⠸ Tamaso Ma Jyotir Gamaya ⠸

Tamaso Ma Jyotir Gamaya

Lead me out of the darkness in to the light.

It's festival time, Shankranti or Pongal. A time of cleaning the house, doing thorough Puja, (more cleaning, prayers and offerings to Gods). It's a harvest festival, a new beginning, a time to thank the cows for everything they provide here. A fresh start, a family time. It's lovely to be here now. I feel it washing through me too. Fresh air, bright light, a new skin.

So many smiles, children handing out sweets and bananas, everyone wearing their best clothes, their finery, the fanciest rangolis get drawn and boys drink beer late into the night and set off firecrackers. 

This is the Puja corner in our house, some homes have whole rooms dedicated to the very serious business of prayer and giving thanks. This all gets cleared away and cleaned thoroughly every few days and fresh flowers and fruit offered to the Gods every day... Meditation is done here and chanting and burning of incense. I always creep into the house in the mornings after yoga as Puja is often being done. I learned my lesson after blowing through the house one morning like a demented sunshine girl high on yoga. Noone said a word, but I knew I had to be a bit more serene on entering the house in future. It's lovely and reassuring to creep into the house soaked with the smell of incense and flowers and breakfast is cooking and my dear Pushpa is sitting in prayer looking so tranquil.

Happy Shankranti means the livestock gets dyed, decorated and even more revered than usual.. yesterday I saw luminous dayglo pink cows in our road and didn't have my camera ready and charged...I managed to find this decorated cow later, with green horns and a crown of marigolds. You might know this already but Hindus believe that Krishna is going to be reincarnated as a cow so the cow gets the royal treatment here. Fed and patted and loved by Indian housewives everywhere. The cows just take it all in their stride. And then a day of make up and flower wearing and body paint. Lucky Cows! 

Happy Shankranti means that in the evenings the children all put on their best clothes and take a tray of bananas and a sweet mixture of dried coconut, nuts, lentils and jaggery around to all the neighbours houses.
See below my little pot of deliciousness~I love this stuff!

On my travels, I wish Happy Shankranti to people and they give me little bags of this mix which I must always accept gracefully and then when I go to another part of town and they wish me Happy Shankranti I give them the little bags of mix I've just been given and we just move bags of this stuff all round town! Last night the children came round with bananas and we give them bananas so the whole exercise becomes a banana swopping marathon. Hilarious. I said to Pushpa, make sure you pick the best ones and we'll have them for breakfast. Luckily I had a bag of packets of colouring pens I'd brought with me so I was giving them to the kids and became Queen Shankranti herself, which is as it should be.

I met this girl earlier, she was stunning. They are all knocking themselves out with the outfits this festival. I've been invited to a wedding next month, I am hugely honoured and very excited about all the colour and ritual. Perhaps by then I'll be immune to it. I don't see how though. I am as usual over stimulated.

And because of Shankranti the rangoli is even more elaborate than usual. My love of rangoli is never ceasing. It's still hard for me to get my head around the fact that these patterns are usually poured from a handful of flour. The flick of a wrist and this is what happens. True artists. I've watched them in action, I've tried it. I am never ever going to be able to do that so beautifully.

I just record it because it's gone by the next morning and a fresh one applied. Or the husband comes home from work and parks the auto rickshaw on your hard work.

Grounds for divorce?

Lots more rangoli images on my flickr page. I love it. It just makes me happy to think of the first job of the day is to wash the step and draw a new rangoli. Art and design and creativity first thing! And because it is made from rice flour the ants eat it which keeps them out of the kitchen (ants are a problem here but they are tiny little things or big big shiny ones, 

not inbetweeners like the UK ones)

What a brilliant brilliant beautiful way to solve a problem and bless the house at the same time. 

As you can see I am in ❤❤❤ with India 

⟖ world service ⟗

I am feeling quite excited about being here now. It's taken me a while to adjust and disembark.
But, hey, I am in India and it is, as usual, madly exciting, exhilarating and calm, all in the same moment. I'm well rested, feeling inspired, enjoying my pigeon English conversations and sharing smiles with almost every person I meet. As usual, an overload of colour is causing malfunctions of over stimulation and I am going to share some of my images with you from the last couple of days.


I went to the haberdashery shop as I really want to make something when I am here and when you are in a hot country there is only one thing for it, a blanket...I didn't intend to but I saw the wool and was smitten. I can't even tell you how cheap it was, ridiculous. Pure wool, colourfast (so they say) skeins in the most eye aching colours. I bought a few for 126 rupees (£1.79) and had to wind the skeins into balls, all rather delightfully old fashioned.

Especially if one listens to BBC World service on a crackly radio whilst drinking Twinings Tea! 

(I'm not being paid to advertise on this blog, but get your people to talk to my people if there is a proposition in the pipeline)

Once I'd wound my balls, I had the sweetest afternoon on a sunny veranda listening and hooking and thinking about lucky I was to be able to be alive in that moment. 

But then on my evening walk, the moment just before dusk when it seems as though there is a magic ethereal quality to the sounds and colours of India, a moment when anything seems possible and hopeful and an air of expectancy hangs in the air .....I saw this! Which fired up my wanty engines very much. Crochet garlands anyone? Someone find me a pattern?

But then I bought some embroidery thread and now I've got too many projects in the bag already. I shall have to stay here for a long time using up all my haberdashery. Would you have been able to resist?

And what colour cloth shall I embroider my life story on? It's enough to make a girl lose her decision making capabilities.

It's just as well I've got the gift of yoga to keep me grounded and unimpulsive and focused.

And I am so thankful that I haven't had to handwash all of these clothes. 

Until next time, Namaste and Lots of Love...

ૐ journey to India ૐ

The relief of actually arriving in one piece and getting through passport control was so noticeable that  I realised that I was all screwed up & anxious without realising it. I'd had a few problems, obtaining my visa, the endless bank holidays, the mad rush of Christmas and the general unsettledness that sits next to the excitement of getting away. So when I woke in a taxi outside Pushpa's house, I could have cried with gratitude. 

Since I have been here (only 2 days) I have been sleeping a lot and napping at weird times, jetlag really gets to me and makes me pay. I snooze and wake and wonder where I am...


I've started yoga, ouch. And it's a 7.30 am start which is an improvement on last year's 6 am. I wake at 6 and do my daily meditation (see my resolutions) and listen to the birds that live outside my window.


Visually I can't help but be drawn to shadows today. The lack of sunlight in the UK was becoming oppressive, all that cloud just sitting over our heads is NOT FAIR. But today the shadows are jumping out at me proving the sun is up there. 


I'm beginning to unfurl, to stretch and breathe. I didn't realise just how much I had been holding it all in.  I'm in the decompression chamber. I can see light.

✒ my unadulterated list for 2011 ✒

Click on the image to see it bigger...

A little tongue in cheek, a list of resolutions.

The bit about being nice to everyone?

I can but try {sigh}

I was having a PollyAnna moment

I was trying out some pens and a stamp I made for Rebecca N.

Sometimes I think I might forget how to write... I'm always typing these days,

I remember being at school and covering pages in scrawl and being envious of 

some girl's writing and trying to copy her sloping tiny-ness. 

But I just kept BURSTING messily out of the page!

I don't suppose kids today have handwriting envy?

Now tell me? What are your resolutions for 2011?

Do you have one? Or a multitude?

✻ cabin fever ✻

✰ Christmas Past & Christmas Present & a peek into the future ✰

We all have our Christmas 'traditions' don't we? Our very own family quirks and routines that make this time of year so loved and dreaded in equal measures. I loved Christmas when my girls were little, so many ways to excite and surprise them with imagined sounds of sleigh bells and decorating fresh trees that were always too big for the house. Velvet stockings with gold trim stuffed with gifts and satsumas and apples! We have the same fairy that we had then and a whole box of decorations that exude memory and occasion. (all a little tired but that's the point)

I went through a phase of loving Christmas, then hating it and refusing to play ball at all and back to loving it again. I'm loving it again. It's peculiar and it's ours. My beautiful girls and their various splendid friends, my gorgeous mum and my lovely other dad, various loved family members, friends and friends of friends. Whoever wants to come really. I cook and cook and cook, after I've cleaned and cleaned and cleaned and shopped and shopped and I love it when we all sit and eat and we are there, right then, around the table on a variety of chairs, all of us alive and laughing and bickering or smiling or lost in thought. Because there are those that we miss every day in every way but there is always a candle lit in memory, a flickering constant prayer. Sadness is a side dish of Christmas.

I wish all of you a very special time this season.

Thanks for being there reading this and giving me a massive ego boost now and then.

It's most welcome. It's so good to get to know you all...I have found so many new friends through this blog and although I haven't met all of you in person I do feel such a nice connection so thanks for taking the time to share my world & letting me in to yours.

It's been a welcome distraction.

So, to the breaking news. I am going on another of my trips. In the new year. This time I am off to India (again) to get back on my yoga practice that I fell off of and am missing incredibly. I will really look forward to a strict regime again. I crave getting up early and laying down my mat and flowing through some breath and stretch and making the space in my heart bigger. I have let it dangle and I can't do that, I have so much faith in the power of yoga. 


And then, ta daaaaaa I am going to Nepal. Kathmandu. This is so utterly thrilling for me as I am going to work with a charity and teach printmaking and bookbinding skills to children/young adults and hopefully help them design, package and market goods to sell; which will benefit them all long term. And benefit me by having a whole lot of new people and places to visit. Isn't it amazing? I am so lucky and I know that deeply I am blessed and I thank the amazing fortunate events that have brought me to this point. This is something I have wanted to do for a long time. It is a bit scary, a big adventure, but sometimes I just have to take a leap and jump.  I have never been to Nepal, so will have brand new fresh eyes and that's the best for sharing. This does, of course mean that I will be sharing my adventures with you too. When I see it for the first time, so will you through my words & images. Through this blog. Which is nice for me as it helps me keep a little toe here in England. My home and hearth and heart are here. They always will be. The wanderlust is rousing me, I have to go and see, again. So, Mysore, Delhi and Kathmandu....wow. I couldn't have imagined that years ago when I first bought the fairy. 

I do get homesick and I do get lonely and I miss my family too much but I also Want To Do Something. So this is my attempt at Something and hopefully it will be Meaningful. With the internet and Skype and Twitter and Facebook there are many ways to keep in touch with my family in between the power cuts and the dodgy phone lines. It's faraway but not really...So, all that is left is to wish you all a really lovely holiday season, however you celebrate it, whatever your faith and traditions are I hope you have a beautiful time. 

⫷and breathe⫸

⦁ Benjamin's Book ⦁

Rebecca wanted a book for her new born son...Benjamin. A photo album that she could arrange pictures, notes and writings in. I used watercolours and my hand carved rubber stamps to make the cover, I also created something similar for the back cover without his name, I just forgot to photograph it. The name was created with my 'circus' rubber stamp alphabet that I drew freehand and had made into rubber stamps in India. 

The spine is lovely French book cloth in teal. The pages are all hand sewn with linen thread and each page has a 'shim' which is a very very short 'page' to allow for content to be added to the pages without bulging the book out of shape when full. It's easier to show you an image!

Rebecca was very happy and it's a really nice keepsake that is fully functional. I hardly remember to take snaps of my work as it comes and goes too quickly but this was on my desk for a while as I was snowed under. And now we literally are..
Hope you are all enjoying the snow in the UK? It just makes me incredibly hungry.

❄ the more it snows ❄

As I type this, the snow is falling, those fat drifting flakes that float to earth. I really love the first snowfall, the soft padded silence that insulates my street and with the lack of traffic I could be anywhere, I could be in Narnia. Of course, by tomorrow the novelty will have worn off and the dog and I will have cabin fever and be ready to maim for fresh supplies.

This morning, I am off upstairs to my temporary letterpress studio to finish printing my Xmas cards...Using a very old Ajax press (which is a variation on an Adana) I am slowly learning his personality and his need for cajoling and fine adjustment. I have written off a fair few days on this Ajax beast but I have learned so much that I can't consider them wasted days but let's just say my achievements amounted to zero. It's always a hard fact that things don't always come easy or fall in your lap with such romantic outdated printing methods but the smell of ink and the tack of the rollers and the increasing pile of success is infinitely more satisfying than the whirr and click of a digital printer. Eventually, I become proficient and I get my rewards.

If you are a regular visitor to my blog and lover of handmade and hand printed then make sure you are following me and then drop me a message with your postal address and I'll send you a letterpress postcard. My way of saying thank you for sticking around when I am busy and don't get here so much.

⟴ a few words ⟴

Some images from my desk this weekend...and one from my woody walk.

Let us not procrastinate...
This is a link to the best blog in the world ever
apart from yours of course...
http://productiveblog.tumblr.com/
I am busy, you are busy. 

I won't keep you.

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