If you bear with me and my one minute video, you will share a precarious event, somewhere along the lane to Carrickavantry Lake. What you won’t see is that I have a jagged briar wrapped around one leg which left tooth marks all over my calves, and that I am trying not to breathe in case I create camera shake. I’ve heard on the blogging grapevine that the latest craze is “vlogging” which means video-blogging. I’m not sure I have any aspirations in that direction, but I will definitely make some more short videos as I am now charmed by the possibilities! What do you think?
This week we are all celebrating the anniversary of the day Ireland voted YES to Equal Marriage and sent out a strong message that we mean to live up to the ideals of Liberty, Fraternity and Equality. It was a day of incredible national pride, love, tears of joy and a good old party. Myself and himself missed the shindig as we had literally just driven off the ferry to France. Having found a wi-fi spot in the centre of Cherbourg, we tuned into RTE to hear the news. There was nothing for it but to have a special dinner and a few Ta/Yes Cocktails to celebrate. It had been 8-10 weeks of a campaign that had been exhausting as well as exhilarating. Unforgettable.
I was reading Toni Morrison on Brain Pickings, which I follow every week for inspiration and signposts. The following is my favourite quote from her Commencement Address to graduates in Wellesley College.
“You are your own stories and therefore free to imagine and experience what it means to be human without wealth. What it feels like to be human without domination over others, without reckless arrogance, without fear of others unlike you, without rotating, rehearsing and reinventing the hatreds you learned in the sandbox. And although you don’t have complete control over the narrative (no author does, I can tell you), you could nevertheless create it.
The theme you choose may change or simply elude you, but being your own story means you can always choose the tone. It also means that you can invent the language to say who you are and what you mean. But then, I am a teller of stories and therefore an optimist, a believer in the ethical bend of the human heart, a believer in the mind’s disgust with fraud and its appetite for truth, a believer in the ferocity of beauty. So, from my point of view, which is that of a storyteller, I see your life as already artful, waiting, just waiting and ready for you to make it art”
Without wealth but with a belief in the ferocity of beauty…….that will carry me through to next week and the next campaign…..
I loved the birdsong in the video and can understand why you’d be charmed by the prospect of creating and sharing more videos! If I had such a beautiful home to share, I’d be tempted to vlog and build a community over at YouTube. With lovely videos like this, you’d add thousands more grateful Foxglove Lane vlog subscribers to your existing communities, but I love your photos so much, the stillness of one curated moment where your presence merges with ours, that I hope you’ll continue to do what you do here. I come for the peace, your poetic sensibility and a breath of fresh air. (I follow Gilly and Joanna, too, for the same pleasures.) I’m an introvert – InfoJ / highly sensitive to the point of stereotype – so contemplative blogs are my haven of choice.
Wasn’t that list of commencement addresses wonderful?! I spent a whole afternoon gorging on them and jotting down dozens of quotes. Did you hear Neil Gaiman’s address? But that brings me back to what I mentioned above… by the time I’d written them down and created draft blog posts around them, there was the next wonderful thing on Brain Pickings… and on the few Twitter feeds I choose to follow… So much overwhelming, incoming movement that I have to log off, even if it’s all gloriously uplifting and inspiring. Some days, I’d swap it all for one perfect photo, the essence of a moment captured and distilled that slows everything down and makes perfect sense of the universe.
I know exactly what you mean I’m INFJ too!! Although there are so many, many lanes I want to dash down, I have to take things slowly. Brain Pickings is a warren of treasures!! Soooo I just pop in there every so often. I’ve been blogging once a week and at this time of the year everything is so lush that I am being drawn in too many directions at once. Your words of wisdom today are a good reminder of what is really important….especially for us INFJ women! “That one moment, captured and distilled.” Beautifully said Janice. Looking forward to Neil Gaiman:~)
Lovely–so very peaceful. Thank you, too, for sharing the words from Toni Morrison. Just absolutely perfect.
Yes I loved the humility in her words……I’m going to keep reading them……thank you so much. :~)
This is a magical window of beauty. The birdsongs, the quievring leaves, the quietness of it all! Very inspring too. I’ve long been dreaming to try video myself (first thing then, switch to digital!)
Brain picking is always interesting!
Hi Amelie, I’ve been meaning to get around to it for ages, but it doesn’t come naturally! Practice is what I need. Thanks for the encouragement x