September so far...

It has been quite a Summer.
Today the rain falls in silent streams down the window pane and my body responds with a need for blankets, quiet and hot tea.
There is a word to describe an odd creature such as myself who finds solace and comfort in the rain: Pluviophile. 
The brisk red underline of spell check infers that we are not yet a recognised group. 
But I know I am not alone.
On rainy days there is room for the quiet. 
There is room for contemplation and solitude sans guilt.

"Your career and interests,  are important, but they are only important insofar as they lead you toward a deeper understanding of yourself."  A.H. Almass


This "yourself" is not, I presume, a distillation of persona, habits or reactions but an inner essence of being, that, like a silt and tide formed pearl that can only be mined if we are prepared to dive deep.
And the silt only settles when the ocean stops churning.

There are days when I need the quietness of low winds and high tides. 
I need  time to allow the particles fall where they may before I begin to sift and sort.

I was talking with Tani yesterday. I said, I think the only way I've been able to cope with the workload over the last few years is to drop lots of balls.
I am shabby when it comes to texting, answering the phone, e-mailing, attending school/church meetings or wrestling Nola out of her reindeer costume and mismatched socks before playdates or errands. I feel guilty for not being as "on" as I should be.
Yet this seems to be the only way I can make the room to be completely present for the things I do, do. 
I want my yes, when I say it, to be meaningful and authentic. 

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I miss Emmy. She comes back for the weekends but they are not long enough. I understand the practicalities behind her living in town, but it still feels like a wrench. 

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Boo is now homeschooling once more. 
 On her first day she was nervous, but excited as she put on her new clothes and packed her shiny new stationary into her rucksack. However, as the days wore on she began to wilt. When she came home last Tuesday she was like a crumpled piece of paper. It just wasn't working out.

The teachers at school were kind and wonderfully supportive. Indeed, can't say enough good things about the staff. They really do turn up everyday, wanting the best for the kids in their charge.
But there were other things. The uniform was too tight. The lessons were sometimes interesting, sometimes boring and occasionally great fun, especially, dance, art and music. The playground was too small and too concrete, however the breakfast bagels were delicious. The day was too long. The rules were too strict, especially when it came to needing the loo during lessons. And sadly, friends turned out not to be friends when it mattered most. 
This friend thing is so important when you are 11 and a half. Actually, this friend thing is really important when you're 30 something and a half too. I'm sure we can do more to nurture friendships in schools.

Overall Boo feels glad she had the experience, as she says, it has given her a wider perspective on how reality works and why it often doesn't :)

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Just wanted to mention, we live in a tiny village with very limited and temperamental Internet connection. The BT man visited "to upgrade" the broadband a couple of weeks ago and, as it seems, got a little tangled up in the wires leading to our house. So my interweb presence may be more sporadic and random than usual until it gets sorted.

Wishing you all a lovely week ahead! Pictures are from our village's annual Picnic on the Green.

The Importance of Rest

“Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass under the trees on a summer's day, listening to the murmur of water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is by no means a waste of time”

 John Lubbock 

 Mulch and Motherhood

Last week we finally racked Autumn's mulchy brown leaves from the grass to the flower beds and veggie patch.

 I think Motherhood is the mulchy leaf stage of life. Life, post birth and life with little ones is like a season of hibernation. We form nests for our young from the moss, feather and fern of ourselves. And in order to form the warmest nest we re-connect with our inner life; our childhood, our deepest truth, our limitations and our courage.

It can be hard to embrace the falling leaf of slow motion living. We have all learnt to wrestle with the restless charge to do, do, do. And although life with little ones is not always restful it embraces the inner life.

It doesn't always "look" pretty or impressive, but things are happening at an integral level.

Ground is being overturned, hard edged stones are being removed and seeds are being scattered.

 

The most beautiful Spring blossoms grow from compost.

Growth happens in the deepest places. 

Secretly.

In places of rest, and renewal we can re-birth.

Like bulbs beneath Winter's womb.

That emerge, tender and green from Spring's sunlit thaw. 

Nature knows the importance of rest. She is a great teacher.

“Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.”

— Albert Einstein

 

 

 

 

Honouring our bodies need for rest is so essential.

If we want to accomplish things with the full presence of our minds, bodies, spirits and hearts we must be fully rested.

Fields that have been left fallow for a season always yield a greater harvest the coming year.

The  time we take to rest and nourish our inner lives reflects upon our outer lives.

 

Rest clarifies that which was foggy, hones our focus to a sharp point and brightens our perspective.

Instead of becoming frustrated with small details we are able to see the full panorama; the big picture.

Yet there is this inherent guilt in me that I must keep constantly preoccupied with something "useful".

I must be mindful to remember the false economy of that.

 We are still in the process of  un-learning our conditioned ideas about what is important.

 

We want to grow in awareness. 

And then live from that state of conscious awareness.

Life is so short.

What do we want to spend our "one wild and precious" life learning, being and doing?

We are not here to simply cram facts into our brains and pass tests.

So that we can trade the better part of our lives doing a job that neither nourishes us or our world.

We are not here to simply earn money, consume and expire.

 

We are not robots, statistics or numbers.

We are Human Beings each born with unique gifts, a vision, a purpose and a journey to embark on.

Medicine Dreams

The dream is a sacred thing to many tribal cultures. 

It is a vision for life, a finding of the soul. 

Native people of many ancient traditions call it medicine.

The dream is meant to heal the most broken part of ourselves and help heal the most broken part of others we meet along our journey through life.

It is what makes us whole again, uniting us to our soul and the soul of the the earth and the spirit of the one who created both.

In some Native American tribes, a youth, when ready to find his medicine will sit upon a mountain for four days and four nights without eating or drinking.

A young Aborigine in Australia will be taken to a place deep in the outback desert. In that place of solitude he will also find His dream and it will become his strength and it will lead him, safely home.

In the western world we have career advisers.

Our dream has now become deeply connected to our social status and that is reflected in the career path we forge.

How many people would prefer their child to become a gardener over a scientist, a cleaner over an accountant or a carpenter over an executive.

Not everyone, but the prevalent norm is to place our greatest value on status and salary.


This is all reflected in which subjects are taken most seriously in schools. 

Practical vocational qualifications, the arts, humanities and spiritual studies, are generally not considered as important or valuable as the hard sciences or mathematics.

We are encouraged to follow the path which most effectively enhances our sense of value in society. Whether or not the pursuit of such a path is of any inherent value within itself.

The advertisers, the media, politicians and ultimately those who benefit most and pull the most strings, the corporations, have replaced the true dream with a superficial version.

This is a great crime against our human souls and it is going unnoticed because it is happening so slowly.

 

The Media sells us false dreams.

While we run ourselves ragged simply trying to work and look after our families, we become passive to the effects of the media on our consciousnesses.

The media plays up to every one of our base impulses. It encourages us to consume above and beyond our means and needs.

 It also makes us fear the world around us while giving us the message that ultimately we are impotent and powerless to change anything.

But the most scary truth is that we are becoming numb.

We are losing the ability to truly see and hear the voice of our souls.

The voice of the sacred in the everyday.

And it is young people who are most vulnerable to mistake the false dream for the real one.



Maybe this is because the dream replacement seems quite congenial, non confrontational, consumer friendly and relatively safe compared with the true dream.

In the new dream Saint Nicholas becomes Father Christmas, Jesus becomes a blond, blue eyed, life coach, and American Idol and X factor become the initiation ceremonies for our youth.

In contrast, the true dream of our souls may very well lead us away from materiel security, the pursuit of wealth, perpetual beauty and comfort, and the instant pleasures and conveniences that factories across the world supply at both an environmental and human cost.



I took a walk outside the other night, far away from the orange street lamps and the hazy atmosphere. 

 I found a place completely dark except for the stars and the crescent moon.

I sat and heard the stories nature tried to tell me, the ones I am usually to busy to hear.

The rustle of the leaves, awaking me softly to the night, both within and without.

The river sings of our deepest truth.

The truth that is present within all things from seed, to birdsong, to the human heart.

I pray to be more present to the wisdom of  this sacred truth.

I have the feeling that our collective dream still sings somewhere along that river.

 

The taste of Autumn

We picked some wild quince, meddlers and apples last week. The taste of old variety English apples is the taste of Autumn. I miss it.

 I told the girl's stories about when we used to pick apples from the orchards and roadside trees years ago. Some were green and irregular as cobbles, some were gold as an ovulating harvest moon, some were pink as fuchsias, many had a worm at the core :)

My favourite were the small, sharp pink ones, They burst inside your mouth and crunched like a piece of brittle bark on an untrod woodland path. The pink of their skins seeped like a sunset through to the core.

The fragrant scent of quince and the mustiness of meddlers spread through the house as they laid in the basket waiting to be made into crumbles, pies, chips and sauce.

I love the idea of  guerrilla gardening, growing and gathering varieties of fruit and vegetable in places where people can pick them freely. Maybe it is a way of preserving heritage varieties of edible plant for future generations.

It may also be a way of reclaiming our commons.

7 days

" Inner brightness ends up being a much better and longer-lasting alternative to evil than any war, anger, violence or ideology could ever be. All you have to is meet one such shining person and you know that he or she is surely the goal of humanity and the delight of God."

"Falling Upward - Spirituality for the two halves of life"  Richard Rohr

 

I have learnt so much from our beautiful 7 days away.

Seven days away from all technology and to do lists.

Seven days without convenience!

Washing machines!

Seven days away to breathe anew.

And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.

Genisis 2.7



Over 7 days I learnt that all children (people) really need 
... is trees, a stream, simple food, shelter, fire and loving company.


 

Our "cabin" was a tiny three bed bedsit.

Yet it didn't feel small.

 

Our "garden" was communal.

Families rambled through it.

Children rode their bikes.

Ducklings squabbled in puddles for breadcrumbs twice daily.

Squirrels scampered through the French doors fearlessly to steal sunflower seeds.

Even a hare gamboled by one morning.

 

Yet there was nothing but greenery and the freedom of the outdoors.
 

And it felt huge.

Expansive.

Immense.



Maybe the future for us humans is this small, natural, communal, localized, simplified way of living.

 Maybe it has to be.

Maybe this is a good thing.




I learnt that I do not miss technology, washing machines, tumble dryers, concrete, convenience or cars when I am without them.

 I learnt that, in fact I would happily trade them all in.

 

I learnt that children will never be bored if given a little bit of water, some woodland, a few sticks, stones, mud and the company of other children.

They do not need toys.

Nature is the ultimate playground.

I also learned that a week in nature teaches a child more about life than 100 lessons in a schoolroom ever could.



I learnt that it is far easier to commune with our Creator when in direct and constant contact with His creation.

I grieved how the world is beginning to divide up.

Poor driven to cities as rich corporations take up more and more land for mineral resources, logging and intensive farming.




I learnt that having an afternoon and evening to myself is necessary only within a modern life context.

When surrounded by the deep peace of nature all cravings for "space", "my own thing" "time away from it all" fall away.

There is an agenda behind all that advertising and lack of fulfillment in our everyday, systematic, mundane work.

It keeps us in a state of spiritual want that disguises itself as hunger for more stuff, more money, more food etc...

When what we really need is less.



I learnt that I would happily live in a small dwelling, much smaller even that the one we currently abide in.

So long as I had two things besides.

Nature and community.
 

I have learnt that nothing is worth having unless it is shared.

 

 

I have learnt that each child is a sacred teacher.



I have also learnt that who I am is far more important than what I say.



We are not what we say or do as much as we are the energy we emanate.

We can emanate a life energy  or death energy.



I have learnt that if we don't make the changes we believe in as individuals then the world will never change.

We are reflections of the wider world and the wider world is a reflection of us as individuals.

The pure integrity and love of a single person can move mountains.

I believe this.





The truth is that abundant consuming has become a vicious addictive cycle in the modern world.

Connecting to nature is a really important factor in breaking the cycle.

Even spiritual things have become tainted with commercialism.

So little seems untouched these days. Everything has a market. Everyone is a "brand."



Everything we are resonates.

We can't resist evil externally, we have to go within.

Our own peace will become the world's peace.



 

Our world is such an incredibly beautiful place.

We need to love it like a Mother, a Father, a Child.

It is the skin of our Creator.

His dream realized.

Manifest.



I went out into the woods by our cabin with Emmy one still and silent evening.

There was a path of golden sunlight through the ferns and foxgloves.

I don't think I have seen anything more beautiful in my life.



I saw God there.

In the light that touched my skin.

The light that gave life to the living greenness and the aged bark of the pines.



From the earth.

I was blessed.



While walking home I thought of how I need to seek blessings daily.

But not just seek them.

The secret is I have to give them out as soon as they touch me.

The true blessing is not simply in the seeking or the receiving but the giving away.

As Hannah gave Samuel, Abraham gave Issac, Jesus gave Himself.




We cannot hoard, or store blessing.

We have to let it all go.

Or it becomes valueless.

Beauty to ashes.

 God is all about resurrection, restoration, renewal.

Nature tells us this story every year. It whispers, "there can be no Spring without the "Fall" of Autumn"

Blessings only live in giving.

 

Giving and receiving both require and open hand and an open heart.



 To be loved and to love.

That is what makes a life.