Little Women

Brief sun and blue sky this morning

lighting up the daffodils on my kitchen window sill

Followed this afternoon by

black clouds, hail and freezing sleet.

Short blog as I've just got back from a late showing of Little Women...Meg and Jo and Amy and Beth.....and their men. Worth seeing.....I can't remember all the details of the book I read as a teenager so don't know if the film is faithful to it....but I enjoyed it.

This quote from Robert Holden would apply to Jo....but it would be much harder for women to live it in the 1870s.

You didn't come here to be normal.

You came here to be you.

'Within Sorrow is Grace'.

February 2011

Walking with my father. Budleigh beach. After throwing rose petals into the estuary in honour of my cousin who died. ...too young...watching them float out to the big sea.

Today in my therapy session I walked beside my ancestors....tapping into something in their essence ...beliefs which have somehow become part of my essence...unquestioned....informing my way of being....maybe time to try on another skin.

Their hearts were good and loving....their beliefs rooted in duty and sacrifice...self denial in the name of being instruments of God's will....and always in service to others.

I have walked a tightrope between 

"Don't blow your own trumpet"

and

"Don't hide your light under a bushel."

Hard to get that one right.

And now I'm exploring how to serve without hurting/losing/denying myself.

 New water to swim in....how to live my true nature.

Within sorrow is grace. 

When we come close to those things that break us down,

 we touch those things that also break us open.

 And in that breaking open, we uncover our true nature.
- Wayne Muller -

The Weight of a Chopping Board

A dear friend sent me this  lovely message....

Giving myself time....trying not to make it finite...if I think that I may only have for example 20 years left, it sounds so little and makes me panic...I can't imagine it anyway.

So I'm giving  myself time NOT do stuff...like make big decisions.

Today I made a little decision.  In TKMAX I bought a new wooden chopping board to replace the one I have used nearly every day for 33 years which was a wedding present. It is still a good solid board, but it wobbles and  it's very heavy to lift now. The new one is made of bamboo.

I never imagined that getting older might mean that the weight of a chopping board would become something to consider. 

 Or that when we got married there would be a finite number of years for us.

In this day 24th January 2014  - New Zealand - walking in beautiful gardens in Auckland.

Four years into Robin's illness - 2 years and 9 months left. 

I'm glad we didn't know the date then.

And I'm glad I don't know mine.

I'm going to another funeral tomorrow...maybe that's why I'm thinking about it. 

Just feeling sad tonight. 

And remembering my lovely man.

Rest and Reading as well as Hot Soup

Today, after dear friends come for coffee bringing the lovely gifts of  themselves as well as bunches of furled daffodils and a beautiful hand made ceramic flower vase, I rest and read.

 I finish my novel,

Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout. A wonderful American writer I haven't read before

I always feel bereft and empty when I've finished a book I've enjoyed, like the end of a holiday.

But this time I can continue the pleasure as I found another of her novels in the second hand bookshop next to the cafe at Killerton House.

I'm letting myself read and rest and eat at the moment to break my habit of filling the emptiness that is stretching ahead of me now with busy plans for the next thing. I don't have a clear plan for my future but I still need a vague structure for my every day.

And that includes more soul nourishment as well as doing the washing and buying groceries and writing emails....feeding myself with rest and reading as well as deep bowls of hot spicy soup.

These Sparkling Genes

"We must learn to regard people less in the light of what they do or omit to do and more in the light of what they suffer"

- Dietrich Bonhoeffer - 

 My father was a great admirer of Dietrich Bonhoeffer's work. He was a German theologian...an anti Nazi dissident. I remember his name being mentioned throughout my childhood/adolescence. These words have stayed with me ever since I read them yesterday helping me  go deeper into my current forgiveness journey.

Today I held the hand of my father's last remaining cousin , who must be in her nineties, at the funeral of her partner who died on 4th January aged 100.

He was part German and deeply affected by the rise of Nazism in pre-war Germany ....was a member of CND and a great peace campaigner all his life.

 I only knew him briefly in his later years but I found it so moving to be in the presence of this branch of my father's family...his mother's side ...his cousin spoke about my grandmother  - her Aunty Ruth. They all have the same blue-grey, bright eyes -  twinkling, humorous. It was like my father was in the room with me and my sisters... and one of our cousins ....and the daughter of another.....these sparkling genes still embedded in us and the generations to come.

Never Again

More winter sun this morning

and frost

 making the grass 

 like crunchy white icing  to walk on.

Ice crystals  inside the green house with its broken panes of glass.

The hydrangeas like old parchment now...

and frosted spikes of

Mahonia - or Californian Grape...gorgeous sprays of scented yellow flowers - a gift from a dear friend last year.

Still a few silver birch leaves hanging on..

Exeter airport is so close to  where  I live but the planes overhead never bother me.

When I come downstairs from my rest this afternoon (I'm loving this idea that I can lie down in the day time...and it's good for me...vital even to do nothing .....to day dream or snooze)

I see seven female pheasants hoovering up every last sunflower seed and fat ball crumb

fallen from the bird feeders.

I wonder where they have been 

all this time.

This morning the sun streams onto the sofa where I'm sitting with a dear friend who is raw with grief.

He says,

" I can't believe I'll never hold her hand again."

I know. I know.

I know this one.

And I am raw again,

for the never again 

brush of his

lips

on mine.

Fire and Ice

Saturday morning fog shrouding 

the sun at first

then clearing to light up 

the frosty world 

of my woodland winter garden and its

 hungry wildlife, 

staining the sky rose pink and  pale gold at the end of the day.

Sunday

 I wake to more sparkling frost outlining the swimming pool,

and highlighting the fat coiled springs which keep the green cover taut across the green, mossy water below it.

The sky is a faultless outback blue, its occupant a gift of song and flashing redbreast.

 This nuthatch is a streamlined streak of peach and metallic blue darting in and out of the feeding station all morning.

Later I leave my garden thawing out in the sun for another garden,

my sister's recently acquired vegetable garden which needs clearing of the old before the new can be raised.

As I prune back the row of straggling raspberry canes the heat from the huge bonfire, built  by my nephew, scorches my legs and I think about the giant swathes of fire destroying lives and the land and the animals and the homes of Australia...

and how, if you let it, the flames, the smoke, the heat of anger

and blame and judgement, can destroy the 

hearts and spirits of those you love the most. And your own.

The sky outside my window is on fire this morning, the tiny chip of the moon still bright.

I can see the  fishing lake on fire beyond the plane tree -  a burnished bronze cauldron,

quickly fading to glassy blue revealing  the white bloom of crystal ice resting on the grass.. 

light as a layer of ash. 

And I let the flames of the fire I have been stoking inside myself abate too, and let myself  ponder on Matt Kahn's words that I read late last night...

Judgement is: whoever you blame in any moment.

Intuition is: clearly seeing how this moment is helpful for the evolution of self and for the sum of the whole.

Any attempt to stop judging only judges "the inner judge".

Any time the inner judge feels judged, its patterning is strengthened instead of integrated.

And yet patterns of judgement can be resolved simply by paying more attention to your intuition versus getting entangled in judgement - whether to others, the past or yourself.

If unsure about what your intuition is saying just ask yourself,

" How is this moment inviting me to evolve?

What old comfort zone is it liberating me from?

Which weakness is this moment helping me strengthen?

The answers are always within you.

It's simply a matter of giving yourself enough time to tune in, receive the wisdom, and swiftly act on it with faith, humility and compassion for all.

He makes it sound simple but I'm finding the practice of it almost impossible...

especially the humility bit...

Tonight I don't want to think at all and make a new dish...following a recipe recommended by a dear friend.

It's Anna Jones's  vegetarian Squash and Poppy Seed Toad in the Hole.

I adapted it of course - halved the quantities, used sesame seeds instead of poppy, made it dairy free, and drizzled a fresh coriander chutney sauce over it instead of her ale and mustard gravy - which sounds nice too but not with this.

It was a perfect supper, with lots of steamed purple sprouting broccoli on the side for a cold winter's evening.....letting all the emotional fire and ice settle in my body .....letting  my intuition have a chance.