Grey

 

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Grey…. I am not sure about this…….it’s more a pewter, but dull….

dull ……. oh…. so ….. dull…..”Dull as ditch water”, a grump riddled parent used to bark…… not about the weather, but about some creative piece I had written or drawn……

Dull – as – ditch – water………

I remember winters then. I remember snowdrifts, sledges, being pulled, but being scared, snowballs in the face ….. getting frozen toes and  jolly red cheeks…..soaking wet socks, the crisp nakedness of undisturbed fallen snow; where has it all gone?
oh, how I loved winter, then.

It’s this grey….. this grey that hangs around like a splodge of badly mixed paints, looming, ready to tip all over my world… but it never happens….. not today anyway…… it’s just grey……

Like my mood: incubating….. not dull, no…….never that.

breathing through dried mud.

I’be just been to the most wonderful Qigong session. I was brought back to my heart and to at  least one rather profound revelation.

We did a ‘standing posture’. We don’t usually do these, but I remember them well from my  Energy Therapy Training at Snowlion schule.   As if I needed to be made even more aware of pain! Argh…. I heard a voice in my head say “I am in so much pain when I stand still.” Yes, it’s true. Physically I am in a lot of pain if I just have to stand. As it is, that Nirvana state which is possible is nowhere in sight for me. But it meant more than that . It was telling me that when I don’t keep working at/on/with moving on, getting things done, being busy, I AM IN PAIN.

I recall how my maternal grandfather and my mum used to do potato picking up to earn money. I would go with her sometimes, yet I hated getting mud and dirt on my hands. Not when it was wet, but when it dried on me. It was as if I couldn’t breathe.

On one particular day, my grandfather really shouted at my mum because I wasn’t helping pick up spuds. I think I was about 8 or 9 years old. “Lazy little bugger” are the words I remember my Grandfather saying. That upset my mum, pushing her into anxiety and shame  – about me and about herself….. The bad mother syndrome, foisted on to women by angry men. She felt that at my age, I was too young to be forced to do it, however…. that was not her response to me. In turn she laid into me and was really ratty with me for what feels like, the rest of her life 33 years to be precise.

And so that label stuck. I then went on to spend the rest of my life until 2011, forcing myself to keep going, to jump up quickly from the chair, to run upstairs, to cycle everywhere, to work hours on end. My belief was that I had to do anything I could to not appear – ‘fat and lazy’. I had to jump through hoops of fire and not get burned.

After gradual decline, post mum’s passing,  I became seriously ill with FMS (fibro) filled rapidly by cancer; the rest is history.

Now, those ego driven, scared, hurt behaviours of the child – ME, are impossible. Too much has happened. Too many hurts have fermented and exploded into dis-ease, in me.

So – facing the stillness is now imperative. Perhaps I shall find myself hidden in those layers of pain. Perhaps – could it even be that it’s all okay? Maybe it is.

👑

‘Mind Lace’

‘Mind Lace’

I move my legs, the duvet tugs at them, not wanting to let go. Even my back feels the strain, resisting the pushing through to get out of bed.

I thought it was raining,
but through the slats of the blinds, there is sun and blue above the roof. Here, I notice my wonderful life is slipping past creating smoke trails in this gentle sky….Yet, as it goes, I make lace in my mind from the overwhelm of personal pain and tribulations of the world.

The thing about lace is that it’s delicate yet strong…. Before modern life took over, when it was allowed to be of natural materials, it was made by quiet hands.

Today I am making
~ ‘Mind Lace’ ~ new ways of dealing with the natural frailties of the Human condition – and for my own.

I am grateful and glad that Life is Beautiful every second of the day and night, at least somewhere in the world 💜

Love ~ Whole ~ Heartedly

We see through mists
to where we think Love bides.
Never pausing,
or sometimes even breathing.
The fear this red and luscious longing
will go out there on the wing
and not be one with us,
or attempt the Soul to Soul
deep contact thing…

Nothing comes from forcing
as forcing creates fixing
and from fixing,
not one tear can flow,
not one heart is healed,
not a single life is saved…..
and no one,
not one person
receives our abundant beautiful Heart.

Love ~ Whole ~ Heartedly

your voice is calling…..

You came tumbling out of the sky,

a star shard, alight with sound.

You came ringing through clouds

spinning like tumbleweed

on to warm earth, sweating soil.

A mind of  vastness  like the universe,

catacombs of wonder

waiting to open to the world.

Shake up your soul,

sound out your longing

on the breeze ….

your voice is calling to be heard..

 

 

 

 

Howl at the Dark Horse.

Howl at the Dark Horse.

Ashah ashah ashah ashah….wind rattles
my ears,
my face, my life.
Leather, the reins
as I steam through dark night.
Breath seems so tight,
so determined, so hard
that my howling is cutting,
scarring the world.
I ride through the bracken
not afraid of Dark Horse
for she and me shatter
boundaries with force.
This terror is screaming
in sinew and vein
as my body convulses;
invisible pain.
Ashah ashah ashah ashah…..

* dedicating this to all who suffer with invisible illness.*

Squeezing Between the Branches

Have you ever curled yourself up close,                                            twisting and turning your soft bright hair?                                             Or seen the moon’s wild fingers entwined so  fine and silky there?                                                And did you know she worked a form, a loose weave cradle in a bed of beams?                                                    Or maybe even wrestled in the night, with yearning and exotic dreams?

Have you ever stood high in the branches of the greenest mulberry tree,                                                                                                        away up high from eyes that glare, while your swift feet dance as you fly the air                                                 As you hold the mystery that is really yours                                                          for the silent message your eye adores.

I ask you barefoot traveller now – Do you dare, do you care and……..are you truly  there?

Have  you ever held  a fieresome promise to your patient inner child, despite your crashing around on solid ground,  a vagabond of  hearts and forward thinking, shardlike minds?

If you Sqeeze between the branches of your rhythmic heart                               and ask a question that’s in perfect time,                                                             your Love so gentle as the springtime rain                                  will whisper to your wild life….                  the courageous voice …. his song, such Love, again.

💗

 
Sent from my iPad

Coming in & going out.

Coming in
we gasp our first.
Going out
we release our last
and in between,
we live our lives
round, robust
Impassioned –
and there,
guided by a
single, inner light,
we do our soulful,
sweetest best.

In respect of Jo Cox,
Labour MP shot and killed
In her constituency Wednesday 16th June 2016
💗

A Tip for Dealing with OVERWHELM

OK – I don’t do overwhelm at all well! I never have, but it was easier when I was younger…. There was always a way of transcending that terrible feeling of being weighted down. Not anymore – so what has changed? My perception. I have an auto- immune illness and and I’m a lot older.

I don’t like to moan about life at all, so finding a way of expressing the feelings of being in this staggeringly snare filled jungle of briars and nettles, is like having my breath stopped. ‘The Silent Scream’ comes to mind. I’m sure I’m not alone in this, yet it is the most isolating feeling – a madness which threatens even the stability of the best of us.

So…., how to remedy it? I have just read back over what I’ve written. The answer doesn’t lie in the making of lists, prioritising etc, at this point. When suffering overwhelm, it is just too much to do that as I can’t ‘think’. No, the answer lies in my statement, “it’s like having my breath stopped”. So I take it right back TO my breath.

I sit quietly. (Preferably without my cat on
My lap – dribbling!).
I close my eyes.
I hear the sounds outside of birds singing.
I feel the air on my skin.
I feel the chair under me and supporting my back.
I bring awareness to my breathing, noticing I am gripping my upper abdomen/solar plexus.
I get curious, sensing the movement or lack of movement, in and out as the ribs lift and fall, enabling the lungs to utilise the intake of oxygen.
The movement is small, I begin to feel the tension falling away, dissolving and freeing.
I notice how I have stilled my mind through my awareness of my breathing.
I sit, allowing myself to deeply enjoy my own breath, my own sense of self.

Now I can move forward…. ‘Overwhelm’ has dissipated and I can begin to make a lists of priorities.
I drink a glass of water to flush out the toxins which the overwhelm is likely to have produced.

Peace Be. 💗