Loving Lupins

The first things that caught my eye at the accommodation in Kinloss were the lupins. Majestical and noble, they were standing guard at the entrance of the path up to the house. Although their spines looked very straight, they were far from stiff, with their delicate, pea-like flowers growing in dense whorls around a tall spike in a soft apricot abundance. ‘Welcome!’ they waved to me as I entered further, and was pleasantly distracted by a group of bright red Papaver orientalis surrounded by at least five different colours of aquilegias. “This looks good!” I exclaimed. “I like this little garden.” 

The owner of this temporary home, at the moment in Canada until mid July, immediately recognised the herbaceous perennial plant on the photo I sent. Last year his woman friend had taken some of its seeds — which come in a pod as fruit— to sow in her own Canadian garden. Two gardens, two people on different sides of the earth, connected by lupins and love. Most likely they grow very well there.

There are many species of the Lupinus albus and perennis, and they grow everywhere in Europe. For thousands of years they have been found around the Mediterranean, as well as in North and South America, where, it has been discovered, especially in the Andes, the legume seeds or beans have been grown for food for 6000 years. From my agricultural years in the Netherlands, I remember that farmers grow them as green manure, to nourish the soil. A meadow full of these yellowish flowers looks astonishing. Nowadays the lupin bean is increasingly popular as food again, as a healthier alternative to soya beans. Full of protein. An antioxidant and a prebiotic. And gluten free!

I would start to grow them in my veggie patch right away. Lupins. And more lupins. Partly to nourish and heal the body, partly as an ornamental flower to heal my heart and to brighten my days.

Now bring me that garden! As that is still missing. With a house, my long-term home to be. Yes, please!

© Blog 46, photo and text  9th June 2016, Kinloss.  © Adriana Bijman    

This is a shortened version, the whole version will be in the upcoming book!

Summer Solstice / Midsummer / Litha

The Wheel turns to Midsummer, the 2ost of June. The longest day of the year here in the northern hemisphere. It is said that the Summer Solstice is the Give-Away time of the Sun. The light of the day has grown and has been expanding into its highest lights during these long, endless summer nights here in the north. Filling up the day and spilling it over. On the Scottish Orkney Islands it hardly gets dark and at Findhorn, with a bright sky, I can photograph outside without flash until midnight.

Breathe in deeply the abundance of fragrances in the air and the earth; light a fire; dance; wear wild flowers and bless the bread and honey and breathe deeply again.

And every Summer Solstice is totally different of course, like every day is different despite the sun rising and setting daily. Like the summers, like the whole immense cosmos, we —as the magnificent beings we are— change all the time. This year brings us an exciting mid June astrological constellation, with both the Sun and the planet Venus travelling together into the sign of Cancer, home of the Moon, home to all feelings, the heart and to the mothering quality in us. A great time to come home to ourselves and to the truth that lives in each of us.

In the Celtic tradition and pre-patriarchal times in which the Divine Feminine was honoured, the Goddess would share her power with the Sun King during Summer Solstice and they would sit side by side on their thrones. Let us honour both their energies in ourselves: the feminine and the masculine, as we are both. On these Midsummer Eves let us rejoice and enjoy the immense, sacred energy of the universe while the Sun touches the mountaintops, the seas and land at dusk and dawn. Happy Summer and Solstice!

Read and see more images about the Celtic Festivals of the year at my web page http://www.adrianasjanbijman.co.uk/celtic.html

Blog 45, text and photos © Adriana Sjan Bijman, 2009/2016 http://www.findhornimages.com

Gardening again

Now we write May again and although snow was forecasted for this coming weekend, the sun is out. The chalet, where I am temporarily staying in The Park has a south-facing terrace and herb bed, both yelling to be tended. The gardener in me can’t wait to respond. Weeding is the first thing that needs to be done. With the physical condition I have at the moment — amongst which vertigo with constant dizziness and distorted eyesight— it seems an overwhelming and Herculean task. I do not know how to begin gardening again! Kneeling to do the job? No! Squatting? No way. OK… sitting and moving on the ground then? That might work….  Oh my goodness! Is this something all less-able people have to go through? I never knew!

I am painfully clumsy, like a drunken sailor. For one and a half hour I try to ‘keep calm and keep on weeding’, puffing and sighing while every move of my head causes everything to swirl around. Until I have to stop from nauseousness. It is the most disappointing and frustrating experience I have had in this last half year here in The Park.

But OK, I pruned the sage. I weeded three meters of terrace tiles. I tackled a big long rooted nettle family. They’ll end up in tonight’s soup. With quite some effort I did fill more than half a brown compost wheelie bin with weeds and old branches. I did it! Now I’m proud to have gardened again.

Blog 44, text & photo © Adriana Sjan Bijman, May 2016

Shifting boundaries

One night, I, once again, dream of death; a repeating theme lately. I am waiting for several people to die, and they seem to take ages to do so.  Slowly, they slowly turn into brownish-grey mud beings. I stand aside, witnessing it, left desolate.

It reminds me of a sentence I once read, “Now, in the middle of the journey of my illness, I am left alone and defenceless.”(1)

A realisation pops up that the dying people are part of me; the old me, from whom I want to detach, release or transform. As I am not totally ready to do so, in the dream I feel an uncomfortable sense of guilt towards them, as if I am betraying them. Letting them die seems as if they were not good enough, as if the old me maybe was not good enough? I have to tell them that they were, at the time, but that now I no longer need what they stand for: qualities of my pre-illness past, like impatience, direct sharp communication, and the multi-tasking workaholism. Let those qualities serve other people now.

Time for some homework it seems, as I then dream I am being forced into a gloomy cellar to clean the incredible filthy steps descending before me; a horrible task I have been given to undertake. Finally, after finishing it, I discover an old squeaking door in the cellar, which brings in fresh air and light. What a relief!

My old organisational skills are well placed to open new doors, I think. I would like to invite and integrate a new me, new personalities, as a gift on this journey of illness. Dissimilar to the old me in many ways. Not only physically older, but also wiser, with more experience on the inner. This physical condition teaches me new boundaries to what I can do, and can no longer. At other times, it forces me even to give up all limits and borders, depending on the shifting sands of my energy. It teaches me compassion, patience and slowing down, in fact a lot of slowing down. Taking this in, I realise I now want to live with an evolved set of boundaries, whether I am ill or healthy.

(1) from  The Alchemy of Illness,1993, by Kat Duff

Blog 43,  © text and photo: Adriana Sjan Bijman, March 2016

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Signs of Summer

Peonies in my garden, June 2015

Signs of summer. Well, it is June and I still have the heating on, so that’s not such a good sign. But in my garden! The daily changes in the plants are the signs of summer for me. Take the strawberry plants: from a delicate white flower to a little ball in its centre, to slowly growing into a real recognisable strawberry fruit, although still yellowish. Is that not a little miracle in itself?  To see the bright yellow flowers appear on the zucchini, the swelling of the blackberries, the pink and lilac roses… and as a highlight to see the many peonies open and be present in all their majesty. I love it! 

Signs of summer

Slowly appearing in the garden

Sensual

Radiant red

Ravishing Titian red

Rebellious red

Beetroot, blood and radishes,

Nevertheless sweet, as strawberries

Slowly appearing in the garden

With generosity, like the smile of a lover.

And a longing heart

Heated, redder than red, helpless suddenly

When She appeared in my garden.

Signs of summer

Bewildering peonies: the Paeoniaceae

Gorgeous poppies: the Papaverus orientalis and rhoeas

Zinging zestful zinnias: the Zinnea peruviana

To name but a few of them.

Blog 38, text and photo © Adriana Sjan Bijman, June 2015

"How far is’t called to Forres?” "

Castlehill, Forres

“How far is’t called to Forres?” was Shakespeare’s Macbeth’s famous question to the three Weird Sisters, or witches. Later, like many, the women probably were tried for witchcraft in Cluny Hills Hollow or burned at the stake. Macbeth is now the name of the local prize-winning game and venison butcher. 

Seen from The Park, the nearest town, Forres, always looked quite far away to me, emotionally at least. But actually, now that I have moved to Forres, and commute everyday by bike or bus between my studio in the Park and my new home, I realise this is not true. Forres is home to Cluny Hill, to Newbold, to Transition Town and other familiar Findhorn Foundation Community organisations, businesses and people I know.

Spring, while the soil puts forth new beginnings, is a good time to move house. Blossoms smile along the streets, and in the many parks that enrich this little town and now enrich me. At Castehill Park, I feel feasted under the arch of pastel pink, ivory white and rose red Japanese cherry trees. Forres has more green to discover in depth. Grant Park, Sanquhar Woodlands, Bogton Park, Rose Garden, and Cluny Hills, with its winding paths around the four or five hills filled with woods of Scots pine and larch. 
Despite its surroundings being clothed with trees since early times, probably the name Forres neither derives from forest, as I always thought, nor from the gaelic Far-uís (near the water) but is a heritage from the time of the Roman Invasion. (My goodness, did they come this far north? What were they looking for in this rough climate and remote land, when they could indulge in sunny palaces with Roman baths with bronzed gladiators were queuing up to massage them?) Anyway, one of those Romans marked this place on the map as Varis, from which Forres derived. As said, probably. Earlier it was also probably, the Picts who erected the esteemed but mysterious Sueno’s Stone, which still stands as guardian to the north entrance of the town. More than 500 years ago, Forres was granted a charter by the king to become a Royal Burgh, although another king, oops, was murdered in its castle. Once the whole town of wooden buildings was completely destroyed by fire, once half flooded.  Alongside all this drama, there also is the glorious history of once being a chief town in Moray. I like to fantasize about all that happened here in the past, but I did not invent most of this information.  I found it in a delicate little book, written in 1894. The local library let me take it home to read. We’ll never know what was really true and what not…..

After living a decade at the seaside, with carpets of yellow gorse, broom and purple heather, with the sounds of yelling seagulls, I notice the differences in my new residence. So many other bird songs, a dawn chorus! Such different vegetation, and even different water. The Mosset Burn meanders through town before joining ‘our’ river Findhorn towards Findhorn Bay; there we are on familiar ground. As new I walk through streets with ancient buildings on soil that remembers the passions of the past. 

It is not very far, that’s for sure. Aye!

Blog 37, text and photo © Adriana Sjan Bijman, May 2015

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A massive fire

Thinking of the Paasvuren, the bonfires they still make in spring in the fields in Drente, the east part of the Netherlands, I decided to make my own Paasvuur and, with the upcoming house move in mind, to burn my diaries. it's a great thing to do! So  at the edge of the sea and dunes of Findhorn, with a friend together we sang, shouted it out and danced around the fire. I did a ritual to bless our past with all its experiences of joy and pain and release it together with the old books while we threw them and threw them in the fire. Our memories will stay with us, they are enough.

Deep down inside me, an even bigger fire is burning. A huge fire of anger, outrage, grief, and also of compassion for the suffering. Its flames, spitting out tentacles, trying to claw at my energy, feed on me and overwhelm me.

It has been said that you can only mourn if you can love.

Once, during the preparation for a ritual at Findhorn to shed our tears for the suffering of the Earth, environmental activist Joanna Macy said: “It takes courage to fully live in a fear-phobic culture. The dominant system cannot tolerate the raw feelings of grief and anger about what has been done to our Earth”.  I’m sure it means the anger and fire in me, in you, cannot be seen as only our private pain − to deal with in hidden one to one therapeutic sessions − but as part of the collective (un)consciousness.  The fire in me is for the ancient forests they’ve put to the flame to clear soil for cattle grazing. The fire in me is for the memory of being burned at the stake for the knowledge we had as women about the healing properties of plants, trees and stones; for the rituals we held to honour Mother Earth.

The fire in me is not a cosy barbecue or gas-lit fake wood-burning stove. I want to make a real fire to release my useless old, walk over the hot ashes, and burn away the skin, become raw alive again, renewed.

My fire is huge and it needs attention and to be tended by a real fire-woman.

Blog 36 Photo & text: © Adriana Bijman, April  2015 

Living and Longing — at the waterfront

Not far from my flat, the sea and the endless sandy beach with its pebbles perform an ever-changing seascape. There is my home. It is the water, a home that will stay, even if I am soon to leave the flat here.

You ask me why I so often go to the beach, why I always long for the water. I have lived my whole life close to the water. The lake at Dorregeest, its reed mace waterfront touching our North-Holland polder land, where my nephew drowned. I remember. The canals of the old Dutch town Haarlem, and the long straight canal between old moorland at Kiel-Windeweer in the north. The Italian harbours, expecting the ships to come home with damask from distant foreign shores. The Adriatic sea, in which one hot summer I myself almost drowned, struggling for life while Cyndi Lauper’s ‘Girls just wanna have fun’ resounded over the entire beach camping. 

Nowadays, for almost two decades, my coastline is Scotland’s Moray Firth on the northern Atlantic edge of Europe, where the Vikings once fought with the Picts.  Our seawater is warmed by the North Atlantic Drift, which we call here the Warm Gulf Stream, maybe just to make it sound warmer. We need that!

I had a free day yesterday, a non-working day. I treated myself to a spa outing with a friend in Nairn, where the air still breathes the traditional seaside resort it was in the 1950s.  I loved it! Each in our own way, we enjoyed the water. As steam in the Hamman, as hot bubbles in the Jacuzzi, in the outdoor hot tub, or flowing free in the pool. Even dipping our feet into the still ice-cold sea.

There it was again; the smell of salt, the taste of water, the touch of cold waves around the feet creeping up the calves, changing the body into a vessel of goose bumps. Standing, looking out over the waves. How often do I ‘see‘ the picture of a woman, standing at the waterside, her eyes longing over the horizon to that unknown not lived life, which could have been?

Water is so emotional.

Blog 35 photo & text: © Adriana Sjan Bijman, March 2015

Get to know the real Stars…

There is more to this Christmas Star flower than it looks like at first sight. You might know the Poinsettia —Euphorbia pulcherrima — as a cheery, easy houseplant which is flowering around Christmas and reaches around 30-40 cm. But the plant comes from a tropical climate, originally Mexico, where it is a shrub and can grow up to four meters.

What a presence it is! I was surprised and in joy to meet some of these tree-like beauties earlier this month when I was visiting La Gomera, one of the Canary islands. Its large green leaves slowly, wonderfully change into an overwhelming feast of bright red and orange flowers. It receives the light. It allows the light. This reminds me of Winter Solstice, when we, after some dark months here up in the north, are quite ready for the turning of the sun and receiving its light again; the rebirth of the Sun. Like the Poinsettia we dance to the Light. The Mother (of Auroville in India) received the following, as guidance from the over-lighting being of the Poinsettia: “Opening of the vital to the Divine love- little by little it is no longer the ego that governs, but the Divine.” Read it again. I need some practise to bring this into my life, how about you?

What stays with me, except the plant’s beautiful colours, is this ‘allowing the light in’. Allowing ourselves to be as big and beautiful and bold as we are.  Let us.  

Happy Solstice, Christmas and New Year.

Blog 32 - © photo and text: Adriana Sjan Bijman PhotoArt

Horses, cows and the healing power of animals

With their flowing manes they come to us through our myths and fairytales. Descends from the Przewalksi wild horses from the steppes of central Asia were domesticated and when the human was welcome on the back of this wild mammal, it made a huge difference. It changed history.  A horse is seen as nobler than any other animal. A beautiful animal, true, as well as intelligent and faithful. Different, but for me not necessarily worth more than a panther, elephant or cow.

In my youth on a Dutch farm we had a heavy Belgian draught horse, before the tractors were introduced. We had sheep, chickens, sometimes goats, but most of all we had cows. Many cows with calves, young bulls and heifers. When my parents started their dairy farm at the beginning of the II World War, my father had bought one cow. A cow is not just a cow; there are many kinds. And they’re not as stupid as their reputation tells us. 

Anyway, our farm started with Hoekstra 5, one of those world famous black and white cattle breeds for milk production called Fries-Hollands. Generations of Hoekstras lived on the farm, until recently, when my retiring brother and sister-in-law ended the farm. Only after leaving home, did I get to know other cattle breeds, like the Dutch Lakenvelder and the Groninger Blaarkop  (Groningen white headed cow) and then, in the 70s, as soon as the quota on milk production was introduced, foreign breeds for dual purpose (milk and beef production) were imported. Larger Holstein-Friesians, Italian meaty Piedmontese calves, the Limousin and beautiful white Blonde d’Aquitaine, both at home on French plains, and the Jersey cow. I like cows. Like cows, chickens or pigs, there are many horse breeds too. I ‘m just not so familiar with them.

We hunt animals, eat them or have them as pets and companions near the home or farmstead. It makes me believe these animals committed themselves to be with us humans, even if we think we are the boss and owner.

The native American Indians as well as the Celtic druids said every person has a power or totem animal. Animals as symbols of healing power. Each animal shows us behaviour patterns in which we can discover healing messages; free for us to use. You don’t ‘horse around’ with these powers. The white stallion brings the shield and power of wisdom and teaches that misuse of power never leads to wisdom.

 On my photo I show you one of the beautiful horses and Shetland ponies (horses of a small breed) while grazing at Cullerne Gardens of Findhorn.

Blog 31- Photo & text: © Adriana Sjan Bijman, 2014

Being young and visible, my ‘Youth @ Findhorn’ project.

Youth. Young people. Gosh, it’s easy to forget we’ve all been young ourselves, as every generation seems to express this period in life in its own, new way, don’t we?  Before last year, when I saw youngsters at the bus stop, hidden under their hoods, it sometimes made me feel uncomfortable. It is easy to imagine some people even being scared of them. Then I remembered my own teenage years, which were the worst of my life. I was a girl living in the countryside, going to school in a small village. I was so unhappy, so insecure, so damaged and I tried to hide it by acting the opposite way. I remember a photo made when I was 15, and now I feel a lot of compassion for the girl I was then. Without judgement or rejection. When you have children, you often relive these years during their adolescence, but I don’t have nor live with young people myself here.

So this all made me want to get to know more about the young people of nowadays. The modern youth around me is living in a rural area like I do. I felt curious (and courageous at times) to photograph and interview them and make a project of it: ‘Youth @ Findhorn’.

Many people around me in Findhorn know my photographic work of landscapes, flowers, seascapes; they know my community event photos and books. Why suddenly people? They ask. But In the past I photographed —in waves— nature (non-human part) and people. Activists, female farmers, 50+ women, habitants of a rural village, and some of these projects have become books. Working with people can be intense, satisfying as well as demanding, I tell you; a flower does not commend or resist being portrayed. Humans or nature, in either situation I have to connect from my heart with them to get the best results.

The young people I contacted I then interviewed with questions about their situation at the moment, at home, education or work; their hopes and aspirations for their future; how it is to live in a village, especially in Findhorn? I had to have the written agreement of their parents, who also, like the portrayed themselves, read back the interview, and together we made corrections if needed. They were involved in the choice of the end result photograph and they saw the edited summary of the text. In most cases this was a graceful process. Some people did not want to be part of the project and some others withdrew during, alas.

Looking back I think the young people shown in the series were very brave. The series shows their hopes, their sometimes insecurity but often their strength and wisdom. It felt like an honour to make them visible and to help other people to get to know this group better. As some visitors at the exhibition at the Moray Art Centre wrote as feedback  “Extraordinary & deeply inspiring work. Mesmerising” or “Thank you for giving a very interesting insight into this unusual and privileged group of children.”

I indeed wanted to allow these wonderful young people to be seen and heard. Last September (2013) I showed a small part of the series in the Universal Hall, these two last weeks I exhibited an extended series in the Moray Art Centre (24 September – 5 October 2014); which was part of the 1^st Findhorn Bay Art festival last weekend. In the Scottish newspaper Press & Journal there is an interview (Monday 29 September).

October 2014, photos & text © Adriana Sjan Bijman

Being independent or being inter-dependent?

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It might be that coming month Scotland, ‘my’ country — as I live here— goes independent. And maybe not. With joy I received my poll card for The Scottish Independence Referendum

It feels as such an honour to vote for this on the 18^th of September: the choice of independence for a country, without any war needing to be fought first. Having the choice of voting ‘Yes’ or voting ‘No’. The Referendum brings up lots of discussion, also in our Findhorn Foundation Community and I think this to be very positively, whatever the outcome will be. A neighbour’s window, which says: “Hope not fear, Dare to vote Yes”, makes me smile every time I pass it.

I just learned that it is not Scotland’s first attempt to be independent; the oldest surviving document about this fact is from 1320 when the Scots issued a ‘declaration of independence’ to be freed from English aggression and its dominating power and become its own sovereignty. Not far away from Findhorn lies Culloden Battlefield, which is an old wound in the country’s history. But personally I feel this independence moves away from the past and has all to do with wishing to decide its own future, more than Hollyrood (where the Scottish government resides) can do now.

This all reminds me of my own and our inter-dependence. I live alone and although I am not depending on a special relationship and as such could be called ‘an independent woman’ in the traditional sense, in the modern sense I am as inter-dependent as anybody else, as a human being. We all are depending, in the first place on nature, on the Earth.  But we are also depending on our friends, in a light —hopefully healthy— way, as they are depending on us. I am inter-dependent of my customers, friends and acquaintances, people who already know my graphic and photo work, who for instance ask me to do some design work for their business or who buy some notebooks from my studio or a photo book from the online web shop…. We serve each other.

So, if it will be a ‘Yes’, may we become neighbours who service each other well, who realise they are inter-dependent, both part of Europe.

The pictures I chose are about the interdependence in nature like between this intertwined group of cactuses in Jujuy in the north of Argentina.

August 2014, photo and text © Adriana Sjan Bijman