The weather is straight out of Antarctica today. The rain has pelted down all night and the wind whistles every now and then, just to let you know it is there too! We are in Haast on the southwestern coast of the South Island of New Zealand. If we were at home on a day like this I would make soup and we would hunker down in the warm house. But we need to get some breakfast at the nearby restaurant and be on our way in a while. We had hoped to visit several waterfalls along the road to Queenstown today but that is looking less likely in the pouring rain. Apparently this is normal weather for here. You don’t get all this beautiful temperate rain forest without a lot of rain. In fact this area’s annual rainfall ranges between 1500mm (5 feet) and 8000mm (26 feet). We are supposedly here during the more ‘stable’ time of the year, too!

I’m not much of a travel blogger, so I thought I’d just share with you a few of the highlights during the first third of our trip. Sadly, New Zealand is another good example of how humans have screwed up a perfectly wonderful environment and ecosystem. New Zealand was the last major land mass to be settled by humans, the Maori people, about a thousand years ago. The Maoris brought with them cats and dogs. As white inhabitants settled, thanks to Captain Cook’s multiple visits in the mid to late 1700’s, further devastation happened to the old growth forest covering the islands. The sea animals, especially eels, were fished to near completion and many birds are now extinct. The national bird, the Kiwi is almost extinct but there are a number of programs including reestablishing the habitats, that are ongoing.

We took a cruise up north in the Marlborough Sound that was named ‘the mail run’ in Queen Charlotte Sound. It was so named because it is the run that delivers the mail to the inhabitants living in remote parts of the bay, only accessible by boat. At each stop the resident came to meet the boat, usually with a dog in tow and often a few children who waved at us. The Captain had special dog biscuits with him and don’t you think the dogs didn’t know it! They waited, tails wagging, for their treats. Fun for the dogs and good entertainment for the punters!

An important stop on the 4.5 hour cruise, was a place called Ship Cove. This was the exact place where Captain Cook stopped a documented five times on his explorations of this part of the world. Whatever else he was, Cook was a great navigator. To have found this idyllic, protected cove once would have been a good thing, but to be able to find it again, four more times, is nothing more than genius. This area is blessed with ‘old growth’ vegetation and is so dense you can hardly imagine it being much different in Cook’s time. The sound of birds was quite pronounced, and a few Weka came to see if anyone would feed them, and a very cute, wren-like Fantail flitted around me at one stage until I thought it might even land on me! Both birds are natives. But it was on our return trip back to the port of Picton, when we encountered a large pod of bottle nose Dolphins. In this part of New Zealand the dolphins commonly reach a size of four metres, about 13 feet. They were not at all perturbed by our presence and the captain hovered in the area for probably 10 minutes until the pod had passed and swam into the distance. It was truly a memorable experience…all of it.

Much of the original native vegetation has been encouraged to regenerate and one can now drive along for kilometres on roads lined with gorgeous ferns and native trees. One stretch of road on the drive between our overnight destination of Haast, and Jackson Bay, the southernmost settlement on the Southwest Coast of the South Island, was certainly one of the prettiest drives I’ve ever seen. Unfortunately we couldn’t stop at the section of the drive that was the best, but just near it we stopped and I took a photo so you can have an idea.

At Jackson Bay, there looked to be about six houses. Some enterprising person had brought in a little diner style demountable, painted bright pink and named it the Cray Pot. The rain was teaming down and no place to pull over so I couldn’t get a photo, but imagine the most crisply new and brightly coloured little rectangle overlooking the turbulent sea, and surrounded by the accoutrement of a tiny fishing village, and several very modest homes. The lights were on and it looked quite cheerful and I’m sure it is a favourite place for the locals and also a welcome sight to those who have ventured all the way to that remote point and want a place to stop. Here are a couple of photos taken from the car, looking at the tiny village an its jetty, and also looking out to sea from about where the ‘main street’ of the village would be.

This blog writing from an iPad is less than satisfying and more into cumbersome, possibly due to user ignorance, so I will not try your patience further on this post. I’ll see if I can refine some technique for future mobile postings. The bottom line is, New Zealand is amazing!

“Progress is incremental for us, both as individual creative beings and together as a society and civilisation. The flower doesn’t go from bud to blossom in one spritely burst. It’s just that culturally, we are not interested in the tedium of the blossoming.”  —Debbie Millman

I thought you might like to know how my break, and my blossoming is going. The break has gone fast, the blossoming a bit more slowly.

A few people have asked if I missed writing the blog…well yes, and no. I’ve missed expressing myself with words. And I missed touching base with you, though I have managed to keep up with some of you by other means. I realised, when I was considering taking a break, it felt like I needed to just live my life for a while without looking for stories or wisdom about which to write. It is the old story of the well running dry.

A week or two ago I was listening to a podcast and heard:

You can’t connect the dots by looking forward, only by looking back.

That made sense to me. So, I began connecting some dots. And then within a day or two I read something Joseph Campbell wrote:

If you can see your path laid out in front of you step by step, you know it’s not your path. Your own path you make with every step you take. That’s why it’s your path.

Do you see that these quotations speak to the opposite ends of the spectrum–the getting of the wisdom, and the invocation of wisdom as we seek our way? Or maybe you see it differently–do tell me!

So I have been reading and listening and walking, cooking, painting, photographing, traveling, learning and yes, even a small amount of writing. I have been filling up my vessel with life. Whenever you wonder where your wisdom or ideas come from, allow life to wash over you and seep into your being. The seeping is important. Seeping takes time.

One day, six months ago, a friend had received a bouquet of tulips the day before she had to go away. She wouldn’t be able to enjoy them so she asked if I would like them. The light that shone on and through the tulips in subsequent days was beautiful. I couldn’t resist photographing it. At first the petals grew more translucent and opened wide, then little by little, petal by petal, they began to deteriorate and fall away. Still the light shone each day and I gave myself over to photographing their demise. It wasn’t tedious, it was beautiful. It was life.

Author, William Gibson, has a succinctly descriptive term, “personal micro-culture”, by which he means all the things you surround yourself with—people, books, and any kind of ideological input.

So this has been part of my personal micro-culture, the nourishment for my blossoming. I have returned to blog again and share thoughts with you, and hope you will share your thoughts with me too.

xx Ardys

One evening I was at the kitchen sink, cutting up veggies for dinner. The window in this part of the kitchen faces mostly southeast. Aware of the golden light shafts coming into the kitchen from behind me, I turned, looking over my shoulder to the northwest which is the position of the setting sun this time of year. After a very cloudy couple of days, it was especially glorious. But my eyes found a few whiskers of grass, rimmed with golden light and I dried my hands and ran for the iPhone. The grass was probably 12 metres outside of the door. When I returned, I showed my bemused husband what I was photographing. He said “How did you see that from across the kitchen with your back turned?” I replied, jokingly, “It’s my gift.” And later I realised, it really is one of my gifts. That is why I am a Light Chaser. I have to be, to share my gift.

Do you ever feel a bit ‘shrill’? Like you are saying everything with capital letters and exclamation points? Okay, it’s just me then. That is how I feel at the moment, and whenever I need to chill out a bit. Last week, amidst credit card debacle and setting up my new groovy, amazing computer, someone asked me for 30 pieces of my jewellery for their Christmas Boutique. I said ‘yes’. Now, why did I do that? It’s complicated. I knew the pain of credit card replacement would be like a bandaid ripped off quickly, and soon be over. I was pretty sure the computer transition would be mostly short-lived as well. And I have five perfectly good weeks before our next trip, so why not drag the jewellery makings out of storage and have one more go. I’ve been on a break for over a year, and wasn’t sure I’d ever go back, but after 20 years of on and off making jewellery, it seemed likely that I would go back. It’s a darn shame not to because I’d finally reached a point of having a ‘style’ and finally had all the beads and findings a person could need, so why not take advantage of that enviable situation? I’ll tell you why not… because maybe it was the journey to get here that was what I needed/wanted. Maybe. I can’t be sure yet. So I’m making jewellery again, for five weeks. It takes about 5hrs for each necklace. Each one is slightly different, but the style is the same, so they require individual attention. If they didn’t I wouldn’t be doing it at all. I can’t bear repetitive activity. It is mind numbing.

Photo edited in Waterlogue app, recent necklace creation

So. Now I’m taking a new photo every day for the 365photochallenge, I’m making jewellery, and also writing a blog, as well as my normal home duties. And today I have to take time out to see the doctor at the eye clinic about the glaucoma I’ve had for a couple of years. One of the luxuries of later life and not having to go to work each day is that I try to minimise my scheduled activities. That is, I try to allow myself plenty of ‘play time’. I’m still learning what that looks like–what constitutes play and what feels more like work; what time each thing needs, too.

In a couple of posts from other bloggers I have recently seen references to their ‘superpower’. The thing that they do better than anything else. One of them said her superpower was knowing when to step back and recharge/relax. Oh that that was my superpower! But it got me to thinking. What is my superpower? It could be very useful to know, especially if it is something I’m unaware of and could use to better advantage.

gum leaf with sliver cabochon droplets of moisture

The other evening I looked at my husband and asked “What do you think my superpower is”? He mockingly looked at me (he’s used to my weird questions) with his unblinking eyes wide open, as if after 32 years I was about to reveal that I had x-ray vision. So I had to explain that I was asking him what he thinks is the thing I do best. It turns out, what I think I do best is not exactly the same as his response, but it’s not that far off, either. I was expecting some surprising revelation, but our evaluations were actually pretty close.

So, his answer was that he felt the consistent style for everything I do in life was my superpower. He went on to explain he felt I applied a similar approach to my creative endeavours, home duties, friendships, etc. Well, that’s a pretty nice thing, unless of course you are terrible at all those things, which I might be, but at least he doesn’t seem to think so! It implies integrity, I think. Not so much the ‘high moral’ ground kind, but the kind of structural integrity a good building needs to have.

Still, there is the question of what do I think is my superpower? Where is my superwoman vision beneath the geeky glasses? For a long time I have harboured the thought that ‘lateral thinking’ is a secret, superpower of mine. I remember being in Art School when the term was first bandied about. Supposedly it was first used in its modern way by Edward de Bono in 1967. It refers to creative thinking, or thoughts, that do not take traditional logic, step by step. It is a sideways (lateral) train of thought, rather than a linear one following a more predictable path.

Photo of some of my favourite things edited using Waterlogue app.

It seems to me this way of looking at the world is in alignment with the consistency of style my husband was talking about. It’s about being deeply in touch with one’s inner self and having the confidence to follow one’s intuition, to trust the outcome. Inside my head, lateral thinking also has a lot to do with how easily a person can let go of what one has been taught, or suggested should work, in favour of trying one’s own solution. There’s a fine line between doing as you are told and veering slightly one way or the other to see if another way is better for you. Even moving to Australia was probably one of those things for me. I’d lived in several places in the USA and none of them quite resonated with my inner self the way I felt it needed to.

What will you do with your one wild and precious life? –Mary Oliver

“I will not bang my head against the proverbial brick wall.”–ardysez

So, if you are waiting for me to reveal to you that my superpower is brain surgery or playing polo, you will be disappointed. I’m just good at figuring things out in a sort of non-linear way. And as life skills go, I’ll gladly accept this one. And I’ll work at the relaxing thing.

Feeling quieter, a little less shrill now. Thank you.

What is your superpower? I’d love you to share in the comments below.

Silver ‘painted’ Corkwood Tree in late afternoon light.