more person. In memory of anyone you know that has been struck down by cancer or is still living with it.

This is for you, B.
Love you,
Annie

Dear God,
I pray for the cure of cancer.
Amen
Cousin Sylvia. This is for you too. You are so brave.

RUBY TUESDAY SPRING

February second is reckoned to be first day of spring in our part of Norway. February fourth winter came with snow, frost and total transformation of the scenery.
Outside my kitchen window the Birches, the Lilac tree and the Spirea hedge looked like a carefully made art of filigree. The only red being the reflex of the lamp and two candles.
Since January first I have fetched Forsythia branches from the garden and driven them to bloom indoors.
The first ones took two weeks, now four days will be enough.
In January I also start buying Primroses, four per week. They'll then fall down and are being replanted outdoors. Often they will bloom a second time in May.
The flowers make my kitchen table look like an immense firework of spring forces.
I drink tap water filled and chilled on empty Martini bottles in the fridge. While listening to The Spring by Edvard Grieg I am living happily in the sudden winter, with a certain knowledge of the joys that is to come.
For the Valentiners:
To
Music, when soft voices die,
Vibrates in the memory -
Odours, when sweet violets sicken,
Live within the sense they quicken.

Rose leaves, when the rose is dead,
Are heaped for the beloved's bed;
And so thy thoughts,
when thou art gone,
Love itself shall slumber on.
Percy Bysshe Shelley


http://workofthepoet.blogspot.com/

WINTER HIKES

Hiker girls strikes again!
After opening year 2009 with three weeks in bed, I was finally able to join the group last week Tuesday of January. This is how our scenery is nowadays. Frozen, but no snow. The Rhododendron, queen of the coast, is already out of the start pit. Buds ready for blooming..in May.
Three days ago we were walking round the Stakkestad water. Drinking water reservoir of Haugesund.
The brooks were not entirely frozen.
Tilly is explaining how her mother used to wash clothes in this brook, summer and winter as well.
I should like to know - For Ruby Tuesday- which tree has red branches.
This red boat belongs to the hut Happy-side.
In the back-garden I found this old gate.
Snowdrops in the sun close to the hut.
Liv and Tilly playing Jesus & Peter. Walking on water.
Underneath what we call steel ice. Thick, but transparent. The bass singing of the ice was actually quite frightening.
Tilly's grandchild has made the wooden heart dangling on her rucksack.
Nobody makes modern art like our God.
From the January hike. We started out from a group of Menhirs. They are so fascinating, mighty, yet we know but little about this pre historic stone monuments.
Menhirs in a half circle. Me dressed in four layers of wool and windproof material. Wind and ice craves polar equipment.
We were outdoors for four hours. Walking where no path was visible. The red dots painted on stones were the only signals that we were on that right direction.
I do admire the Free air councils. They are public and provide marking of paths all over the county. We did not meet a single soul that day. If not for the red markings, we would easily have been lost.
No hike without a tea/coffee break.
Stones piled in a varde/ cairn mark the end point of our walk a cod in a fjord. Cairns are used as marks on hilltops and viewpoints from the early viking ages. In times of war bonfires were lit on the cairns. This way the signals went rapidly miles and miles from coast inwards the long fjords.
The men were organized in ship groups, each responsible for arms and equipment, assembling places and also passing the message on.
This is a wooden lavvo, also for free common use.

Inside there's a fireplace, wood and benches. the smoke goes out in an opening in the roof.
kindergartens, scouts and hikers are free to use the lavvos. It's evident that everybody takes care of the hut, put out the fire and close the door before leaving. So far I have not heard of any ravage.
People walking this far have a natural respect for common property. It might, in need, save life.

RUBY HOME OFFICE

My office is situated downstairs, which to times is a bit impractical. I therefore gradually have developed a second one in my kitchen, the heart of our home.
My kitchen dresser is horseshoe shaped.
So convenient to turn my back both to the sink and the stove when I write or surf.
Downstairs I'm reading, painting, thinking, creating stuff from odds and ends.
Both places music, read: i-pod and loudspeakers, is essential.

I guess this is the last time I go for a tile composition. I just had to prove to myself I could do it on my own. Please do double click to enlarge and get the pix sharp!
A Happy Ruby Tuesday all over the world.

This poem by H. W.Longfellow has been much loved by both my father and me.
It also kind of describes the situation of a blogger.

I shot an arrow into the air,
It fell to earth, I knew not where;
For, so swiftly it flew, the sight
Could not follow it in its flight.

It breathed a song into the air,
It fell to earth, I knew not where;
For who has sight so keen and strong,
That it can follow the flight of song?

Long, long afterward, in an oak
I found the arrow, still unbroke;
And the song, from beginning to end,
I found again in the heart of a friend.

Originated by MaryT, check hers for today.

SEPIA LOVE

Sepia Scenes Hosted by Teach Mary
My father shot this picture in 1947. He had a prewar accordion camera of unknown origin.
Paper film which he had to trade for two Records plus the money. Luxury goods were rationalized till mid fifties.
Neither had he a stand for his camera, but a self-timing release was frequently used.
Like in this picture. My mother tells how she had to sit for "hours" while my father adjusted the focus.
Then he'd run like a lighting to pose in time.

I made the sepia.

We'll go no more a-roving

SO, we'll go no more a-roving
So late into the night,
Though the heart be still as loving,
And the moon be still as bright.
For the sword outwears its sheath,
And the soul wears out the breast,
And the heart must pause to breathe,
And love itself have rest.
Though the night was made for loving,
And the day returns too soon,
Yet we'll go no more a-roving
By the light of the moon. Lord Byron

Arne Ljung born January 27th 1921

Two years ago we celebrated my Dad's birthday, January 27th.
Gunnar shot this beautiful portrait that very day.
Showing my father's most inner personality.
Awake, conscious, intelligent, loving, but shy.
June first same year my father went home to stay with his parents and siblings.
I miss him so.

This was one of the poems he often would read loud to me.
Most of his favorite poems he knew by heart.

When I am Dead, My Dearest

by Christina Georgina Rossetti
(1830-1894)

---

When I am dead, my dearest,
Sing no sad songs for me;
Plant thou no roses at my head,
Nor shady cypress tree:
Be the green grass above me
With showers and dewdrops wet;
And if thou wilt, remember,
And if thou wilt, forget.

I shall not see the shadows,
I shall not feel the rain;
I shall not hear the nightingale
Sing on, as if in pain:
And dreaming through the twilight
That doth not rise nor set,
Haply I may remember,
And haply may forget .

RUBY GLASS

I have had the great luck of having daughter Serina home before and after she went to London.
Being eager to learn I snapped her to help me making more tile pictures of my macros.
Gunnar slowly drag me into using manual handling of his camera
They both take me one step at a time.
These pix are shot with me only using one "steering wheel" on the camera.
Next time I'll go for three

Selected Poems by Emily Dickinson
For Serina
I never saw a moor,
I never saw the sea;
Yet know I how the heather looks,
And what a wave must be.

I never spoke with God,
Nor visited in heaven;
Yet certain am I of the spot
As if the chart were given.



Originated by MaryT, check hers for today.

SEPIA FLEE MARKET

I just had to experiment alone to see if I mastered the sepia thing.
All items exhibited on the picture origins from flee markets in a period of 30 years.
Now filling every empty space in our hallway.

Selected Poems by Emily Dickinson

I died for beauty but was scarce
Adjusted in the tomb,
When one who died for truth was lain
In an adjoining room.

He questioned softly why I failed?
"For beauty," I replied.
"And I for truth,--the two are one;
We brethren are," he said.

And so, as kinsmen met a night,
We talked between the rooms,
Until the moss had reached our lips,
And covered up our names.

Emily Dickinson is a favorite.
She somehow connects well with sepia.

RUBY PURSE PASSION

There are hobbies, collectibles and passions.
I'm familiar with all.
I paint, knit, write and do a tiny bit of photography; hobby.
I collect glass, china, old photos/ frames, old jewelry, books.
Purses/ bags are my passion. I just cannot pass a store without taking a peak, and very often making a buy.
Be it the posh LV shop in Oslo, the San Lorenzo market in Florence, Portobello Road, London the Trastavere Sunday in Rome, the local Salvation Army store or e-bay. Been there, done it.
Some bags are collected for recycling to SA store, some are due for remote storage in the attic.
First I've assembled some of the rubies for a macro shooting.
To get the macro look; doubleclick!.
Originated by MaryT, check hers for today.