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?

http://www.adrianasjanbijman.co.uk

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

El Camino de Santiago de Compostela

Santiago de Compostela

Over the last weeks I visited Santiago de Compostela for its university. My study Spanish this year included one residential week at this prestigious university, which is known to be one of the best of Spain with over five centuries of history. I imagine it attracted philosophers, searchers and thinkers amongst the peregrinos, the pilgrims on their Camino. Santiago became a ‘highway of knowledge’ a diffuser of the great cultural and artistic movements that emerged in Europe some centuries ago.

Imagine, until the ninth century, this town was all forest, named Libredón. In its middle was a Roman Sepulchre and there, in the ruins of its primitive burial, it is said the remains of one of Jesus’ apostles, Santiago, were discovered. The today majestic Santiago de Compostela Cathedral was build on top of it and the town became one of Europe’s most popular places of Christian pilgrimage.

Not for Christian reasons, but for my own personal and spiritual quest, I walked my one-day stage of the Camino. From Santiago de Compostela through the old oak groves towards Finis terrae ‘the end of the world’, on the Fisterra-Muxía Way. The weather was hot, the landscape mountainous and my untrained body struggled with diarrhoea. 

But it was great! It was quiet on the Camino with twenty-two whole kilometres to contemplate. Then, when I thought I was lost, I met a wonderful woman and helper, as happens on the Camino.

During the sleepless night afterwards I was reminded of another Spanish route I had taken some years ago. With the sweet memories of the relationship that followed, the poem below came up. Just before my travel I read about Cheryl Strayed’s thousand miles hike, and I agree with her when she writes in her book ‘Wild’ “There ‘s no way to know what makes one thing happen and not another. What leads to what. What causes what to flourish or take another course….”
 

I still see her

walking towards me

in the old olive grove

Ripe and juicy like the new green harvest and

mysterious as the wild trees themselves in their

being, coming from another realm

It was somewhere down south

I saw her again

This time she came from the north

walking towards Fisterra (fini-tierra) like I did

A peregrina

Each step of her 800 kilometres carried by her maternal guru

we shared a part of the camino

sparkles on the path of our lives

reaching these green valleys of paradise

‘¡Buena suerte con tu vida!’

(Lots of luck in your life!)

Photos and text: © Adriana Sjan Bijman, 2014

Day and Night, Dark and Light

Tree blossoms at Findhorn - Dark & Light

We’re living the longest days of the year here in the northern hemisphere. The nights feel too short to rest from the at times overwhelming intensity of the light. Some friends have put up extra curtains to be able to sleep in the dark.  A song, well known here in our community, says, “Be still and know that day and night, that dark and light, are one holy circle.”

During these two weeks three community members left their body to rise into the realm of the Light. Well, after a challenging end in the physical, I believe that’s where they’ll be going. To the Light.

For this month’s entry of my Light Scribble I chose an image of young trees still in blossom in my garden against a dark background, a play of dark and light. 

The Mother, in one of her guided messages about white flowers tells us in ‘The Spiritual Significance of Flowers’ that “white light is the light of the Divine Consciousness in its essence. In this white light all other lights are contained and from it they can be manifested, for this reason white also indicates integrality, completeness and totality, especially the integrality of the being in all its parts, from the physical being to the true self.”

So take a deep breath. Inhale the light. Let the white flowers enter our heart and trust their light will shine on the darkness. 
To know this brightens my day.

© photo and text: © Adriana Sjan Bijman, June 2014

The divine and devil in ‘El Pico del Teide’

For the third time I visited ‘el Teide’, the most important volcano on the ocean island Tenerife. This May I came from the south of the island, which is said to have  been a desert for millennia.  Again El Pico del Teide —the Teide Peak— impressed me with its bare moon-like landscape. The soil seems fresh erupted ‘black lava’ of hard rock fragments; on other places it is covered with gentle hills of cream coloured sand dust, which actually is volcanic ash.  Like what came down from Iceland some years ago, remember? Nothing grows on it. Its earth seems as dead as the native aboriginal people the Guanches, who lived on the islands until the Spanish conquerors arrived at the end of the 15^th century. The Guanches believed in the mythology of the Teide and many legends survived, telling us of its divine legacy. It was thought the Teide held the most devilish forces in its crater. Personally I can understand some of that, as a decade ago our suspicious German workshop leader felt drawn to jump into the crater, believing we all would be saved by extraterrestrials. Tenerife is known for its UFO connection. So glad the jump was prevented by the local police!

Nowadays the island lives off the more attractive energies of tourism and the banana export. You see their polytunnels everywhere. Like the native Canary Pine tree the residents have adapted to live off what the land can offer — or they moved away. The abundantly growing pine tree is fire resistant, from blackened trunks they simply rise again into the green. They possess an amazing water-collecting system in their leaves to survive the long periods of drought. It only rains 14 days a year. What a difference with Scotland! We enjoyed the sunshine and warm breezes that cooled down the island. Thank you,  beautiful island of Tenerife!

© text and photo: Adriana Sjan Bijman 

Tulpomania

The famous Dutch painter Judith Leyster lived in Haarlem in the Dutch Golden Age, the 17th century. She became the first female ‘Master painter’ and had, like her colleague Frans Hals, a studio and students. To my surprise I once found myself in tears in front of the original oil painting of her self-portrait, hanging in the Frans Hals Museum, in the picturesque ancient street Klein Heiligland in Haarlem. Since I ‘discovered’ her during my art education in the early eighties, I always loved her work. It radiates self-confidence and “joie de vivre”. She inspires me four centuries later. 

Next to her famous oil portraits, she painted tulips, lots of tulips on paper. Her tulip books became very popular and became the first visual catalogues for tulip traders during the ‘Tulpomania’ and its speculation that hit the Netherlands and made the bourse crash in 1635.

Haarlem still lies in the middle of a tulip area. I have great memories of living in that town at the river Spaarne during several episodes of my live. Think of the Netherlands and many people automatically think of tulips, so the famous Keukenhof flower show made ‘Holland’ their theme this year. 

Amidst all flowers I have photographed, tulips have their own unique place, as I always loved them. I created this image to honour the tulip and Judith Leyster.

© text and photo: Adriana sjan Bijman

Moving, dancing, swirling around

This month’s favourite is a dance image. Look at those odd movements made during Scottish Ceilidh dances! What is it all about?

We’re fortunate to have lots of dance performances, shows and workshops here at Findhorn. Since the start of our community creative expression has been important. In 1975 Bernard Wosien brought the sacred circle dances to Findhorn. Here they received a home, developed and later on circled outwards using the Findhorn’s way of attunement, sharing and blessing into the rest of the world. In the 90s the Celtic Festivals with Peter Vallance brought a new kind of dances. Nowadays there are a huge variety of dance practices, from Biodanze, 5 Rhythms to Astroshamanic Trance Dance.

It’s all about moving, dancing, swirling around and around…. And this is how my life feels at the moment. Spring has arrived, securing new beginnings. But where did the idea spring from that those beginnings only would bring positive change? Every tiny fragile new tree bud knows it will magically blossom in the spring sunshine, accompanied by a gentle rain now and then. But while opening into a delicate blossom it might be surprised by a spring shower or even by an all-destructive wind and hail storm. It’s taking a huge risk in showing itself. It will be moved, danced and swirled around and its strength will be severely tested. It must be in for a bit of a blow. 

And so must we! As for the blossoms, our own ‘new beginnings’ are not guaranteed to start positively. Don’t tell me! As here I am, shifted, switched and swirled around by life. Some roughly opened old scars about love and trust reveal ‘the mess I made’ (free to Amy Winehouse’s song): loss, disappointment and grief under the anger. It can be a long lasting dance into the exhaustion of resist. Or until a fresh wind brings the insight that actually a good thing is happening: old challenged perceptions and pains need to be released first, gently or by force. Is this all present from a deeper need to heal and grow? Is that its main reason for materializing in our lives? As long as I engage with, submit and surrender myself to the movements of this dance, while seeing it as a kind of spring clean before I myself can spring into the new beginnings of my own inner springtide, I know somehow it will be fine. I will be fine.   

So, let’s dance, “let’s dance the feelings, the tears and the passion”. Come on, I found some beautiful blossoms for in your hair.

© photo and text: Adriana Sjan Bijman, 2014