ABBY & THE EGG

When my next door neighbour was about seven years old, she came across me, frolicking and taking photos in the backyard. She liked to walk on over to our place from time-to-time, to pat the lambs and knock on our door looking for adventurous companionship, (or a peanut-butter sandwich). Boundaries meant nothing to her at that young age. 

Intrigued, Abby asked me if she could 'have a go' with the camera, and then proceeded to take over the rest of my afternoon, bossing me about while taking a bazillion pictures. At some point, we found a small, blue, broken eggshell lying under the shadow of an old macrocarpa tree. Abby took some of the most beautiful photos of that egg, placing it delicately in trees and bushes. I watched as her mind formed a kind of story with the blue egg, the pictures illustrating her tale...

HEADSTANDS

In the yogic tradition, headstands, or Shirshasana, are a revered yoga position, and are said to have many health benefits such as: an increased blood flow to the brain, improved concentration and balance, stimulating the digestive system, and also endowing a calming effect onto the practitioner. 

All I know, is that I get a real urge to do headstands when I am laying in bed, or in a field of grass. There is something so satisfying and exhilarating about turning your body upside down, feet to the sky. Like an expression of joy that radiates upwards. 

BOUQUETS OF DAFFODILS

“I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.”

— William Wordsworth