Yellow spot

It is no secret that yellow is an oft featured colour in Shiftazine.

It is such a universal colour that generates similar emotions from the viewer regardless of the culture one comes from.

It always communicates the notion of energy, life and positivity.

"Yellow is my favourite, but what is yellow? Handmaiden to white, it is a slight tarnish of pure light.

Take away a bit of white's absolute luminosity, and what remains is yellow -- 

sunlike, golden as a crown, buttercups in a field, marsh marigolds, 

a finch's wing, a plastic flute." RICHARD GROSSINGER, The Bardo of Waking Life

Drunk like Sinatra: Hip Bars of Athens:- No.1

So here are some stats that were found on Trip Advisor about Drunk like Sinatra that might be of use to you.

Traveller Type:

Friends x 26
Couples x 8

Solo x 2

Business x 3

Travellers rating:

Excellent x 14

Very Good x 22

Time of year:

March – May x 15

June – August x 13

September – November x 8

December – February x 9

Language:

English x 45

Greek x 41Italian x 2

Everyday is Women's Day

It's Women's Day.
It is women's day every day.
It is men's day ever day.

Why is there one day a year that is focused on women, when women are half of everything that is constant and half of everything that exists, and half of everything that has been before and will be in the future. 

In making a 'special' day, we are still saying that women are not equal.

Women and men are equal in their potential.  

The inequity is born out of fear and ignorance.

So it is time for all of us to celebrate both the Anima and the Animus in everyone and everything equally.  

But in the meantime, we need to protect and support our sisters (and our brother sisters) who have to struggle just to be safe because they live in places where the male energy hates the female energy.

Peace and respect is what we yell for...not too big an ask.

It is all good.

There is a cafe, a maker of the finest coffee Shiftazine has enjoyed for a long time, operating in Islington,a Newcastle inner urban area, called Suspension Cafe.

The cafe was featured in a Shiftazine article several years ago, with the focus on its inventive interior design solutions.

In the past few years, Islington and Suspension have grown in sync. Both are flourishing.
Both are becoming more sophisticated, more urban, but have not left their authenticity behind.

So when you are in Newcastle, NSW, Australia, go to Islington and go to Suspension Cafe on Beaumont Street just around the corner from Maitland Road.

You can have a coffee and something truly yummy to eat there or you can do take away, or you can buy a bag of their own special coffee beans.

It is all good.

There for wall to see: February's Wallism

Wallisms are an important part of any society.
Walls are canvases, they provide a platform that is available to all within a society to utilise in whatever way an individual, or group of individuals choose.

These Wallisms, which use to be viewed as vandalism, are vital to the health of a society.
They make statements, either personal, or political.
They allow the rest of us to see what others are thinking and or feeling.

So whether you agree or disagree with the content, or the technique of the image making, just be grateful that we have the freedom to be allowed to create them.

Wallisms are important to all who take time to look.

Draw upon good thinking

Hello!

We are back and ready for another inspiring and engaging year full of JOY and unrecognised beauty.

The first article is full of both. It is called 'Chest of Drawers'.

Just a pile of unrelated, unwanted drawers that do not belong to anything, can still perform their primary function, that of storage and provide order.

As always, it is just how you choose to see a thing that makes it valuable or not. 

The design is by Tejo Remy and the article about it is in a book called 'Visual Conversations' AVA Publishing, Switzerland. It is a great read BTW.

Reflection and projection

So it is that time of the year, when reflection of the year that was and projecting of what may come is front of mind.

Thank you to all who have jumped into Shiftazine throughout 2016.

Heres to new possibilities that are positive, constructive and empathic to all things in our world. We have only got the one, so let's care for it.
See you  on the other side. Peace.

The lightness of life

The joy of that soft Summer light that fills a room early in the morning or late in the afternoon.

The glow that is absorbed within.

A small gift from Shiftazine to you at this time of year...Sydney light.

Broken but beautiful

The Japanese practice of repairing a broken object, referred to as kintsugi, is solid shiftazine thinking. 

Something that is chipped, or broken into pieces, or cracked should be, if possible, glued together. It should be kept.

How many times have you reluctantly thrown out that beautiful cup because of a chip, or that bowl because of a crack?

It is the flaws that give it a history, a personality, a sense of unique. 

Like all things in life, nothing is perfect. 

As a philosophy, kintsugi can be seen to have similarities to the Japanese philosophy of wabi-sabi, an embracing of the flawed or imperfect. 

Japanese aesthetics values marks of wear by the use of an object. 

This can be seen as a rationale for keeping an object around even after it has broken and as a justification of kintsugi itself,
 highlighting the cracks and repairs as simply an event in the life of an object
rather than allowing its service to end at the time of its damage or breakage.

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Issue No.21: YELLOW

Ruffle my raffia @ Carriageworks

A performance that filled a huge space with colour, and raffia, and beating drums, and movement and dancers and delighted persons of a diverse age range occurred at the Carriageworks a few weeks ago.
Why there was this performance, I do not know.

Who was this Nick Cave from the US of A? As the Nick Cave I know of is Australian and somewhat morose in general.

Anyway, the event was great! Exciting, stimulating.
It was art, and it was there for all of us for free, which made it even better.

Just love the Carriageworks, Redfern, Sydney, Australia.

A big thank you!

Its JoyDay again!

It is JoyDay again.
This is the 7th year that it has been celebrated.

There are many things that bring shiftazine joy...many things, but on reflection it is being loved and having the opportunity to love that brings the greatest Joy.

So with that in mind, it was truly appropriate to celebrate my dear bark-angel Jack.
The great bringer of Joy and love.

This post is six years old but the inspiration for it and the contents in it have not a fade, even a tiny bit.

Celebrate the things, even the tiny ones, that bring you Joy, the 25th November.

Street. Find. Colour

This beautiful palette was found in a back street of Limassol, Cyprus.

The tiles were adorning an old store front, which had clearly been closed up, shut, for a long time.
A sad sight in general, but the wall tiles glowed, radiating a positivity which pulled me across the road.
There are colour conversations all around us, it is just there for us to see, hear, feel, and learn from.
Colour is a key part of our lives. It signals danger or a find. It triggers emotion and reaction. It is the stuff of life. 

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A beginning...

“Let every dawn of morning be to you as the beginning of life, and every setting sun be to you as its close.”

 John Ruskin, The Two Paths

There is something about early morning light that delights every time one is in it. That time of the day is still, and empty, but at the same time full of possibilities.

Early morning walk in Spring. Redfern Oval, Redfern, Sydney, Australia.