This is the first in a series of paintings that I’ve made on book paper. The book is one that I bought second hand in Germany, and it’s about plants and natural remedies (well, as far as I can understand).
This painting is “ein Herz”, a heart, with small flowers growing out of it and the word “ein” in the middle, for wholeheartedness.
~ Get a page for you or someone else, carry with you a part of the bigger story ~
You learn more from the sky if you study it as a poet than as a scientist.
(That’s a sentence that just kind of “sound good”, but I mean it very seriously. I chose an extra astronomy class in school as if it would bring me deeper into the mystery of open space, but most of the lectures were spent memorizing complicated mathematical formulas that described the distance between stars, and I got answers in amount of light years, but it wasn’t really what I was searching for.
I was thinking about it lately, because I was looking through the Narnia books and read this:
“In our world a star is just a big ball of flaming gas.”
“Even in your world, my son, that is not what a star is, but only what it is made of.”
And I was thinking that stars can feel so non-romantic when we’ve learned their chemichal/biological components. But on the other hand we know that people are mainly made out of simple H2O, and that doesn’t seem to take the magic out of us. We know that we’re more than what we’re made of. Maybe it’s the same with the things in nature that science seems to have taken the mystery out of.)
I guess because it’s what poetry does, it doesn’t try to erase the mystery, it tries to carry you deeper into it.
Summer always seems to arrive so slowly, but then suddenly the flowers are blooming and it’s 8 in the evening with the sun still in the sky.
♥(and observe on the couch the big rocket shaped balloon that my friend got me for my birthday)♥
Faith is sassy. It wears a smile. It’s similar to confidence, except that it’s not confidence in your own characteristics and abilities, but in Gods. It’s similar but with another source. A better source, an unending one. And faith does not contain fear, it’s not passivity in fear of disappointing God, it leads to activity together with Him and for Him, in confidence in who He is and confidence in who He has created us to be in His kingdom. It’s walking and acting and creating, it’s choices and future and an ability to dig into whatever we’re feeling today, because we have an unquenchable hope for the future.
What if we all would stay
a little bit longer
before we leave our moments
before stepping into the next
(Then maybe we would stop)
leaning awkwardly against our own ribs
instead sinking into the armchair
of every moment
that makes up our lives.
Lately I’ve been trying to stay ‘a little longer’ in every moment, just before I do something new. And I’ve realised that it’s easier to wait an extra 60 seconds before you go on your phone than it is to decide that you won’t even look at instagram for a whole night. And it proves to you: your own self control – in case you want to not look at your phone the rest of the night. You cut off habit and make an actual choice.
You sit down in your bed, pick up your phone, and then you put it down again. Stare straight ahead. Think a little bit. Be with God, be with yourself. Maybe close your eyes. And then you can pick it up again.
Let every moment linger. Think a bit. Realise something new, write something down. More starts growing in your mind. Such is the nature of the sitting down.
Sit and deal with it.
Think about and handle the situation you’re in.
What are you feeling?
Because look at how cute these two are:
Just chilling in some little village we passed through briefly, they made great models – way too cute not to photograph.
To do lists and planning are also times to:
1. sit down and
2. give things to God and
3. honour Him by awareness.
It’s easy to forget that I’m in Germany. Sure, the city centre has some classical architecture and I’m saying “Danke” to people in the store, but all in all things are pretty similar. The neighbourhood I’m living in could just as well be located in my home city in Sweden. At least kind of.
I guess what I’m saying is: I’m getting used to this, so when we drove an hour away from the city, out into the “fränkische schweiz”, with idyllic little villages resting in the valleys between tall mountains, I felt like I stepped into a fairytale. Driving to something like that from Sweden would be a “this is what we’re doing this summer” kinda thing, but now it was just a friday excursion. Beautiful beautiful beautiful, to bring some more breath and peace into our lives.
And even if you’re in your home country, wherever you are, there’s probably something cool nearby. Get out, whenever you can. I mean, stick to places where there’s no people of course – but fortunately nature has a lot of space.
–
Notes from my phone in the evening:
– Let’s bring this air into the city. I breathe in here and breathe out amongst the dirty street corners. Sun and moon over empty streets. I bring with me a song of birds and waters. It’s awakening in here too, even amongst graffiti and grey.
This morning the air smelled like rain. So much that it was heavy with it, almost too much.
I woke up early, because I have a problem with keeping rhythm and “balance” and I know that if I keep trying to wake up at 9 I’ll also keep actually staying in bed til 11. So I get up super early every now and then, to turn everything completely around. Today I had my alarm at 4 am, but I woke up at 3.30, by myself, completely awake and – kind of – feeling ready to start my day. I suppose that’s a life hack for night owls, just get out of bed when it’s still night time.
I took a nice walk some time after 6, and some guy asked me (in German) if I was just taking a walk or heading to work, and I answered (in German) that I was just walking, and we commented on how early it was and I was feeling much proud of my language skills.
It’s gonna be a good day. (Or even if it’s not, this is a good moment.)
eirians 