tarot healing spread

I use the tarot cards to help me identify emotional blocks and help me find ways of answering my own questions.  I allow the imagery to open up new ideas to me and aid meditation.  I love the healing spread best of all.

Healing spread

1: 5 of swords, The emotional block : An interesting facet of this card is revealed by symbolism in the Rider-Waite scene. It shows a man with two swords lying at his feet - the spoils of his victory. But he already had three swords, and his trophies really represent nothing more than a hollow victory. It is plausible that the two "defeated" men were really not defeated at all; they simply laid down their arms and walked away. They either knew they would lose, or they knew winning would be a pointless exercise. And by choosing not to fight, they are really the winners here, because he who knows when to fight, and when not to fight, will be victorious.  http://www.ata-tarot.com/resource/cards/

I dont use the waite rider cards as I learned on these and they represent my interest in fortune telling.  I use the mythic tarot now as I think it is better for subconscious insights.  the cards are very beautiful and dont contain some of the scary imagery of the occult ones. 

Summary I must face my own limits and not engage in battles just for the sake of winning them. emotional block is therefore not being able to accept my limits and not heading the advice of others when to back down or when to walk away from a conflict. 

2:  8 of cups, Wow this past relationships card is so pointent, the woman walks down the steps past the cups with her eyes downcast.  She is leaving behind her love.  I am leaving behind mine and my foolish dreams. I always had unrealistic expectations of my relationships.  I wanted them to help me be happy but now I dont need that anymore.  I can heal myself and be happy on my own.  

3: Present relationships, 3 of cups.  I love this card , for me it means that there is an abundance of love in my life and I can see it.  so often I get the 4 which usually means that I am not aware of or open to the love around me. 

4: Revelation , Temperance, lol moderation in all things as my dad would say.  here  iris is poursin water between two cups with a rainbow int eh background .  I must lean r to have a balanced heart.  Balancing myself , my life and family is what has been reveled to me and I think I need to look at a new image.  for years I saw myself as juggling now I am balancing, a see-saw, a plate spinner, scales, balance. 

5: guidance, king of cups, father figure hmmmm not sure instinctively what that is.  this card is about emotional growth , this is the one to contemplate I think as I cannot immediately see the point of it.  I can interpert most cards quickly and fit them into the story but in this casr I cannot .. Is it a person, is it me, I am needing guidance on a life changing decision and was thinking about the last time I bought a house I asked for my dads advice.  I suppose I wanted him to say no in someways.  I wanted honest feedback.  but he wanted me to be happy and said go ahead.  Later he told me that he had reservation but saw that I really wanted it and gave me the advise against his better judgement.  I suppose this is saying to me Be cautious from whom you take advise and balance it all up.  

6: spiritual lesson: 3 of wands, Never let failure set you back, learn from all of your mistakes and snatch victory from the jaws of every defeat.http://www.ata-tarot.com/resource/cards/

in this card in the mythic tarot he is getting the spoils of battle but he has a long road ahead.  wands is pure energy that has yet to find its outlet.  

In summary I am in a good place but must be mindful from whom I take advise and how i proceed.  Learn from past lessons and enjoy the abundance of the love that surrounds me.  I have completed one phase of my life and I have to work hard to succeed at my goals. 

I think it is time to take a realistic look at my goals and take some timeout to contemplate what it is I really want. 

BAlance in all things.

Balance in all things and all things in balance.

canine couture and wellness

I decided to buy a house.  I have decided the time is right for me to settle down, at 44, I feel all grown up at last.  for years I felt like a second class citizen, I did not buy into the property mania.  I stuck to my core values, people thought I was weird and crazy not to buy a house.  You will be too old to get a mortgage, you cant rent forever, why cant you just take out a loan, everyone is doing it. I just could not .  As my dad said they are all out of step except you. 

 and they were.  I wondered why people were borrowing huge amounts of money and how they could afford it.  I could barely afford my lifestyle and yet the cars were getting bigger and bigger as were the houses, the beauty treatments, the holidays, the presents.  How could I compete, and what was wrong with me. So I just paddled my own canoe as always , generally upstream against the flow.  But I ran out of paddle power and went a drift.  Last summer I spent a very beautiful day with a friend walking the riverbank looking at nature.  It was the first time either of us had stopped to just idle away an afternoon with nothing else to do except enjoy the sun and each others company.  We discovered our common love of medowsweet and told each other stories of our childhood memories of the country side.  I watched two boys on a raft float with the river downstream.  they were really enjoying themselves.  they saw us and shouted over what a lovely day it was.  It was remarkably lovely , a day I will remember as one of those fond memories I will look back on when I am an old lady.  

I am still crocheting my st Bridget's blanket with the left over wool from my mother and granny and it is bringing back happy childhood , and some unhappy, memories , memories of what eh wool was made into.  I have bought a few balls of wool just to mix through it to add texture and colour to some of the school jumper greys and daddy's sock browns.  The blanket is turning out well and I am just the first section already to cover my feet at night.  

It is important to have an integrated life, to have balance to enjoy things and not try to fit into other peoples view of the world.  I stuck to my values of only buying what you can afford( not fully) but of not over borrowing I suppose , I did not buy a house just to have a house.  I have always wanted my own home and i was not ready to make a home as I did not know how.  A home is made of love, It is made of memories, good and bad.  A home is where you know you are safe, safe and secure.  I finally realised I am ready for my own home again.  Because my childhood memories were shadowed by a discovery at 21 I negated all the happy memories I had.  I felt ashamed that I had been happy in the home that house a lie and a secret.  but the secret was not mine and I did not lie.  My memories are real as was my shock and my sadness.  My shame was not mine and I have given it back to where it belongs.  I have forgiven them, it was not their fault that I felt like that and I did not even know I did until recently.  I no longer trusted myself and looked to others for guidance.  I did not choose the right guides either.  Now I have healed.  I am fully aware of my pain and hurts.  I am entitled to my opinions and if other people disagree I can ask them to support their argument with evidence.  I am facing up to my limits and I can no longer work beyond them because my body has said stop.  Now I am happily floating down the river of life, going with the flow.  What about the canine couture of the title.  I am minding a dog , the cutest little pappion.  As part of my reconnection with the past, and the happy memories, I am sewing and designing clothes again.  I made clothes for my dolls and progressed to clothes for myself.   I was inspired to make some clothes for him and am off to get out my sewing machine and start on the happy afternoon of canine couture.  A fez and a waist coat I think.  I bought some silk ties in the local charity shops and should be able to make some lovely outfits from that.  His owner is indulging me and I am planning on making a few more outfits for other peoples dogs.  If you told me 6 months ago I would be having breakfast in the garden on a picnic rug planning a full scale picnic for the family and designing clothes for dogs I would have told you you are crazy.  but that day by the riverbank opened up my life to me again.  I went and bought the picnic rug later that week so that me and my friend could enjoy other days out like that.  But life conspired against me and we never did.      I wonder what life would have been like if we had.  I probably would never have had this life altering episode.  I would never have reconnected with myself.  I might even have lost my relationship with my children entirely.  but that awakening, although painful , lead me to here and to happiness.  

Happiness is a warm dog in a fez, chocolate Brownies and raspberry jam on a picnic rug in the garden.  It is all about realising that you are enough as you are. 

You are enough as you are and so am I.

Indulge yourslf and your need to make canine millinary or what ever else you think is a bit eccentirc.  I love this Dali clip. 

Happy Sunday 

walking barefoot and watching gannets

Love is.....................................

                                peace                                                                                                       friends
  
     contentment               o  ptimism                                                                family                                friends      
                                                                        hope                             knowledge 
  
        friends                                                                      luck                                                                          history


     connectedness                                                                                                                                                roots


                 wings                                                                                                                                                  pets


                    lovers                                                                                                                                        flowers


                        meaning to my existence                                                                                       music and dance


                              art                                                                                                                           colour
 
                                     fun                                                                                                          games
 
                                                   meeting of minds                                                              comfort


                                                joy                                                                        singing
  
                                                      pleasure                                               organisation


                                                                  spirituality                forgiveness


                                                                     creativity           contentment


                                                                                      hugs

and walking barefoot on the sand watching gannets . 

Today I realised my episode was drawing to a conclusion.  I am due for an assessment by the occupational health next week to see how best my employer can facilitate my return to work and when I am likely to return.  When I got the letter first I thought that they were going to say that I would never be allowed back to work.  then I thought well they will send me back immediately.  Both are extremes in some ways.  Since I am no longer depressed and I finally feel happy I don't want to go back to the old life I had.  I am still living with the visits of Tina but I am making peace with my anxiety and learning ways of lessening it.  Mostly by expressing my fears and having someone reality test them for me.  I have used that technique to deal with many issues, I explain that I am not able to cope very well with the task in hand that is making me nervous or anxious and I ask for their patience and help.  It is generally always forthcoming and if it is not them I know that its not my stuff but theirs.  Today I reached the full circle in many ways.  I felt like a barefoot walk on the sand in the midst of a fine blustery day with the dark purple clouds whooshing overhead , coming from the Atlantic at great speed.  It is a day I would love to be a bird flashing though the air, being blown up and tumbled around.  I imagine it would be great fun.  So when I dropped my youngest to school I got a mad notion to go to the beach and walk barefoot on the sand.  I would have just enough time to get back home and tidy myself up before I had to go to the doctor.  ( I was concerned that I was getting hyper and not just experiencing an increase in energy, (am just feeling more energetic , yippee)) I had a bracing walk along the beach and decided to sit on my favourite rock and watch the tops of the waves being blown into spray by the wind. I started to watch the birds, curlews all happy in a flock, a few terns dabbling at the shoreline, big fat crows tumbling through the air having great fun.  Then I aw the gulls behaving like gannets.  I kept watching and realised that they were gannets.  I never aw them here before.  Watching gannets dive for fish is a real Joy in life.  Their strong beautiful wings, vivid white and black tips, they glowed in the sun against a backdrop of grey and purple, green and more green more September than may but exhilarating.  I remembered some of the odd things I had been doing over the last year and my trips to the beach to find solitude and contentment.  Last October I could not relax, I could not feel anything except Waves and waves of panic.  I didn't know what to do with myself and could not see any way out of my horrible horrible life.  Today I sat there and wanted to go back in time to tell myself that in 6 months I would be back here on another stormy day, walking barefoot on the sand again.  this time being able to feel a range of emotion, being able to feel the winds and sea spray, the warmth of the sun and the cool of the breeze.  I would see the gannets and crows living their lives and I would be living again.  It is time to move on to the next chapter in life.  Today might be the day to launch the kites my children got as a present from china.

Happy Thursday
Sometimes we need to get lost to find yourself, so im off to make a kite ,
go off and indulge in your favourite childhood activity and think of what happiness means to you .

a very merry unbirthday

Each day there are things to celebrate.  Each day we are given gifts;gifts of friendship, of love, of sunshine and rain, tradegy, happiness and hope.  Embrace every one of your unbirthdays.  Enjoy your birthday and your giving birthdays.  Think happy thoughts and be strong.

Happy unbirthday to you.

childhood fields of dreams

I accidentally ended up somewhere I have not been in nearly 9 years, down the hill from the graveyard where my granny is buried.  I was invited to go for a drive with a friend and we strangely ended up there.  It is odd that the area was so unchanged in many ways.  My granny lived a very simple life in many ways.  I have very happy memories of the area.  I spent many happy hours in the field and bog looking for four leaved clovers, catching butterflies and grasshoppers, and trying to identify the names of many plants.  I looked forward to the annual events of nature, the frog spawn, the bog orchids, the honeysuckle , the blackberries and crab apples, the very very very rare snow and the crisp days of autumn.  My happiest memory is lying on my bed reading Anne of Green Gables listening to the pigeons cooing and the wind rustling through the trees.  It was a perfect irish summers day.  I was secure and happy.  My granny had a very set routine and had set days for visiting the neighbours, going to the shop. A set time for going to the well to draw water and then of course a set time to sit down and relax.  My favourite thing was debatable, going to the well was exciting, what new creature would I see, would I see a frog, would there be waterboatmen balancing on the waters surface.  She went to the well almost daily.  It was a spring she tended in the bog down the road.  It gave some of the best water I ever drank and w always followed the path to the well as bogs are dangerous places if you stray off the path.  The path had solidified over the years.  Many people got the mains water put in but she she not until she was around 80.  I loved the peace and tranquility of my childhood field of dreams.  I often thought that I imagined the absolute tranquility of the area.  The sense of calm and quite, until yesterday.  I was around 4 miles west of her house as the crow flies and I experience the same sense of calm and tranquility there.  The area was once the hinterland of one of the earliest cities in the county and has many fairy forts and a history of settlement going back many centuries.  I started to wonder what drew the early settlers to the area.  Why there, who had cleared the land to create my field of dreams and were we related.  Had my ancestors walked where I was walking.  I had a sense of belonging there.  I felt connected.  When I left home first I move around many times.  I loved the excitement of discovering new places.  And now 23 years after I left home I finally understood that the solid grounding I experienced as a child and the routine and repetition of the family stories gave me a sense of connectedness.  As my friend drove me back down memory lane I finally felt connected to the world again.  We drove down roads I had designed, set out and helped build.  We drove along a road that I had helped build which was created through bogs and fields where my father and grandfather hunted with their dogs.  As I recounted the history of my connections with the area and pointed out the hidden feature, the spot where the skeleton of the giant Irish red deer was found, the location of the river passing under the road hidden in one of the most beautifully shaped culverts I had ever seen, the spot where I stood after I got the heart breaking news of my friends brothers tragic death, the place where my granny escaped from the savage dog who nearly killed her, the church my great grand father built, the bog that  is just off the road that had the most magical pond, the  house where my mothers best friend created the most beautiful rose garden I ever visited, I realised that I had a place in the world.  That there was a meaning to my existence and that many of my happy memories were buried under the weight of my anxiety and my attempts to be strong.  My existential crisis began on Patrick street as I tried to get to visit my father grave on his 10th anniversary.  I was under time pressure to get back to collect my children and I was exhausted as I had been overdoing things.  I began to sweat and panic so I decided to go back to pick up the children and abandon my desire to visit the grave for the first time since I saw him being put into the ground.  Next day I had the swine flu and two weeks later I the existential crisis began, caused primarily I think by the awful exhaustion of the flu and the shocking realisation that I was not immortal.  I thought that I would die in the middle of the flu I had been so sick.  (bit of an exaggeration as I just had the flu and a high temperature)  I could not get out of bed properly for around two weeks and I think I started to contemplate my existence as I lay there too weak to do anything much.  My mother blamed my failure to take adequate time to recuperate after the flu for my recent episode and perhaps she is right.  the train of thought begun as I lay there was destructive and now I realise that a few weeks of proper rest would have allowed me to put the existential crisis in context rather than dragging myself back to work out of a sense of misplaced responsibility.  An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.  Finally I can see why I have not been allowed or encouraged to return to work yet.  I am now needing many ounces of prevention.  Existential crisis over methinks.  I think I will plan a journey to visit the graves of my ancestors.  I know where many of them are buried back as far as the famine.  Recently my x discoverd that one of our favourite places we visited before we were married An Grianan overlooked the island his grandfather grew up on.  His grandfather ran away from home at the age of 11 and ended up living in a different country where he married a local woman.  Like many other I emigrted too and met my xh abroad, we eventally ened up living together in donegal and spent many sunday afternoon gazing at Inch Island from the top of the local hill.  We has been gazing at his grandfather childhood field of dreams.  Since I have become open to how interconnected we are I have begun to wonder if there is some kind of ancestoral memory embedded in us or are we just genetically drawn to the same places and things our ancestors are.  Or is it something more mysterious??

If anyone is ever reading this apologies to teh lack of spelling correctiona and editing, but today I am just not ready to corect myself ;-) I am giving myself permission to go to bed before I do my corrections. 

Happy Monday

reality, serendipity , and more Ráiméis

I had a comment from someone on a photo I sent them, she never saw herself in the way I portrayed her in a photo.  I take lots of photos now.  that is because early in my episode I was not forming mental picture memories in the same way as I had been able to and I wanted to remember some of the frosty days of early winter that were so rare and beautiful.  I think my mental space for images was choca-block and since I discovers the joys of digital photographs I can instead capture it , I was going to say in film but how do you say that for digital, I suppose you say digitally.  It got me thinking or reality.  I had viewed photography more as the capturing of an image and not art , but it was only after that comment and my viewing of The Guest of Cindy Sherman that I realised the it is just another representation of reality.

She does not look like a hippy as she thought I had just captures the essence of the really relaxed day when I won a days rally driving as part of a radio phone in competition to find the best place in Ireland on a sunny day.  It was the first day of summer and we were all relaxed.  I never realised how much of ourselves we put into  things we create.  We all influence our environment and every one we meet.  I never realised until recently how much we do for both good and bad.  when I was hurtling towards the dark night of the soul there were so many warning signs, many people tried to show me the error of my ways, but I knew best or so I thought.  I was only open to the negative comments.  But now I am open to them all, good bad and indifferent.  I pondered the oddness of today and concluded that it was odd because I have been frozen for so long.  Now I am fully defrosted and loving it.  When I write my posts I usually start with the title as a thought and just vomit out everything that follows but today I was interrupted before I finished and for one I saved a post before that thought stream was concluded.  For some reason I thought about the events of the past week.  And I thought about how best to describe the connectivity I am now experiencing. Serindipity. It had to be the most wonderful word in any language, apart of course from mí-ádh which is one of my other favourite words, and of course the very lovely "piseog" . I of couse am a sucker for any piseog in any language.  It was fortuitous that I was in fact interupted both today , as it helped me follow a more intersting train of thought, and for the last 6 months, as that helped me "find myself" I suppose I was lost as well as depressed.  The anxiety has not yet left me but as a friend pointed out , sure werent you always like that but you just took no notice of it.  Well from now on I will be taking plenty of no notice of Tina and she can go off and visit someone else.  How could I not forget the best irish word of all time, Ráiméis, its such a descriptive word. I suppose its best translation, another great phrase, is; a load of oul sh**te. 

my reminiscences about irish started when I bought an english translation of Peig at the annual school second hand book sale.  Her likes will never be there again.  I did not really understand what she meant when I was 15 but I do now, Ni beidh ar leithid ann aris, but so much more entertaining in the miles na gcopleen story. Any way enough of my endless Ráiméis-ings.

I will leave you with the most entertaining thing I ever saw in irish, an ode to the fada.

Happy Sunday 

a new dawn , a new day

Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement.  Nothing can be achieved without hope and confidence.

Late night chatting and telling my story, nearly at the end of my journey.  There is so much pain and suffering in the world that can be healed with love and kindness.  As I went home from my very long night I realised that my dark night of the soul was over.  I can accept help without guilt.  I can love without conditions.  I need to learn to trust again but now when I look into the abyss it is as if I am looking down from the sky to the earth through the clouds, like looking through a porthole to my happiness. As I drove home at 5am dawn was breaking and I was feeling good.  Its a new dawn, its a new day and I'm feeling good.

I took the scenic route home and detoured to watch the dawn at The Lookout.

Happy Saturday and goodnight.
So go off and find your dawn, I hope it is as beautiful as mine.

bullfinches and pie in the sky catching machines

The anxiety fairy has been visiting me again.  I named her Tina, not sure why.  After discussing my recent visit from Tina my x explained that maybe I am not experiencing anxiety but excitement, and perhaps I am mixing up the two.  As I am recovering I am having bursts of energy and I end up getting confused as I do not know what to do with it.  I was discussing some of my pie in the sky ideas with someone today and we decided that we needed to invent a pie in the sky catching machine.  I am a very practical woman but I do often have flights of fancy.  I go from a to z without looking at the middle steps.  I am not as methodical as I would like  to be sometimes.  So again I need to balance my fanciful ideas with the practicalities of everyday life.  I looked at a cottage yesterday, I am not at work, my finances are in a bit of a confusing state;pie in the sky perhaps.  But tomorrow I have meeting with someone to help me with the money side of my life.  That should set the ball rolling on that.  My pie in the sky is perhaps the stuff of fantasy but the creative side of me can in fact make very lovely pie.  The imaginative side of me can think of all sort of ways of putting pie up in the sky, on a plane; that would be in the sky, or perhaps I could catapult it up very high with one of those old fashioned roman or is that greek or perhaps byzantine catapults.  Maybe the pie is already in the sky and I just need to lasoo it and bring it down to earth.  I could create a machine for catching pies in the sky .  

There is more than one way of looking at anything.  My pie in the sky ideas can distract me from the practicalities of life, but it is fun to dream.  Today I will open a new file on the aquisition of a permanent home suitable for me and my family and some animals.  I was given a pep talk by x on my being one of the most compentant peole he knows.  I keep being reminded by people that when I put my mind to it I can do anything I set my mind to.  That single minded determination that kept me going for so long can be put to good use.  I was scared to be too single minded again as it lead me here.  I now have an open mind , I notice things again, so perhaps I will not fall back into the idea that there is only one way of doing things.  

Today a pair of bullfinches were in the garden.  I noticed the beautiful flash of his breast.  It was such a vivid red and so unlike the the red of a robin.  It was hard to describe; it was a more vivid pinky red with very subtle tones of mango, rather than the rusty red of the robin.  I think he noticed me too and he hopped up onto my windowsill to say hello.  He turned his head around to have a good look at me and me and the bullfinch had a moment, not unlike the wolf/mr fox moment in film of fantastic mr fox.  He had beautiful black eyes.  It was lovely to connect with a fellow creature in that way.  I used to think of birds as the least sentient of creatures but over the last few months I realised that they are just as curious about me as I am about them.  I digress, back to the point.  I have opened my mind to the possibility that my life can be different.  The challange now is to realise that it will be a bit strange for me for a little while, getting used to being well.  I might need to pick up the pieces of the life I left behind.  My behavior has affected many people, I do not live in isolation from the world.  I did the best I knew how at the time.  Perhaps there was loads of help there for me all the time but I just was not aware, perhaps I looked for help from the wrong people, or in the wrong place, or perhaps many beliefs were such that I could neither accept or ask for help.  Today I will give myself a break.  I went gung-ho to solve a problem last week, exactly as I had done in the past.  I did not stop to consider if it was the best solution.  

Perhaps it is time to slow down.  To stop and have a moment with the bullfinches of this world.  To be a little more patient and not to be so single minded in the solution to any problem or idea.
Perhaps I do not need to put the pie in the sky, maybe I could just put it up a tree instead.  It would be easier! Or perhaps I could leave the pie in the sky that is there already and bake my own pie here on earth.  I have some very nice rhubarb so perhaps a rhubarb and custard pie, or better yet a rhubarb and custard crumble, yummy.  The last bit is not a metaphor :-)

So off you go and decide to do with your own pie in the sky, maybe lasso pie just like George Bailey lassoing the moon. .  Or just perhaps leave the pies in the sky and just admire them from afar.


Happy Wednesday.

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I want to scream loudly , I want to slap my teenager and drag her from bed, I am angry.  I am very angry.  I am not getting any me time.  I feel that everyone is taking advantage of me.  My head is foggy and cloudy with stress.  So I am off to beat the S**t out of my rug.  I am going to hang it on the line and beat all the dust and dog hairs out of it and hopefully all my frustration.

paradise squares; paradise found, fond memories

This morning I went out to buy some croissants, chocolate ones to be precise, and when I got to the shop they were sold out, sold out of most nice things due to the fact that it was first communion day in our parish.  So I did not want to arrive where I was going empty handed and I ventured a little further to the lower shelves and discovered paradise squares, a totally new type of cake/bun/nice thing.  Even better they were pink and had cherries, yummy.  I also bought my favourite Saturday paper and later in the day I decided to read it while lounging on the sofa drinking tea, very decadent really when the house looked like it had been burgled and my daughter was having a friend over to stay.  I came across an ad for a hotel, it was titled paradise found.  It brought me back to when I was my daughters age aprox and I spent a wonderful week  staying in a hostel near that particluar luxury hotel and it was the closest thing to paradise I had experienced them.  My friends parents were alot older than mine, better educated and more adventurous.  They were lovely gentle people and never raised their voices.  The really loved their children who were both  adopted and it used to make me wish I was adopted as they would tell their children how they chose them and were so lucky to have got such lovely daughters after loosing so many babies of their own.  It was one of the best summers of the decade.  One of those perfect Irish summers, sun gentle breezes, an abundance of honeysuckle and fushia and sun,sun sun a rare thing in Ireland in the summer.
I spent the summer perfecting my tan and eating fruit.  It was a blissful time: Paradise.  As I wandered through my day today I wondered why  I lost the feeling of paradise or just abandoned it .  All my memories of being happy involve me being very attuned to nature, to being outdoors with the plants and birds, noticing the passing of the seasons, waiting for each new plant to blossom, the leaves to fall the storms to pass.  Mindfulness is achieved through noticing your surroundings, being present at that moment.  On my walk down the track today I was noticing the flowers in bloom and the ones which are about to come into bloom when I thought what will there be to look at when the flowers die off.  then I noticed it a single pale really white almost translucent mushroom in the midst of a fluff of bright yellow trefoil.  Ah ha then there will be the mushrooms of autumn, the falling conkers, the beauty of the autumn leaves, in the winter there will be the frost and the puddles and that amazing blueness of the winter morning sky.  There is always something there to notice.  So I realised it was not because I was stopping to look at the flowers that I was happy, it was because my mind was open enough to notice my surroundings that I was happy.  Happiness is a peaceful mind.  Paradise is a peaceful mind on a May day in Abbeyside down the causeway looking at the flowers.  Recently I have been thinking of moving as my daughter is so unhappy here and I thought how much I would miss my favourite walk.  I got to thinking that it will always be there, well for a long time anyway, and I can go back anytime to walk there.  So often when I have moved in the past I never maintained the links with my previous friends and areas.  I suppose it is all part of my tendency to compatmentalise.  It is my fervent wish that I stay whole and all joined up.  I like myself now and am ok to show my vulnerability.  People do laugh at me when I do not understand things but it is kind laughter.  I have a tendency not to fully understand what peoples real motives are but lately I have noticed that other people are looking out for me.  Because I am open to showing that I am not perfect people tend to pick up the slack for me now, before they just assumed I could do everything.   Perhaps before I assumed I could do everything and had to do everything myself so those that could help me were ignored so much they gave up offering me help, or maybe I just never accepted it before.  I am now the anti-little red hen.  So much so I think I will write a sequel  to the little red hen; Little red hen recovers from burnout or maybe little red hen learns to accept help, or even Little red hen gets by with a little help from her friends.

So when someone offers help, accept it even if you think you dont need it just so that you know how to take it when you do. 

Happy Sunday 

rejoining the real world; leading an ecological life

Today anxiety visited me in the hot waves of terror.  I have been addressing many issues within my family for a few weeks now and I think I may not have released the build up of stress adequately.  I feel like running away again and get a break from the grind, but I forgot what it is to take a break and have a laugh and connect with human beings on a one to one basis.  I get so warped up in my minds troubles that I forget to do things just for fun.  Things that I like to do to relax are usually things I do alone.  Up until recently I have a very strange view of the world.  I felt judged so much but it was only me projecting my fears onto others.  Yes people judge me but I judge myself too harshly too.  Most people  understand that we are all imperfect people, flawed human beings, doing the best we know how.  There are those who have expectations that others should be perfect and should be able to perhaps read their minds and know and interpret their needs.  Sometimes those people do not even know what their needs are.  I can only deal with my stuff.   Right now my stuff is about getting my family life back on track, getting my work life back on tract, getting my personal life back on track, joining up the parts of my life that were disjointed and keeping a balance in my life.  Tonight I went out to a "do".  There were people for all parts of the county there.  I knew quite a few people there from different parts of my life.  That would have been quite difficult for me six months ago.  I kept all parts of my life very separate.  I got so fed up of people from the different parts of my life reacting badly to each other that i just separated it out.  I suppose that happens to so many different people.  I was constantly getting that from people when I was married as did my x.  When my childhood friends met my college friends it could sometimes be weird.  When my girlie friends met my work friends it was weird.  So it was all separate.  But I am not disjointed I am multi faceted.  It is ok to have many sides and angles , many planes , be a giant mirrored disco ball reflecting different parts of me.  but that mirror ball is made out of  tiny bits of a mirror, in effect it is a broken mirror but by joining up the broken mirror it is transformed into one of my favorite thing in the world a mirrored disco ball.  I have some small jewelery boxes on my window sill, on sunny days I lie on my bed doing my meditation and I get the wonderful arrangement of sparkles on the ceiling as the light is reflected.  Sometimes the mirror in the front room crates a rainbow on the wall.  It brings back fond memories of the lusters my granny had that created beautiful rainbows on the walls.  So simple and so lovely.  I am more than the sum of my parts.  I am a bit innocent, I am very sensitive, I am vulnerable.  I can show that side of me.  I do not have to be "the man".  I can be a woman and an engineer, I can be an engineer and an artist, I can be an artist and a mother,  I can be a mother and creator, I can be a creator and a lover, I can be so many things and still be me.  So I can not do things like service the car and then panic about it.  But I can find a solution to my panic.  I read one time of a man who was bitten by a snake, he panicked so much that he forgot to suck out the poison and died.  So what is panic and what good is it.  It alerts me to danger but is that real or imaginary danger.  It is both.  the trick I think is to be able to tell them apart.  I feel things so intensely and spent so much of my life interpreting other peoples reactions so that I could tell what mood they were in and if it was ok to be myself, did I have to be quite or could i speak, would they be upset with me if I spoke.  But I now realise that is their stuff.  I will express myself and when I am visited by the anxiety fairy I will ask her is this real or imaginary and then look at the supporting evidence.  I will say Tina( I named her Tina) Tina is this real or imaginary and then I will ask myself what is my evidence.  I am a logical woman but I am also intuitive.  I blocked off my sixth sense for so long I nearly gave myself an ulcer.  I have intuition and I have logic.  I have the skills and tools to identify the source of my panic and the ability and intellect to examine the evidence and come up with options of how to solve the thing that is causing me to panic.  I have always had them but forgot to use all my skills in all parts of my life.  I will lead an ecological life.  I was looking at the different butterflies that came out to day as I walked home from doing my messages.  I walked to walk off the adrenalin of the visit from Tina.

Different plants flower at different times of the year, now the yellow flags, the dog roses, the white clover are coming into bloom.

Soon it will be time for my favorite medow sweet.  It is the true fragrance of summer.  I looked at the flowers, I looked that the butterflies.

I saw a few happy pairs of some small ,as yet unidentified type of blue, doing their courtship flight of joy twirling around each other and swirling with happiness(lust perhaps but happiness is nicer) butterflies in love :-) I started to think about ecology.  How the butterflies adapt to their surroundings, how things evolve to fit into their surroundings but they do so in harmony.  For example each butterfly needs a particular type of plant to lay it eggs on for the caterpillars to feed on and to eat and sustain itself as it lives.  So at each stage of the year you have different plants and butterflies that have adapted to those plants and they are in harmony.  It is ecological: I want my life to be just that; ecological.  I want each bit to benefit the other bit and provide me with the things I need to flourish and do my own dance of butterfly love. :-)

Take flight my little butterflies and spread your wings in the sun, find your mate and spend the happy sunny moments doing the dance of love with them.

Happy Saturday.


   

overcomming fears

I have started to deal with alot of problems ones that I either was in denial about or brought me out in a cold sweat.  Mostly they have proven to be far easier in reality than in my ever fertile imagination.  In fact two phonecalls I was in dread of returning turned out to be to my benefit rather than dis-benefit and spurred me into facing some of the difficulties I have given myself.  I now freely admit that I have difficulties in understanding or I don't know what people are saying to me rather than attempting to interpret their motives or even their thoughts.  I clarify things with them and repeat back what I think until we both are certain that we are on the same page.  It is very liberating being imperfect and I am starting to enjoy being me. 

Be brave its easier than you think.

tears of the giraffe

Tears of the giraffe is one of the wonderful books written by my favourite author Alexander Mcall Smith.  the title is explained in the following passage:

It was a traditional Botswana basket, with a design worked into the weaving.

"These little marks here are tears," she said. "The giraffe gives its tears to the women and they weave them into the basket."..."You are very kind, Mma", she said. "But why did the giraffe give its tears?"

Mma Ramotswe shrugged; she had never thought about it. "I suppose that it means that we can all give something," she said. A giraffe has nothing else to give--only tears." (p.226)

This morning  I started to cry; not the insane weeping for unknown reasons that precipitated this episode, but big fat tears rolling down my face in silence. Tears can be for all sorts of reasons.  Yesterday as I waited in the waiting room with other anxious mothers one of the mothers started to cry.  How I envied her.  I wanted to cry too but could not.  I just wanted to let out all the pain and sadness but I began to think that the anti depressants that helped me to stop that insane crying blocked my feelings too.  I could not react and cry properly anymore.  Over the last few weeks I have cried ocassionally but not tears of sadness, I have mostly cried out of frustration.  I saw in that woman's face the loss and pain and sadness and possible the need to just let it all out.  All the mothers in the room understood why she cried or at least knew that they too might be sitting in that chair crying.  This morning I got up feeling good but as sat down to hem my daughters new school pants I started to cry, big fat wet tears rolled down my face, I cried for the men I loved and lost, I cried for my children, I cried for all the sadness I ever felt and could not explain, I cried from relief, from all the judgements I had lumped on myself and others , I cried for my mother, I cried for my daughters' teachers , I cried for my friends, I cried for my lost friendships , I cried for the feeliong I wil not allow myslf to share with someone for whom I care deeply but does not care for me in the same way, I cried for the weight I put on in the last few months, I cried for the life I did not have, I cried for all the confusion and things I could not name, I cried for my dead pets, I cried for my lost toy duck, I cried for the friendships that I lost because I could not tell my friends that the things they did hurt me so much I could not speak, I cried for all the younger versions of myself that did not understand why they were crying, I cried for myself, the me that I am now.  It has taken me 43 years to be able to name the things I am crying for.  Perhaps like the giraffe sometimes we can only give tears but in the tears there is healing.  I cried healing tears for the first time in my life.  I did not end up in the hiccouping drained bereft grief stricken state that tears had lead me too before.  I wiped away my tears on the sleeve of the lovely new pink derssing gown I bought myself last week. I represents a fresh start for me.  I wandered around so long in my dressing gown that my grief and confusion seems to have been absorbed into it.  I no longer feel good when I wear it.  So while shopping last week I bought myself new night ware , just for me, with no man in mind or no ocassion, such as hospital or visiting relatives, or the winter, just a pretty dressing gown that keeps me warm and cosy in the cool spring mornings.  So I wiped my eyes in the frilly pink sleeve of my new dressing gown.  Took up my needle and thread and did the right thing, I sewed the hem and grieved for the part of me that answered to the beck and call of others , who sought to find her way by being lead by others, who needed others to tell her what to do, how to think, how to be, and could feel the feelings of others so strongly that she lost the ability to feel her own feelings and know her own mind.  Perhaps I dont know my own mind yet, but I know my own feelings now, they might be a bit of a mishmash but they are all valid.  When the anxiety starts to take hold I can understand that it is a feeling and can release it or help it pass.  When I am ready I can deal with the thing that is making me anxious and not push myself to do so while I am in the middle of a visit from the anxiety fairy. I can cry now and know why.  I also know that there will be times when I cry and dont know why but I have the tools to explore and release the feeling.  Feelings are not facts and well how real are many alleged facts anyway ? So much is distorted by opinion now that it is difficult to tell some facts from fiction.    

For me reality at the moment is a very untidy house in need of a clean.  That is my fact for the day.  So I am off to put my house in order and act like the adult that I am.  Doing the right thing is not easy in the short term but repeatedly doing the right thing leads to the formation of good habits and gives us strength.  Doing the wrong thing can have an instant and gratifying payoff but in the long term it damages us.  Today I said goodbye to just that.  Right now it is painful but eventually I will see the benefits .  I love myself too much now to be second best anymore. 

Happy Wednesday.

So next time you cry feel the wetness of the tears, the speed of your breathing, the saltyness, the heat and the relief.  Cry mindfully and be enlightened.

ohf what a d

Oh holy F**k what a day. Thank god I have finally got my stuff together as all my strength was called on today.  It is surprising how well I coped, or is it? I have spent 4 months having a weekly counselling session, once I could read I read all sorts of things, then I also devoured loads of information form the Internet, listened to the advice of many people.  Today I acted as if I was a well adjusted woman, and I surprised myself when I realised I was.  The peace of mind I have craved for so long may not be with me every minute of every day but today I did what I needed to decompress and not carry all my anger and frustration into tomorrow.  when I came home today from a day that challenged me to my limits I was greeted by x having a hissey fit over bin bags, then I remembered why he was x, how many times had I arrived home in the past in need of a comforting hug and a cup of tea.  In need of a bit of TLC and a foot rub, just 5 minutes of peace and quite as I adjusted to home life after a draining day at work only to be greeted by rage and anger.  It sucked my soul away.  Today I just did not want his anger, yes he was pulling his weight with the childcare but I deserve more.  I did not deserve all the anger that was thrown at me today.  I did give some out too but it was out of frustration.  so tonight after a very very very draining day I decided to leave him with his anger and I walked it off.  I put on my favourite jacket and walked my favourite walk.  It was so much better than lying in bed crying like I wanted to do.  I thought of how other people are greeted when they return home and decided to practice my welcome and my return home to make it as happy for everyone as possible.  We all need to be greeted in a caring way.  I know I am so soft hearted that I am easily taken advantage of but I think ?I am learning.  Today I held tough , I was not angry but when I needed to revive I did so and made no apologies about it.  my teen daughter had a bit of a rant at me today and in the midst of it asked me why I felt it was OK for me to express my feelings about a particular issue, she said she could not, I replied because I am OK with expressing my feelings and she asked, well shouted why is that then, and i realised because I am OK with who I am.  I am OK with who I am.  I can listen to criticism about me and it does not mean that I have to accept it of even agree with it,.  Someone Else's opinion of me and what I am doing does not matter to me as I know I am doing what is right for me. some of my ideas are a little unconventional, many people disagree with them but I think it is important to treat people with love.  X asked me today what I was getting back from giving so much to my daughter and getting nothing in return and ?I realised that I was giving unconditional love, something that he had never been given.  I have been unable to recognise that I can give unconditionally.  I am  doing all this for her because I love her.  I suppose I am treading a fine line between mollycoddling her and loving her in his eyes but once I loved him too, thankfully it was not unconditionally and i escaped from the anger and rage.  If I had been able to communicate then as well as I can now perhaps we would have stayed married but I am a mother to my children and never wanted to be one to my husband.  I love my children unconditionally but not blindly.  I am seeking help to be certain that I am not fooled by them. i am  so gullible that it is so easy to fool me but I am no push over any more.  I am the Himalayas strong and immovable but providing a safe place to set down roots and plenty of cliffs from which to stretch your wings.  I brought in X so that I would not be fooled by mychildren during this very trying time as the responsible parent I need to recognise when he is no longer able to cope with the strain and I must now shoulder the burden again until he has recharged.  It is not my intention to be piggy in the middle anymore but when we co parent it is that co -parenting not him going off and deciding things without me and expecting me to agree.  We need a strategy to move forward.  I love my daughter unconditionally but that does not mean that there are no rules, or boundaries.  I have boundarieshe strength to get through this and heal too. 
Physiological healing is the restoration of damaged living tissue to normal function. Emotional healing is the restoration and repair of a damaged spirit. Can we heal if we do not realise we are damaged perhaps ;we can but will the healing be complete?


Happy Tuesday 
So today when you go home or when visitors arrive or even if it is just a nuisance caller greet them with warmth and appreciate how nice it is to be given a warm welcome, just like a loyal dog would , no judgement, no anger just pleased to see tehm and happy that they have called. :-)

I am in the gutter, and i'm looking at the mud

I rarely write on a very bad day and I have mostly had good days recently but today was a bad day. younger daughter spent the morning throwing up and teenage daughter , who is stretching her boundaries and my new found patience was very annoying.  My blood pressure was up due to my forgetfulness in collecting my tablets, and the stress of dealing with her, and I felt like crap.  I decided to wallow in my misery.  Oh yes I am soooooooo miserable, my life is soooooooooooo shit, poor me stuck here, why should I bother to get out of bed at all, what is the point, its all crap, I could go on and on, i didnt even give myself permission to wallow , I just wallowed.  Eventually I got really sick of wallowing and took xes dog for a walk.  When I eventually trusted her enough to leave her off the lead she cautiously stayed with me.  As she realised that she was free she ran around like a mad thing,  she yelped and ran around like mad.  I decided to try a new way home from my usual walk.  I have recently got over my stray dog phobia and I thought that having a dog with me would be good practice for my encounters with other dogs, so we went back through the bog.  It is really a very small salt marsh at the edge of the bay, created by the causeway which used to carry the train many years ago when trains still ran here.   Well what joy was there to greet me.  Lots of lovely rabbits, an oasis of green and warmth, a shelter from the winds that swept across the bay today.  Mrs Dog and I got on great.  I forgot about wallowing and even had a short run with her which she loved.  I have put on a stone in the last 2 months, that stone took me about 6months to loose last year and since I threw out all my clothes that were to big for me I a squished uncomfortably into most of my clothes now.  god it was so easy to break a sweat being so unfit, but did I feel great.  i came home to the same mess, the same children, the same pile of ironing, but instead of wallowing in my pit of misery , I wallowed in a bath of citrus and sage bath crystals.  We can all wallow but some wallowing is better than others.

Happy Monday.
Find your happy wallow pit and enjoy.
Think happy thoughts for me please as I have a rather challenging day ahead of me and I need lots of happy thoughts to help me through it.