Rainbow Over The Transporter

The Transporter Bridge over the River Tees at Middlesbrough is quite an iconic feature of the landscape around here... opened in 1911, it is one of only three still in existence in Britain.

Sunlight through storm clouds always makes me smile... and as thunder rumbled we were treated to not just one rainbow, but two....

The bridge is there in the middle, but i had to lighten things up to actually see it... the skies were so dark!

Steel sentinels ignore the storm to deliver the constant transfusion of life-blood required to keep the wheels of industry turning.... electricity crackling from the sky & through their arms....

Information about the Transporter Bridge is here and here

go visit!

Reflections

This was taken at the end of May, when we were near Doncaster, South Yorkshire... it's part of the community woodland that was Brodsworth Colliery (closed in 1990). We stayed nearby 4 years ago for a while & this time it was a re-connection.

 Looks really peaceful doesn't it? It is. However, just behind those trees is the motorway & traffic noise is constant.  I walked a path with only a few hawthorns between me & the road & wondered what the trees thought of the noise... the answer seemed to come straight back "what noise, we don't hear it".

I found as I wandered round, that it did cease to exist as i enjoyed the landscape around me... But for the trees, it isn't a case of shutting it out or getting used to it... i really don't think they are aware of it at all... it's beyond their frequency range. They're operating at a much higher level, and perhaps for me the sound disappeared as i walked in a state of semi-meditation.

See those steps by the weir on the left? I sat there one early morning chanting 'Awen' over & over... starting off slowly... consciously... breathing inspiration out to the water & trees, breathing it in from them... but after a while the chant took on a life of it's own and speeded up... became undulating... it had the resonance of another language and I was transported to another place, another time. It was cold & snowy, I was wearing furs, moving between tent like structures covered with skins... like the reflections on the lake it was slightly hazy, real & unreal at the same time...

Same picture, rotated... how many different images do you see from this angle? Patterns, portals, creatures, faces... they were all there before, but changing perspective... like changing consciousness brings unseen things into view. They're all part of our landscape, whether in front of our eyes or in our minds... or elsewhere... How close we look & how deep we go is up to us... by changing the way we look, shifting focus, we can go beyond the surface reflections...

And there further along the bank... a heart... reminding me to follow my heart and look deeper. A heart that is completed by taking notice of what is above & below... our world & otherworlds... real and unreal...