Tortoise Shell

This tortoise is the first ceramic my husband ever made. When he brought it home we all knew he had a unique talent...

This afternoon we sit in the small haven of our talented intuitive healer who believes nothing in this world is fixed and with divine help anything can change...... and that we always have choices.

She asks my husband to consider the possibility that we all need to feel safe......that unconsciously  the gift of his brain disease, like the shell of a tortoise, is a safe place to hide.  It will always be there.... but it's also a limiting place. And to find a way around the huge rock of his belief of I'm crap, I'm no good and I don't deserve to be here, is to take tiny steps, take little risks, knowing the shell is still there to retreat to. And by doing that he could discover it is also safe in the world -safe to fail and try again.

She guides us through an EFT( Emotional FreedomTechnique) tapping process. Afterwards my husband says he feels excited, energised. He says his little step out of his shell is to go back to making his ceramics for a short time, trusting in divine inspiration....

Later, striding along the sea front to get ahead of the spitting rain, weaving through the half term crowds, licking ice cream cones, I ask my husband what the session was like for him.

Like telling the truth, he says.

It feels like that for me too.

And makes me wonder about my own tortoise shell.....and what is my rock in the way.......and what are my little steps...... and how much, how passionately do I believe I can change?.......

Staying in Your Own Business - Again!

I don't think this article by Byron Katie came out completely on the page so here it is again.
(New blog to follow....)

Staying In Your Own Business
by Byron Katie

[Listen to Audio!]

I can find only three kinds of business in the universe: mine, yours, and God’s. For me, the word God means "reality." Reality is God, because it rules. Anything that’s out of my control, your control, and
everyone else’s control -- I call that God’s business.

Much of our stress comes from mentally living out of our own business. When I think, "You need to get a job, I want you to be happy, you should be on time, you need to take better care of yourself," I am in your business. When I’m worried about earthquakes, floods, war, or when I will die, I am in God’s business. If I am mentally in your business or in God’s business, the effect is separation.

I noticed this early in 1986. When I mentally went into my mother’s business, for example, with a thought like "My mother should understand me," I immediately experienced a feeling of loneliness. And I realized that every time in my life that I had felt hurt or lonely, I had been in someone else’s business.

If you are living your life and I am mentally living your life, who is here living mine? We’re both over there. Being mentally in your business keeps me from being present in my own. I am separate from myself, wondering why my life doesn’t work.To think that I know what’s best for anyone else is to be out of my business. Even in the name of love, it is pure arrogance, and the result is tension, anxiety, and fear. Do I know what’s right for me? That is my only business. Let me work with that before I try to solve your problems for you. If you understand the three kinds of business enough to stay in your own business, it could free your life in a way that you can’t even imagine.

The next time you’re feeling stress or discomfort, ask yourself whose business you’re in mentally, and you may burst out laughing! That question can bring you back to yourself. And you may come to see that you’ve never really been present, that you’ve been mentally living in other people’s business all your life. Just to notice that you’re in someone else’s business can bring you back to your own wonderful self. And if you practice it for a while, you may come to see that you don’t have any business either and that your life runs perfectly well on its own.

--Byron Katie

Nothing Good Or Bad...

Handmade luxury chocolates - Sunday morning market in Old Cromwell, NZ.

After supper tonight - 8.30ish -   my husband makes himself a cup of strong black expresso coffee.

In the past I would have said,

You're mad, you'll never sleep tonight if you drink that - it's full of caffeine.

He used to drink masses of the strongest coffee you can buy but mostly in the daytime because of my insistance that his insomnia was related to late night coffee.

He hasn't suffered from insomnia for a long time now. Even though he sometimes has coffee late at night. And I don't comment any more...it doesn't trigger me like it used to..... and anyway he doesn't believe me or remember or understand about caffeine.

I know Shakespeare had it right -

There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so.....

Also I'm practising Byron Katie's wonderful wise saying about Whose Business Is It? ....when I remember that is..

You can find this article at this really inspiring website Awaking Weekly.

Staying In Your Own Business by Byron Katie [Listen to Audio!] I can find only three kinds of business in the universe: mine, yours, and God’s. For me, the word God means "reality." Reality is God, because it rules. Anything that’s out of my control, your control, and everyone else’s control -- I call that God’s business. Much of our stress comes from mentally living out of our own business. When I think, "You need to get a job, I want you to be happy, you should be on time, you need to take better care of yourself," I am in your business. When I’m worried about earthquakes, floods, war, or when I will die, I am in God’s business. If I am mentally in your business or in God’s business, the effect is separation. I noticed this early in 1986. When I mentally went into my mother’s business, for example, with a thought like "My mother should understand me," I immediately experienced a feeling of loneliness. And I realized that every time in my life that I had felt hurt or lonely, I had been in someone else’s business. If you are living your life and I am mentally living your life, who is here living mine? We’re both over there. Being mentally in your business keeps me from being present in my own. I am separate from myself, wondering why my life doesn’t work.To think that I know what’s best for anyone else is to be out of my business. Even in the name of love, it is pure arrogance, and the result is tension, anxiety, and fear. Do I know what’s right for me? That is my only business. Let me work with that before I try to solve your problems for you. If you understand the three kinds of business enough to stay in your own business, it could free your life in a way that you can’t even imagine. The next time you’re feeling stress or discomfort, ask yourself whose business you’re in mentally, and you may burst out laughing! That question can bring you back to yourself. And you may come to see that you’ve never really been present, that you’ve been mentally living in other people’s business all your life. Just to notice that you’re in someone else’s business can bring you back to your own wonderful self. And if you practice it for a while, you may come to see that you don’t have any business either and that your life runs perfectly well on its own. --Byron Katie Share the Wisdom:        Latest Community Insights

Elderflower Cordial - Then and Now

To make the best elderflower cordial you are supposed to pick the flower heads on a hot dry day. I thought it would never stop raining but by Sunday evening the sky turned blue and we stopped at the allotment on our way home from Budleigh and gathered big fragrant bags of both pink and white and I put them in the fridge for later.

I know I've written about making pink elderflower cordial before. I trawled back through this blog and found seven references to it - the first one on 3rd June 2011 and the last one, with similar photos, on July 2nd 2013.

Reading the posts this is what struck me -

 How hot it was then in June and July and how cool and wet it was today at the end of May.

How much and also how little my husband has changed - not remembering or recognising the  colour or the flavour, or the word or the tree or the flower -  then and today.

Today he wants to drink the pink cordial neat without the fizzy water - like he did then. I say it's like drinking gin without the tonic. And he says, Yes so what? I like it.

The allotment was all his then - this morning he did go down and plant out some cabbage seedlings on his own while I had my One-to-One Apple lesson in town on my new computer, but that was the first time for ages.

And it struck me that although I'm afraid of repeating myself -  and I think I wrote better then -  by keeping on with this it's charting something, recording this journey with my husband  - the details of which I'd forget in an instant otherwise. Not that it matters really but sometimes it's good to compare and see how far we've travelled and where we got stuck on the way....

I did learn how to do a link on my blog today so here is my post from June 2011 - I hope.

http://trishcookingcurrie.blogspot.co.uk/2011/06/gazebo-for-daschund.html

Just checked it and  it doesn't work to click on the underlined here but on the http link above instead....!

Seizing The Day

SATURDAY 

Burgh Island, Bigbury on Sea, South Devon.

Kite in the sky?

Bird on a wire.

Challaborough Bay.

Boat lane ball buoy.

Cystus on the  windy cliff.

SUNDAY

Estuary at Budleigh Salterton.

Looking back at Budleigh from the coastal path.

Muddied waters.

BANK HOLIDAY MONDAY

Bird on a roof, Tyntesfield, Bristol.

Daisy and lupin,

gooseberries,

 and dandelion bee in the walled vegetable garden at Tyntesfield.

It was going to be a working weekend - pruning the overgrown garden, doing something about last year's pots,  planting, weeding the allotment, picking the elderflowers, spring cleaning. 

Instead I packed a picnic every morning and we headed off - in spite of the rain - to the coast, to the river, to the big Victorian house and gardens - looking for the sun -  seizing the day.

In case there aren't many more like this. In case I fall into the trap of thinking the weeding is more important than my husband's smile when we walk together, on a path somewhere, just taking steps in the air.

An Ordinary Day

When I think I have nothing interesting to write about I sift through my day and look for a moment - something significant/inspiring/beautiful/insightful to start me off - to unblock the drain of my critical thoughts. Usually it's really late at night and I'm tired and I can't remember why I'm doing this  - like now....trying to make the ordinary extraordinary....and can't get beyond the details of my day which in themselves are totally insignificant.....

Like our young man cleaner coming this morning and shining the tiles in the bathroom and hoovering up the dust balls under the bed.....and how I love the feeling of the house being clean..... but I can't really justify the cost of having a cleaner.....

Like sitting with my husband in the darkened room of the opticians at Boots who talks about glaucoma  and 20/20 vision and I act as  translator.... and I tell him about my husband's uncle's macular degeneration ....and even though my husband  sees a Z on the chart he reads it as an F he still has better than average vision ( with his glasses on) and he doesn't need new ones which is a great relief....

When my husband asks what's for supper I say, I have no idea but  I'll wake you up at half past seven and we'll have it then.

 And with the sun lighting up the kitchen  - showing up all the smudges everywhere, as the cleaner didn't get to the cabinets - I open the fridge and start concocting......entering my safest haven with a knife and chopping board and a cauldron of confidence .....which appears nowhere else in my life.

For the record -  supper is fresh cod fillets baked with a little lemon and olive oil, roasted sweet potatoes in their skins, wedges of bright orange Crown Prince squash, a very garlicky tomato sauce laced with finely chopped spinach and pungent coriander and the steamed frilly leaves of purple Russian kale.

We eat it at the kitchen table with the sun bouncing off the white plates at the end of an ordinary day.

Lemon Cakes - Not Fool-Proof

Some of the luscious veggies I bought in the organic farmers market this morning..... and mixed with  a gift of  garden flowers from the same market. Later I meet up with two friends in a tiny cafe behind the cathedral called Cakeadoodledo - for  connection, coffee and cake - mine is Lemon Polenta  -  a huge, crumbly, zesty, moist and crunchy slice, freshly baked, melting and memorable.  I leave feeling touched by their listening, their TLC..... and with the bunch of flowers and jar of Sicilian Lemon Curd in my bag.

Much later I bake a fool-proof Cranks recipe for Lemon Drizzle Cake and wake up my husband in time to go to our Deeksha meditation evening.  He is reluctant to go, not sure he'll be able to give the Deeksha blessing and when I ask why he says he's lost his confidence  - in how to do it and if he'll get it right.

Which is why he's taking a break from singing and making his ceramics -  he feels incompetent, his fear of getting it wrong, of risking 'failure,' far outweighs any pleasure he may get from it, certain he'll feel even worse about himself ....better to do nothing than experience that.

He's always had this tendency - painful and frustrating for me to watch - long before the brain disease.....but now it seems to be exaggerated. I worry that the anti-depressants are making it worse for him even though he doesn't cry any more when he sees or hears an ambulance or a child crying he doesn't like the dampening down of all his emotions. He has reduced the dosage  but I'm wondering if a different one would be better.....bring him back to himself. Maybe not to his old self .....maybe that's  gone......

He does give everyone - all 12 of us -  the Deeksha blessing and says he enjoyed it. We leave very soon after a cup of tea and a square of Lemon Drizzle Cake. I know now that talking and listening in a group for more than a few minutes is one of the hardest, most tiring things for him.

 So now I'm re-thinking - re-feeling my way into how to be with all our family and friends....so we both don't lose out. But because we are so knitted up into the fabric of their TLC....I know we'll find a recipe -  even if it's not as fool-proof as the one for Lemon Drizzle Cake.

The Oxygen Of My Day

Lake Tekapo, New Zealand

A few random moments from my day...

Running across the High Street in Honiton to meet and hug my friend....who I haven't seen for more than a year.

 Halting our conversation to watch two baby robins hopping around the metal legs of the chairs while we eat our toasted sandwiches in the garden of a sweet cafe.

Buying a very expensive fillet of new season wild trout in the fishmongers in the street near where my parents used to live....being flooded with memories of them....missing their presence.

Walking round a friend's wild and beautiful garden with a cup of Earl Grey tea, taking in deep gulps of lilac bloom perfume, precious as oxygen.

Planting the new trailing begonias in last year's hanging baskets, filling them up with our own compost, wishing my mother was here to tell me how many to put in and if they look OK....wondering why I do it when I find it so stressful.

Talking to my sister on the phone - remembering who I am.

Hugging my husband in the kitchen when he comes back from watering the seedlings at the allotment.....telling him he's such a gift to me - teaching me about myself....even though he doesn't believe me I know it's true.

Surprises

The things that surprised me today .....and filled me with wonder.....

 The stillness of  Mrs Mallard  high on on a wall above us as walked down the steps....

Mr Mallard  strutting nearby - agitated when I got too close to her.

 Our lunch in the Old Mill Bakery - edible bowls made of bread dough -  heaped up with Cowboy Chilli Beans for my husband, Caponata for me.

A row of tall layered cakes on the counter in the Bakery - Caramel Banana,

Poppy Seed and Walnut...

Courgette and Lemon and Pistachio - how do you eat  such high cakes without getting icing on your nose?

Made me think about the two cakes I made for my friend yesterday..... for the 30 women in her workshop....one of  the cakes with coconut chocolate frosting like this one I made for my vegan cousin a few weeks ago. I wonder if the cream cheese icing on the carrot cake separated overnight in the fridge and if the chocolate polenta cake was moist enough...

My first sight of poppies this year - my heart always stopped by their vivid orangeness, by their blowing-in-the-wind flimsiness....

by the extravagant velvety spideryness of their centres.

And what surprised me today, too, was how easy it was to change my allotment and gardening plans, to change the pictures of my day, when my husband said he wasn't bothered about going to tie up the flopping broad beans..... and preferred to walk by the sea instead......and it did look like it was going to rain.

And when he said he was going to give up singing in his choir, and give up all his ceramic classes I could listen to his pain about it....imagine the prospect of all his empty days - the loss of my two free afternoons, my two free evenings.....and just let it settle in me and seep into the fibres of me.....and reach out to put my hand on his knee while he drives us home....and think about supper and not the path which could take me into an unbearable future .....surprising myself......keeping as still inside as Mrs Mallard.

In The Devil's Cauldron Or In The Green Green River

We had a mini-heatwave at the weekend.

Saturday afternoon - I wish you could smell all the gorgeous flavours of our avocado crostini lunch in the garden - the basil and warm tomato and the triangular stemmed wild garlic I found at the allotment - imagining we were on a hot terrace in an old walled Italian village....

 I wish you could smell the peppery nutmeg aroma of the honeysuckle abandoning itself in a tangle on the fence, scenting the whole garden, a perfume magnet drawing me out of the kitchen on Saturday night.

The last of the apple blossom on the lawn and the daisies before I cut them.... and the  ring of bluebells fading now.

 Hot puse pink allium pompoms by the back door. I bought them as a gift for a friend but ended up keeping them when our supper was cancelled....

 It's hot, hot, hot on Sunday and we walk and  picnic at the National Trust's Lydford Gorge on the edge of Dartmoor.

 I wish you could smell this massed wild garlic blossom which scented our steep walk down the  wooded valley to the river below us.

 I wish you could hear the rush of this waterfall called White Lady, and the squeals of delight of the little girl splashing in the shallow pool below it with her parents keeping a watchful eye.

I fell in love with this tranquil green river as we followed its meandering path along the rocky bottom of the valley.

And looking down on the boiling Devil's Cauldron..... it reminded me of another giant white water  - bigger and louder - The Devils Cataract at the Victoria Falls in Zambia where you can't avoid being soaked by the exploding spray. 

Back at the top of the gorge we find a bench in the field next to the tea rooms and tuck into our boiled egg and humus picnic, but it's not till we finish that I look up and gasp at the beauty of 

this bell blossom tree which we have been sitting under all along,

but because the wind keeps blowing the branches I can't get a close up of the flowers in focus.

At home the sun still pours into the kitchen and I notice another orchid flower has unfurled in the heat  - it continues to amaze me that in spite of my total neglect and ignorance of how to take care of the three plants I own, they still produce such perfection from their dead looking tangle of roots.

Today the sun keeps away. It rains on and off and the weekend feels like another country. But what is staying with me is a conversation I had with my husband in the car driving to Lydford about the allotment and how he feels about it  - his despair and de-motivation - listening to him in a different way - in the way I learnt in the Conflict Resolution course - listening with the intention to understand, to empathise - listening with love.....instead of the way I listen sometimes which isn't listening at all really  - when it's disguised as attack and making wrong.... with the intention to somehow get my own way....

Like being in the dead end swirl of the  Devil's Cauldron instead of in the peaceful flow of the green  green river....