PhotoFundraising – so that we don’t remain so helpless

Over 70 years ago a very kind and progressive nation opened its borders to my grandfather who was fleeing from war-ravaged Poland. It was there, in Zurich, Switzerland, far from his native country that he was educated into a skilled medical doctor. If he had been ignored back then, I would most likely never have been born and neither would all the children of the people that he healed in his lifetime.

When we look at the humanitarian crises and the different positions that people take on them, my husband always concludes that “It all comes down to one basic question: how much do we value human life?”

And I think he’s right. How much do we value human life?

I’ve been listening and watching the news over the last few days and been feeling totally helpless over it. There is a strong urge in me to help so much so that I couldn’t sleep very well for the last few nights. I was thinking what I could do for the people in danger, what I could offer. My heart runs towards them. I’d like to be there on the Mediterranean Sea helping to rescue them from the boats or in Munich greeting the refugees and finding them accommodation, but I have a little child that my husband and I look after and at the moment he is far too small to be left without his mama.

It occurred to me yesterday that all I can do is to do fundraising. Using the skills that I have.

In September I will be fundraising for Doctors Without Borders / Medecins Sans Frontieres (just because they are so effective in managing help) by swapping my photographic skills for funds for the charity. The idea is simple: if I take photographs for you this month, I’d like you to donate as much as you think the photographs are worth to Doctors Without Borders via my Just Giving page.

If you would like some photographs taken of you, your loved-ones or your business or products, contact me through Facebook or my Contact pages to arrange a time and date. I am based in Derby, UK.

Let’s save lives together!

Under the clouds we are all small people.

(If you are from Derby, UK, please could you share this post with your friends. Thank you so so much!)

The bridge where tantrums melt

There is a bridge close to my house where tantrums melt and calm proceeds. I’m not quite sure what it is in that place that pacifies difficult feelings and makes more reassuring communication possible. Maybe it’s the joy of reaching a destination that does it or the task of feeding ducks or just being surrounded by nature or maybe all of these things taken together. Life just seems to float there. Just like the water under the bridge.

It’s not only the toddler who needs the bridge. I need it too, to quieten my internal communication with myself. August has been quite intense for me as the next few months are likely to be. When the pressure is high, I really appreciate open spaces more than anything. Perhaps I also have got a kicking and screaming toddler in myself who can only collect herself when out in the wild.

When I used to work in my dad’s orchard, my sister and I would spend a lot of time just looking into the sky, watching the passing clouds, connecting with the heavens. I noticed that my son loves doing it too. Looking up, breathing deeply. It’s reassuring, isn’t it? That under the clouds we are all small people.

What we fear

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.” | Marianne Williamson, Return to Love

Nothing To Do

“I’ve got nothing to do today but smile.” – Paul Simon

Smile :)

Natural dreams

Where do you go to escape from the turmoil of the world? I go home. Childhood home. Of course it boils there too. But it boils in a different language, about different matters although with familiarity from the past. We know our childhood homes so well. We know what to expect of them and, who knows, maybe it is this predictability of the place and language that makes it easier for us to truly rest and listen.

I tend to find myself when I’m in the unchanging landscape of my little village, in its stability. The fields, the trees, the meadows, the orchards, the forest nearby – they are always there ready to embrace me as I am. Ready to welcome me as me.

It’s a powerful sensation. Me as me.

In a world that demands constant change. In a world that asks for continuous development and seduces us with better versions of ourselves it is really difficult to appreciate the people we are and have always been – with our personal dreams, perspectives, and qualities.

In fact, it is even difficult to love our own core dreams when so many things around tell us that there are other, better dreams to dream.

When you feel like this think of the time when you last were dreaming with confidence. Big dreams, small dreams but with ease, no noise in the background. I have realised recently that I was at my dreaming-best when I was 14. I don’t know what I was doing ever since, but it was the time when my map of dreams was the most personal to me, no fears, fads and fashion. In my little childhood village there are cereal fields next to my dad’s cherry orchard. Walking along the fields, I meet the 14-year old. She’s cheerful, hopeful and determined. Where were you when your dreams were unfolding? Maybe you can visit this place? Or create a semblance of it where you are now? To allow yourself to be you, maybe with fears but without disabling judgements.