Little things to see in Scotland

It has been a while…

How it happened it is 6 months into a new year?

I haven´t created for so long and so came a little project in my way. My flatmate asked if I would like to participate in his show with some creation of sorts.

That was a final push I needed and I created short video not about learnings of past year, but as well about beautiful places around Scotland.

Overview of times in Scotland, overview of past years and if there is possibility to find inspiration even is such challenging times we live in. It is funny realising that even in places we go to so often they are changing every day all it takes is for us to open our eyes, quiet our mind and be present.

I haven´t left Edinburgh in past year and all got to explore were close by hills. Any other time I would be wanting to travel further and explore, but it wasn´t really possible in the past year. How grateful I am I got the chance explore the hills in all seasons in all times of the day. Every single time I went it was a different experience which I enjoyed very much.

Come to have a little look with me what not only so well-known Scottish nature can offer.

To see the whole show where the video was part of go here: https://fb.me/e/3AemXF78O

Chasing the Sun in Scotland

I can´t count how many sunsets I have seen in my life. Yet this year they happened to be even more special. As November comes sun is getting lower and lower. We are in the time of the year when days are the shortest. Sun rises at 8.30 and sets at 3.30. We are still lucky, as it is not as dark as in the very North, but comparing to Slovakia one can feel it quite a bit.

When I walk during the day I see the sun being low all day not reaching very high. There is a beauty in it as it covers the city in the warm light. One day I got an inspiration to go chase the sun. My dad would often tell me a story how he as a little child always wanted to walk towards the sun and reach it. Innocent little soul not understanding that it is not possible.

For few weeks I have been going to close by hills even if for couple of hours in busy weekends, just to catch last bits of the daylight. Thanks to this project my November happened to be so beautiful. Every weekend I was looking forward to go to mountains and watch this beautiful scenery which happens every day again and again and we miss so many days of our lives not seeing this miracle.

I certainly felt every single time as the sun gave me energy for another week. I would go on my own or with friends I would go in advance or even missed the sunset. Yet every time it was a special occasion, special moment and special day. Usually November is a little sad month because winter is inevitable. This year I enjoyed the November probably the most in my entire life just because I went to see something what is here every single day yet we just often don´t see its beauty.

Joy in Pandemic times – Scotland is getting ready for Winter

Autumn is almost gone.

Leaves from trees are slowly changing into mush-mash of wet slippery cover on the path walks and trees appear to be more and more naked. I guess I am ready for winter as well.

Tiredness is most present every day, as my body would like to tell me to slow down, reflect.

I have been very busy lately, trying to balance all present in my life. I enjoy all, but I am learning to do just as much I can in a day.

Pandemic times don´t add much.

Do you find yourself sometimes creatively drained?

I do. Days even months of not picking up the pencil. Is it for us to push through or just let it go itself? In my own experience the answer is somewhere in the middle.

My creativity heightened lately and I made myself a promise of drawing every day for one month. It is not easy task to accomplish and as I am writing this story I have already slipped few days trying to catch up now.

Have you ever heard of Ink October Challenge? I am doing it now in November. Hoping to continue on everyday quick sketches even after the challenge. That is for another story though.

As I look out of my window weather is less promising every day. Yet we had quite few beautiful days even little inversion, which I am hoping to experience again. Edinburgh covered in cloud, one suddenly felt as being in the part of Harry Potter Books or Sherlock Holmes stories.

Picking up leaves on the way home, creating fall inside of the flat. Enjoying times with friends. Experiencing that even in times as we live at now there is still a lot to see and experience. I guess we learnt to live with virus, there are restrictions present in the past half of the year and I only can conclude that this time brought a lot of positives into my life as well.

Nature become more important than ever, appreciating every new day being healthy, every meeting with friends. Being grateful for the job I have which allows me get away from not only isolation, but as well away from the fear of the virus, which many experience nowadays.

But enough of talking, let me show you little things which make life so special even in times of pandemics.

What is it you enjoy at the moment?  What makes you happy?

Mushroom picking – there is inspiration in simple things

Not long ago I was trying to capture our herbs picking with my family. The same day we went for mushroom picking, which wasn´t that successful 😀

Yet it was an amazing day outside in the forests very dear to me. I have seen my first deer running through the path at the early morning here, when all I could hear was stamping noise. I learnt here to recognise which mushrooms are good to eat and which ones are better left behind.

As a child I was aware of beauty surrounding me and felt that nature and forests are these magical places where everything is possible and everything is somehow beautiful. That´s not what always nature is though. It has its way to teach us often difficult and challenging bits about life and what does it mean to be a human as well.

After years coming back felt as a pathway to past memories which rushed through my head as we walked. Again I wanted to capture this old memory and this present moment which possibly could be source of inspiration for finding beauty in simple things for someone else.

I don´t know about you, but I just love walking through any kind of the forest, especially when it is nice and easy to walk around and ground is covered in fresh grass. That was exactly how morning would welcome us fresh dew on the grass and smell of the forest in the air.

As we entered the forest we were lucky to find a mushroom and it gave us hope for a successful day, but unfortunately few more we found and that was all for that day.

It hasn´t disappointed me though, because I again found some inspiration inside in between those trees.

Small things came my way as fallen bird nest, colourful bug trying to get his way or deer running in the distance. It was a time when I have started recording small bits of these beautiful moments and thinking about the way how could I capture the feeling and the memory I got here. I guess it was the beginning of my video editing journey as a way to be creative yet make sense of the experience as well.

Everything is always happening for its reason, so the fact we haven´t found any mushrooms that day had its purpose as well.

That was a special day spent with my parents, remembering times we used to go there when I was a child. Admiring hard work of ants who tried to steal every small bit of our sandwiches which fell on the ground and creating new memories together to hold on for later when we will be apart once again.

People sometimes ask and wander why would I live so far away. Maybe there will come a time I will feel a need to move closer but so far the fact not being close taught all of us to value even more greatly than before our relationship which is certainly valuable lesson having.

I hope and believe there will come a time that I will be allowed spend maybe more time with them but not losing the life here in order to do so.

Come with me then for this little poetic forest walk which can maybe inspire you as well to find your own inspiration in small things life have to offer.   

The cycle – misunderstood natural process of being human

‘She must be on her period, ´ said a man in a suit to his colleague laughing at their boss who just burst in anger about some in their eyes unimportant thing.

´Other woman are just fine and functioning why can´t you?´

´I don´t want to hear about it it´s disgusting.´

´You can´t use your cycle as an excuse for being mean´

I am sorry for maybe uncomfortable topic for some but same time can be a little eye opening and if you are a man you can maybe understand a woman a little bit more.

Have you ever heard any of the statements above? Personaly or throug others I did.

Just few days ago I had very strange experience. Pain would be very common companion every month but what I experienced now was way far more extreme than ever before. I guess the connection to my own woman site and body is reaching its culminating point so with understanding can sometimes come pain as well. I almost called the ambulance when I was just about to faint while making breakfast being unable to stand up, covered in hot sweat, pinpointed to the bed crawling like a hurt animal. My whole body vibrated and only open my eyes was too much, too painful, too overwhelming. Whole world around me was spiralling and I wasn´t sure if it ever ends.

All I could do is accept that my body is going through something difficult yet important. Once I have embraced my state which was a little scary the sensation started easing itself.

Woman cycle is a truly strange but in a way a magical thing as well. I am not an exception in better understanding my own woman site as older I get.

There used to be times when I wished to be rather a man and cycle was one of the reasons.

I have been always very sensitive to it skipped classes at school because of it felt embarrassed when I was one of the first one in my class to experience it.

Such a natural thing which somehow we grow up to hide, feel embarrassed about, find hard to talk about, push ourselves to feel and perform as nothing would be happening every month to our body. We have learnt to take pills to control and change natural patterns as we would think it is our right playing gods.

I don´t blame you there is a huge pressure to be fully functioning as if we wouldn´t be humans.

How could a world run predominantly by mind understand that every woman experiences her cycle differently, some are more sensitive to it than others, that it is unhuman effort to try control moods in this time. How could a mind who doesn´t understand emotions embrace that it is not a sign of weakness but quiet opposite. It is easier to deny the huge impact it has on the body, mind, emotions, performance, mood every single month because it is just not convenient being sensitive and human. It takes time, effort and open mind to understand what is really happening. Unfortunatelly that doesn´t earn any money or perform well on annual progress presentations.

Cycle taught me a lot about myself. Every month I can see a pattern appearing. Just before ´the cleaning process´ my moods change sometimes rapidly. There is nothing I can do about it as I believe you out there either. All we can do is embrace the fact that we are emotional, nervous even mean sometimes and giving people around us a little hard time.

I hear you it is not easy to deal with us but trust me it is not easy to be us in the time either.

Often I would feel to be a different person. My moods lower down, for about a week before,I would prefer quiet environment, no people and withdraw. It is not always possible though in such sped up lives we live sometimes in structure where society is build the way where are no breaks or acknowledgments of woman’s monthly cycle.

I am starting to understand better what could of been society before patriarchy when woman was a centre of society connected to very raw source of our humanness – emotions, nature cycles, body, all we are made of and from.

We don´t live in that world anymore because from body and our heart we moved into our heads. We disconnected from our bodies so much, that sometimes we can´t even spot our own emotions, we became unaware how much they drive our behaviour and thought patterns. In this sense woman are very lucky, because cycle is bringing us back, is teaching us to connect with ourselves to be aware of the pattern to listen what our body needs and is telling us.

It is such a creative process as well. According to my cycle I see the patter of creativity emerging. All the senses heighten just before sometimes in such an overwhelming way that bearing noise is difficult, emotions of other people, my own emotions which reach extreme points.

I am not able to be creative in this time.

Everything feels pointless what the body needs here is quiet going inside rather to the outside world, reflect because something is ending and needs to be processed and let go for another new beginning.  Just after everything calms down I feel renewed as the body is renewed once again. My creativity emerges, my mood is cheerer, ideas emerge, I have much more energy.

New cycle has started and the process of born and death in symbolic way is starting once again.

As a little child full of energy I enter first days, so excited about everything every single experience and as I grow ´older´ throughout the process I calm down and go into slower retrospective state as the cycle is reaching its end just before the period comes the same way as one is reaching end of their life. Month passed and death and new beginning will be experienced once again.

Understanding this process helped me to connect natural processes in life. Everything is changing all the time, nothing stays still or forever, what is born needs to die one day, it’s a natural process we forgot in technological by mind run world.

I feel connected to my woman site today as never before. Through all the pain, misunderstanding, blame, judgment of such natural process we experience every month I finally came to understand how powerful and necessary this all is.

All we need is a support, acceptance and respect that we bear this to show you what one part of human nature is truly about 🙂

Fairy Hunt

When I moved here what I was most taken by were stories about mythical creatures and fairies srill fairly lalive among the people. They are very proud for this heritage which I find fascinating and somewhat similar to my own culture where many fairy tales about mythical creatures still live among the people. Maybe not in such extend as here yet I remember stories to be told as a child or attending events and festivities closely connected with old traditions.

With all this mythical knowledge once you see the beautiful nature here or wherever else there you can let your imagination go and meet fairy behind the trees.

I have few stories of my own while frowing up. There used to be a tree close to my parent’s field. I spent hours talking to it and back then I believed it is talking back to me. Sounds crazy right? Yet I don´t think it was that crazy at all, because as much I learnt there are different parts of our personalities and probably this one was one of them projected by my ´child me´ into a tree. I gave her even a name – Agatha. It certainly was my good wise fairy always providing comfort and good advice.

My mum taught me hug trees when I was little, because they carry beautiful energy from the source. Every time we would go to the forest she would hug trees I would follow until I entered ´cool´ age and found that to be somewhat crazy. I am realizing just now how much these small rituals meant and how they created my strong connection to life, nature and everything alive.

Walking through a beautiful forest thinking that there are tiny creatures protecting its beauty gives me joy and reassurance that not all is lost yet that nature will always find a way. Little painting I did here inspired by nature was very free flow illustration of possible worries and yet freedom of the fairies. It´s more of a study then final piece yet I enjoyed every second of the painting. Come with me for a little fairy hunt today.

Do you have any fairy stories of your own? I would be happy to hear 🙂

Scotland – artists inspiration

Sometimes we happen to be in place we haven´t maybe even indented to be. Once a friend told me that Edinburgh or even Scotland is calling its people. I have heard so many stories of people who happened to come to Edinburgh not knowing why they came just they felt that´s the place they need to go to.

I haven´t really intended coming here it was more of an only option back then and I would probably choose completely different destination, but life made it the way that I appeared here. Slowly I have started to understand that this is a place where I am going to be for quite some time and that it will mean a lot to me.

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I often wondered why Edinburgh, why Scotland as either was a place I would ever see myself belonging. Yet it happened to be right place for my upcoming path which grew tall in my heart and became my second home. I even learned that I must have lived here before (if you believe in past lives). It feels as I have already lived a lifetime looking back to over a decade of my adult life. So many experiences and so many things shaped who I am today.

Here I found sanctuary, safe place to find my true calling but as well a lot of pain and heartbreak. Here I experienced the wildest emotional shifts to face almost every single bit of my personality bits I didn’t want to face or would of like. That is part of the journey though isn´t it? Without everything we experience we wouldn´t be who we are today.

It took me years to find confidence and understand that art is the only path I can take, only title I am comfortable with and only thing I would truly like to keep throughout my life. I can do and probably will do many other jobs but even if it´s meant to be for sake of taking out things which inspired me and they won´t go nowhere else than on this blog that is enough and I feel as I followed that inner calling.

Today I am on artistic journey.

The place where I live is full of inspiration which I just would love to take in and out for others to enjoy. In reality every place is full of inspiration and as long I can remember I could always see it everywhere. I still don´t always know how to take it out but that´s the beauty of the process.

I live in the city yet I am mostly inspired by nature. There is no option for me at the moment to live anywhere else or closer to the nature where I hear my true calling, so rather than soak myself in the pity of it, I have decided to take inspiration from where I am at. By slow baby steps I am getting closer.

Apart of painting and drawing I have started creating videos about my inspiration not only for art but to live creative life because I believe we all are artists in some way we just need to allow ourselves to see it within us.

It is only a beginning of things which inspire me here in Scotland but I tried to grasp a tiny bit. I am still learning to really understand video making and the technology I have doesn´t allow me to truly make it the way I´d like it to be, but baby steps.

Let me bring you small part of the beauty I see and was blessed to enjoy.

Herbs picking – ritual to connect with ancestors

It is summer again. Scottish summers are very different to those back in Slovakia. There is a saying here…

´People need to get used to that summer is not in July and August but in May/June and September´

This saying couldn´t be more truth.

Lately we have a lot of rain and only few days now and then happen to be sunny and warm.

I think that´s why I was lately coming back in my mind to the last summer when I visited my parents. It was over thirty degrees nice warm and sunny almost all the time. One day we have decided to go to the forest for some mushroom picking. It wasn´t the best season for doing so but it was a bit rainy before I came so maybe there was a chance for some mushrooms growing.

This article though is not going to be about our family tradition of mushroom picking but rather about another quite traditional activity in the family – herbs picking.

Street where I grew up is a quiet street where you can enter fields just around the corner. There is a meadow and little stream where flowers blossom in the spring and summer. Many of them are herbs which generations of woman in my family used to pick up and cook different kind of remedies from them.

I remember when I was a little girl for every bump I had there was a special cream which my grandma made and cured everything with.

This skill and interest certainly is something I have inherited as well. I have done some herbs picking only few times here in Scotland so last summer as we got out of the forest and there was this beautiful meadow full of flowers I couldn´t resist and persuaded my parents to stay for a while.

They say that the best time for picking herbs is sunny midday, so that day was exactly like it welcoming us to the flowery meadow.

I felt recently that creating this video would of give me opportunity to connect with these parts of myself somewhat forgotten, connect with my ancestors whose life was so much connected with nature but for some reason they just tried to forget it. There is a lot of we can find in ourselves which is going into past generations of hundreds years ago. My need for nature coming to the basics is ´the calling´of my old ancestors whose lands were possibly taken and who were forced to become someone else than who they have been for generations.

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Artists inspiration during midsummer day 2020

It is not long from midsummer day. Every year even if I forget it somehow comes to my awareness. This year wasn´t different.

I was moving flat which took a lot of my attention. Around 24st of June I started to be fulfilled with this new strange energy. It is every year around this time I feel as everything renew itself.

I moved a flat so obviously things started to be new I basically am starting over, but there was something else into it. I felt this deep connection to something inside of me.

Forgotten.

As I was looking for few things into the flat I don´t even know how suddenly I ended up on the e-shop of one talented artist. She creats these beautiful symbolic goddesses and seeing those pictures I just fell in love.

IMG_9163There was so much symbolism which just was so deeply talking to me connecting with this part of me I have forgotten about. Each goddess would represent certain aspect of mostly womanhood.

I spent hours just reading about them and connecting with this mythical symbolism.

At the end I ended up ordering few pictures after thorough consideration which ones are for me. Those pictures just created certain frame in which I finally saw myself and woman in general. I felt a wave of inspiration a hope that these little women who got such a huge responsibility to carry human’s desires and dreams, bringing them to their own self will remind me of my own path. Journey towards never ending inspiration and understanding which is deep inside of each of us.

Once again I heard calling of the nature because not only one goddess was connected to nature and wild animals. This calling is deep and different to anything I have ever experienced before.

Art (in different forms) and nature.

Only two things which made complete sense throughout my whole life. Every midsummer day directly or no directly is reminding me of this calling so strongly that is impossible not to listen.

So I created this little video about goddesses which came into my life during midsummer time of 2020. Enjoy! 🙂

 

Hidden inspiration of scottish borders

Do you know that feeling that you are somewhere and you think that you know it there and yet still something can truly surprise you?

That´s why I love Scotland. It is beautiful green country where nature shows itself in its fullest. Every time I go somewhere I am stunned by its beauty. Always I found hidden treaures of this country and little suprises which inspire my soul.

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