shapeshifting

That lunar eclipse turned my brain into Spaghetti Junction last night. No sleep for the inspired. But no clear thoughts either. If I was to write a long (too long) post about my interwoven thought processes right now it would include these threads:

• Online business coaching is producing multi-levels of clones and if the only business they have is telling other people how to run their business telling people how to run their business, who is actually doing anything? Making anything? Creating anything? I see the need for business coaching and there is some incredibly inspiring, fresh stuff out there but ohmygod sometimes it's like standing in a hall of mirrors. Of course I'm not an entrepreneur and I don't need to read any of it but when it's good, it's good. I like good now. Good's cool. Cloning isn't.

• Some of us may have no urge to take over the world but we still want to be part of it. We still want to have left some small positive imprint. And look, Bindu has been reading my mind.

• Being a catalyst for positive change among your immediate circle is a wonderful thing. The common ground you probably share will mean your interpretation of something is more likely to spark change than would the words of someone living an entirely different life. Why throw a whole lot of seeds on stoney ground when you can watch them thrive in your own back garden? I have been inspired to make real change by a number of close friends recently. Even though I've known for years that what they say is true, it took their voice and perspective to bring it home to me.

• Building an emotional immune system (my kind of parenting).

• Age ain't nothin' but a number. Voicing my trepidation of turning 50 in two years has made me realise that the number is simply a marker of how long I've been here. It in no way defines who I am while I'm here. I could as easily label myself as having arrived at 09.30 GMT. Who cares right? But I do think that in my mind it signifies an age at which I really should have grown up. And that's what I'm aiming for. Maturity. A smidgeon of wisdom from the many lessons I've lived through. Less manic intensity. Waaaay more serenity (no, not that one). Serenity is what I've always hoped I'd find when I grew up; I guess the unnamed project is a way for me to get there.

• I love the flavour. I'd forgotten just how much. Next year, now I know to pick before they flower, I'll be harvesting my own.

• Tasha Beagle has been rehomed bringing my charges down to three. And, with so much less to do now (there were seven dogs when I started, three have been rehomed and one passed away) I'm only going to visit them once a month. I have been given three Tuesdays a month to do something else. That's good.

• Megan Matthieson

• Restless. I'm restless. I'm getting that 'throw everything up in the air and see where it lands' feeling. I do not know if or when I'll act on that feeling. I do not know what I'd like to see in that new arrangement. I just have a feeling that there is space for something else. Something outward-facing and important to me. Something real and gritty and true.

• It may be wrapped in something imagined and shiny but still true.

• Thursday night is yoga night.

• The project...it is unnamed.

• Awesomised conversation and laughter with Susannah at Cafe Lucca. Also, standing at one of the busiest corners in Bath while she pokes her upper arm and shouts,"I mean, what the F*CK is THIS?" much to the amusement of me and many passers-by. @photobird...keeping it real.(N.B. It's perfectly normal triceps, in case you're concerned.)

• Dreaming of teaching people to fly by firing them out of massive cannons. I tried it, it was AWEsome.

 See? Scrambled. Good, but scrambled.

x

Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.

~ William Morris

This quote is so well-known I hardly need to write it out. I could have just referenced it and you'd all have been nodding your heads but what the heck...I like the look of it. And it's useful. Double whammy on the Morrisometer.

It kept coming into my head yesterday as I thought more about my posts this week and even more about your great responses. I thought about how this theory applies to life and how encompassing the terms 'useful' and 'beautiful' can be.

For example...my constant bitching to myself about how I need more time to do what I want and how I'm useless and disorganised and lazy and effing endlessly interrupted...is that beautiful? I'll tell you now, it's UGLY. Is it useful? Oh don't make me laugh; it's a downward spiral into the legendary Vortex of Suck and it makes nothing better. It inspires only worse feelings.

I'm not going to rehash the details here - it seems many of you know where I'm coming from anyway - but yesterday evening I thought,"That's it. It stops. If I want to do something positive for me and my family I need to forget about making a few quid online (and never doing it) and focus on the quality of our lives. If anyone knows that this is not about money, it's me."

That's a beautiful concept. That's a useful concept.

I'm also loving the comments made by Jennlui and Tracie about 'tiny' work and tiny chances to work. As I've said, I'm not good at that. I like to zone out and drift but maybe I just need to give the tiny idea a go. No pressure. I'm all about the no pressure now. I get enough pressure elsewhere.

I want to do something for the love of it.

This exact time last year: sunshine, barefeet, chalk & water painting on the well cover. That would be nice this weekend.

x

I'm not talking about a figurative lick of paint either. I mean, scraping my mental landscape clean of all the stories and assumptions and 'facts' around and with which I navigate life. What would self-inflicted, middle-term amnesia look like? Feel like?

Imagine, for example, you were a person who completely believed in astrology. You religiously read the forecasts, descriptions and advice for Sagittarius and then, decades on, you discover that the date you think you'd been born...? Wrong. You're a Virgo. (As a parent who adopted from China, I don't take the topic of inaccurate birth dates lightly, I'm just using it as a simple metaphor.)

Anyway, it looks appealing to me. If a tad impractical.

I just made the mistake (?) of looking back through my blog archives to see if I really do always sound bleak and miserable at this time of year. Along the way I started dipping into random posts and I think I'd prefer the bleak and miserable. So many posts saying,"Hey I've had an AWEsome idea...this is totally it...I found The Thing...I have A Great Plan."

Ahem.

New year can appear to hand us a clean slate but it's not easy. Those past hopes, wishes and visions can stick to us with guilt and shame and fear of failure. Unless we forgive ourselves for not seeing them through - or maybe just realise that it doesn't really matter and not getting your Etsy store off the ground three years running does not make you a bad person - we will become more and more stuck in our own emotional swamp, while our belief in our ability to get out of it slowly fades.

Depressing? Sure. Truthful? For me it is and I know it is for many of you, but given that we're not about to get our memories wiped, what do we do?

• Gratitude, appreciation for what we already have in our lives, that's good.
• Appreciating the things you have achieved (I bet there are loads), that's also good.
• Quietly taking a teeny step forwards and feeling a sense of achievement for that. Good.
• Releasing the pressure we put on ourselves to measure up to people we admire. Niiiiiice.
• Asking a trusted friend or loved one what it is that they think you're good at. And accepting their answer as a truth.

I think five things to do is enough to think about for me today. Can you think of any more?

Here I am. On my feet.

Those of you who read my (long since removed) post about things here at home will have been aware of the recent troubles we've had. The huge stresses we've been under.

As we reached literal breaking point I was shocked into some kind of out-of-body moment and given a new perspective. Every bone in my body was telling me, 'Run, run!' but thankfully I was able to see that my bones speak an ancient language learnt in different times. Times when yes, I was better off on my own. Always.

But now? Now is different. And the shock of the pain that was experienced by both of us was enough to crack me open. To reveal other ways of thinking.

I saw there was one thing I hadn't done. I hadn't turned breathed into the pull I was feeling in two directions. I was bracing against it and simply wanting to escape and find peace. What if, like a muscle stretches, I stretched my self? Stopped struggling, breathed and relaxed. How to do that? Well how about by finding more love? By breathing as much love into the situation as possible.

I breathed, I let the love in, I relaxed and the stretch and the peace came naturally. It was wonderful.

So we're good. Things feel good and I am reminded of many things that I had forgotten.

Then last night I heard that I'd got a job I really wanted. Not only is it a perfect fit for me but if I do a good job with it, I can replace the income we've been missing or at least return us to solvency. Being in that position makes me feel strong. It makes me realise that I had handed responsibility for my feelings of security to Charlie and although that was a mutually-agreed deal it wasn't a good one. Partly because circumstances had to change and partly because I need to be responsible for those feelings. Me. My independence is a central part of my personality but now I see that it doesn't need to come at the cost of partnership, friendship, love.

So a little job to earn some extra cash has already given me freedom and as it turns out, I think this will not be A Little Job after all.

Strength is not about opposition and defence. Power is not something that inevitably leads to abuse. I am strong when I have love in my life and my power is a force for good.

As for my lifelong dilemma...I think it may be possible to be both domesticated and wild. I'm going to give it my best shot.

I'm not paying this space the attention it deserves but I'm busy putting together things for Black Dog and getting myself moving with my sponsored 'more fit, less fat' drive. By the way, if I haven't thanked you already - and even if I have - a HUGE thank you to those who've sponsored me. I'm nearly halfway to my target and that is fantastic.

But yes, attention. Not paid. I'm once more in a position where I have more than one blog because I think Black Dog needs one but I don't want people who only know me through BD to be reading my more bizarre ramblings over here. And I'm not giving up this space because it's my online home and after years of blog-hopping I've finally managed to settle here and I don't want to give it up.

I've been letting thoughts about this drift through my head when there is space and all I could come up with so far is that maybe it could be even more 'Home'. And in my head I'm constantly carrying an image that came to me the other morning while I was thinking of a friend who lives several time zones away, but whose days start similarly to mine. I'd said to her in a an email:

I was up at 5.45 this morning while C and E slept on and it was still a little dark. The neighbours weren't up so it was absolutely silent apart from early birds.
I sorted the dogs and Casey out with food and cuddles, made some redbush and then went upstairs to the other part of the garden to let my chickens out and feed them...clean out their beds etc. It was soooo perfect. And I was thinking,'This baton is going to get passed to Tracie soon and she'll get up early and go through the same rituals (because they are rituals) and then some woman on the west coast will get up early and whisper to her dogs and blow kisses at her chickens...'.

And when I think of this I exhale.

It feels somehow honourable to be part of something simple and ancient. To still have that in our lives (alongside all the technology I also love). To be part of a circle of people stepping up to carry these tasks in loving hands until they get passed to someone else who will pass them on again and so it continues in a hoop of life, round and round the earth.

As I work on this body that I've taken for granted, neglected, polluted and held down with too much weight and too little love, I'm having moments of clarity about the way I treat my exterior world the same way.

That's where I am today.

This is what I was doing yesterday and today. Yes I changed the name - but kept Wag Bark Love for the dog blog because I love it. Part of what I thought about yesterday was realising that I didn't want to limit my reiki practice to dogs. No doubt they'll be my main focus but I needed to open it up. Put more in and yet simplify. So this is the new site so far.

Thank you. Thank you for reading my angst-ridden post yesterday and for proving that my faith is sound. That there are people who treat each other with respect, love, wisdom and understanding even when they don't agree. It means so much.

I know at least two of you - you know who you are - are screaming,"Then get out of the fucking water!" at the screen as you read this. I know that must look like an option.

But I also know this: sometimes love is tested and stretched and kicked and exhausted and that is when you get to see what lies beneath. And I see my best friend (who will be reading this by the way) of whom I am immensely proud. In whom I see a tenacious hold on his beliefs and his desire to do something with his life that he considers important. I see someone who could abandon everything and everyone and walk into that life with his oxygen mask in place (and if he doesn't know where they are then no one does. heh.) but he doesn't.

We know we're in a tough place. We know that this phase of life has taken its toll on our relationship but so far, it refuses to break. We know nothing is indestructible and we know that both of us need to have our needs and dreams seen and heard if we're to make it through. Now is not my time. It's not my turn. My turn will come and soon. And I am shit at talking about this stuff which is why I write. My hands are waaaay better at talking than my voice. I'm not easy to understand.

Back in the practical, outside world my employers need to know how much I want to work come September. And they need to know last week. My immediate boss is also a good friend who understands what's going on in my life and is being as accommodating as she can be but she's under pressure from above to get this sorted out.

I can't make that decision yet. I need to wait for other decisions that I can't make, that aren't mine to make. I know what I want for me, but what the family needs may be something else.

Thank you for being there and enduring this. It makes an immeasurable difference. I do indeed love the internets.

As my darling daughter said to me as she fell asleep on Sunday night,"You are important to me." If you get even 1% of the buzz off that that I did, we're in a good place yes?

Before our little 3 day jaunt to Wales I was on something of a roll. You see, I'd done a little commitment ritual under a full moon with a candle given to me by the lovely Meg and it had really taken hold. I got ready to market/advertise Wag Bark Love. Then I took a break.

It was much needed and much enjoyed but blimey if it didn't take the wind out of my sails. Is that relaxation? I'm not sure that it is. I'm not complaining, it had been too long since I'd been to the sea and water connects me to the PTB like nothing else, but I'm having trouble finding my feet again now I'm back on dry land.

I can't get my Twitter rhythm back. I don't have time to write the blog posts I want to write. Home is in a state of flux that is not conducive to focus. Situation normal. Heh.

So I'm going with it for this week. Evie has her first afternoon at school today and that's huge. Charlie is facing multiple challenges on his road to full health and needs support even if it's my pretty crap kind of support. Work is busy and I have to take more time off because of school induction for me. Idgie is broody and won't move or eat except to beat up her sister.

I am inspired by my vision of what I really want.

I am inspired by the realisation that I am a good long way on the path to getting it.

I am inspired by reiki.

I am inspired by my vagabond tribe. Yes, I called them a vagabond tribe and yes I'm including you. Two feet or four.