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Candia Comes Clean

~ Candid cultural comments from the Isles of Wonder

Category Archives: Supernatural

Spooky Kelmscott Tree

02 Friday Apr 2021

Posted by Candia in Environment, Nature, Personal, Photography, Supernatural

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Tags

Balinese shadow puppet, Cotswolds, geisha, Kelmscott, Oxfordshire, twisted tree

Photo by Candia Dixon-Stuart

Reminded me of a sinister Balinese shadow puppet. Or a geisha stretching

out her kimona sleeves to dance.

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Not Here, But Risen

28 Sunday Mar 2021

Posted by Candia in art, Bible, Personal, Religion, Supernatural

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churchyard, Cotswolds, Easter, empty tomb, Fairford, Forsythia, gravestone, Resurrection, St Mary's Gloucestershire

Photo by Candia Dixon-Stuart

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The Lamb

03 Wednesday Mar 2021

Posted by Candia in Animals, art, Bible, mythology, Nature, Photography, Religion, Supernatural

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Easter, halo, lamb, Paschal, radiance, sheep

The Lamb by Candia Dixon-Stuart

Photo by Candia Dixon-Stuart

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Beauty and the Beast

13 Sunday Dec 2020

Posted by Candia in Animals, art, mythology, Relationships, Supernatural

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Beauty and the Beast, fairy tale, Mixed Media, odd relationships

Mixed Media by Candia Dixon-Stuart

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Glorified Puddle

09 Monday Nov 2020

Posted by Candia in art, Autumn, Environment, Nature, Nostalgia, Supernatural

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

epiphany, Frederick Church, Golden Hour, light, transformation, transformation of the ordinary

Photo by Candia Dixon-Stuart

Basically a ditch off a muddy path, 5 minutes from my home.

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Multi Madonna and Children

28 Wednesday Oct 2020

Posted by Candia in art, Family, Parenting, Personal, Photography, Relationships, Religion, Supernatural

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acrylics, App, Madonna and Child

I love playing around with the original image.

All by Candia Dixon-Stuart

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Holy Trinity, Headington Quarry

09 Friday Oct 2020

Posted by Candia in Animals, Literature, Poetry, Relationships, Supernatural

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charnel house, CSLewis, Headington, Heartsease, Holy Trinity church, Joy, metamorphosis, Oxford, Pharisees, Siamese cat, The Hound of Heaven, The Kilns

The Kilns

Photos by Candia Dixon-Stuart

A gardener gave us brief directions

and we walked to Holy Trinity as

two believers in invisible cats

and curled up comfortably on its wall

was a very tangible companion.

Could this be a descendant of ‘step-cat‘

who ruled The Kilns; dominated the dog?

This was where Jack took his first Communion:

a mouse, finally captured by a cat –

or the quarry of The Hound of Heaven?

He didn’t metamorphose from a dog

immediately and other felines

did not recognise him as kin at first.

‘Cats,’ he said, ‘often don’t like each other;

they can be Pharisees who stare you out.’

‘Men must endure their going hence,’ proclaimed

the grave which nobody was visiting.

I placed two purloined Heartsease on the stone,

under unblinking, eye-slit surveillance

and thought about grey army blanket drapes;

those nicotine-stained ceilings; single beds;

Joy’s introduction of a Siamese.

That church cat was cool.  It was convinced that

its whiskers could pass through a needle’s eye.

Lying in rows, there were sheep and some goats.

Often we don’t have an inkling as to

which is which: we transform at different rates.

Could this have been the cat who comforted

souls in the charnel houses of old?  Or,

could it have been an erstwhile canine?

For this creature’s inscrutability

spoke of divine ineffability.

And all the while, it did not spring away,

but purred me towards an unseen lintel.

I expected gradual disappearance;

maybe some kind of cosmic benison.

But suddenly it was gone and a smile

seemed to hover over the whole graveyard.

I still believe in invisible cats.

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The Wind Phone

08 Thursday Oct 2020

Posted by Candia in Poetry, Relationships, Supernatural, Writing

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Aeolian harp, frequency alignment, Hourajimi, Mother nature, Otuschi, sea glass, susurration, tsunami, Wind Phone

Welcome, we are waiting for you.

From the hill there is a new horizon.

Tsunami sirens have been muted now.

The sea, a woodcut of tranquility,

is a dragonfly blue wash for weary pilgrims,

who seek connection to all they have lost.

They post imaginary epistles

to homes that were ripped from their foundations;

drowned with mental furniture from their pasts.

Messages rolled into mental bottles

will never be unfurled on any shore.

Voices are cast to the winds… no ringback

startles a disconnected receiver.

Some feel a tidal ebb and flow; return

to Otsuchi, where pine forests renew,

to discover their own denouements.

They close their eyes and listen,

straining for a whisper in a seashell;

dialling ‘0’ for an operator.

Dry grasses’ susurration is unnerving.

They sense that someone may be tuning in;

they have faith in frequency alignment.

Alert to Mother Nature, their heart strings

are taut, plucked like an Aeolian harp,

by the vicissitudes of every breeze.

Soon there is a marked diminuendo.

This booth holds their pasts, presents and futures.

They face the ocean, feeling its deep pulse.

Waves of raw emotion excoriate,

until their souls are polished like sea glass –

as green as the garden they stumbled through,

when they happened on the gate by themselves,

passing through the arch with its chimes and urns.

If they forget Hourajimi, then who

will remember them? Is that why they come?

Bowing, they dial the unobtainable.

Welcome.  We are waiting for you… and you.

Aeolian Harp photo by Simon Speed

Poem by Candia Dixon-Stuart

File:BloomfieldAeolianHarp.JPG

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Wayland’s Smithy, Oxfordshire

30 Wednesday Sep 2020

Posted by Candia in Autumn, Environment, History, mythology, Nature, Personal, Photography, Supernatural

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Tags

Cotswolds, long barrow, Ridgeway, Wayland's Smithy

Photos by Candia Dixon-Stuart

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Transfiguration of the Ordinary

13 Monday Apr 2020

Posted by Candia in art, Arts, Bible, Personal, Photography, Religion, Supernatural

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domestic visions, epiphany, spiritual enlightenment, transfiguration, transformation of the ordinary

stained glass christ at stables

Photo by Candia Dixon-Stuart

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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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