Keren Dibbens-Wyatt's Blog, page 11

August 26, 2017

172. Hallowe’en Bucket (Imagination 2)

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Our trusty gardeners came and cut the grass, and as a bonus, made us this work of art. They left it as a nice surprise for us rather than tell us that they had killed our bucket! But hey presto, a couple of digital eyes, and its brokenness is redeemed.


text and photo © Keren Dibbens-Wyatt 2017


 


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Published on August 26, 2017 08:19

August 24, 2017

171. Snail Leaf (Imagination 1)

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Most of the photos in this section will require very little in the way of explanation! Our imaginations are fired by what we see, what we connect with, what we remember. It is a bit like having a whole cupboard full of cultural connections and ways of interpreting the world, that we draw on. This cupboard is different for each one of us. Where I see a snail shape on a leaf (admittedly I’m a bit obsessed with snails), someone else might just see a blotch, or a face, or another shape entirely. So our imaginations tap into deep places and memories, stories, and this can tell us a lot about the way we are processing the world around us.


text and photo © Keren Dibbens-Wyatt 2017


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Published on August 24, 2017 08:16

August 22, 2017

170. Rainbow – Colour Conclusions

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One of my favourite films is The Wizard of Oz. I loved it as a child, and waited eagerly for Dorothy’s world to change from black and white to full Technicolor. In some ways, I feel that this is how God changes our sight when we start to practise contemplation. Things become richer, brighter, fuller. I struggle now to process even a tiny bit of the loveliness I see all around me. Colour is a quality that evokes emotions, memories, connections all over the place. Each one contains a myriad of hues, and the spectrum could be divided ad infinitum, and its colours mixed into thousands of shades, as the paint catalogues constantly sell us, with their exotic sounding names.


Colour is how God has painted the universe, and I don’t know about you, but it never ceases to make my heart leap.


Next we shall be looking at the power of imagination in our seeing.


text and photo © Keren Dibbens-Wyatt 2017


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Published on August 22, 2017 08:19

August 20, 2017

On Not Being Happy Clappy

New blog post up at Lakelight Sanctuary….


Lakelight Sanctuary


happy clappy



Recently on Facebook I put my status as “Fed up” and added a picture of Grumpy the dwarf from Snow White. What I really wanted to say was that I was feeling heartbroken, depressed, and really missing my parents whom I haven’t seen for six months since they moved to Worcestershire. But social media just isn’t the place for vulnerability, is it? It seems too harsh a place to be real about emotions, as though your heart might just as well be sat on a stainless steel tray under bright lights and prodded by various scalpels wielded by unseen hands. But can we, as Christians, afford to be anything but real? Isn’t time (hasn’t it always been time?) to talk about depression, sickness, mental and physical suffering, poverty, trials and all other kinds of genuine difficulties that many of us face, some of us every day?



It’s not that I’m…


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Published on August 20, 2017 07:52

August 19, 2017

169. Silver (colour 14)

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Silver is the colour of chrome and steel, it knows how to cut and hold. It is a humble colour, serving in usefulness and unaware of its shine. It is used to playing second fiddle to the gold standard, and being a lesser investment. But it is just as rich in many ways. It lines clouds and tongues, circles the moon, and dances on the surface of water.


text and photo © Keren Dibbens-Wyatt 2017


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Published on August 19, 2017 06:16

August 17, 2017

168. Brown (colour 13)

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Brown is another generous colour, like black, forming the background to so much of life, soil and branches, humble and grounded. Yet it is also a colour God has honoured, being the colour of nearly all skin in varying tones, protecting our soft innards, and the colour of wood, which bookends our lives. Brown is the crib and the coffin, the manger and of the cross.


text and photo © Keren Dibbens-Wyatt 2017


 


 


 


 


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Published on August 17, 2017 08:14

August 15, 2017

167. Turquoise (colour 12)

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This top of a deodorant bottle looks from this angle like a fantastical long lost dinosaur egg (okay I do have an overactive imagination, but still). Aqua has a special glow to it that speaks of healing and gentleness. It makes me think of underground caves and verdigris, and of Mary too, as my Marian prayers book has a lovely turquoise cover. Aegean seas and peace, the calm of deep waves rolling in. Softness and maybe the otherworldliness of something as yet unhatched.


text and photo © Keren Dibbens-Wyatt 2017


 


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Published on August 15, 2017 06:31

August 12, 2017

166. Grey (colour 11)

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Grey can seem to some like a boring colour. We say a day is grey when it is overcast and the weather feels heavy and dull. But for me, it is the colour of storms, of change coming, and of the soft, velvet fur of a Persian cat. Rumbling of thunder, thunderous purring, rolling clouds, undulating feline fluffball. Both hold potential, of rain and affection, both might give instead, a fearsome show of growls accompanied by static electricity.


text and photo © Keren Dibbens-Wyatt 2017


 


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Published on August 12, 2017 06:28

August 10, 2017

165. Pink (colour 10)

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Pink for me is the colour of vulnerability, of flesh and newness, of wounds that are just beginning to heal over. It reminds me of small animals’ noses, of tiny toes, of the softness of beautiful, open palms. It’s a colour that holds itself up and welcoming, hoping for love.


text and photo © Keren Dibbens-Wyatt 2017


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Published on August 10, 2017 06:16

August 8, 2017

164. Black (colour 9)

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Black is so beautiful, a contradiction as it simultaneously hugs all the light into itself and yet is also the shiniest colour there is. I can never see a black beetle without thinking of Small in Winnie-the-Pooh and how everyone went looking for him when he was lost, even though he was so tiny. Poor Eeyore was looking for an extra two days as no-one thought to tell him the little insect had been found. “That’s just what would happen,” he says.


Black is often used to illustrate what it missing, maybe because it can seem like emptiness, the space between stars, the depth of depression (something else Eeyore knows about) and the background to everything light. To me, black is a generous colour, because it makes the light brighter at its own expense, and it is kind to everyone. Who doesn’t look good in a little black dress or tuxedo?


text and photo © Keren Dibbens-Wyatt 2017


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Published on August 08, 2017 06:13