My Pocket

just being

Oh, I am nowhere near words these last few days... My apologies to the lovely posts you have written - I will come soon! This weekend was in need of being with the heart rather than the head, so I've been...

...soothing myself with cutting out images that help me dream,

clearing out and rearranging my room to calm the disorder in my head,

taking some photos of the birthday present my younger brother sewed for me so I can send him a thank you,

staring out the window at the robins and the neighbour's puppy and the breeze,

and just being.

I'll be back soon. Much love 'til then - xoxo

ps. Those strange body parts I have pictures of on my wall are for all the acupuncture points I have to learn. You'll find me staring at them while I brush my teeth.

sleepy but wonderful

yaaaawn...

Man, I've been tired... I came back from college and full-on exams feeling exhausted and have been taking daily naps since, wanting to do nothing much. How are you holding up in the grey February weather?

There have been some wonderful things happening though - like receiving a Blogging with a Purpose award

from Marie at Heimdal, a lovely thoughtful Norwegian blogger. The rules of it are:

Awarded parties must nominate five people who have not received the award.
The blogs that receive the award must serve some purpose.
Awarded parties must post the award banner on their site.
The banner must remain linked to this site.

So, I would like to send this award on to these beautiful souls who all write about inner life:

Chloe at Beauty in the Breakdown - I'm always struck by how beautifully simple, honest and eloquent her writing is. It is right on.

Pixie Dust at Stories I can Tell - I love the frank, funny and adorable writing and ideas she sprinkles and am always left with something to smile about.

Joan at Shades of Joan - I can't believe how well this girl puts everything, I can always relate and leave feeling uplifted. Also, her photos are exquisite.

Linni at Periwinkle - The joy of being alive really shines through in her blog and she writes from the heart, always.

and last but not least

Kristen at Sticking to the Point - She really works with her life and writes about it in a way I feel empowered by, challenging herself and going for it. Plus she has the funniest, sweetest and coolest photos.

I have also been awarded another You Make My Day award - thank you so much Charlotte :)

I was tagged by Kateri to put down three tips for writing and have been mulling that over. Will let you know soon what it came to.

Now, February isn't all grey, even when you're knackered (and more than a little pre-menstrual... ahem) - it's also glorious sunsets with the window open, frosty mornings under your feet, cozy simple suppers of scones and hot chocolate, watching Amelie in bed with the duvet up to your chin, planning spring adventures and dreaming of running down the lane barefoot... What are your small February joys?

Print on earth your love

Take my hand
We will walk
We will only walk
We will enjoy our walk
without thinking of arriving anywhere
Walk peacefully
Walk happily
Our walk is a peace walk
Our walk is a happiness walk

Then we learn
that there is no peace walk
that peace is the walk
that there is no happiness walk
that happiness is the walk
We walk for ourselves
We walk for everyone
always hand in hand

Walk and touch peace every moment
Walk and touch happiness every moment
Each step brings a fresh breeze
Each step makes a flower bloom under our feet
Kiss the Earth with your feet
Print on Earth your love and happiness

Earth will be safe
when we feel in us enough safety

Thich Nhat Hanh, Call Me by My True Names

There's nothing I could say about one of my greatest loves which walking is, and I tried, that says it better than that poem or meditation.

Kiss the earth with your feet
Print on Earth your love and happiness :)

ps. The exams went well enough, I think, and I'm so relieved to have them over. The second year isn't over yet, but the worst is. Flowers are waiting to bloom in my head, bursting with colour where it's been rather monochromatic lately, only the Chinese medicine magic. Which is wonderful too, but oh, the projects, walks, novels and friends I've missed... :) I'm nearly back.

the sound of clear skies

taking a break in the sunshine on the porch. in my favourite outfit for the moment - turn-up jeans, flowery dress and sandals.

Hello :) Just coming up for air... Hope you are having a lovely week. I'm keeping a window open to my study desk - the mild breeze, the little birds warbling, the drowsy bumblebee and the sound of dry weather drifting in (I swear sound moves differently in spring - can you hear the dry dusty roads, the warm protected spots, the joy of people and animals, the spaciousness of clear skies?)

It's still crisp and frosty in the mornings though, the air turning chilly as soon as you leave the sunshine, which I'm also happy about. Spring in February is disconcerting, as welcome as it is to my winter-weary heart. The weather will throw us some icy rainfall or overcast weeks before long for sure. Right now I'm just cherishing the clear skies, the warmth and light during the day, the clear starry ceiling when I fall asleep.

the walk-in-the-woods collection is growing

be-me-day

Somebody learnt that my birthday is today and gave me the best birthday present ever this weekend - a day on the beach, with picnic and sunshine. Bright balloons (with stars on them!), presents and so much more. I loved it Linni - thank you :) Today can hardly be more of a be-me-day than that.

Linni's photo of me

This is the beginning of my last year in the twenties. A year I want to spend gathering up all that has happened during my second phase of life. The decade I've travelled the world, the outer and the one in me, made a best friend and lover, moved out from my family, come home to where I belong in a new country, learnt at university, in work-with-your-hands jobs, at college, found acupuncture and the work I feel drawn to do, been figuring out who I am and what I look like, what it's like to be in the world.

I want to gather it near, spread it out before me, hug it, laugh with it, talk to it, ask it, cry with it, sort it, pick out the meaningful, brush it off, try to lovingly let go of the heavy. Take back the parts I want to carry with me, place them carefully in my rucksack, wave goodbye to the ones left on the ground and then stride off for new adventures with a lighter mind.

This week I might or I might not disappear a little bit, because I have exams on Saturday. If I do, I wish you a sunlit week with promises of green, dreams of colourful gardens, carefree laughter and the energy that comes with the light. Much love to you all.

The ocean calls me. I forget how much it feels like home until I'm there with it again. I loved seeing all the lives being woven together there, spending time with that great expanse and each other.

the little girl that is me

self portrait challenge : blue

Hello you (yes you!) :) How's it going? I feel like I've not really been present here lately, though I have of course. When things get stirred up and haven't yet settled in my mind and heart I normally retreat from the world but I've been challenging myself recently. So in a way, I've been here but not completely. I've been living stuff that didn't have words so I wrote about the things that did.

Before Christmas I had two extraordinary acupuncture treatments that turned me upside down like one of those snow globes, and for a while I couldn't see and I was so afraid, and it felt like I had finally broken down. The thing is, I've for as long as I can remember wanted to break down. I was one of those kids who grow up a bit too fast I think, take on too much too soon. My parents loved me, I was the apple of my mum's eye, her quiet little helper. And I was ever so happy to do it, I took care of my younger brother when the second brother took all my mum's time, helped in any way I could. Including becoming invisible.

I can't remember crying, running to my parents with feelings too big to handle, complaining about being abandoned at daycare though I hated it or allowing myself to be weak or small. My favourite response to most things was and still is: I know. I've got it under control, leave me alone, I can do this! Inside I was getting tired though. I had no stable ground in me, no safe place to run back to when the world was overwhelming, which was most of time. Terrified of being alone with the fear, terrified of surrendering to someone else. I had never learnt how to be a 'mum' to myself, only to other people. Soldiering on stubbornly, angrily realising that I had missed out on something and I couldn't really blame anyone. Circumstances came about as they do and I chose to do what I did.

I wanted to break down, be helpless, for someone to scoop me up - you've done enough. But I couldn't. In the meantime I refused to give myself what I needed, slipping down the martyr route, waiting for life to become fair. The anger was so strong, holding me together, refusing to abandon that little girl who couldn't cry. My life couldn't be reconciled, torn in two.

The treatment I had is used for letting go, letting go of whatever it is that possesses you, devours you. I had come to a place where I was ready to let go, but I couldn't. I still don't know if I've completely let go, but I do know that there is a voice in my head that wasn't there before. When I throw my hands up in the air and want to crawl back to the only safe places I know, the places that ultimately hurt and steal your time, she comforts me. I broke down, on the inside, in the quietest little heap, but I broke down enough for that little girl to feel supported. She can deal with all the little things that used to be overwhelming now. And when we can't deal with it, we take it one small step at a time. There's a hand to hold and a voice to say, it's ok, honey. you're doing fine.

Be helpless, dumbfounded
Unable to say yes or no.
Then a stretcher will come from grace
to gather us up.

We are too dull-eyed to see that beauty.
If we say we can, we're lying.
If we say No, we don't see it,
that No will behead us
And shut tight our window onto spirit.

So let us rather not be sure of anything,
Beside ourselves, and only that, so
Miraculous beings come running to help.
Crazed, lying in a zero circle, mute,
We shall be saying finally,
With tremendous eloquence, Lead us.
When we have totally surrendered to that beauty,
We shall be a mighty kindness.

Zero Circle, Rumi

I'm so glad you liked my doors. It was part of my therapy to draw the imagery I had been asked to create in our session as homework, so this drawing is from then. That's what came up when I was asked to see three doors so they are part of my reality, not part of the exercise. I didn't make that clear, so really, your doors might not look anything like it! For me of course I was drawn to the little blue one on the left, I thought this is my future. And it was.

The beauty of that therapy was that it lasts though, and those doors keep taking on different meanings. I still don't know what it all meant. I love the rainforest and for a long time abhorred the dead parking lot and meaningless crowd in the kitchen. But maybe those doors were just as important? Maybe I just needed to make them mine? I wanted to take down that wooden door heavy with obligation, respectability and rules and make that empty space a peaceful haven to retreat into. A safe place with only myself, the silence and possibility to cradle me.

The kitchen had always both terrified me and enthralled me - I couldn't stand being with people and I couldn't stand not being with them. That place is still hectic and a scary place, but it's far more colourful and that shabby white door is really quite beautiful now. I've realised I'm welcome there as far as everybody else is concerned but the panic lies in me, I can only stay for as long as that little girl is comfortable. And that's ok. :)

Thank you for understanding and sharing your stories. It makes me so grateful to know you are out there, wonderful people creating your lives, making them yours. Wishing you clarity and colourful paths.

in our heads

"I feel the response to a changing world is not about going back; I like to think that human ingenuity and what we've learned over the last 150 years will take us safely down the oil curve into a more abundant, healthy and happy future. We're now living in the most extraordinary time, where we have the chance, perhaps the last chance, to rebuild our civilisation on a new paradigm of true balance with the earth and with each other.

Whether that happens, or whether humanity's impulse to continue to grow at any cost continues, with escalating wars, inequality and panic, is impossible to tell. But as Vandana Shiva, the Indian activist, said recently, "The uncertainty of our times is no reason to be certain about hopelessness". In the myth, hope was what was left in Pandora's Box. So let's move forward with our eyes open and with hope. Life with less oil could well be the the best thing that could happen to us."

Adrienne Campbell, Surviving and Thriving in the Feb/Mar issue 2008 of The Green Parent.

The day I learnt about peak oil something changed in me. I remember being amazed at how something could stir me so fundamentally, because I am not the passionate type. I am the slow burning, understanding and patient type, which I think the world needs equally. My reaction wasn't outrage or despair though. Perhaps I should be ashamed to admit it, but I felt relief. Relief and sudden exhilaration that this world was real, not a structure set in stone by people represented by anyone who has ever exerted their authority over me.

It dawned on me finally that this was my world as well, and things change. The future looked more uncertain than ever, the gnawing fear and sorrow over where we are and where we are going that had been with me for years was confirmed, but the reality of it made me giddy. Being in the midst of what you fear is never anything like the fear itself, is it? You are suddenly filled with energy, the certainty of your situation giving you space to act, freedom from that paralysing state of hesitation. The future was broken open, finally free to be open for anything - horror perhaps, but also the possibility of something else.

Similarly, when I decided to drop out of med school five years ago the image arose in my head of a railroad going dead straight ahead, the endless career slog filling me with no inspiration, surrounded by desert. I hadn't realised how infertile my future had become and in a way always been. How the lush plants I had dreamt of had quietly died, but more importantly, that there had not been that many in the first place.

I hadn't considered it my world so I had only fitted in as many little plants as I could, in the empty spaces between the rules and obligations, to feel as comfortable as possible, but in the end you can't thrive in a place you don't call home. This was not my home. No possibilities, only shoulds. When that world all of a sudden went up in smoke with my decision I was shocked. My future that had been so real as if I had already lived it was no longer there, it had never existed. Apart from in my head, where it had ruled me.

click and view this large if you like

There are three doors in front of you - what do you see? my psychotherapist at the time asked me. Behind the large wooden door in the middle I saw a parking lot, stretching on endlessly, without a soul in sight. I am a loner and knew that sight all too well from when I retreat too far into myself. Behind the right door I cowered in anxiety - the place was a steamy kitchen packed with hurrying, loudly arguing people. I don't deal well at all with groups or crowds, especially rowdy ones. The door to the left was so small I had to crawl through the opening, under plants and vines into humid greenery and birdcalls. Someone was waiting for me there.

(What is behind your doors? It's easy - just close your eyes, relax and let the first image to come to you expand. Then move from there. You might be surprised.)

I still have to choose between those doors, always tempted to withdraw into the parking lot where I know I will be undisturbed forever, but also wither away. To overdo it in the busy kitchen, spending time with others but not being myself, and then want to run from it. Bending down to open that tiny door isn't always easy, I have to persuade myself when I am tired and bitter.

But all in all I feel like I have grown up, in that I know that it is my world, my home, behind all those doors and I choose to dream colourful dreams rather than accept the current railway destination. What we have in our heads is infinitely powerful, whether we know it or not, and there is always more possibility than we dream of. The world is a dream in our heads and hearts.

ps. Thank you so much for your sweet comments on my loved one's post, your well-wishes have warmed both our hearts. Thank you.

for the love of tools

My battered pin tin, old wooden spools, long vintage scissors, tiny embroidery scissors, black japanese ones and bamboo knitting needles

I love surrounding myself with old functional things. Or, if not old then at least made of natural materials and built to last. There is not only beauty in that, but vitality, a sense of meaning and responsibility. Well-made tools become more beautiful the more they are used, feel alive from the spirit the craftsman put into them, give meaning to work because you enjoy using them and give a sense of responsibility to look after and put love into what you create.

My favourite pairs of scissors. The long ones have just the right balance.

I love the wooden handles on these tools, and the way they have worn.

On an outdoor market in Brighton I once found a stall run by two old gentlemen, filled to the ceiling with boxes of vintage tools. A young woman trawling through their piles seemed to be a bit of a novelty (and I think it might have influenced the prices) so I got all the help I needed. Not that I would have minded spending that hour on my own finding treasures, but I had so much fun talking to them and it made me feel comfortable hanging around. I asked them if the long pair of scissors above would still work, which prompted them to polish them up for me for free (they still work a treat, so sharp).

The little things that show the craftsman cared and loved what he was doing always touch me. The beauty in the general design, but mostly the decorations that aren't functionally necessary but add to the joy.

A cracked Mason bowl, a worn wooden spoon, an old silver fork, an apple corer, my gran's old cup that I broke the handle off and a charity shop find: a serving spoon with decorative holes in it for which I don't know the purpose, but I love it and use it.

The things we use every day and look at often are so important to me. I want to feel the purpose and meaning and joy of the everyday things, feel I deserve to eat on pretty china, use tools that make the small things a celebration and feel surrounded by objects that have been lovingly made and lovingly used. What are your favourite things or finds?

One of my polished fit glass jars, reminds me a bit of a snow globe in this light.