shapeshifting

Starting the year with no resolutions and no plans for 2011 that I was prepared to sign in blood - that turned out to be a good thing. I had sunk low into my winter depression (by the way tweeters, check out the #whatstigma hashtag) and quietly thought that the best I could do was to get myself through January. Then - come February and imbolc, and Brigid bringing back the light, and spring festival and its sweeping away of bad luck from the previous twelve months (and 13 years of being nicotine-free!) - I'd come up with something to take me through to March.

It worked. I started off with some daily gratitude but found myself wondering to whom or what I was grateful. I don't have a deity to thank and what I mean when I talk about the Universe is something akin to intention, love, spirit and magic. So I stopped the gratitude and just quietly appreciated.

I have practiced Reiki in some way every day of January, bar two. Meditation, self-treatment, distant healings...a Reiki practitioner benefits from the flow whoever and whatever she's connecting to and I have. I hope this daily practice will continue. I'm aiming for another 28 days.

I got active and re-started my Couch to 5k runs. Not with huge success but I'm not giving up. It feels good and I found a couple of endorphins down the back of the sofa.

I hired a SAD light and it completely and utterly changed my brain. Seriously. I will never again go without a therapeutic light in winter.

Guest-posting for Susannah gave me a kick up the backside and suddenly I have all sorts of creative stuff going on. That has been one of the biggest boosts of all. The rediscovery of the very 'analogue' pencil and sketch pad has been a particular pleasure.

So 1/12 of 2011 has been okay. That's not to say there haven't been some shocking things happening in my personal world and the wider one, but I didn't hit bottom and stay there. I got through the worst month with some momentum to spare and that's all I asked of myself.

And you know what? I feel better than good. I feel proud of myself and what I've achieved. I'm feeling some fire, some inspiration. And in the slowness I have had space to feel supported by family, friends and the spirits that guide me.

Movement, necessarily small, saved me from stagnation, toxicity and the loss of light. My word for February: forward.

x

I was going to post only pictures this month but you know me and my intentions. Scattered, to say the least. Maybe I need one day when I just use words.

So I'm going to say thanks for all your good wishes for Nellie Bean. She's bouncing around like a two year old again and seemingly fine. Can it really be true that she's 15 next birthday? I never saw a dog her age, of any breed/mix, with her vitality. I'm keeping an eye on her in case she has a recurrence but I think she probably had a kidney stone. I've had them and I behaved in much the same rabid way. I am so grateful for her health, reiki, your understanding and for not having to spend another night on the kitchen sofa.

Charlie has scored another win in his Build A New Life plan and now has yet another big, bird-focused charity to add to his list of clients/employers. I'm very proud of him and his courage in making this leap. It's no secret that I freaked out about our security but thankfully I ended up knowing I had to trust him, his talent and the Universe. Somewhere along the line of the last few years, deep in a soup of post-new age inspiration and mindful living, I had forgotten my family motto which was simply a very British,"It'll all be alright in the end." Indeed.

Evie - yes, the four year old - is getting way too smart for her own good. Yesterday she said something that surprised me and I asked her why she would say it. She replied:

"I'm just joking with you, Mum...it's just a joke...<rolls eyes> Humour?"

Karma, I tells ya. Karma.

Meanwhile I've been thinking about my tendency to compare myself unfavourably with the many, many creative people around me. From Charlie through my real life friends to my online ones, I'm surrounded with creative wonders. Artists, inspired parents, photographers, cooks, writers, poets, editors, crafters, actors, farmers...and all of them brilliant. All of them using their (multiple)talents to enrich their lives and others'. And I look at them and am too embarrassed to put up my hand and say,"Me too. This is what I create." because surely the universe will laugh its non-head off. Not to mention the very people I'm standing with.

Two things have got me really pulling this sentiment apart and replacing it with something healthier.

Firstly, this week I came across a well-used concept that this week felt fresh to me despite my having been aware of it for years. That your life is a work of art. The whole thing. If you're making any kind of effort with your life you are creating it; stroke by stroke, word by word. You are an artist. And that made me feel good. As creations go, my life is one that I can be proud of. I can confidently claim (multi-media) artist status on that one.

Secondly, I recently heard an interview with Noel Fitzpatrick, AKA The Bionic Vet. No he's not bionic, he fits hi-tech prostheses to animals. His approach is extremely compassionate and there's little trace of the scientist in his manner despite his qualifications and experience. He does what he does out of love. He mentioned that he's often faced with the opinion that he shouldn't be doing what he does for animals when there is <insert humanitarian cause> and that for some time he would fall asleep finding himself questioning how he could justify what he does.

His answer, his truth, is this (I'm paraphrasing): that he has a little part of the Universe (and that was his term) to take care of and he does it as best he can. There are others whose remit is to care for other parts and he's thankful that they do, but this...this is his watch. It's what he is able to do and made to do. Because he believes in the importance and the power of the relationship between people and other animals and because he believes it is impossible to be faced with an animal that is suffering and not want to fix it.

He talked about these things with no ego (sooo refreshing in a TV professional) and with great conviction and now he's a bit of a hero of mine. And it's making me realise that I too have my little bit of the Universe to look after and to create and I cannot compare it to anyone else's. It's pointless. You do what you do and I do what I do.

Ah it sounds so simple. Or maybe I do. I don't mind, I just wanted to say it.

I should be outside and I will be outside but before I go, some things I want to spill onto the page:

• The thing I demonstrated in the vlog is for scattered energies. When you're overwhelmed and can't get a straight thought out of your head. Do it 2-3 times a day and feel everything click back into order. Seriously. I have another for you too. Which means..uh oh...another vlog on the horizon. I might brush my hair this time.
• I fought a migraine for three days and won. Sleep, sleep and more sleep.
• I dug out an old sketch pad and drew. And didn't judge the results.
• I took my camera out at 10pm with my dogs and took some beautiful photographs.
• I picked up my hoop last night for the first time in a very long week. I needed to feel good and it never fails me. I side-stepped (or rather didn't, heh, hooping joke) the walking spin and tried something else. I span the hoop on my hand above my head (Wild West) and then I dropped it down over my shoulders onto my waist and kept it going (Float Down). I KNOW! I did the same from an overhead spin on both hands at once and it felt amazing. I also learned how to spin the hoop on my neck. This morning I ache like f*** and have bruises all over my hands and can't wait to get started again. Except this time I'll try not to bash myself on the nose with a 44" hoop.
• At some point yesterday I was thinking about wildness and how when I was younger my wild side was in her element when she was leaping about to very loud music. Namely the music that she felt in her bones. Namely the guitar sound of The Edge. And then overnight the Universe did something amazing and Tor tweeted about it and I cried happy tears and it was awesome.
• And Tracie mentioned she'd been listening to Black Prairie and I loved them too. Perfect summer night listening (apart from Edge and Muse, natch).
• Also, I read this:

Wolves never look more funny than when they have lost the scent and scrabble to find it again: they hop in the air; they run in circles; they plow up the ground with their noses; they scratch the ground, then run ahead, then back, then stand stock-still. They look as if they have lost their wits. But what they are really doing is picking up all the clues they can find. They're biting them down out of the air, they're filling up their lungs with the smells at ground level and at shoulder level, they are tasting the air to see who has passed through it recently, their ears rotating like satellite dishes, picking up transmissions from afar. Once they have all these clues in one place, they know what to do next.

- Clarissa Pinkola Estes

This has been my weekend. I hope yours is/was as fulfilling.

Sometimes the Universe puts up signposts.

During a recent trip to our local town of Bradford-on-Avon I picked up a pile of leaflets from some of the people advertising therapies in the area. B-on-A is a bit of a hub for That Kind Of Thing; one of the reasons I love it.

One leaflet was for a woman who offers hypnotism and various other things, including creative kinesiology. It got left in a pile on the coffee table. Somehow, that particular leaflet ended up on top of another pile in Charlie's office and he thought it was me dropping a not too subtle hint, because we'd been talking about him getting hypnotism to help with the vestiges of a stammer he has from his schooldays (it wasn't). So he called and made an appointment.

And it was astounding. Not just because a day later, he didn't stammer once during the type of phone call that would usually have found him completely locked on a consonant, but because it also opened up memories that his mind thought it had forgotten. His body hadn't.

So I decided the time was right for me to address my emotional eating issues before my poor old bones crumpled under the 30 pounds of extra weight I'm carrying. Or my body became so toxic that it fell into serious illness. Or my exhaustion got so extreme it tipped into CFS or something. Or my head exploded. I made the appointment.

The first one is 90 minutes - 30 minutes consultation over a long questionnaire you've already filled in and 60 minutes of treatment. I'd thought hypno was the way we'd go but the kinesiology just took off so we went with it.

In brief, my energy, immune system and strength/resources are all running at about 50%. I thought this was great - way better than I'd imagined - LK did not. She was pretty horrified.

She was more horrified by my confession that I don't really drink water. And I don't get thirsty. She muscle-tested me with water (I held a glass of water in my right hand, against my stomach, while she tested my resistance with my left arm) and - as my arm repeatedly flopped like a limp lettuce - said,"That? Is not right."

My body rejected the water as an unknown substance. Which meant something on a meridian somewhere was broken. She worked on a couple of points (think acupressure) and tested me again. Loving that water. Arm as strong as an ox.

She muscle-tested me while asking my body how much water it needs a day and it said 2.1 litres. So that's what I'm drinking. Minimum. And for once it's actually easy. I want it. I feel thirsty.

We did some other minor adjustments and then got onto the eating stuff. She took me back (asked my body what age it wanted to return to) to when I was about 5. We talked and tested over an issue that I had at that time that has stayed with me as deep shame. I was horribly affected by the birth of my second brother at that age and my jealousy was HUGE. I so wanted to take it out on him (I didn't) and we talked through those feelings. Where in my body I was feeling them, what words were coming up in my head, anything I was feeling. I felt it in my arms as an almost overpowering urge to push, reject and shove and had interpreted those feelings as being how I felt about my brother (whom I've always adored btw).

Cut to the chase, through various tests and acupressure and sitting with my feelings and just spilling what was coming to the surface, I came to see that my issue was not over the jealousy - I was FIVE and my Dad had a new favourite, how else was I going to feel? - but over the depth of my feelings. ANY feelings. Because I am someone who feels things BIG and my family liked to feel things small. Big feelings are undesirable. Inappropriate. Unlikeable. Wrong. Inconvenient. Not welcome. Not nice.

Hi, I'm British.

And so I learnt that I needed to suppress those feelings by hook or by crook. I had to be good. And in the past I've used nicotine and running away to deal with them but now that neither of those options are available to me, I eat. I literally push down those feelings with food. I swallow them up.

I also learnt, throught the consultation part, that I'm a textbook kinesthetic learner which makes perfect sense to me and puts a lot of things I already knew into a nice tidy package that I can refer to.

So that was the first session. It rocked. I have another booked for later in the month. We have no idea what will happen then. More of the same or something else to look at? We'll see.

Weirdest thing? I've had chronic knee pain now for a couple of months. Very bad. Almost unable to drive bad. It's gone. I haven't had it since I walked out of LK's therapy room and yet we did nothing to directly address physical problems.

We talked about my (recent) inability to commit to regular exercise. What could I do that would stick? In my childhood and teens I was a ballet dancer. In my 20s I was a farm-hand, a waitress and later an aerobics queen. In my 30s I taught various kinds of fitness. In my 40s I got a desk job and 30 pounds of extra body.

I'm over aerobics and its many cousins. I like the idea of running but not the reality. The gym bores me silly and my schedule is a mess so it's easy for me to skive. Money and childcare keep me from regular classes of any kind and yes, I'm great at making up excuses.

After my appointment the internets brought me to Bindu Wiles's brilliant 21.5.800 for which I duly signed up. And then yesterday, freewheeling through blogs, years after it was actually cool, I discovered hooping. And fell in LOVE. Within a couple of hours I'd been shopping and bought the makings of a hoop for me and a hoop for Evie. I'd watched numerous hooping videos on youTube and subscribed to some hoopy blogs.

This morning, at about 7.30, while Evie and her cousin (who had a sleepover last night minus the sleep.) played in her room, I was in the garden with the chickens. Trying out m'hoop. It's a humbling experience when you realise you've lost all co-ordination and can't spin a hoop for more than four spins without it knocking seven shades out of your anklebones. I persevered and pretty soon had it up to 17. Which probably sounds a bit crap but it made me skip around the garden punching the air.

So, kinesiology, water, yoga, writing and a big old hoop. It's feeling good.

I'm loving the process.

I had a little cry on the way home from work yesterday. For once I didn't have Evie in the car with me - she was at home with her Dad already. I was listening to Kate Bush and a favourite song came on.

I've mentioned before in other places that this is a love song for me and Evie. That it never fails to conjure up the moment when, standing in the Lottery Hotel (yep) in Nanning, I was passed a beautiful, serious child who sat on my hip and assessed me from head to foot before, a few hours later, deciding that we'd do as parents and she was going to damn well have a good time.

Nothing that incredible will ever happen to me again. Nothing could ever touch it. That moment is as fresh now as it ever was and this song will always be about my thoughts and feelings. I continue to make mistakes but hopefully I'm getting better.

So life has been up and down lately but last night it was beautifully level. Evie was tucked up in bed, so were the chickens (different bed). A dear friend (whose last post I just read and ..er..synchronicity anyone???) had let me bend her virtual ear. Charlie was home from 24 hours away, relaxed after a successful day taking part in a 'safari' on Salisbury Plain. The evening was still and warm and as it began to get dark I took the dogs for a walk.

To the 'left' of us is a track that has arable fields either side. Just a half mile long it leads to Little Chalfield, a tiny bunch of buildings related to our tiny bunch of buildings here at Great Chalfield. As I stepped out into the middle ground from under the canopy of GC's trees I was struck by the sight of the crescent moon. While the dogs relaxed, I stood and listened to that moon.

And I got it. I got what I needed. Naturally.

I read a lot about thinking big. About not restraining your dreams. About allowing yourself to do something huge with your life. I always said that I didn't want a Small Life. Go Mondo Beyondo girl...let rip.

But that scares the pants off me. True fact.

If something is that huge how will I control it (yeah I'm one of those people in case it wasn't completely obvious to you from this blog)? What if it sweeps me off my feet and I fall into the waves, only to crash on the rocks? How will I find the time for 'huge'? Y'know...I don't think I really want 'huge' and yet I'm told again and again by people I admire that it's the way to go and so I'm a failure because in my heart, I don't want it.

And the moon told me this:

Dude. You're small. You're tiny. You're beyond teeny. The dinosaurs were here for 165 million years and nowadays they're a blip in your history of the earth and in my memories. Calm down because between you and me, you can't BE huge. That would be silly and frankly, hilarious. You're not here to be huge. Not on the outside.

On the inside you can go all TARDIS and do huge things for yourself, but on the outside..? Don't worry, beyond teeny remember? But that smallness can be beautiful. It - for you ya big chicken - can be non-threatening and easy to manage. It won't matter if small goes wrong. Consider it part of the polishing process. Having the edges rubbed off to create a precious jewel. THAT is your life if you so wish. A tiny, beautiful jewel. Does that sound better?

And yup, it did. It sounded wonderful. It sounded like something I could do.

As I walked home I thought about what contribution that tiny life could make. All our tiny lives and of course, it's the domino effect. Each little act of positive creativity - art, family, laughter, forgiveness, nurturing, philanthropy - gives momentum to a positive, creative universe. That momentum may inspire one more act by someone else, who inspires two more and so on. That's what we're here to do. Be tiny. Be part of a huge entity that is pure, positive creation.

Love.

So this is old news, this sense of perspective. I know. But sometimes a person needs to hear it direct from a crescent moon. And this morning I read a well-known quote from Mother Teresa which would have served way better than this post so here it is:

“We cannot do great things on this Earth, only small things with great love.”

(c)NASA

The moon and me. Yeah, my hair's a mess.

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.

Thanks to the power of the tweet, yesterday I found myself on the phone to this lady. She was looking for a volunteer for aversion therapy. For chocolate. Yes. That's right. Chocolate.

I have a huge problem with chocolate that's not even funny. In truth I've had a problem with eating in general ever since I gave up smoking 11 years ago. When in the past I would have lit a cigarette, now I eat. And I smoked 20 a day most days.

Getting chocolate out of my system won't cure that particular issue but I do think it would help with my sugar-induced highs and lows. Chocolate is the key.

When I was 9 months old my mother wrote of me that my favourite things were dogs, chocolate, music and staying in the bath. Charlie points out that I haven't changed in more than 40 years. True. So I am absolutely fascinated by the idea that I can change something that has always been so strong in me, by literally changing my mind.

I know that we create much of our own emotional reality. Which in turn, I believe, helps create our wider experiences. I also know that sometimes what you need comes to you.

So here I am, having spent a month or so discussing with a friend, hypnotherapy for emotional eating. Having spent the last few weeks so deep in resistance to change over which I have no control that I am exhausted, confused and physically aching from my own inflexibility (Louise Hay could use me in a text book right now). And this comes up.

It's not a solution. A way forward is for me to find at a deeper level. Yoga anyone? But it is going to be an interesting little snapshot of the power of the mind and I'm excited to find out what it's like. I'm hoping it has moved on from this.

And that she lets me sit on this (the sofa, not Emilia Fox):

I can't remember who it was who started the idea that the Universe could be reached via Twitter - I think it was Sister Carrie - but the #dearUniverse hash tag has become very useful. And, y'know, why not?

My tongue was just slightly in my cheek with my thanks to the U - even though the aforementioned Sister Carrie tweeted that the U showed enormous common/universal sense in not granting me the faux cream leather when I have a 4 year old and a cupboard full of marker pens. Instead we have a very attractive dark blue fabric. Nice. I decided to decide it was a gift to me from the U and accepted it gleefully.

This evening, after all was set up and cosy, we settled in the kitchen. The heater had been mysteriously turned off in the living room (it charges overnight and so won't be warm again until tomorrow) so for once, Charlie gritted his dog-loathing teeth and joined us downstairs. We have one room on each of four floors with a nice, big kitchen on the ground floor where the dogs live when they're not charging around fields.

For a while, he and Evie shared the sofa while he blogged and she chattered. I sat at the table and listened and helped draw SpongeBob and Patrick.

After she was safely tucked up in bed asleep I came back downstairs to the kitchen. I curled up on the new sofa with The Secret Life of Bees (which I finished and loved) and drifted off to the world of the Daughters of Mary.

Then at one point, possibly stopping to think about getting some chocolate from the fridge, I looked up and saw Charlie sitting on the floor next to the sofa, back against the heater, laptop on his outstretched legs. Between him and the sofa, near his feet, sat Jackson, either rapt in thoughts or zoned out (yep, the latter gets my vote too). On Charlie's other side, eyes fixed firmly on me, lay Nellie. As my eyes met hers she jumped up and lay on my feet.

This may not sound extraordinary to you but trust me, it was. My dog-loving ways are anathema to Charlie. He loathes the two (three if you count the cat, and you should) animals who have been with me for years longer than he has. Does not understand the love I feel for them. Avoids them as much as is possible.

It's okay. If he was a dog-lover I may have to kill him for being too perfect. Every mill needs its grist, right? As long as that grist doesn't hurt anyone, two-footed or four. I've got used to having the grand canyon wind its way through my heart with Charlie and the animals on separate sides. Evie flies between both with such grace and passion that it kind of heals the gash.

I don't expect it to become a regular occurrence. I doubt it will ever happen again, but for a moment there, I saw that the sofa really was a gift from the U. For a moment there, my life was perfect and how many people ever get to have that? 

Today I was given a dream evening at a time when I really needed it. Maybe the Universe, maybe a stranger's generosity, maybe both. I'll take it and go off to bed with a big smile on my face.

Happy Tuesday.

It was a beautiful day out here today. I did a lovely walk with my dogs, then swapped them for Charlie and Evie and we did another walk and then I swapped them for my running shoes and went off on my own for a short while.

It does a woman good. All of the above.

The cycles of nature are my downfall. Spring and Autumn bring physical, mental and emotional changes that can make some weeks tough or frantic or exhausting in a more extreme way than just my normal life. Not unmanageable, but yes, difficult.

But...

it's the cycles of nature that heal me. The visual beauty of the changing seasons, the sounds, scents and textures of life; the predictability, the rhythm, the familiarity and the anticipation of something old but new...I need them like I need oxygen. They make me strong.

What brings me down, lifts me up. I am woven into the rhythms of our seasons and I am so thankful for that. In that rhythm I find strength and patience. In the animals and plants that follow the same dance, I find connection. In the sunshine of a November day I feel held safe in the arms of Mother Nature.