Keira McArthur

There’s the crackling of a quiet woodfire.  Then crickets, close to my left, but in counterpoint also farther away to my right, and farther away still – a tremolo in the hayfields that surround us.  I can hear an airplane – farthest away – a sustained roar almost entirely muffled by great distance. It is […]

These days the greater part of my awareness is below the ground amid the roots of plants I’ve put there  – encouraging them to reach down, to spread through the warm rich mix of compost, loam and peat moss I’ve made for them  – drink drink, feed, grow. Above ground the signs are good – […]

I wake into this morning still wrapped in a cocoon of wonder, pour myself into hot coffee and sunshine. From this computer two lovely pieces of new music emerge, both via my dear friend Kati Gleiser who is some hundreds of miles away but also next to me, as I write.  I listen to Kati’s […]

The morning is still still and grey weighed down by two feet of spring snow.  Even the sky is heavy.  The birds do their best to lighten things up but we have no warm welcome for them this year after the long flight north.  Just heavy grey, heavy snow, covered in old rabbit tracks. It […]

I woke in my bed this morning at 6:15, just in time to feel something shift. Winter solstice dawns today with fine fine snowfall out of white into white.  Even the trees are disappearing  – their branches look like fine pencil lines now.  I’m watching the snow fall, listening to the incredible Mychael Danna soundtrack […]

There is an ‘absence of me-ness’ in this morning.  What a relief.  Maybe thanks to A.A. Milne: “What day is it?”, asked Pooh. “It’s today”, squeaked Piglet. “My favourite day”, said Pooh. I’ve just cleared off and wiped the table where I sit, so the soft light coming through the south windows in front of […]

The clouds are pale indigo-violet, then a blustery bruised grey shot through with long warm lines of golden sunlight  and rich blue – this sets the red reds and the yellow yellows and the living greens in brilliant, stop-in-your-tracks collaboration.  I feel as though I’m watching the gods at play in a game where they […]

I awoke into one syllable: Um. And then another: Agh! What day is it? Saturday. Um? holiday weekend; shoes to kid for 9am, studio; funeral at 2pm; kayak & good, time at home Where am I? Full Moon.  You are in a full moon. Um. And then I remembered how much rich, satisfying fun I […]

The cicadas sing their doppler song of midsummer. We are dry as long-dead bones pressed into rock and exposed to a thousand years of sun.  Grass is brown, frogs huddle under leaves in watered gardens to protect their skins from shriveling.  You can hear wood and metal expand in the 10 am heat.  The sky […]