What it means to me to write

stained glass windows tell a story
concentrate shafts of coloured light
onto hidden secrets in dusty corners
of the inner sanctum of my mind space.

shafts of light illuminate the silence
of this placid soul.

give her a voice.
let the raidiance tell a story.

in this place filled with silence
and with warmth -
there is so much warmth!

these glowing embers...
Something was ablaze.

What is it?
Give it form
Bleed it out if you must
onto this paper

so that those on the other side
of the stained glass window
May also see the light.

© Sandisile Tshuma MMVI

Source: Abduzeedo

Google Maps: Mammoth work indeed

Many thanks to the good people at Google who go to all this trouble to provide us maps!

In which she ponders light, viruses and change

Must absolutely everything be categorised or classified? Can a thing not be many things at once and therefore in a way, none of those things? Or can an entity be one way under certain conditions and another completely different way under different conditions? Well, of course it can. Think of a virus.

Photographer: Sebastian Kaulitzki | Agency: Dreamstime.com

Is it a living thing or isn't it?

On it's own it is just some genetic material with some proteins associated with it. If, however it weasles its way into a living cell and fuses with the nuclear material of that cell then, hey presto it begins reproducing itself in the true manner of a living cell.

Or take light. Sometimes it behaves like a wave and sometimes we observe it to be discrete little packets of energy, depending on the experiment we are running. Waves and particles behave differently. You can't be a wave one minute and a particle the next. Or can you? Light can't be classified as either waves or particles. It is both. As disparate as they are, light is both. Viruses are neither living nor inanimate. It all kind of depends on the situation.

Similarly, people are not "selfish"
or "inspiring"
or "foolish"
or "evil"
or "genius"
or "INFJ"
or "damaged"
or "brilliant"
or "sociopathic"
or "black"
or "white"
or "sporty"
or "lazy"
or "whimsical"
or "systematic..."

They are all of the above and some of the above and sometimes none of the above. I am no teacher but I am constantly imparting my knowledge. I'm no video vixen I'll gladly purr in front of a camera any day.I'm no Whitney but I make a fine noise at karaoke. I'm no Florence Nightingale but I'll patch up a cut and a bruise here or there. I'm no Richard Branson but I have some kick ass maverick tendencies. I do not consider myself a writer but I derive great pleasure from the act of writing.

Increasingly frequently as I look around me I find more and more people who are choosing to discard the strait jackets that our careers, education and circumstances can often be. More and more people are choosing to express their lives as a function of whatever makes sense for them at the time and is most advantageous to the fulfillment of their purpose. They may be cocooned within themselves one day to protect themselves from harsh elements and yet on another day we may find them flitting about like dragonflies on a mission.

The adaptability of human beings is one of their greatest survival skills. They behave a certain way sometimes and change in accordance with what they perceive to be the most advantageous option at that juncture. It makes sense. It's a good thing, healthy even. But let's face it. It's a heck of an annoyance for the observer. We don't want to have to look at things with fresh eyes and discard the boxes we had built to file them into. It takes work! And a certain level of care or day I say it, love? The only way we can accept people as they come and the only instance in which we are not resistant to their incongruity with our expectations is when we love. Humans are not static by nature and yet we frown upon changes in human behaviour. We label people as shifty, inconsistent, and even hypocrites for varying slightly from the people we expect them to be. I believe that change that is anchored around a set of values that are in fulfillment of one's life purpose as one understands it is in fact a thing of value. Even if for no other reason than because it is hard for the external observer to accept and requires them to shift their reference points and learn to love that which is before them all over again.