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Candia Comes Clean

~ Candid cultural comments from the Isles of Wonder

Category Archives: Psychology

Heard It All Before

03 Saturday Dec 2022

Posted by Candia in art, History, Humour, Photography, Psychology, Relationships, Sculpture, Social Comment

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Photo by Candia Dixon-Stuart

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Tempus Fugit

02 Friday Dec 2022

Posted by Candia in art, Philosophy, Photography, Psychology

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Tags

collage, handmaid, humanity, memento mori, skull, Tempus Fugit

Last -for now- in my collage series.

Candia Dixon-Stuart

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Collage 3

01 Thursday Dec 2022

Posted by Candia in art, Personal, Philosophy, Psychology

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Tags

collage, dream, globe, Liberty, love, motivation, skull

by Candia Dixon-Stuart

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St Luke’s, Sapperton

29 Wednesday Jun 2022

Posted by Candia in Architecture, Personal, Photography, Psychology, Supernatural

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Tags

benediction, epiphany, faith, happenstance, labyrinth, peace, prayer, reassurance, revelation, Sapperton, serendipity, St Luke's, stained glass, Ukraine

After I’d walked the churchyard labyrinth and prayed for Ukraine

in its centre, I opened the door of the church and saw this reflection

on the wall.

There was no stained glass window with a representation of a man on

the opposite wall for the sun to shine through. It was not spooky, just

somehow comforting and validating.

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Rejection

14 Thursday Oct 2021

Posted by Candia in Personal, Poetry, Psychology, Relationships, Writing

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Tags

empathy, Goya, jealousy, Los Caprichos, quennet, rejection, The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters

File:Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes - The sleep of reason produces monsters (No. 43), from Los Caprichos - Google Art Project.jpg
Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. Wikimedia Commons.

Goya: The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters from Los Caprichos

black mood patient endurance anguished thoughts

dashed hope

groundless expectation tunnel light silver lining?

suppressed frustration

wry smile forced laughter gnawing jealousy

daily grind

scarce empathy

gritted teeth

voluntary solitude

brittle persona

crushed spirit

low ebb

arrested development

black tunnel anguished grind daily endurance

groundless jealousy?

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Image

Little Red Riding Hood

30 Wednesday Jun 2021

Tags

acrylic painting, fairy tale, grandmother, Little Red Riding Hood, visiting the elderly

Acrylic painting by Candia Dixon-Stuart

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Posted by Candia | Filed under Animals, art, Education, Humour, Personal, Psychology

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Pointless Things

23 Sunday May 2021

Posted by Candia in Fashion, Humour, Literature, Personal, Poetry, Psychology, Satire, Social Comment, Writing

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Tags

concrete operational, fascinators, list poem, pet hates, Pillow Book, Sei Shonagon, trout pout

I think I wrote this poem based on an entry in The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon,

which was a list of ugly things. I tried to bring it up to date with pet hates of the

20th and 21st century.

Juxtaposing hair

which is unkempt with fine clothes;

a fascinator

on a helmet-like mullet;

hand-made paper spoiled

by spidery handwriting;

low-cut brides kneeling

in front of praying vicars;

presenting logic to the

concrete operational,

who try to pretend

that they understand;

a trout-pout selfie taken

by a narcissist – tramp-stamped,

and no Spring chicken either.

 

 

 

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Integrity

22 Saturday May 2021

Posted by Candia in Personal, Poetry, Psychology, Relationships, Social Comment, Writing

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Tags

fourteen lines, graciousness, honour, integrity, Japanese poetry, visiting friends

About two years ago I was experimenting with using Japanese poetic

frameworks and was trying to paraphrase and utilise poetry from the Tale

of Genji etc, but attempting to re-phrase the little cameos in my own words. 

This poem seems to have been left out, so I offer it to you now.

Sometimes you visit,

unexpectedly, a friend

and you stumble on

evidence of graciousness.

No show is put on:

it is their habitual

way of doing things.

It reflects nobility.

Even if you were to spy

on them, you would find

they’d behave in the same way.

they’re true to themselves,

whether they are being watched,

or not.  It’s integrity.

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Unicorn

21 Friday May 2021

Posted by Candia in Animals, art, gardens, Humour, mythology, Personal, Photography, Psychology, Sculpture, Supernatural

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Tags

christmas ornament, close observation, discovery, happenstance, magic, Sculpture, serendipity, simple pleasure, unicorn, value, worth

Went to a sculpture exhibition this week where some exhibits were tens of

thousands of pounds.

At the end, I wandered into the field where we had parked and saw a table

with plants, which I mistakenly thought might be for sale.

In the bushes beside the table was this little magical object- plastic- attached to

a fir branch which might have been part of an old discarded Xmas tree.

I actually had as much pleasure in serendipitously discovering and

photographing this small talisman, worth about 5p!

Photo by Candia Dixon-Stuart

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‘A Mad, Unreasoning Octopus – what Proust felt about Asthma’

04 Thursday Mar 2021

Posted by Candia in Literature, Poetry, Psychology, Writing

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Tags

Alpine spa, asthma, Belladonna, death rattle, Guermantes, lime tea, Meseglise, pharmacology, Proust, revivescences, sanatorium, souffle coup, vagitus

Marcel_Proust_1895.jpg (1207×1600)
Proust Image: Wikimedia

Yes, everything was inflammatory.

My father blamed my sensibility;

said my symptoms were imaginary.

My mother sighed at my debility,

but did not want to show complicity.

Works as hard as his affliction allows –

my teacher flagged my disability.

Meseglise might tempt with its rural airs;

lilac pollen permeate Illiers;

Guermantes might involve inhaling dust,

or powdered fumigation for its lust.

Caffeine and a mist of belladonna

might immunise from the attractive whores,

coquettes and those almond-eyed madonnas

one pursued, with breathless dedication.

Revivescences were what physicians

ordered: affective disorder cure!

Poisoning my mother’s joy

required expiation and purification.

I recalled aunt’s invalid infusion:

its scent of lime blossom, wafting to me,

unlocking sense of selfhood, combined with

distinctive whiff of pharmacology.

My anxiety about maternal

separation was supposed to have led

to an unconscious conflict of desires –

steamed from me at sanatoriums;

sucked from me at those pristine Alpine spas.

Writing as therapy?  Sublimation

through describing Albertine’s departure?

I found it a dreaded master, but a

faithful servant.  There’s no insulation from

a germ-laden world in cork-lined chambers.

I tried to avoid contamination.

Wheezing asthma is like being chained

to a mad, unreasoning octopus.

Its souffle coup punctuated my prose.

Each virgule was an expectoration.

I wrote eight hundred words in one sentence,

though I disliked the declamatory.

Nothing was going to constrict my flow –

each clause a vesicle to be expelled.

I’d emerge like a pale pupa at night,

morphing into my imaginal state

and the tabacs sold me Cigares de Joy,

my stramonium fix for each attack.

One hopes to have been an inspiration,

even for a thirty five second play,

based on the brief interval we call Life,

between vagitus and the death rattle.

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← Older posts

My name is Candia. Its initial consonant alliterates with “cow” and there are connotations with the adjective “candid.” I started writing this blog in the summer of 2012 and focused on satire at the start.

Interspersed was ironic news comment, reviews and poetry.

Over the years I have won some international poetry competitions and have published in reputable small presses, as well as reviewing and reading alongside well- established poets. I wrote under my own name then, but Candia has taken me over as an online persona. Having brought out a serious anthology last year called 'Its Own Place' which features poetry of an epiphanal nature, I was able to take part in an Arts and Spirituality series of lectures in Winchester in 2016.

Lately I have been experimenting with boussekusekeika, sestinas, rhyme royale, villanelles and other forms. I am exploring Japanese themes at the moment, my interest having been re-ignited by the recent re-evaluations of Hokusai.

Thank you to all my committed followers whose loyalty has encouraged me to keep writing. It has been exciting to meet some of you in the flesh- in venues as far flung as Melbourne and Sydney!

Copyright Notice

© Candia Dixon Stuart and Candiacomesclean.wordpress.com, 2012-2013. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Candia Dixon Stuart and candiacomesclean.wordpress.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

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