{This Moment}

Joining Soule Mama today for...
{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

Visit Soule Mama for more {moments}

Yarn Along...

Joining lovely Ginny from "Small Things" today for another little "Yarn Along".

For some reason I wasn't paying attention and ended up knitting an extra row (yes just one itty bitty extra row;) which equated to two little left legs instead of the conventionally required one left one right :)
So instead of one little pair of cosy woolen pantaloons there will now be two, the second of which is but a garter stitched border from completion!

Every cloud has a silver lining and this one means that I will have used up every last scrap of this lovely chocolate coloured yarn by the time I'm finished. No leftovers here!

I am particularly pleased with how the rainbow yarn has taken to the chocolate. I like unusual colour combinations and this one although mismatched (hopefully in the best possible taste ;) tickles me.

For reading... Well my eldest daughter Emmy just celebrated her 13th birthday! She received this very beautiful book "Enid Blytons Nature Lovers Book" from a dear friend.
As you have probably gathered by now, I am always hopelessly attracted by beautiful illustrations and this book is well, brimming with them!
The drawings and watercolours are lush and exquisite. Page by page the story of creature, creation, habitat and season unfolds in the most gentle and engaging way.

Certainly a highly recommended read for any budding naturalists out there!

Letting go... and then... {Embracing}

We had the most beautiful afternoon yesterday. The sun was a narcissus rather than a daffodil. The sky, white as an eggshell or the top of the milk in a glass bottle.
We spent the whole afternoon outside at the park and then exploring the basements and servants quarters of a local national trust property.
And you know, I didn't feel the concern that I usually do, the nagging feeling that we are somehow not "caught up" with all the conventional schooling plans and ideals that many of the girls friends seem to accomplish through their busy classroom days.
It was liberating to feel the sun and know, know deep, that each of the hairs on our head are numbered by the bringer of the sunlight Himself.

In the evening I read this post.

Words clamoured and rustled through the tangle of sticks that so often Dam the channels between my deep soul knowledge and my worrisome mind.
One by one, the bindweed of broken debris and bark loosened and the waters, clear and fluid, flowed through.

"There is only one thing needful"

One Thing.

I have always loved the story of Mary and Martha. Instinctively, I suppose, I realise that it speaks to me and my life in a way that is often pertinent and necessary.
It is a whittling down of many superfluous "necessaries" to one single, essential necessary.
How I need to hear this message daily.

All moments are gifts. Providential gifts engorged with possibilities. Gifts of raw material with which we may either create or destroy the true and essential in the world around us and within us.
And in fact, all people who are set upon our pathway in this life with us, however difficult or despondent they may be, are gifts too :)
All situations are opportunities to choose the "one thing" needful among the many unnecessary things.
Things that clutter, confuse and ultimately lay down barriers... or dams.

Providentially , each day, each moment, through the quiet communion between the soul and it's creator we can discover the "one thing" out of many that is needful to our life and the life of those around us.

We will always have choices. These days the choices are more abundant than ever. Yet to accomplish one thing we have to put away and put down the others that clamour loudly for our attention.
For each person this "one thing" looks different.
It could even mean being gentle with ourselves and accepting our limitations gracefully.
It could simply mean taking time to oneself to quietly behold the silence.
It could mean rest.
It could mean making a meal for someone, writing a letter or visiting a lonely soul.
It could mean creating beauty in your own little corner of the world.
It could mean planting seeds.
Taking a walk.
Lighting a candle.
It could mean putting down the ideas and conventions we are conditioned to accept and instead embracing our own unique path.
It could mean abandoning fears and discarding doubt so that we can mould our passion into a coherent and meaningful form.
Then exuberantly share it with others.
It could mean taking a little time away from the hustle and bustle of the world.
It could mean buying that new book.
Or buying nothing at all.
Giving away the dust collecting clutter.
It could mean throwing yourself "out there",beautifully, honestly, vulnerably,unflinchingly.

And so the "letting go" is a moment by moment state of being.
To take full and complete drafts of the life that calls us, sings to us, leads us to our "home. The life that brims abundance for others, plants a tree, waters it and lets it flourish into a dwelling place for birds, a shelter for animals and a source of food and oxygen for all.
To take full quenching gasps of that life, we must be able to put all else down. In faith. In complete faith.

As e.e cummings said... - "Let all go dear,
so comes Love."

This is the putting away of possessions, worries, superficial ambitions, status and false dreams that Jesus spoke of.
It was not, I believe, asceticism for asceticism sake that he meant. It was the throwing off of unnecessary weights and baggage's that prevent us from truly beholding, the fullness that life has to offer.

"I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full."
John 10:10

A wonderful new homeschooling buddy of mine says that when people ask her "but how are you going to teach all the curriculum subjects when your child reaches high school?" she simply (and victoriously in my humble opinion) answers... "Well this is the grand plan see.... I'm not going to!"

We cannot cover every base. We cannot hold onto every pretty flower that grows along the embankment. If we did, there would be none left :)

As J.M Barrie said "Life is a long lesson in humility."
It is also a long lesson in letting go. For we cannot hold on. Neither should we.
Only hands that remain open, vulnerable, revealing their tender palms, can ever truly give and receive life's real gifts.

So at the root, at the beginning, at the germination point and the renewal of each moment, I can come, kneel, as Mary did and discover what that "one thing" needful is.

"Every morning
I lay out the pieces of my life
on your altar
and watch for fire to descend."
Psalm 5

And the fire that burns away dross will replenish the translucent newness of each moment. And I will find the green emerge, fresh and tender between my toes.
Day after day.
Moment after moment.
"One thing" after another.

Transfiguring the ordinary, everyday. Infusing, something of God into the hours and the fragility of clay formed bodies.

Immersing hearts in the light of their true purpose. To Love, to take joy, to give and to be!

Directing channels of energy into aqueducts that irrigate soft soil. Trembling soil.
The soil from which we grow a life that counts.

Emmy turns 13

Thankful for... the growing, evolving, becoming of this young lady.

Thirteen candles!


Inside the card e.e cummings poem " I Carry Your Heart"

{This Moment}

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

Visit Soule Mama for more "moments"

Creative Play Happenings this week...

"I would argue that part of what children represent in their play is an undifferentiated, expression of what we later come to call art, literature and drama. In a kind of perpetual metamorphosis, children move like quick-fire from the fantastic to the everyday and back again,
in the never-ending drama of “the play.” They play as the spirit moves them: the same attendant spirit I would suggest, which later inspires our creative outpourings as adults."
~Sally Jenkinson author of "The Genius of Play"

Precious Gifts...

"Life is not measured by the breaths we take,

but by the moments that take our breath."

May every moment inhale life deeply.

Take the time to stop and stare and watch clouds fray the edges of the horizon.

Over spill with the wonder

and beauty of each single, stilled, second.

Silenced by the fragile, bare branches of winter trees engraving, the distant evening sky.

Painting patterns over the tidy white spaces,

Turning the prose of life into poetry.

Hearing a song in the silence.

Dancing beneath the falling leaves.

The way my little ones hair curls around her ear.

The imperfect stitches of a homemade gift.

The warmth of a coat on a cold winter day.

Bubble bath footprints whispering softly on the carpet.

A child to small to speak holding her hands in prayer.

The curled pages of a well loved book.

A baby smiling in her sleep.

Let me remember to unwrap every moment like the precious gift it is