Fractals on Friday

Often words are too much or never enough, unsatisfactory in any which way. Enjoy the silence (...and click on the images for an enlargement)




Keep well...

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Down under

Once again it feels like I'm back at Ground Zero, trying to contain and at the same time trying to understand the anger that is simmering quietly in the basement of my mind.


Sometimes I'm not so sure of myself.

Keep well...

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¿Que?

What I mean to say is not always quite the same as what you think you hear.


Keep listening, try to understand each other for a change and keep well...

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Fractals on Friday

There's a cold wind blowing at the moment, rustling the leaves along to where they need to go and chilling me in the early morning. Autumn is a reflective time of year for me, a time for looking back and preparing me for the months of darkness which are soon to come.


I have a mild fondness for the dark days of the year, even though they've usually been coloured by deep and prolonged mood swings in the past. Even in the cold grey damp of a world waiting patiently for the spring which is to come, there is always the knowledge that even the tiniest light or moment of pleasure can be more memorable than at other times of the year. The crystal clarity of the world I live in, which I missed out on whilst under the comforting anesthetic of alcohol, is becoming more and more apparent day by day, for better and for worse.


Emotions have been all over the place during the last few weeks. I've figured it's not wise to deny or interfere with them by now, so instead of tying myself up in knots about feeling guilty about my anger, getting myself angry about my sadness and the depression which usually follows, loathing the depression itself, fearing the mania which appears and tries to fill the emptiness afterwards to feed my guilt again. I just try to leave them be nowadays, attempt to short circuit the cycle and leave my mind in peace for as long as possible. Nice theory which works reasonably well occasionally but costs me heaps of energy most of the time.


As always, the cycles continue. Day and night, the seasons and my own mood shifts all alternate in their own ways. No matter what I do they always will, the task at hand for me is to figure out how I react to them and get my own act together.

Keep well...

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Drawings in the sand

Much of what we do or see are but disturbances in the sands of time, each instant infinitely precious yet dissolving into the next moment to leave hardly a trace behind.


Everything changes, in life nothing is permanent and even life itself fades after personal happiness and sorrow have been absorbed into history.


Enjoy the sand art I found on YouTube, made by Kseniya Simonova, a gifted Ukrainian sand artist. The images created contain long and sad stories from her country's history, but also bear the promise of hope and better days to come.

Reflect and remember. Keep well...

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Thought for today

And then there's the thing about figuring out "who you might have been" might have been.

Keep well...

(in a bit of a meta mood today)

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Elf Fantasy Fair 2009

This morning I noticed I still had a post on the Elf Fantasy Fair lurking amongst my drafts. Can't for the life of me imagine how that could have happened but considering the fuss and bother of the last few months it must have just slipped through the cracks of my memory somehow.

Never mind though, here's a small sample of a couple of my favourite images, the other three hundred photos of the Elf Fantasy Fair 2009 can be found here.

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Photos of previous Elf Fantasy Fairs can be found at:

Elf Fantasy Fair 2008
Elf Fantasy Fair 2007
Elf Fantasy Fair 2006
Elf Fantasy Fair 2005

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Keep well...

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Fractals on Friday

I've been having a pretty rough week, all things told. Life has been a little unsettled and somewhat confused, with a lot of issues coming together at the same time which leave me tired and unfocussed. It's just a temporary thing, but one that's distinctly annoying. Perhaps I'm trying to do too much too quickly to get my life back into working order, perhaps I'm just trying to find quieter waters which aren't easily found at the moment. Who knows, perhaps it's just my body processing the events an consternations of the last twenty years in its own way, trying to find a new balance under new circumstances.


Lynn's off to England for a few days, enjoying herself at some cosplay and animé expo there with a couple of friends. As much as I love my daughter, I'm glad she's away for a couple of days because I'm feeling exceedingly drained right now and need a little time on my own. It's a good distraction for her too, after the nonsense and acrimony with her mother last September which left her feeling totally disowned and rejected. Now the divorce is official, perhaps we can all get back to reorganising our lives and stop treading water for a change. I just wish the noise in my head would go away for a while though.


Light therapy seems to have worked well. Since I'm running the circuit of the mental health system anyway, I decided to make use of the facilities available to best advantage. Along with some herbal stuff I seem to finally be getting a good grip on my biorhythms, which have been pretty disturbed for at least 15 years. Most of the nonsense started at the time my father died, my youngest daughter was born, my marriage began visibly decomposing and my being less and less capable of working effectively because of all the noise and confusion in my life. It got to the point that I could only sleep for three or four hours a night, unable to go to sleep and waking up again at ridiculous hours. Sleep deprivation, combined with the alcohol problem, had fucked up most of my body functions by the time I went into treatment last year. My sleep cycles were still pretty irregular, although I had less trouble falling asleep at night but still woke up every morning between 4 and 5 a.m. Now, with a combination of herbal medicine and light therapy I'm better able to regulate how I sleep and I'm feeling much fitter at the moment than I have for many years. A second advantage of light therapy is that it also softens the dysthemia I've suffered most of my life, but which always seems to rear it's ugly head in the autumn and winter months.


I've got a life to catch up on, so many things left undone across the years need attending to. Although I'm feeling deadly tired I'm now able to steer my life on to a course which is to my own advantage, instead of doggedly following the route I'd been required or expected to take. In some ways having been addicted and undergoing psychological/psychiatric treatment have only made me stronger because so many difficulties which have hampered me in the past can be recognised for what they are and addressed effectively on my own terms. No matter what happens, I'm in control now and getting better at it every day.

Keep well...

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A little creativity helps

An admission ticket Katie brought back from a school excursion in England last week. Certainly an original way to cover operating costs.
(I wonder how much an annual pass could cost...)

Keep well.

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Fractals on Friday

Images in sepia have a special quality I've often appreciated. In the past I've done a lot of retouching of old photos, restoring a century's worth of damage and resurrecting images of people long gone. Today's fractal left me a little nostalgic, a small throwback to the time I was able to harness my creative powers in a much more effective way, and although I know that these times will come again I'm nevertheless a little sad that it's taking me so long to get my act together properly.


Patience is a virtue, recognising (temporary) obstacles is something I've learned these last years and maintaining hope for better times has helped me survive some chilling moments of despair. This last week has a feeling of being a little halfway between anything and everything. Complications are looming again, but I'm not worrying myself too much at the moment, just taking the moments as they come and as always I know that things will work out well, although perhaps not in a way I'd expect.

Have a great weekend, keep well...

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Rules for Writerers

I quietly nicked this one from Cheryl's Facebook page, which she seems to have nicked from somewhere else herself. No matter, some good stuff here for all lovers and possible misusers of the English language also.

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For all of you who choose to write your own emails, web posts, articles, press releases and whatever else takes your fancy, here are some guidelines that, if not especially useful, might at least raise a smile.

1. Verbs HAS to agree with their subjects.
2. Prepositions are not words to end sentences with.
3. And don’t start a sentence with a conjunction.
4. It is wrong to ever split an infinitive.



5. Avoid cliches like the plague. (They’re old hat)
6. Also, always avoid annoying alliteration.
7. Be more or less specific.
8. Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are (usually) unnecessary.
9. Also too, never, ever use repetitive redundancies.



10. No sentence fragments.
11. Contractions aren’t necessary and shouldn’t be used.
12. Foreign words and phrases are not apropos.
13. Do not be redundant; do not use more words than necessary; it’s highly superfluous.
14. One should NEVER generalize.
15. Comparisons are as bad as cliches.



16. Don’t use no double negatives.
17. Eschew ampersands & abbreviations, etc.
18. One-word sentences? Eliminate.
19. Analogies in writing are like feathers on a snake.
20. The passive voice is to be ignored.
21. Eliminate commas, that are, not necessary. Parenthetical words> however should be enclosed in commas.
22. Never use a big word when a diminutive one would suffice.



23. Use words correctly, irregardless of how others use them.
24. Understatement is always the absolute best way to put forth earth shaking ideas.
25. Use the apostrophe in it’s proper place and omit it when its not needed.
26. Eliminate quotations. As Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “I hate quotations. Tell me what you know.”
27. If you’ve heard it once, you’ve heard it a thousand times: Resist hyperbole; not one writer in a million can use it correctly.



28. Puns are for children, not groan readers.
29. Go around the barn at high noon to avoid colloquialisms.
30. Even IF a mixed metaphor sings, it should be derailed.
31. Who needs rhetorical questions?
32. Exaggeration is a billion times worse than understatement. And finally…
33. Proofread carefully to see if you any words out.

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Keep well...

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The thirty year holiday, and beyond...

Today, thirty years ago, I arrived here in the Netherlands on what appears to have become a very extended holiday. As a shy and naive nineteen-year old at the time, I had very little idea of what I was letting myself in for, what I was doing or where I was headed at the time. Just as well I guess.


The world was wide open for me at the time. I had done my best to leave my past behind me and had started drifting, in all sorts of geographical, mental and emotional ways. Perhaps it wasn't the wisest thing to have done at the time, but following my impulses and my intuition I blundered off with much enthusiasm to seek my own destiny and make my very own, home-grown, brand of mistakes.


Nevertheless, I've got to wondering recently, in the aftermath of several eventful and dislocating years. The realisation dawned upon me that the whole distinction between good and bad choices is an artificial and distinctly unhelpful one. As it is, a particular choice can only be made once and the consequences are binding, no matter how regrettable they might be in hindsight. Consequences may be desirable, less than desirable or totally undesirable, the fact remains that I need to deal with them on the basis of my situation in life at that moment. There's no good or bad in the end, just the need to deal with the issues that arise.


Quietly I suspect that the choices made that spawn the least desirable consequences, are those that eventually become the most enriching ones in life, often exposing weaknesses and flaws in the comfortable complacency I secretly longed for but which ultimately offered little of lasting value spiritually. On a coarser level it could be said that my making "mistakes" offers me the opportunity to look around and re-evaluate what I'm doing, where I'm going and where I'm at, instead of allowing myself to revel in a "feel-good" rut on the garden path of least resistance.


The world is still wide open for me because my eyes have been opened to finally be able to see what I was supposed to have been doing all along. I've lost a lot in the last thirty years during my travels along the highways and byways of life, but in many ways I've gained even more along the way. Better late than never, one might say.


Keep well...

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Fractals on Friday

The eyes play many a strange trick upon me from time to time. I see things that I think are there, allow the illusions which dance before me to assume a reality that isn't there and all too often see the things I simply wish to see, ordering the chaos in the way I'm most comfortable with.


My mind is often the same, bending facts to fit preconceptions and personal wishes, supporting often subtle predjudices and home-grown mindsets. I think part of my growing up is taking the time to stop, consider and question why I believe something in the way I do, look for alternative explanations and most of all realise that there might be some six billion plus other solutions to the same problems.


I take issue with those who cling desperately to fixed points of view, labouring under the assumption that if you change your mind you're weak and wishy-washy. I'd venture to say one might be almost recklessly brave to challenge the givens and accepted modes of processing information, which have been unforgivingly branded into our psyche's before we even got a chance to think things through for ourselves. I'd also say that trying to defend fixed points of view against all odds is more a sign of fear and insecurity, unwillingness and/or inability to look beyond the boundaries of the confortable, self-contained reality constructed for oneself, to the exclusion of all others.


Just a couple of thoughts this morning, based on a couple of fractal illusions and ending up in a quick excursion into rant mode which already causing me some difficulty. My attention span is not much longer than that of a brick at the moment, still a lot going on and a lot to do at the moment, to get my life effectively back on track and hopefully back into more focussed times as well.

Keep well...

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Running the race, looking forward

Once again, a little unashamed self profiling after a lot of training for a new race. This time a 10 mile (16.1 km) run between two major city centres, one of the major running events in the country. This was the first time I've tried this distance and was a little worried if I'd be able to complete the distance. This was a race I'd been dreaming of running for at least 15 years, but for many and various reasons never got to doing.


Our team.
I shouldn't have worried too much though, the run went extremely well although I experienced a good deal of tiredness in the second half of the race. At the start the weather was very hot, with much of the initial course being run on open highway and through a major arterial tunnel.


In the tunnel.
After about the first 4 kilometres though, the course entered more shaded areas, which made running a lot easier. Lots of people along the way to cheer the runners on, in villages and residential areas, with more than enough opportunities for water and fruit as well.


My placing and (interval) times.
After a while I hardly noticed the supporters any more, I was pretty focussed on just finishing the race which was becoming more and more difficult for me. After having passed the 8 kilometre point things became a little easier, although I was troubled by fatigue after the 10 kilometre point. That was strange though, since my average time was up slightly between 10 and 15 kilometres so probably I was running more on willpower than anything else at that moment.


A bar diagram of the 2.5 km intervals.
After the 14 kilometre point was passed, the scent of success gave me a lot of extra energy and a stimulus to put in an even greater effort in the last stages of the race. At one point I was nearly pushed over by someone when the road narrowed while trying to pass me at a point where it was hardly possible, which broke my concentration and caused a good deal of distraction for a couple of minutes.


About 300 metres from the finish.
The last 500 metres were amazing. I was putting in all the energy I'd reserved earlier in the race, the crowd was amazing in pushing us all along and I almost flew past the other runners who were around me. Unfortunately I hadn't realised that the last stretch before the finish was almost all uphill, hidden behind a bend in the road. Having used up almost all my energy it took all I could give to get to the top of the gradient and into the last 150 metres in which I blazed to the finish.


The crowds at the finish.
This race was the conclusion of months of preparation. Although I hadn't been feeling all that well in the week before race and had had serious reservations about pushing myself all that hard, I found that managing a realistic tempo and keeping a good eye on my pulse rate helped me achieve the best result possible.


The medal, with a representation of the entry to the tunnel.
Once again, a major achievement I can be proud of and once again proof that I've left my addiction well and truly behind me. Things have never looked better, even though there's still an enormous amount of work to be done. Keep well...

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Fractals on Friday

A million meanderings and sidetracks, a mindmap of disturbed days. I've taken a different path for a change, escaping the familiar and well worn tracks of daily life to go my own way for a while. The images have intrigued and confused me, but I'm comfortable with them in a way I'm not often wont to do.
(Click on the images for an enlargement).

Keep well...

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Fractals on Friday

Events have been taking place thick and fast during the last couple of weeks. I fear the distractions will continue for some time unfortunately, yet for all the bother and noise in my life I'm feeling more consistently peaceful under the changes, than at any other part of my life to date.


A beautiful summer is quietly subsiding into a warm and somewhat volatile autumn. The colours of change are starting to appear, rain and sunshine alternate with rapid ease, the geese are becoming more and more unsettled as time progresses and the freshness of the morning has an awakening quality I've missed these last few months.


I've been learning to appreciate the small things in life more fully, to reciprocate smiles and give of my own, watch plants grow, to go for walks and leave the rest of the day behind me, to soak up the sun and be glad of the moment as it is.


The dreams have finally returned, now I'm able to sleep more deeply and more effectively with each passing night. One is given to wondering though, about so many shards and shreds of the past mixed up with confused moments of day to day reality. I've taken to writing down the events of my dreamtime wanderings, to discover the threads and running jokes being played out in my subconscious mind. Very enlightening, sometimes worrying and all too often annoyingly incomprehensible.


One action I've taken during the last few months, which seems to be bearing fruit, is that I now refuse to take on the "troubles of the world". One of the major problems in my life has been the processing of the immense, incessant bombardment of information, from the moment I come downstairs in the morning to the time I go to bed at night. My bedroom has become the place in the meantime where the rest of the world has disappeared, where nothing else is important any more. In daily life I feel little, if any, need to busy myself with newspapers, news reports or non-focussed gathering of information in whatever form, shape or size. It doesn't help me one bit to overload myself with the perils and plights of existance around the globe, as devastating and heartbreaking though they might be. Suffering exists and will always exist, but to my mind, my time and energy are best used addressing issues on a local and personal, one-to-one or one-to-few level.


I've given up on trying to be all things to all people, after having realised that I'd been my own worst enemy in the past, trying to please everybody all the time, leaving them disappointed and driving myself to despair. Once again the focus is back on basics, attempting to rebuild bridges in my daily life I'd all too eagerly let fall into disrepair in the past. If someone else isn't happy with my efforts or performance, we can talk about it but in the end it isn't my problem if I'm convinced I'm doing the right things in the right way.


And so it goes. The place is here and the moment is now. There's a new day to be lived and although every breath breathed is one less in my life there's a peaceful optimism about what's to come. I sometimes wish I'd discovered this thirty years ago...

Have a great day, keep well...

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Lost in Australia

Somewhere in the middle of Australia, probably as far from anywhere you could possibly get.


Hope the natives are friendly (both of them).

Keep well...

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Hmmm...

Not very thoughtful of Facebook to go rubbing it in...


Keep well...

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Fractals on Friday

Today I've been experimenting with backgrounds and textures. A little inconclusively though, I still can't seem to find a definite pattern in how the changes in the parameters affect the images, although some general tendencies have become a little clearer in the meantime.








Enjoy, and keep well...

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Photos of Castlefest

I've completed my sorting out and correcting of photos made at Castlefest earlier in the month. The rest of the photos can be found on my website. Enjoy!





Keep well.

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Fractals on Friday

The summer has been a good one, relaxing in some ways, invigorating in others. The days are visibly shortening and for the first time this morning there was a slight chill in the air, the colouring of the leaves has quietly begun even though the days are still warm. As always, the world is changing, ever taking on new forms and discarding old ones, nothing ever remains the same.


My summer has been a mixed up, confronting but ultimately comforting one. I've managed to shed some of the ballast I've been carrying with me for such a long time, learned to relax more effectively and slow down a life I'd been wanting to drive at too frantic a pace in the past.


A lot of lessons have been learned, old habits and cravings are being discarded one by one and new life skills are being taken on board on an almost daily basis. Despite the pressures I'm still facing, I'm finding it easier to address these on a more rational, less emotional way which doesn't leave me in all kinds of knots for days on end.


I see my daughters quite often, on an almost daily basis at the moment. It's easier for them now, the two youngest are still on school holidays, live close by with their mother and have all the time in the world. The eldest comes along every afternoon, we still have a lot of issues to sort out with each other but discussions are progressing in an orderly, contained and constructive fashion. We've made a tentative agreement that she come back to live here at the beginning of next month and we're now working on the conditions on which this can be done. Time will tell if we're both being realistic and if the patience and/or cooperative spirit wil last.


Possibly one of the greatest benefits to come out of all the upheavals in the last eighteen months is the realisation that more is to be gained by "going with the flow" to an extent, not worrying too much about consequences or possibilities and discarding regrets and "what if's" which only distract from the potential of the present moment. It's a difficult concept to grasp after so many years of chasing the delusions of "progress" and "utility" which ultimately left me empty-handed.


Have a great weekend, keep well...

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The deadliest toy of all...

"If the radiance of a thousand suns were to burst at once into the sky, that would be like the splendor of the mighty one."
(Robert Oppenheimer quoting the Bhagavad-Gita, June 1945)



"We knew the world would not be the same.
A few people laughed, a few people cried. Most people were silent. I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad-Gita; Vishnu is trying to persuade the Prince that he should do his duty, and to impress him, takes on his multi-armed form and says,
'Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.'
I suppose we all thought that, one way or another."
(Robert Oppenheimer in a BBC interview, 1965)


Do not forget. Keep well...

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Omnia was awesome

Lots of good music at Castlefest last weekend. Omnia gave a couple of magnificent performances.



Take a look at a much better version, taken from the HD DVD.
Here's a couple of photos I made during the performance, many more made in the course of the weekend will follow soon when I've finished the final selection. In the meantime, you can take a look at the photos I made last year.




Enjoy. Keep well...

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Thought for today

Thousands of candles can be lit from a single candle,
and the life of the candle will not be shortened.
Happiness never decreases by being shared.

Keep well...


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The edge of somewhere

Had a near-life experience this morning.


It was wierd. Wish it happened more often.


Keep well...

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Fractals on Friday

I think the most applicable word for today (and for the last two weeks too, now I think about it) might be "Bother". Enjoy some more fractals in the meantime, service will be resumed as soon as possible. Keep well...
(...and click on the images for an enlargement...)









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Fractals on Friday

Today, a little experimentation with variations on themes and manipulations of colour controls as well as the usual magnifications.
(Click on the images for an enlargement).


This first one has a somewhat Escherian quality about it, which unfortunately doesn't replicate well when zooming in.


Often rifts develop, through which I can see more deeply into the fractal. I found this one a little curious though, in that a whole new colour scheme presented itself as well.


Here's another, with an almost three-dimensional feeling about it when you look at the enlargement closely.


A host of fireflies, dancing at the edge of the unknown in the golden light.


A little closer again, the whisps becoming almost transparent.


These last ones are my favourites for today. Particularly the one below, with a restrained elegance most of the others seem to miss.


Keep well...

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The company parted

One thing never changes, that all things must change.

Of the three surviving trees, yet another became diseased and had to be removed today.

And so it goes...



Keep well...

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Fractals on Friday

This weeks collection of fractals is once again a somewhat mixed bag. It's been amazingly hot and humid, I've been sleeping badly and I've been left rather unfocussed for a good deal of the week. Thankfully there was a brilliant thunderstorm this evening, which brought some relief.
(Click on the images for an enlargement).


One of the things that struck me again, in several of today's images, was the contrast between confusion and emptiness which seems to arise over and over. In between the swirls and eddies, moments of nothingness seem to crop up in all sorts of unexpected places. Every time a different magnification or theme is chosen, new points of extinction appear of their own accord as if to accentuate other parts of the image, provide moments of relief or offer escape if needed.


Pauzes, breaks and time-outs are so necessary and so worthwhile in real life too. From experience, it's impossible to keep on going on at a frantic pace, trying to get all the things needing doing done and ignoring the need to rest, reflect and relax for a while. After a while the numbness and fatigue take over, an excess of impressions demand a pauze, to reset and recuperate in order to maintain a healthy balance in life.


When I'm out running, although I'm physically pushing myself to the limit occasionally, my mental state slows down and readjusts, blocking out a lot of what's been bothering me and allowing me to just focus on my breathing and the cadence of my motion. The moments of greatest satisfaction occur when I'm able experience feelings of just being, one with myself and with the world around me, without all the attendant judgements and evaluations my mind so desperately seems to need to impose at any given time.


There are moments that finding peace of mind is difficult though, when there are too many issues going on at the same time and that the lack of focus is sending my thoughts in all directions because I'm spinning out of control. The best technique I have to silence the storms of confusion is to repeat a particular motivational phrase or word to myself, mentally or preferably verbally, until I notice that I've managed to shout down all the noise going on in my head. Sometimes it only take me two minutes, sometimes after 15 minutes I'm still struggling because I notice that my thoughts keep on wandering off but that the greater part of the tension has been defused anyway.


It's all part of the game I guess. One moment is totally different to the next, I'm not the same person I was yesterday in countless ways, the realities of the world around me are changing at every instant. Chaos and distraction are replaced by quietness and contemplation, and all the way back again, in the never-ending cycle of life.


Today's been a bit of a difficult day, I'm still having difficulty concentrating but have done better than usual compared to the last couple of days. Lets hope it lasts.

Keep well...

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Early morning

Love the magic of misty mornings, when everything is still silent and close...




Keep well...

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