Moving I- We belong to the Earth

Let me start with the Earth. The song ‘I feel the earth move under my feet’ comes to my mind.  Although Carol King sang it as a love song to another human being, I sing my love to the earth-being, Gaia, and today specifically to this part of the earth at Findhorn village where I live. The ‘castle’ of Culbin Sands Apartments has hosted me for more than eight years. I love the views over the wide dune landscape filled with yellow gorse or purple heather. In bloom they are a colourful tapestry, drawing you in, to be at home in it. And I am. And I have been.

Being touched by the Earth.

I feel touched while I touch the soft sand, the undulations of Gaia’s skin on the beach, and I see I am build like Her, in Her image. I am soft rough uneven broken tough delicate. This soil is calling me again and again. I am hers. In all weather. How the very soil of a place binds us! First it calls us, the next thing it anchors us.

Earth does not seem to go together with ‘change’

Everything connected with the element earth seems to change very, very slowly, like the movement within a rock or a mountain, that seems nothing, doesn’t it? Until it expresses itself in an earthquake, that’s big, overwhelming. But everything is changing continuously. We know that, in theory. Small daily changes are easy to ignore, but they are signs we better keep an eye on to prepare ourselves for the big chances in our life.

Moving house can be such a big change…..

— I do not know yet for this time! — even after I have moved house and country many times. The idea I have to leave my wonderful flat and maybe from here is disturbing and not convenient. I’ll have to un-root, I will be uprooted and maybe even become unsettled for a while, until I find a new home.

Through the process of moving I hope to learn some things,

like about homecoming in myself and improving my adjustment to the changes life gives. To  stay in balance easier, whatever is happening out there. Spiritual teacher William Bloom, a regular visitor to Findhorn, once said: “Some people are not that sensitive to all the stimulus of the world around them, they are very earth-bound and calm.” But like William I am not one of those people! So I’d like to listen more to the Goddess of the Earth, Tellus, Gaia or  call her Terra Mater. To become her daughter. ‘We belong to the Earth’ and even if I might be a wandering daughter, having lived in many places on this planet and travelling for experience and gaining inner wisdom, I belong to this soil, to this part of the earth called Findhorn.

Blog 33 Photo and text © Adriana Sjan Bijman, 31 January 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

Time, just time?

Time is an odd phenomenon don’t you think so too?  I give my example, but you’ll have yours. Last week I went to the isle of Iona on the Scottish west coast. Cannot remember how long I had not been there, surely calendar years! How could it be, that arriving there, I felt as if I had only left it last month, or even last week? Everything felt so familiar: its sea of the ‘Sound of Iona’, its colourful rocks, its 'Traigh Bhan nam Manach’ the White Beach of the Monks; with the house Traigh Bhan and Robbie, the warm Rayburn, which invites us to bake our own bread and spend lots of time in its cosy kitchen… On Iona time runs differently.

Time slips, time loss or a déjà vu, it’s all so much easier to happen during these days at the end of October and the beginning of November; around Halloween or Samhain, as we call the Celtic festival celebrating the Celtic New Year in the Wheel of the Year; in the Wheel of Time. It is said that the veil between the dimensions is thinner. This would make it easier to connect from our world to the invisible world, the ‘other side’. In many cultures this has been practised: by the Native Americans, by the Celtic druids and even the Christians copied it from the Celts and called it All Saints Day and All Souls Day.  Time to honour the beloved ones who aren’t in a human body anymore.

In our physical world a lot of us believe in the separation: ‘here’ are the living, ‘there’ are the dead.  But maybe we all are living souls and we are not that much separated?  Maybe there are more dimensional shifts. I like to believe that.  My birthday is always in this Samhain time, and I’m interested in this ‘twilight zone’ in which time and sometimes even spaces overlap. Time only seems to exist for observers inside our universe. It is said that even physicists, although having trouble with this ‘problem of time’ or conundrum, cannot ignore it. Who would want to? It’s fascinating! 

I show you here a favourite photo I made of the colourful rocks at the north side of Iona. There is a deep pool or hole inside, maybe to disappear and swim to the ‘other side’?

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

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