A String of Pearls

"The details make life holy. If you want a little happiness in life don’t forget to look at the little things. It is a poet’s work to see the incidental, pluck it, place an appropriate silence around both sides and see the profound in what passes for a passing moment. It is an artist’s job to as much discover art as create it. Prayer is a way of making the common profound by pausing, tying knots around a moment, turning our life into a string of pearls."

Noah Ben Shea

 

33 Random Things about me

• I hum or sing when I'm embarrassed. I'm doing a bit of both right now :)
• I didn't talk until I was 3 years old.
• After contemplating this list for some time, I realise that I am not actually very interesting after all :)
• I don't mind getting older, I feel like I fit being old better than being young. Wrinkles don't scare me.
• I dislike modern architecture, design, fashion and lots of other moderny things, I find them harsh looking, and full of too many straight lines, bling and primary colours.
• I like old, broken things that have a story.
• I often dream of being Amish, bonnet, buggie and all!
• When I was little I wanted to be four things when I grew up, a nurse, a ballerina, an artist and a nun, ha!
• I am a super messy (eat with my fingers) eater. I have to be careful what I order in restaurants :)
• I can't stand feeling like I've hurt someone, it gives me a deep ache.
• I only started coming out of my shell in my mid twenties.
• I feel stronger now and softer too. Life is made of strange paradoxes.
• I know nothing about motherhood even though I have five children :) I only follow my heart and try my best with what I've got and hope it will be enough. Often I'm sure it's not. 
• My children are my dear friends and my great teachers.
• Although, in principle,  I love the romance of the gypsy life, I've come to accept that I'm actually a homebody. I like to put down deep roots and feel a connection to the place in which I live.
• I find God in sunlight, sky, earth and birdsong more than books or buildings.
• I love to simply sit, preferably, in a sunny spot and just let my imagination wander far, wide and free.
• If I'm listening to music I don't like to talk. I just like to listen.
• I think that we are all here for a purpose. 
• I think the lesson of my life is to learn how to love properly.
• I need to see trees outside my window.
• I can't live without dark chocolate.
• I can't sing but I love to sing anyway
• When I grow up I want to be the crazy lady who lives in a log cabin in the woods, keeps nine cats and makes pots.
• I am a dreamer :)
• Going into town makes me anxious, as do supermarkets, bright lights and crowds.
• When I was younger I used to be super sensitive, my skin felt on edge all the time. It still does sometimes.
• I don't like judgmental attitudes or gossiping.  To always assume the best of others bestows dignity, on them and on ourselves.
• I believe, everyone deserves to be loved and accepted for who they are.
• I can be way too serious when I should lighten up and way to silly and irreverent when I should just sit still and take note.
• My favourite flowers are daffodils.
• I love empire line or ankle length medieval dresses and would happily wear them everyday. 
•  In all my life, I have never, and probably will never iron anything.

a birthday ramble

My Birthday was a gentle day... The girls woke me with gifts, a dozen or so little origami animals poems and hand made cards...:)
We watched the magical Arrietty.







It's amazing how you can learn to feel so much of what another person feels, that you almost feel like you are really apart of one another.

Tani and I couldn't be more different as personalities but somehow over the years we seem to have melded into one soul.

I need his strength and out-going-ness, to offset my vulnerability and introversion.

I need his practical mind to balance my impulsiveness.

I need his earth like temperance in clay.

It channels my fragile little stream from it's little woodland dwelling to the open air and the blue skies of possibilities.




Vicki mentioned the briggs meyers test in the comments recently which I took a couple of years ago and recently again.

I am a typical INFP and Tani is almost the complete opposite an ENTJ!

We often joke that it was the language barrier that kept us together long enough in the beginning to clinch a deal.




When we first met, Tani spoke a little English with a very odd accent with bits of Geordie, Irish and Liverpudlian thrown into the mix as he had been working on building sites with people from all over the country since landing in London.

But I never laughed so much in all my life than I did when we were together.

No matter what we have been through, we have always been able to laugh.

I know this is a true gift.




Lately I've been thinking about my life, how I have become who I am and how I've struggled to allow my own true voice to come through after protecting it under layers and layers for years and years.

I've cried for the girl I was, the child who was afraid and alone almost constantly.

The child who could do nothing but run to save her life.

The girl who always felt like an outsider, a stranger.

The girl who needed to build family and foundations, before she could even begin.

And here I am beginning, it seems late, with a lifetime and a half behind me, within me, yet still not brave enough to fledge from the bough.




I look out at the horizon, but sometimes, I feel like I'll never feel at home here in this world.

I'm super stressed by things like crowds, supermarkets, neon lights, driving on motorways.

I hate the feeling of adrenaline, it makes me feel nauseous.

Maybe I've had my quota of it in the past so that now I get an allergic reaction to it or something.

Maybe I should have been born in a quieter, slower paced time.

Certainly, at times, it feels as if my biology hasn't quite evolved to meet the standards of modern life.

Take me to the woods and I'll be at home.




I need to find a way of being in the world that doesn't feel like I'm compromising who I truly am and what I believe in.

I need to find a way to manifest my story into something tangible without betraying it, or diluting it or simply hiding it as I have so often done.

The thing is it seems hard to reconcile so many aspects of the modern world with my own heart and soul.

I want to live simply, without all the complexity, the arbitrary rules, the "stuff" but what a challenge that is.

It seems as if you have to be self supporting to begin with if you want to have a chance of surviving outside of the system.




I've been reading a lovely little book called Balancing Heaven and Earth by Jungian analyst Robert Johnson, who is one of my favourite writers. In it he talks of how we can set others free when we find our own freedom.

I find that I am drawn to people who have a sense of freedom about them, people who have that childish quality that allows them to unselfconsciously be themselves.

To speak without filters or censorship and to love others without filters or censorship.

People who are not afraid to just open up or do something fun or unconventional or non conformist.

People who will challenge rules that don't bend toward deep, messy human love.

People who will be unfaithful to remain faithful.




I've also been thinking about what life means to me in an essential way.

Relationships, nature, God and meaning are my sacred four.

I feel quite deeply that my mission is to learn how to love. Really love.

Love the essential goodness present in all people.




I was talking to Boo today about how sometimes even the worst bits of us actually come from an essentially good instinct.

Like wanting a pretty dress is a veil for a love of beauty.

Boasting, is a veiled desire to believe we are specially loved, which in fact we are.

Even a lie simply aches to be worthy of the truth.

It's almost like a wish.




Girls often have their inner princess squashed as a child, but that inner princess is real.

It a way for God to exalt the soul.

Show that it is cherished beyond measure despite it's natural flaws.

It is that little piece of us that bears the image of something beyond, something eternal.

Sometimes when my girls have done something they know is wrong I'll bundle them up good and tight, look into their eyes and tell them that I can still see them.

I can still see that they are beautiful. No matter what.




This afternoon I started thinking about a few things that have been a big influence of me.

Things that have really opened my eyes, my heart, my soul over the years.

Things that have fed me, or awakened me, given me clarity and perspective.

I got it down too the absolute minimum which was super hard.

But these books, movies, writings seem to have been the ones that stuck most to my soul and changed it through love and clarity for the better.

These have mentored, counseled and helped me grow ...

Books

The poetry of Rumi
Love by Earnesto Cardenal
Women Who Run with the Wolves Clarissa Pinkola Estes
Dumbing us Down John Taylor Gatto
A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn
The Fisher King and the Handless Maiden Robert Johnson
Bury my Heart at Wounded Knee

Movies

Baraka
The Thin Red Line
Babies
Into Great Silence

Spirit

"Be the change you want to see" Gandi
The Beatitudes

Ojibwa Prayer

People

John Trudell
Martin Luther King
Saint Therese
Mother Teresa
Jeanne d'arc
John Bradburne Vagabond of God
Saint Isidore the Farmer

This poem...

It doesn't interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart's longing.

It doesn't interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn't interest me what planets are squaring your moon. I want to know if you have touched the centre of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life's betrayals or have become shrivelled and closed from fear of further pain.

I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it, or fade it, or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own; if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to
be careful, be realistic, remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn't interest me if the story you are telling me is true. I want to know if you can
disappoint another to be true to yourself. If you can bear the accusation of betrayal
and not betray your own soul. If you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see Beauty even when it is not pretty every day. And if you can source your own life from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand at the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, 'Yes.'

It doesn't interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone and do what needs to be done to feed the children.

It doesn't interest me who you know or how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the centre of the fire with me and not shrink back.

It doesn't interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.

Oriah Mountain Dreamer

Moving to the woods... For those who keep dreaming

"To be poor and be without trees, is to be the most starved human being in the world. To be poor an to have trees, is to be completely rich in ways that money can never buy."
~"Uncle Zovar : The Faithful Gardener" Clarissa Pinkola Estes.



There is a sycamore tree in our back garden. Whenever I catch a quiet moment to myself, or maybe when I'm doing the washing up I gaze at it.



Each season it gives me a new story, in it's starkness, it's fiery glory, it's tender greenness or it's carefree Summer flourish.



Whenever I feel alone or sad I am drawn to the window. The green leafed hope and life rustling like a prayer I cannot yet speak.



In the front garden grows an Ash and a Rowan.
The Ash grows right against our window. Many people have said we should cut it down but I can't.



Sometimes I can look at it and imagine that our house is within a wood. Sometimes birds come and rest on it's branches and I can see them so close, each thin fleck of feather, the delicate curves of their bodies. I am reminded of my childhood wonder again.



We are surrounded by buildings and lights on all sides. The sky is a small square framed by angles. In the evening the orange glow of the street lights spread a musky gauze so that it is hard to see the stars clearly.






I pine for a closer relationship with with the land. I want to bury my hands in dirt, feel the roots, the moistness the movement of the seasons. Be able to cup my hands in the stream and drink. Do you remember when we used to swim in ponds and rivers?



Nature was the one thing that reminded me that there was a God when I was a child. It also told me that God was good. He was a storyteller, an artist, a poet, healer.



I watched a documentary about Yellowstone last night.
After the Native people had been removed from the land, many of the first settlers arranged epic hunting expeditions that almost wiped out the wildlife.



In an attempt to save the wilderness, some environmentalists of the day argued that Yellowstone could make a great tourist destination. But first of all, they would have to kill all the wolves to make it more people friendly.



However, this was a mistake as the wolves naturally culled elk and other species which ate trees and plants such as willow which the beavers need to make their dams.



After attempting to artificially cull the elk themselves the park officials finally, reintroduced the wolf to the park. Watch the video below to see how Wolves change rivers.






Yet somehow the ecology of the wilderness was still not quite in balance and still required human modification and management.



The park managers questioned why this was. Finally they realized that the missing element was the Native people. Those whom they had first evicted! Yet those native peoples were an intrinsic part of that particular ecology, just as the wolf, the willow and the elk were!



The difference was that the Indigenous people's lived off the land in a way that could enrich it rather than harm it.



People need nature to move them, mold them, remind them of God. When our connection with nature is broken so is our connection with God. We forget to treat the earth as a living, breathing being and we harm her for things we don't really need.



The earth and us, are one and the same, just as we are part of God and He a part of us. We need each other to be whole. To be holy even.






 “The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness.”
― John Muir


Earth teach me quiet ~ as the grasses are still with new light.

Earth teach me suffering ~ as old stones suffer with memory.

Earth teach me humility ~ as blossoms are humble with beginning.

Earth teach me caring ~ as mothers nurture their young.

Earth teach me courage ~ as the tree that stands alone.

Earth teach me limitation ~ as the ant that crawls on the ground.

Earth teach me freedom ~ as the eagle that soars in the sky.

Earth teach me acceptance ~ as the leaves that die each fall.

Earth teach me renewal ~ as the seed that rises in the spring.

Earth teach me to forget myself ~ as melted snow forgets its life.

Earth teach me to remember kindness ~ as dry fields weep with rain.

- An Ute Prayer






And finally, some inspiration for a free spirited life this beautiful film "Live Before you Die" 
Live Before You Die from Dreamtime Film on Vimeo.

Amish Inspired Ponderings

I have really been enjoying watching channel four's series on the Amish recently.

The Amish have such a deep sense of family and community.
They are also wonderfully, non self conscious and straightforward in the way they talk and act.

Their lives are lived in balance with nature in a way that is creative and abundant rather than destructive and scarce. And their deep faith infuses the work of their hands with meaning and purpose. A purpose that touches something of the eternal rather than a momentary thrill or transient reward.

Of course they are not perfect, all communities have their issues, but somehow the simplicity of their lives endow them with a general air of unaffected contentment.

I've been re-reading this gem of a book by John Gatto recently
In it the author argues that community has in many ways fragmented into a series of convoluted and superficial networks. Instead of the organic scaffolding of friendship and extended family that builds a framework for children to grow and adults to find purpose.

There are after school groups and breakfast groups and a hundred other kind of groups but the strong bond of deep love, friendship and endurance that we seek in our depths is so often the missing ingredient.
We are held together by abstractions and ideologies that often encourage competition or shallowness instead of the connective tissue of real, solid love.

I remember when I have been really quite lonely as a SAHM. Good intentioned health visitors would often recommend a mother or baby group so that I could meet other mums.
Although they often provided temporary connection and distraction from the routine, it always seemed a very unnatural environment in which to forge a real friendship. Needless to say, many people I knew then and thought I had become quite close to have drifted away and toward more presently relevant merry go rounds of school, work and extra curricula centered activity.

In many of these groups I often found that there was no way to just open up and be myself. After all I didn't know anyone and they didn't know me, we lived apart, had grown up apart and worked apart from one another on a physical level at least.
There was little talk about anything other than nappies and feeds as we were in affect a group of strangers thrown together under the one common denominator of being new mothers.

I have recently found a deeper level of community through homeschooling and our church but it feels somehow that there should be more of this stuff to nourish and nurture us on our journey through all the big transitions and initiations of life such as teen-hood, marriage, parenthood, sickness and aging.

I admit to desperately seeking the kind of community and friendship the Amish women have as they undertake their daily tasks, not alone but as a community with deeply entwined roots.

Funny, but sometimes the most honest, real and supportive community that I have found has been through blogging.
I have met some true friends online, friends who I think of and pray for often! Thank you friends!!! :)

Faith is another aspect of the Amish way which I wish to have a little more of if I'm honest.
They incorporate their faith into every aspect their life.

It seems a popular assertion these days to turn away from traditional faith paths in favour of non belief and, honestly I know a few atheists that have live more closely in accordance with Jesus's teachings than many Christians I have known and I often find myself thinking that maybe this is what Jesus meant when he said this...
"Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven."

But when atheism asserts that a life of faith is one of monotonous self denial of our true passions and desires I have to disagree.

When truly "lived" faith transfigures, transforms and raises our desires and passions away from narcissistic self gain toward purer, nobler, gentler things that benefit others rather than just ourselves.

When we have no meaning, no purpose, no faith, family or community to any great measure, then we feel far more tempted to replace true freedom with counterfeit projections of freedom such as consumerism, addiction and vanity. All of which leave us feeling discontent, empty and somehow, strangely bereft.

A true faith bestows dignity, it extinguishes our cravings, despondency and anxiety and replaces them with the cool, healing balm of contentment, resolve, and peace.

It makes us desire what is beautiful instead of what is debased. It anoints our eyes with clarity.

When I think of a simple life, I think of a life that can't be bought.
A life that is not cluttered with the extraneous but deeply centered on the needful.
A life that is un-distracted
A life that is not wracked with anxiety or burdened by fear, the fear that we are not accumulating, gaining ground, "succeeding" possessing, securing our future...
A life that is close to nature, beauty and love.
A life that is soft and gentle like those beautifully mulchy Autumn leaves nourishing the earth like a chrysalis or womb.
A life that feeds, and is life giving as a breath of fresh air.

I would like to cultivate this kind of life more and more in the year to come.

My word for last year was "real". I feel like I have come out of my shell and accepted my self and shown myself more clearly and truly that ever before.
I have removed many of the shackles of fearing people and the world that I had become so used to.
I feel content to simply be loved by God as I am.
Full of hiccups, chipped bits and dusty spots but with a pure intention to follow where love leads regardless.

I know that many people want a simpler life and it seems harder and harder to aquire the freedom to do so. This is a big question I hope to look more deeply into in the year to come.

I'm not sure what my new word for the year will be.... Mmmm, I'll have a ponder over the next couple of days I think :)

Much love to all this new year
xx

Self Portrait Tuesday

Wherever you go, go with all your heart. ~Confucius

Thought I'd Join Courtney and Tracey today for Self Portrait Tuesday, seeing as Emmy sneaked a couple of pictures of me yesterday... Doesn't happen that often I usually dodge the camera pretty well:)



Out in the garden with Nola yesterday.



Watching over the watering of the veggie garden, some acrobatics on the trampoline and a little rabbit who loves to burrow in my flower beds :)



Messy morning hair :) But somehow I still like it.

Like the sky opens after a rainy day we must open to ourselves.... Learn to love yourself for who you are and open so the world can see you shine. ~James Poland

Veni Pater Pauperum

When we'd finally got a house of our own after being in temporary accommodation for months, the rooms seemed so big and empty.

There was nothing but floorboards, a few pieces of recycled furniture and donated pots and pans! Boo was crawling but I had to carry her everywhere because of upturned nails and splintered wood. Our garden a shock of dead thorns and rubble. No place to play.

Then when Tilly was just four weeks old, Boo came down with the worst fever. As I undressed her hot little body for a bath I noticed a rash. I'd read about meningitis rashes years before so I called the after hours surgery straight away. They told me to phone A & E.

The doctor on the other line told me to come in immediately. My mind raced...
"I haven't got a car. " I stammered.
"Well get a taxi." She replied, dead pan.

I had only one ten pound note and no cards or bank accounts at the time.
Ten pounds would not have covered the taxi there and back.
It was now pitch black outside and snowing hard. Tani was working nights at a pub and our neighbours, the only people we new in the area at the time were out.
In those days we didn't even have a mobile phone.

I tried calling the pub on the landline but it was a dodgy line at the best of times.
Nothing, no connection.
Just a monotonous, lingering note.

I called the hospital again and tried to explain.
"Haven't you got any family that can bring you in?" said the doctor, clearly irritated.
I didn't. In fact I had no one to call.

"Would it be possible to get a home visit?" I ventured.
No it certainly would not.

Finally she said... "Listen if you don't care enough about you child and your husband just can't be bothered enough to leave work it's not my problem. If something happens it's out of my hands, it's your own fault".

Hands shaking and numb I put the receiver down.
Then without knowing what else to do I called an ambulance.

I carried my fragile post partum body and a baby in each arm along the icy path to the ambulance door while Emmy brought the bags behind me.

Thank God Boo did not have meningitis just a horrible fever from which she quickly recovered.
Still I will never forget how people who often need the most, people with very little support and security are often treated.

I have always noticed such a difference in the way I have been treated depending on other's perception of "my class." Or the amount of money I might (or might not ) have.

An even bigger emotion that I take away from experiences like this is how when things are hard it's like seeing through a fog.
You can't make out where the light source is, you can't even make out your own hand.
Everything seems but a shade of gray right to the end of the road.
Sometimes it's not until the fog lifts just a little that you can see just what has been done and how much it has meant.

We started our family when we were but kids.
So much wonder in hindsight of the hurdles we had to jump.
And if there is not a God we could never have done it. So I believe hard.

And I reach for the light even the fog falls and seeps through every surface.
Rising only as dampness and the residues of dreams.
Because I know light is there.

God is with us "Emmanuelle"(the name of my first born).

There may be much against us, but that is not God. God is for the mourner, the meek, the poor, the dispossessed, the persecuted, the slandered, the lonely, the childlike pure and all seekers of goodness and truth. This is my God.

So when days and nights are hard, and there is no one to call, no shoulder but his and His.

 I remember that the poor in spirit are blessed.

Because it is only when we are at our most alone and empty that there is nothing else to come between our soul and His spirit.

There can be only God then.