Ireland

Light, Water and Firmament

It is raining all the week: even the birds don’t want to sing any more. Everything is soaked with water. “Let’s there be light!”… There is no light, and the days a grey from morning to dusk. Not that I complain. It is a good enough time for photography.

I stop my car and take some pictures. Suddenly the hail storm begins, and in a blink of an eye the hailstones cover the front seat and dashboard while I am frantically scrolling the car window up. The hailstones are melting in my hands… My “models” run away. Oh well..

The firmament suddenly cleared and the light was restored. All the way across the pass, driving down to Clonmel, Tipperary, I had the voice of Lisa Gerrard in my head. As far as I could see, there was not a single human around. Low, heavy clouds and distant blue mountain tops; ravines filled with fog … This place is right for me.

I chose this video for my post – Gregory Colbert‘s study of interactions between humans and animals, and a beautiful song The Host of Seraphim by Dead Can Dance.

Now we walk down to the sea.

The sand trees are as fascinating as the frost flowers on the window glass.

Is it a message? I have a sinking and sobering feeling that there are countless messages of a great importance that we either miss or cannot read.

Lisa Gerrard – Seven Seas From album ‘Twilight Kingdom’

Have a peaceful weekend!

Year is running out

This year is running out, and there is still so much to do! Finishing projects and fixing things in a hurry doesn’t seem to be neither productive nor satisfying. Sometimes the front looks OK, but the back tells another story… like in this picture… Well, lets don’t press too hard on ourselves: it might take years to realize that some things look better unfinished.

There is something I call perfection, though. It is a video clip that I share every Christmas. When I watch this video, I feel like everything falls into place; my questions and my doubts get a perfect answer; vanity dissolves; harmony returns. Music and Art are perfectly woven together, and I am sure you will enjoy watching and listening to it, all of you, regardless of your age, religion or familiarity with arts.

Mike Masse is a former attorney who began performing once a month at the Pie Pizzeria in Salt Lake City in 1993, and did it until recent years when he moved to Colorado with his family. Now he is a full-time musician, performing in different states. Check out his web site : there is his gig schedule, and you might find him near where you live.

Mike also performs live with the former members of the band Boston, Barry Goudreau and Sib Hashian. Here is a great piece, More Than A Feeling (1976) for you to enjoy.

This is a fantastic acoustic cover of Boston’s “More Than a Feeling” performed by Mike Masse & Jenny Oaks Baker.

So, it is what I am doing today instead of “finishing and fixing” 🙂 I am listening to the music I enjoy.

This is Dublin in December.

This is an old farmstead in the mountains.

I love Irish music. Its roots go back to the medieval times, and one of the best examples is Wexford Carol. You can listen to this traditional Irish Christmas song sang by The Palestrina Choir of St Mary’s Pro-Cathedral, Dublin.

Listening to the beloved hymn, I think about the coming year 2015. I cannot believe I have lived so long, but I don’t mind to keep on living.

The year 2014 has been both successful and devastating. They say 2015 will give us a break. We will see. There is a song I really like: Muse, Time is running out, from their best album Absolution. It is difficult to say what the song is about: Matt Bellamy himself is not sure…

Matt Bellamy: “It’s just about feeling that the last moments of your life are running out and… it’s more about the emotion itself: being suffocated, feeling that your last chance is being taken away from you by something that’s outside of your own power, and you can apply that to society, a relationship, your religion or whatever”

I like the song, but it makes me feel uneasy when I think it might be about something that is coming – something that is outside our power and control; something that can affect us in a bad way. So, may be lets think that it is simply about a mad love with a woman of destiny 🙂

What I really want to say – the truth of the matter is that the time is truly running out. Gradually.

Thank you for listening to this very different selection of music with me!

Tip of the day: This holidays, take some photographs that are out of your usual genre. Discover yourself 🙂

Have a great weekend!

“Don’t look with yearning at the road…”

I took this photograph in 2007. Since then, I have passed the place numerous times but for some reason have never stopped for a picture again. People take beautiful images of this place from Spring to Autumn, but all I have is this one and a few more – all gloomy and joyless.

Photography is scarce in the end of November.

In Tchaikovsky Album The Seasons, the piece of music written in E major for November is very light and cheerful. It has always surprised me, because November has never been my favorite, and nothing cheers me up when I think of November. If you don’t mind, let’s listen first. I intentionally use this unprofessional performance: a young girl, Sophia, reminds me of myself.

Tchaikovsky, Les Saisons, Novembre,Troïka .

Troika is a sled drawn by three horses, a very symbolic image for Russia. They must have had plenty of snow in Russia in November back in the 19th century. So I also heard about Ireland.

Russian publisher Nikolay Bernard, the one who commissioned Tchaikovsky to write The Seasons, suggested a subtitle for each month’s piece. Tchaikovsky accepted all of Bernard’s subtitles. You will be surprised to learn what this cheerful, jingle-bell-ish piece of music has for a subtitle:

Don’t look with yearning at the road,

And don’t rush after the troika.

Suppress and stifle the dreary dismay in your heart for good.

This is a poem by Nikolay Nekrasov depicting a sad destiny of Russian women in the 19th century. Looks like Tchaikovsky didn’t care…

But I love his music, and want to share another sweet piece – a waltz performed by Lucas Debarge.

Tchaikovsky – Sentimental Waltz Op. 51, No. 6 – Lucas Debarge

This is my Tutor Edite Kampe and I, many years ago, graduating after 7 years in the Music School.

I am eternally grateful for having her in my life.

This is my Mother.

I want to share another piece of music, a polka that accompanied my every birthday party until I became 12 and put a full stop on this sort of dancing… There are simply brilliant interpretations of this piece – you can look up in Youtube – but I have chosen this one, for an obvious reason… Thank you Mom

Rachmaninov – La Polka Italienne – Anna Hetmanova & Anastasia Pozdniakova.

I am grateful for my family and my music tutors who helped me make Music a part of my life forever.

I found this lonely rose in Kilkenny park. Must be the last one. On my way home I was listening to The Seasons and smiled recalling my Music School days. I wish everybody had similar experience in their life. I am so blessed.

Give your children and grand children opportunity to study music. Don’t be frustrated if you fail to raise a Mozart. It is not about career. At least, they will know what concert they really want to attend, or what music is played when a carousel goes around 🙂

Happy Thanksgiving! Give thanks for all you have! You can always have even more. Look for the best gifts, create, grow. Don’t let the life pass by like troika in that poem 🙂 Use and enjoy your blessings.

Have a great weekend!

The lion and the lamb

Fota Wildlife Park – the most amazing place in Ireland! It opened its gates in 1983, and since then it remains one of Ireland’s top ten visitor attractions, and a perfect place to spend a day for visitors of all ages. Most of the animals who inhabit the park are allowed to roam throughout more than 50 acres of grassland, with the exception of the cheetahs and other predators. Almost “The Lion and the Lamb” settings 🙂

King Julien XIII and his people together with many other animals are free ranging in the Park and mingle with the visitors. I just couldn’t help taking their portraits ( hundreds).

We were lucky to come across a whole Ring-tailed Lemur gang sitting in the tree. In the beginning I thought there were only two animals, but all of a sudden they started falling off the tree like ripe pears.

Six or seven Lemurs jumped from the tree, one after another, and run away. We met two of them again. They were perching within a stretched arm distance, pretending to ignore us. I didn’t see the others, but I knew that they were hiding somewhere near.

There is a pond surrounding the Monkey Island. All the water fowl are free ranging, but the edge of the pond is surprisingly clean.

Many animals In Fota Wildlife Park are allowed to roam free, while mixed with other species. A tiny barrier stops the human visitors from trespassing. Rothschild Giraffe is another beautiful species living in the Park together with Zebras and female Ostriches.

Foggy Irish countryside in background.

The Monkey Island is a home for monkeys, of course. In Fota Wildlife Park they have chosen the species that can be allowed to roam in a free range environment, and are not aggressive to each other.

This is an Agile Gibbon – an old one, and a mother with a baby.

This is a Howler monkey female.

Fota Wildlife Park is home to the Scarlet, Green winged and Blue & Gold Macaws. The birds roost high up in trees, and while the species have bred at Fota in the past, there haven’t been any young hatched in recent years.

Over 200 Cheetah cubs have been born in Fota since 1985. Fota also has Ireland’s only Cheetah Run. The device keeps the Cheetahs active, while maintaining their wild instincts. The food is suspended on a wire that travels 10 feet off the ground, at approximately 65km/h. Hundreds of spectators gather to watch the Cheetahs feeding at 3pm every day. Cheetahs and a few other species live in fenced enclosures.

The weather wasn’t good, it was raining. We thought we would have the island for ourselves. Well, we had to go around to find a parking spot. Always busy in Fota.

I share my birthday with Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. I am very proud of that – I loved his books before I found out when his birthday was. His most-read novella, The Little Prince, is translated into more than 250 languages, and selling two millions copies every year. I have a copy like this one.

There are two the most cited quotes in the novella: On ne voit bien qu’avec le cœur. L’essentiel est invisible pour les yeux – “One sees clearly only with the heart. What is essential is invisible to the eye.” And the other: Tu deviens responsable pour toujours de ce que tu as apprivoisé – “You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed.” I thought about both of them in Fota, watching young children reverently feed the waterfowl. For them, this trip was looked forward to with a great deal of excitement, discussions and research. New names were learned, new discoveries made, but the greatest of all the experiences they got here is that change in heart that can become a prelude to many other beautiful experiences.

Thank you for visiting Fota Island with me!

Photography tip of the day: When taking photographs of animals definitely change your focus to a “Single point” and focus on the eye, otherwise your camera will automatically focus on the point closest to the lens – which is animal’s nose.

Have a great weekend!

Snakes, ladders and mushrooms

We met this snake in Twin Falls, at the edge of Snake River Canyon. He was moving lazily with no apparent purpose and looked harmless. I walked behind him and worried that he could crawl to the parking lot and get run over, but he was too big for me to feel comfortable picking him up and taking to the bushes. Luckily a man walked by and showing no respect carried the beast by his tail to the safe place.

Not always was I so shy dealing with the snakes…

When I was a young child I used to spend a lot of time in my Grandparents home. Two images below were taken a year after my Grandmother died ( I already had a daughter of my own), and the house was abandoned and vandalised by that time. It was burned down after another couple of years.

No one would live there in the middle of the forest, with no decent road ( you would be surprised to see how quickly the new growth consumes abandoned road!) But when I was a child the house was beautiful, and there was a farm, and a garden. Grandparents were busy so no one would ask me where I go and what I do. When I got tired I would climb up the ladder in the hay shed and sleep. I was my own man.

I must have been five years old that summer. Every evening I asked my Grandma to tell me a story, and she often used that as an opportunity to give me a warning. There were multitudes of Adders living all around, and their bite could be dangerous for a five year old; it is why many of my Grandma’s stories were dedicated to the snakes.

My dear Grandma! How many times I went exactly where she told me not to go – to the ruins of an old farmstead where the Adders were sunbathing in the middle of the day. No, I am not proud of what I did, but I was only five! With a sturdy stick in my hand I walked to the unsuspecting critters and killed them in bunches! And I did it a good few times that summer. I guess I didn’t make a big dent in the Adder population – sometimes they even crawled into the house. And I loved lizards, frogs and toads.

There are a few pictures of a Slow worm – a legless lizard, sweet and harmless creature, often abused. I helped him to get off the road and took him to the safety of forest.

I love toads and kiss them whenever I have a chance.

I don’t like slugs. I know it is silly but I think that they can jump and strike… I took a picture of this one because it’s belly was orange color. Don’t like spiders either, but admire their skills.

This is the forest where the images were taken…

…and these are the mushrooms we picked.

The images were taken on my holidays last summer.

It is well known that St Patrick drove all the snakes out of Ireland. Some say it was the Ice Age though… but I believe in Patrick.

I don’t know who created this image, but I saw it on Facebook last Paddy’s day. Makes me smile 🙂

You can walk through the waist-tall grass in your slippers here. You can step over the old tree trunks and sit on the rocks without looking first. You are safe!

Do you have any snakes where you live?

Photography tip of the day: Sometimes you have to use your built in camera flash. Here you can learn how to make a DIY diffuser, simple and very effective.

Have a great day!