Space Therapy

I nearly forgot how important contemplating our place in the universe is to our well-being and mental health. Humility is an important, often underestimated quality, it is, after all, about being humble. What better way to let go of our everyday troubles than to contemplate the vastness of time and space and our insignificance in the face of it. It is good to do our best with what we have; just because we are small beings, living small lives, does not mean we don't do anything positive. It is good to do what good we can. Count stars, contemplate eternity, visit a space observatory, connect with the vastness beyond your little life and little world, it could be wonderfully liberating.

Space Poetry

I have long been interested in science fiction, but have not written as much of it as I would have liked. Some of my spooky stories could be seen in a science fiction light, quite a few of them in fact, stories like Duchess Doom, The Creature and Living Rooms, I hope to develop them further in the future. I think these following four poems, highlight my literary interest in science fiction and space facts. They are Destination Deep Space, Planet Renga and Pulsar Observation.

 

Doctor Who Therapy

Dr Who therapy belongs to the wider concepts of time therapy, sci-fi therapy and TV-box-set therapy. The BBC has provided me with comfort on numerous occasions. I have long listened to BBC radio dramas and talking books to help me sleep before I discovered brainwave music and guided meditations. My favourite episode of Dr Who is Blink. A poignant episode dominated by the beautiful Carey Mulligan as Sally Sparrow who must save the world from the dangerous and scary weeping angels in the absence of the doctor. Other favourite episodes are Midnight, A Christmas Carol and Listen. Below are photographs of my daughter in front of the tardis and inside it, from a visit to the Doctor Who exhibition centre in Cardiff, which we visited in 2013.

Stargazing by LJ Finnigan

 
Stargazing is, perhaps, my favourite of the songs I have written. It is now accompanied on YouTube by, perhaps, my favourite of my daughter's paintings, also called Stargazing. The earlier music video to my song includes a montage of Amy's space pictures and also a space poem written by Amy and me called 'Planet Renga'.

 

Weirdscapes

Weirdscapes from dreams and space have featured a lot in my and Amy's pictures over the years, these are a few of my favourites.

Stargazing on SoundCloud

It is ten years, this August, since I first delved into Social Media, when I uploaded my animation Ballet Class onto YouTube. As a sort of celebration, I have joined SoundCloud and uploaded an old favourite song I have written, Stargazing, you can find it here. I don't know if I will upload any more, I will see how it goes. You can find our slide show of the song, featuring Amy's childhood Planet project pictures, here.

Pulsar

 Pulsar has been a work in progress for some time now. I wanted the illustration to look something like a 1950s sci-fi film poster, but I think my picture above looks more like 'Scooby Doo' than 'When Worlds Collide.' I have recently completed a more successful science fiction picture called 'Out of this world', I have used it as background for my poem 'Pulsar Observation'.

The most successful 1950s Sci-Fi inspired poster I did, previously, was for 'Destination Deep Space'. 

The Planets

Like 'On the Ice', 'The Planets' video is now available on both YouTube and Vimeo. Amy has drawn many pictures of the planets, we wrote Planet Renga together and I wrote the song Stargazing about a sleepless night spent staring at the stars.

8Track Music Mixes by AmiloFinn

I've been thinking about and listening to a lot of music lately and decided to put some more music mixes on the AmiloFinn 8Track channel at http://8tracks.com/amilofinn . I already had music mixes for 'Music from the Movies', 'My Music Collection' and 'Lorna's Songs'. I have now added 'Travelogue', 'Out of this world' and 'Music from the Dawn of Time'.

  

'Travelogue' is a selection of ten of my favourite songs about places and travel, starting with Northern Lights by Renaissance and ending with Empire State of Mind by Alecia Keys. It also includes Egypt by Kate Bush, Penny Lane by The Beatles and Kashmir by Led Zeppelin.

 'Out of this world' is a selection of songs I like listening to when I want to escape my everyday earthly worries. It features songs about the stars, the moon and the planets and includes Space Oddity by David Bowie, Walking on the Moon by The Police and Champagne Supernova by Oasis.

'Music from the Dawn of Time' features renditions of some of my favourite Baroque, Classical, Romantic and early Twentieth Century keyboard music that I found on the SoundCloud, including Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata, Chopin's Revolutionary Etude and Debussy's Arabesques.

Destination Deep Space

The illustrated poem, Destination Deep Space, developed out of a collection of leaflets I designed to advertise an art show I organised in 2005. The words and pictures are amalgamated from and inspired by different sci-fi movie posters of the 1950s. I loved films like 'The man with X-Ray eyes' and 'The incredible shrinking man', when I was growing up and loved reacquainting myself with them when developing the art show's promotional material. Although those two films don't feature in my poem or pictures, other wonderfully titled films, like 'The land that time forgot' and 'The day the earth stood still', do.

Stargazing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2tQVC9uuu0

One of my favourite musical experiences is The Planet Suite by Gustav Holst. The suite consists of musical pieces capturing the mythical character of seven of the planets in our solar system, Mars, Venus, Mercury, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. Over the years other composers have tried to 'complete' the suite by adding Earth and Pluto, but I don't think you can improve on the mystical seven pieces in Holst's original work. My daughter and I have been fascinated by space and our solar system, Amy has drawn many pictures of the planets, we wrote Planet Renga together and I wrote the song Stargazing about a sleepless night spent staring at the stars.