Jane Elizabeth Cullum Artist
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Jane Elizabeth Cullum
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Nature in Paint and Words...some occasional thoughts and musings about art, language and the natural world

  
    

Sea Lanes and stories

8/15/2016

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Maybe because I grew up on an island, and live on a larger island at the edge of mainland Europe, I've always been drawn to the sea, while being very respectful (that is, scared) of it. The power and energy of the waves pulls me towards them, while fear and sea-sickness generally keep me firmly on dry land.
So I was fascinated to learn about ocean roads and sea lanes in Robert McFarlane's book 'The Old Ways'. These invisible trackways through the sea are apparently called in Gaelic 'Aster Mara'.  He writes:

'Along these sea paths for thousands of years have travelled ships, boats, people, objects and language; letters, folk tales, sea songs, shanties, rumours, slang, jokes and visions'.

I love the idea of invisible channels running between people and places; channels you can see, once you know how to look  We always  assume that our (very limited) version of the world is the real one, when other people/birds/insects/trees can perceive beyond consensual reality, and inhabit an entirely different world, which overlaps with ours, but is also uniquely theirs.
Same with stories; my inner stories about the  world, and about other people (what happens/ why/what 'should' happen instead  etc...), are different from 'yours' or 'theirs'. I think I'm right and therefore  you/they must be wrong. You think you're right, therefore I must be  wrong, or stupid or both.
Acknowledging and  accepting that someone or something perceives the world differently is, I think, a  good first  step towards peac
e.

Picture
Dusk light and sea spray Watercolour on paper 2015
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     I am a full-time painter who delights in nature, the beauty of words, and the infinite potential of the creative spirit. I'm currently based in the UK. on the borderlands between England and Wales.

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