Bees

Bees

As the elephants dance with the gods, the gods and Ganesha dance an elephant dance, too. We dance and think of other palaces, temples and roadside concrete Ganesha gods daubed with blue pigment. Cats are always there, with us. On holiday you can almost imagine your cats thinking about you missing your lap and you seem to carry their cute little thoughts around with you. We go to the matter of the spirit and bees fly off in another philosophy. Spiritual pathways take us through India and to the Ganges. We think then of other spiritual vocations and vacations to Italy. Our spirit flies in thoughts and dreams, memories of places our body has visited. A trail of old religious paintings and sculptures, paintings of Saints and martyrdom, churches and wonder why. Churches in London with the graves of the dead in the floor and not wanting to walk on them, walking on cracks, London walking. London's parks and gardens, people walking their dogs, squirrels, foxes at night rustling in the bushes as you walk by them. Cats in full daylight can be found in suburban streets. Cat postcards and lots of funny cats, London is a real cat place. Cat sculptures adorn the British Museum, ancient Egypt honor the cat. Cat gods and lion gods have throngs of tourists with too many cameras in worship. I prefer quieter museums where viewing is made pleasurable with less people but maybe gods need the worship. Cat drawings take us to a different philosophy.

Sweet cat drawings by the English artists then, take us to Germany and Durer etchings of Adam and Eve, cats are in his garden of earthly delights. A Paradise in a garden of another spirit and a spiritual vocation, bees to the honey and hours on end of viewing the spirit, spirits fly. Flying spiritually our mind wanders. Honey and naked honey goddesses are synonymous with paintings on display. Germany's cat calendars are to die for. Cat paintings are a very German thing, too. I am wandering with my cat as though racing spiritually along the street and through museum after museum. Cats walk and take you on a different pathway and we are taken to France again, Surrealist exhibitions and the first viewing of The Monk by the Sea. Caspar David Frederick's incredible philosophy in paint takes my spirit, soaring and flying with the owls by the moon although we mainly contemplate the landscape or the sea. We are evaluated spiritually and go to Berlin. Other paintings and the Caspar David Friedrich room at the Alte Nationalgalerie take you to the Romantic philosophy of the day and the spirit soars with it. Melancholic, it is as though death is pleasurable and the greatest spiritual achievement, a heaven we journey through life for to find its ultimate Paradise. We die spiritually in order to find our grave or spirit in paint, an illusion of God. We live though and think of our cat. 

Cats take us through life. We are cats of another philosophy. Bees.

By Nicole Page-Smith

Nicole Page-Smith

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Elephants dance of another universe

Elephants dance of another universe

In the cat universe in heaven, you would expect to see all your long lost pets and I wonder if when we go upstairs we see them as people describe on their exit to the angel realms above. I wonder why the white light and what cats see other than their owners or fellow cat companions on the street, when they go to God. Greek cats and gods are as synonymous with Greece as the wind. Islands not travelled to, spirits long gone and in books. We take the journey, sail with the gods and climb Mt. Olympus with them. Warriors and gods, poets, writers and philosophers and visit Greek Orthodox chapels, reminiscent and in the same style as other Orthodox religions. Then, we are taken back to Italy only close by to Greece, thinking of Orthodox churches, mosaics shimmering in Venice or Ravenna. The odd passer by or cat, wandering undisturbed we walk on by. Dreaming we fall asleep with a cat. Cats take us to the bookshops and in Greece strangely, there are never any postcards or marketing of cats, their very selling pitch. We sail around the Greek islands and expect to find nothing other than cats eating fish. The postcards and calendars have us sailing with images and dreaming of cruises or movies. Films of another universe and bees take us to the philosophy of the cat, purring and food.

Food cats love to consume. Heavenly is the universe of the cat. The universe of the cat includes us all for we provide the food. Walking, cats walking and walking we are cats; they take us to the fish. Fish dinners in Vienna and the sphinxes, in the museums, Eros and gods, you will find very few sculptures of cats, one of the the hardest animals to draw or paint. The honey pot is cat friendly places, internal places or hot they lie on concrete, the grass or outside in the sun. Cats of worship, worship the sun. Birds are another preoccupation, flying, chirping, they are the the constant companion of the cat. Flying overhead or confronting cats, only birds larger than cats will frighten them. The Japanese are peculiarly good at painting and photographing cats but, draw nature and the sea. One skilled pen and ink swill draws a cat image but a master of the craft and figuration takes us sailing to India, Indian Jainism and religion. We are reminded of temples once visited of piercing blue eyes, veiled women and different varieties of Hindu. Animals of another god see elephants. We are thinking, now of the Taj Mahal and ancient architectural lacework, the light filtering through and climb up observatory posts to the stars in our mind or another town, angled stairways like a playground for the gods. Then, go up the mountains of Nepal, to the base camp, short of breath, see endless mountains for eternity and strange peasant children run along beside you asking for bon-bon. Animal gods are everywhere and as prolific as figurative sculpture, dancing an Indian dance. Entwined they are with the cosmos as with one another and speak of a new beginning. Mice rather than cats run around temples filled with rice as an offering and everywhere holy cows, wander. Chickens and goats are more the norm on a bus ride with piles of saffron and temples only for men in isolated places. Delicious curries and beer await you and elephants dance of another universe.  

Nicole Page-Smith

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Bees take you to another philosophy

Bees take you to another philosophy

You are walking along the pathway to the Greek temples and the throngs of tourists interrupt your way. In Italy you wander. Rome is a place well known for cats. We are reminded of film, film actresses and photos, Paris windows and bookshops, free wild cats roaming the streets. On the way to the Greek temples, kittens, trailing behind you they wander, meowing. Books of long since past Greek sculptures who honour your worth or their own, Charioteers and gods for the Sun. Sunning and sunbaked Greek tourists travel past on the way through Delphi for beaches and resorts but we are taken by the view. As cats, we have long been of worship with the Sphinx. Sphinxes with wings, towering in museums are not our home. Bees take you to another philosophy and we are there with the gods. Temples and the view take us to the amphitheatre for staged plays of Greek tragedies. You wonder who formally walked along the pathway to the temples, pageants and the gods in honour of Apollo and almost imagine them in ancient dress. Former people no older than cat species themselves. 

Imagining there are so many images of the cats of the Greek Islands that maybe the gods donated them for another place. Paris and European bookshops have them sleep as we read, long used to human noise. Rome has them wander. They wander by tourists on their way to museums, sacred pathways from old streets leading to Rome, film streets from the sixties, cat eyes and make-up, a different sort of cat. The parks and gardens nearby still have the resemblance of lost stray cats nearby and domesticity. The party people have long since gone, although a few stray cats exist. Cool in the forest trees, ancient trees, old species of ancient Rome, we are reminded of the books of Virgilian literature of the most famous plagiarised basis of Western culture of Dido and Aeneas and the seven hills of Rome. Of museum collections, of artists who sculpted mythological subjects, of Popes and Papal collections, the Vatican and the old Roman copies of the Greek originals of churches in domestic areas and the odd cat passing by. Of all the ancient Roman Empire could encourage, of museums found in books and the odd cat in the garden. Cats wandering and once what the city was known for stray cats more than film stars. Bees take you to another philosophy and Bernini or the famous coat of arms and his bee sculpture at the bottom of the street and the street made famous by film stars. Bernini is not know for his sculptures of cats though, more the fountains in tourist books, churches and the odd elephant. Perhaps, later Italian artists painted cats, paintings in the modern art gallery and cats are sleeping in my mind. We wander off to the bees in the honey pot. 

French cats. They sleep in bookshops and sleep in our mind from thousands of images of cats in books, all in French speaking cat in French. Universal is the meow and cats have their own universe to think about and are taken their secretly, always seem drifting in their thoughts, thinking of you, we do not entertain them much, though. Thinking, dreaming of another Universe, cats seem not with us at times and do not respond to your thoughts. Thinking we are back in Rome and do the Roman street cats communicate to the French street cats and other cats around the world. Perhaps cats are like humans and communicate with the cosmos and their own cat gods in the sky. We are thinking about Egyptian cats and Egyptian gods with the planets, moons and sun they represent but the humble cat god still appears to worship the Sun. Sphinxes in desert sand guard temples and the mysteries of the wonders of the world. Sphinxes take us to Paris again and old paintings and the sea, movies with cats. Writers, artists and film stars with cats as companions, the solitary life of intellectuals, Venice and sphinx paintings at the Guggenheim, all socialite, goddesses, Universes of cats.

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Nicole Page-Smith

Measured we are by the shoreline

Measured we are by the shoreline

Our minds expand. Contemplation is the shore we view but an ocean where once we were. We view the sea. Your mind travels to the oceans of Venice or to Greece on a journey not travelled only imagined. The gods took me there, to the islands, one day to windy islands for gods only. In books, pictures, philosophy came of the same water, the beautiful ordered universe where oceans would be. Beaming down on us like the sun on the sand, sun baking, the shoreline, we wandered for hours undisturbed by everyone and everything, bar the music of the ocean. Roaring the ocean played with light. I remember the cats of Greece and the hills and mountains of old temples, crumbled down to their stones, lying there like some ancient god pushed the columns over, long ago. Giants and gods walking the earth, you are taken on the Odyssean journey and are blown off course only to find another island, gods jealous of your arrival, old gods and new. We travel the oceans in our mind.

Churches take you into an interior of the mind sometimes with the Virgin Mary glowing in front of a window. Praying mourners, mourn their loved ones in side chapels, weeping openly in full view. Some churches in Venice are best viewed late in the day. Venice is a place with the sunset in view. The gondola rides feel like they are for the last ascension with ghosts and a haunting tale or memory of old films and books. Literature takes you to oceans and we are reminded of Venice water taxis giving you the guided tour around the water canals, so much history. Lapping with the waves I am taken to my shoreline with a similar inner cathedral and nature to view. Looking at the ocean you are not reminded of the ancient quality of the sea or how old the planet is, perhaps a god holds our emotions in the present and they ride the waves. The order is our chaos. Chaotic our emotions flow. The spiritual necessity of the sea is where the ocean meets the sky and sometimes the shoreline. We walk like monks by the ocean shore and are reminded of Romantic philosophy of other centuries gone by but somehow in modern day clothes. The chances are our ordered chaos is a god and our emotions are taken with tidal waters. Ebbing and flowing they flow, an ordered pattern in the universe and emotional energy seems to drift off with sea breezes. We contemplate the sea. 

Standing on the shoreline we are reminded of the clouds pregnant with rain, rain drifting and storms out to sea. Standing in the light of the silvery clouds we are undetermined. The direction of the rain, winds, storms or how long we have before it rains. The shore is gathered with people, Sunday strollers, their children, loved ones and pets, dogs swimming in the ocean, racing around you chasing one another, socializing. You walk quickly along for the tide is often rising and in a lost memory, your shoes get wet. We are reminded of all the mammals of the oceans, of whales, dolphins and further out to container ships and pleasure cruises. We are taken by the ocean memories of old love affairs, sun baked and seafood dinners. The crispy feeling on your face with too much sunshine, salt and surf. Swimming all summer on a hot summers day, views of the ocean and happy times in love. The philosophy. Waters, oceans that could meet any shoreline, we are taken to nature, nature walks and forests have the same cool breezes, shaded by trees. In the shaded late afternoon after full day sun, the ocean shoreline is our place. The philosophy of the same water and the beautiful universe where the oceans would be is by the shoreline. The shoreline will have to be measured.

Measured we are by the shoreline.

by Nicole Page-Smith

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Where the oceans would be

Where the oceans would be

On the day of a fiery moon the cosmos was created out of chaos. We love our gods of the air, the water, the earth and the fire for their chance to order the universe. The beautiful universe was born of the heavens. Gods of the sea sparkle for they are of the ocean and as the tides ebb and flow we are drawn with them, ebbing and flowing. Tides of the sea have us stand in contemplation and our minds are taken with the wind. The universes shine down on us as the stars provide the reflection of the moon on the water. Storms of the sea have thunder and lightning as our blessing from God and the gods provide the water, the calm after the storm. We provide the sea.

Sea and water are a refreshing change. The oceans hold starlight for they are god. We stand at the foreshore where the Earth meets the sky. Water is our ebb and we flow. Marine animals hear our sonar and we ride with the whales and the dolphins and the fishes of the sea. Swimming we are the sound of the roar of the waves and travel on the water like a sea craft. We are the sand we walk on and the smell of the salt spray holds our attention with the wind on our face blowing against us. We ride our craft in the ocean and glide with the sail. Riding around swimming and riding the depths of the ocean we glide with the seals and the penguins. Fish love us to call them by name. The beautiful universe of coral is our home in warmer waters and we are the water of the sea of oceans, itself. The opposite of chaos was the cosmos for the Ancient Greeks and the gods themselves. Starry patterns shine down on us to remind us who we were while the fiery moon burns away, a night in the sky.

We are water and when we rain we came from meteorites in a similar shower. We shower the earth like hail and thunder and the lightening in a storm. The shores have grown and intensified. While once we were all ocean now we are land. Landmass expands like the ocean. We expand in ourselves. We are an expansion. Atomically matter explodes like we do and we are an expansion. We die because of our explosion and there is a point where matter is in the reversal. We are part of the ocean as we are part of earth. Earth is our matter and we grow forward from it. When our planet lay bare it will be like the surface of the moon and although once a watery surface had the valleys and the mountains of the surface of the moon. Moons sparkle. An illumination. We contemplate the moon when we look at the sky for it has a similar light. Blue is the sky and we would see the oceans from the moon under the light of the sun. We are matter expanding. 

Nicole Page-Smith

We expand and contract. For we are moon waxing and waning. We are the fire for we expanded the universe. Illuminating the stars we kept going. Planets can only be seen for we the light of God. Looking. Look to forward light. Look to the light of God. In the chaos we found the fire. We organized the universe. Bach found music but we found sound. At the speed of light we will find one another, through God and the gods. Fire is the ever-expanding universe and the universe expands like fire. Chaos found earth but we found fire. Fire is the light of the cosmos, God and illumination. We are the light. The light of the universe is our expansion. Expanded is our comprehension of the universe for we see light and hear the sound. When the universe ends there will be a very loud sound but it will be infinite like a roar. The beginning of the universe started the same way and sang. Singing and roaring the universe will continue to be. Expansion is our universe. 

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