Among the chaos and the streaming lights there are tiny rockets moving between buildings and jostling people out of the way as they walk into the street. In South Korea, Japan, Thailand and China these pocket rockets roam through the night, comandeered by a mixture of salarymen, young punks and mums with kids strapped to…
Continue reading ➞ Travel: A scooter swarm and the dance of life and death in Taiwan
Seeing you sprawled on the ground in a doorway in Chefchaoen, Morocco, something broke inside of my heart. I found myself so immensely concerned for your safety. From your gaunt and shabby physique and milky, clouded eyes I worked out that you were severely malnourished. I attempted to pick you up gently but my Morocccan…
Continue reading ➞ Travel: The lost and hungry felines of Chefchaouen, Morocco
This painting by Bronwyn Waipuka illustrates a story by Wairarapa kaumātua (elder) Mita Carter. Rehutai and Tangimoana were beautiful twin sisters who lived on the banks of the Ruamāhanga River. They both fell in love with Rautoroa, a handsome warrior, but he could not decide which to marry. Rehutai asked Tangimoana to fetch some water from a…
A sublime Persian horoscope crafted from lapis lazuli and gold leaf by hand for Prince Iskandar. The Prince was named after Alexander the Great and was the grandson of Tamerlane, the Turkman Mongol conqueror. This horoscope shows the positions of the stars and planets in the sky at the moment of Iskandar’s birth on 25th…
Continue reading ➞ Art: The Horoscope of Prince Iskandar (1411)
In Maori legend, Taranga is the mother of the god Maui and her husband is named Makeatutura. When Maui is born prematurely, Taranga wraps his body in her hair and throws him into the waves. In the ensuing years, sea-creatures care for Maui, hiding him in the sea coral and kelp until one day following a…
Continue reading ➞ Every Picture Tells A Story: by Maori Goddess Taranga by Robyn Kahukiwa
In the beginning there was no sky, no sea no earth and no Gods. There was only darkness, only Te Kore, the Nothingness. From this nothingness, the primal parents of the Maori came, Papatuanuku, the Earth mother, and Ranginui, the Sky father. Papatuanuku and Ranginui came together,embracing in the darkness, and had 70 male children. These…
Continue reading ➞ Every Picture Tells A Story: Tane Mahuta’s Triumph by Jane Crisp
In a far off field Your animals put away The rustling of bare branches And dagger winds Although an ivory and lemon sky Keeps up the spirits Of a cold valley day
In a far off field Your animals put away The rustling of bare branches And dagger winds Although an ivory and lemon sky Keeps up the spirits Of a cold valley day
Every Picture Tells a Story: Oh child inside
When the night scented stock come in And all of the dusk reigns around us A musky smoke Of burning leaves and wet rocks All is cosy, locked in and battened down A sleepy knowingness seeps in A season and reason for movement is over And the winter sits down long and low Her frosty embrace -…
Continue reading ➞ Every Picture Tells a Story: Winter’s sudden contemplation
Every picture tells a story: Into the unknowable
Every picture tells a story: Into the unknowable
The shore of our lives Thats where we meet Together you and I The severed parts of our past And enticing preludes of the future Our children Our forebears All who dipped their toes in first Where all is made anew and dressed again Made youthful, pure and sacred once more Beyond time, place or…
Continue reading ➞ Every picture tells a story: Contemplating the shore
Every picture tells a story: Into the unknowable
There is something magical, glittering, exhilerating and even at times slightly menacing about theatre and film posters and theatre districts around the world. These are places where people go to be vacuously entertained and transported to another realm they ordinarily can't reach. Posters and signs call out to patrons, beckoning them and cajoling them to…
Continue reading ➞ Every Picture Tells A Story: New York’s Cinema Marquees
Every picture tells a story: Into the unknowable
Who made the world? The billowing clouds heading southward. The pillowed reef and a thousand animals beneath my feet. Who made the wind bracing my ankles. The shadows behind and through it all. Who makes the light dance in one part of the world. While other places cut like a frozen blade through flesh. Who…
Continue reading ➞ Every Picture Tells A Story: Who made the world?
Every picture tells a story: Into the unknowable
I love secluded and lonely places where there's nobody around for miles. That's why the Highlands and Islands hold such appeal to me and so here's a couple of lonely places may make you feel in turns melancholy or yearning for a place where nobody can disturb you.
Map makers, Google Earth developers, astronauts and those who gaze at the earth and universe for a living are already convinced of the tremendous beauty of large places seen from space. For most of us mere mortals we won't ever get the chance to see the earth from space. The 'Overview Effect' was a term coined…
Continue reading ➞ Grandscale Beauty: The Overview Effect: Cyanobacterial Bloom in the Baltic Sea
