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.

Growing girls...

Well what have we been up to this week?

Nola cried and cried during her 8 month check up where, as I predicted, they stripped her down, weighed, measured and assessed her just to let me know that she is fine :) Which I kind of already new :) Poor little baby thought it was such a big adventure till she had to sit on those cold scales :(



She's still a wee wittle girlie just hitting the 25th percentile, but she has always been that way so no surprises.
Miss Nola has got herself quite a personality now! She is very cuddly and loves to snuggle while wriggling her little body about. She loves to get in on whatever any of us are doing. She loves to race behind the sofa and bury her little face in the carpet till we say "where is Nola?" Then she'll pop her head out and giggle happily thinking she has quite fooled us all!



She loves to scurry across the front room in a game of chase. I'll follow after her on all fours till I catch up with her, when I do she sprawls and I tickle her under the arms. She loves her little animals and dollies and anything that she can shake and rattle. She babbles away and has said a few words (I think) because she is quite consistent with them "Mama" is for when she's crying, or whinging :) She also says among other sounds... "Dada", "Baba" for baby, "up" for cup (she is obsessed with cups :) "baw" for ball. She also makes the cutest clicking noise with her mouth whenever she is hungry.



At the moment she doesn't eat too much, but will happily eat a few spoonfuls of organic bio yogurt, mashed fruit, carrot, potato and porridge. She also loves to suck the juice out of an orange segment or gnaw on a rice cracker.



Yesterday when I washed her hair a little curl popped up on the top of her head, it is still there, I'm now wondering if she might have wavy hair instead of dead straight. The little birth mark on above her top lip is fading. I'm a little sad :( We have always called it the spot where the angels kissed her.



There is an old story about why we have a philtrum ( the groove between the top lip and the nose). Apparently the angels impress their finger upon the lips of all babies so they can't tell the secrets of heaven when they are born :) Well this little one tells me a few secrets:)



The three middle girls seem to have had a huge wave of energy recently. They are constantly coming up with ideas, plays, stories, art projects, garden projects, and I let them get on with it most of the time as I don't want to squash their momentum. It is wonderful to see how beautifully they co-operate whenever their is a shared incentive :)



And although written evidence that learning is happening may not be immediately evident, I always find that they seem to make great leaps during these frenzy's of creative play.

Silent

An evening winter walk... Perfect for gathering spoon carving wood...










Over all the hilltops
Silence,
Among all the treetops
You feel hardly
A breath moving.
The birds fall silent in the woods.
Simply wait! Soon
You too will be silent.

~ Goethe

Peace

But one word came through louder... (or maybe quieter) than any of the others...

Peace.

And not just the "silent" meditative, all the laundry folded, dishes done and kids tucked in bed kind either... a kind so rarely found.

But a kind of peace that the world cannot give.... a peace that surpasses all understanding.

A peace that says ...trust... ...hope.... ....believe.... ....love.... take joy... .....be... ... free.... ....be... ...content.... ...open... ...blessed...

... for you are beloved...



And you are held by God through every undulation, cadence, valley and mountaintop.

And when things don't always make sense on the outside. You can still trust in the goodness that comes from within... From that source, from God, from Peace himself.

Because peace is a person not a place.

Peace comes from within, not without.



Like a ripple it runs it's gentle course through the conflicting currents of the surface tensions.

Bestowing the rhythm of it's vital breathe to the very furthest shores.

Beyond the reach of a human hand it heals and revives...

I pray to let go a little and allow it's waters keep me afloat this year.





may your new year be filled with gifts friends :)

xx

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