Sea Monsters

“The sea snail slithered all over the rock
And gazed at the sea and the ships in the dock.
And as she gazed she sniffed and sighed,
“The sea is deep and the world is wide!
How I long to sail!”
Said the tiny snail.”

~ Julia Donaldson, The Snail and the Whale

At the beginning of the year, I found myself complaining about our house perhaps a bit too much, finding faults in pretty much everything, including the ceiling. I know that when I complain about the house, I do not really complain about the house – but about a lack of time and breathing space, generally about being overwhelmed. It’s intriguing how our attitudes to our spaces often reflect the states of our souls, don’t they?

Early in January we drove to Devon to spend a weekend with family and while being there we headed towards the sea, to Dawlish Warren. Maybe even to remind ourselves what it is to experience vast open spaces and the freedom that they offer. Winter sea air is wonderful for taking deep lung-stretching breaths and for carefree runs towards the sea. The runs are necessary if, just like a very curious three-year old, you want to find out where the beach sand is soft enough for your feet (or shoes) to sink in.

There are many attitudes that we can develop towards our personal spaces, we can project ourselves on to them, but the sea is too great and too majestic for us to do it and as a result it projects its greatness and dignity on us. That is why, having seen the sea, we come back to our homes with greater respect, awe and appreciation of ourselves and the whole humanity.

La Befana

Befana7-3 — Card by the charity: EMBRACE the Middle East

Happy Epiphany!

So today we celebrate the Three Wise Men visiting Jesus as a small child. Our little one has also had his own visitor: a very old lady with broken shoes and poor clothes who traveled in the night on her broomstick to leave some small and delicious presents. It turned out that I was the only mischievous child in our house as I was the only one who found onion and garlic in my stocking while my men were indulging in glorious Panettone (paneton in the Milanese language)!

The card with the Wise Men encourages us to remember the Middle East and the whole image evokes thoughts of humble respect and prudence. The three scholars bowed in respect before something much bigger than themselves, God Almighty. Then, they received a gift of prudence to go back to their own countries choosing a path that would make them avoid Herod. This is a story about guidance, respect and prudence. May we all embrace them this year.

Happy Epiphany!

This year I will be posting towards the end of each month. With my very best wishes in this New Year. x Alicja

Wish

At the beginning of last year I had a number of ideas that I was wanting to explore in my research. I dismissed them, a whole bunch of them. Throughout the year they were reappearing, in my conversations,in my (sub-) consciousness, in my Fb feed. Some ideas just do not want to leave us, a bit like that jacket that you really liked and talked yourself out of buying but keep on visualizing wearing it. Certain visions just do sincerely like us and perhaps the fact that they haunt us really means that they are for us. That it’s time to answer them.

I am in the process of gathering all my crazy visions and ideas of the last year into a draft for my supervisor. Of course, I am afraid of being criticized and rejected but I think that I came to realise that at this stage I cannot offer anything else – as these are the ideas and the truths that I am in possession of right now and my consciousness cannot venture further without those truths being explained and captured.

If there is one thing that I would wish for myself for this year, it would be to become more courageous. To not wait for a year for my ideas to reappear to trust them to be good, to accept them quicker and to just work with them as they are. I think I was quite courageous in my early 20s, by coming to the UK on my own and creating my own life here, but somewhere during that journey I got a little disillusioned with things and courage ceased to be one of my top-cherished values. This I intend to change this year.

I often think how to encourage my son to be perseverant. What should I say? What should I do? It only occurred to me recently that it’s courage that I should be imparting on him. That I need to teach him that he should be courageous because perseverant people are courageous and they know that failure is just a call for redirection. To embrace courage, we must embrace failure for “The physics of courage is such that if you brave enough, often enough, you will fail.” ~ Brené Brown. Perhaps, that is why my mother was always so insistent on us being courageous. On being courageous all the time.

Photography makes a difference

Lily-Lou & Oscar too

Most photographers would tell you that they actually like photographing their own friends and family most and I am no exception to this. Above are photographs that I took of people who are very dear to me and have been part of my life for sometime. Some of the photographs I also took as part of my PhotoFundraising Project (here) that involved swapping my photographing skills for funds to Doctors Without Borders. It was a wonderful project to carry out as it made many people happy and also helped me develop my own photographing skills. The beautiful bespoke children garments featured are hand-made by Claire at Lily-Lou & Oscar too (here). It was the first time I photographed clothing and it was great to have this opportunity.

All in all, through your support and thanks to the beautiful people who asked me to snap a photo of them, I managed to raise £480 (here) and I have one more job lined up in the next month which will further contribute to the fund. It has been a pleasure to take every single one of the photographs above and a big thank you to all of you who have agreed for your photographs to be taken, placed and posted here.

Thank you all of you who contributed to the PhotoFundraising Project. Together we make a difference.

“Never believe that a few caring people can’t change the world. For indeed that’s all who ever have. ” Margaret Mead

Have a wonderful year!

Thankful Tuesday (Poland)

We didn’t have much time for sight-seeing in Poland but seeing my family was actually what I mainly wanted out of our short visit there. Everything else was an additional treat. So today I am grateful for my family in Poland and all the places of heart-warming indulgence that I like to visit there. :)