No fish but lots of harvest

As there would be no blank in my daily life during the weeks I decided not to post here, I have kept a list of limits, leavings and life doings on paper so I have a memory of them but have not decided to post this as first post back as they have been and I’m more about now if I’m about anything.

There is no vast library of posts waiting to be taken down and presented one by one with consummate ease and grace, no, there will continue to be a blank screen and an absent minded woman found in the same room and by some piece of luck, magic, furrowed brow, will come a post. I still have no agenda or self made brief save for the fact of living a daily life as creatively as I may and using what tools I may find to discover, gain some sort of comprehension, even sometimes understanding and continue to discover what I am thinking, feeling and have always known but have the undeniable facility to forget when I wander away from becoming to doing.

That doing can be part of becoming is true but that for me becoming is the intent, the impetus and the intrinsic truth that needs to be first second and third before doing is writ large in heart and mind and body or else the doing becomes selfish, mindless and destructive.

The month of silence here has not been a month of silence anywhere else in my life. There have been no long days of resting in my month away from posting here, as life never really pans out like that in my living.

After the first ten days I was even more exhausted than I was when I posted ‘gone fishing’ as the holding pattern I have been maintaining for another’s life was unceremoniously screwed up and chucked in the waste bin leaving me standing in mid air doing another impression of Wile E. Coyote just before the fast decent to the bottom of the canyon. My levitation skills may be pretty rusty and slow in execution these days but there was no puff of smoke to mark the completion of the fall but there were and are a few cuts and bruises from the scrabble on to the edge of the canyon again.

I wondered if I should just throw my hands up and run down the road screaming ripping my clothes off and slapping the top of my head – note, couldn’t rip my hair as there’s only a fringe of any length the rest really is shaved quite short and the fringe is there as thinking tool, rescue aid and wink to what once was; thinking tool = place for fingers to wander and twist, rescue aid = small handful of hair that will be last to disappear under the waves and can be grabbed both by myself to wake myself up and by another to haul me to dry land:0), the wink well it’s good to remember why I shaved all my hair off and how much there was and my sense of style dictates not doing the obvious by having a totally shaved head then of course there is my vanity that likes the fact that I could have a thick mop of hair if I wished and wonders about the choice I made.

I didn’t run down the road naked and arrested as well as arresting:0) just set too and began creating a new pattern for the care of a vulnerable individual but the ‘materials’ in question are pretty heavy and hard to move especially when they do not blend naturally. A month later and that is still ongoing but the person in the middle of the pattern likes the emerging view and is at least resting a little easier midst the psycho-geriatric, health and social services ‘materials’.

In coming days I may even not need to colour the pattern in quite as boldly as I have been required to do for the past few years so I may yet get a breathing space for a rest but am keeping my levitation skills up to the mark as I suspect they will need to be used again if I want to try and stay at least on the edge of the canyon.

That the scene could have been set for a horror film after the first couple of days of my intended month of rest etc is definite but the word could is such a delightful one as I find is can be spelled in many ways and one is spelled choice so though the reality of these past few weeks have been hellish with enough blood and guts to satisfy the most devoted horror fan that has just been a quirky cartoon storyboarded by outside forces that I can not control but can certainly confront:0) and the truth I have held on to , found real and has enabled me to continue to smile from heart as well as sometimes through gritted teeth is that the sun continues to rise each morning on possibility and that impossibility is just my all too human response to hell and is just fine as long as it does not become my only response.

The responses of thanks, wonder, delight, love and life itself are the fuel and the fundamentals that propel and create a foundation to discover means of how to not sink completely under the waves of less than sweet waters that pound this particular shoreline. This last month has in fact just highlighted my already fairly clear understanding that limiting expands does not diminish.

There has been lots of reading, and listening going on, some activity of the doing kind and learning kind and even more amounts of discovering so not a month to need to go running off down the street in all my birthday suit wonderfulness:0) There have been personal deeply felt lows when running was last thing on my mind except maybe towards the edge of a cliff and not stopping but the lows were honest and true reflection of reality which seems eminently sensible if wholly uncomfortable in experiencing.

In the month I have been away from here two have become one, amazingly Rhys and Banon are now probably one year old. I say probably as exact birth date is not known but going from when they were rescued from their near death state and the fact that in a matter of weeks they will have been living with me for a year we marked their first year of life on a gift of a blue sky day in September with runs through long grass and relaxing.

I cannot look back on their first year with sense that its all been wonderful, its been full of joyful moments but there’s been a deal of pure unadulterated ugh too but two lively hugely needy wild creatures found in the middle of a somewhat complicated day to day life would career into its midst with lots of ramifications both for themselves and for me whatever state I or they were in so we have taken each day and aimed for a course that has kept each at least safe if not always wholly comfortable and they have survived my tantrums and tirades though whether I have survived their boundless energy and wish to express it very forthrightly is still under consideration:0)

They are definitely ‘family’ now but I do find myself sometimes wishing they might be distant cousins rather than seemingly joined at my hip but understand that commitment made is not something to be thrown away at a whim or at the sight of the decimation of a garden etc but to be considered and renewed often and with as much honesty and love as one human heart can muster.

I reckon I have another year of mayhem with these two – being optimistic soul that I am, before they begin to be more adult dog than bounding puppy. That they are running working breed of dog means that the more exercise and play I am able to offer them will help in the stillness moments and my sanity:0) Of course there is the small matter that my body does not always wish to co-operate but I don’t think that’s reason enough to stop walking forward even if the pace can be sometimes a tad slow, cough. Rhys and Banon’s speed more than makes up for my pace and their enthusiasm leaves mine in the shade and often me in a heap on the floor but they have well and truly squeezed themselves into the deeper recesses of my heart and though my mind screams in plain despair at their capacity to become stone deaf in seconds and truly outrageous in even shorter time my heart smiles and accepts I have made a commitment and found huge gift as well as hefty burden.

Today seems a good one to begin posting again, a day of balance, a day of equal light and dark all over the word, a day marking the beginning of a continuing cycle, a day called Autumn Equinox.

Days ahead move towards growing darkness as the sun rises and sets to new pattern but in the darkness there is room to stretch and explore in different ways than those encouraged by long sunlit days and though the warmth and light is missed Autumn and Winter are welcomed as time to consolidate, to approach and confront places and parts of life that are often disregarded or shelved during the days of ‘play’ in Summer and the days of ‘expectation and preparation’ of Spring. Autumn and Winter are time to tidy, repair, make and slow-down to consider and face challenges of self and of lifestyle. Time to sit in the evenings reading, writing, listening and resting; time to sit early morning really touching and endeavouring to understand the power and possibility of the dark; time for daylight hours to be really noticed, embraced and enjoyed whilst walking working and waiting gently in each moment.

I celebrate spring, I revel in summer and winter offers challenge beyond the obvious weather and lack of light but autumn is the season I adore. Time for gathering in and counting the bounty of another year of growth and purpose in the becoming; time to consider the shape of my thanks in the days ahead which are never easy but always welcome; time for bonfires, fungi foraging, nut collecting and the rustle of fallen leaves beneath my feet. Time to know there is a promise kept in each sunrise and I have been given it freely. Time to rediscover logs on the fire, hot water bottles, thermal underwear washed darned and ready, waterproof clothing checked, boots and wellies set close to back door.

Autumn Equinox tells me that my year is almost over and thoughts of the New Year having begun in six weeks time encourages review and renewal by turns; the review is not about how much or how little I may have done or achieved in the past year but of how I have managed to honour and celebrate the gifts and wonders that I have been offered throughout the year in form the Earth always offers – the life and lives it nurtures and supports even as this is unnoticed by many, so, people, birds, beasts, places come within this remit, all life in fact:0)

That there are jobs and chores to be tackled in garden and around the cottage is as always something to be paced and progressed slowly and somehow the autumn always echoes this way of movement much more than any other season. The sense that there is indeed many a life settling and sorting along side me making ready for hibernation and stillness encourages me to smile not stand in regret at the loss of day light.

With autumn comes much rain in Wales usually and this can be a trial when trying to dig a hole or dry washing but it brings such wonder in shape of galloping rivers and dashing waterfalls that its discomfort factor is always far outweighed by the delight factor; knowing that reservoirs, ponds and water butts are filling, the soil is being replenished and life itself is being sustained by the deluge is enough to remind me to smile as I have to strip off one more pair of sodden socks or feel rain trickling down my neck.

Today I will turn my face to the sun and understand its replenishing and renewing power for my heart and intent but I will turn also towards the dark and acknowledge the balance that this brings to a day and to a life. All exhilaration and expectancy could be seen to be enormously seductive as way of life but would undoubtedly lead at the least to burn out of body and self would become a tattered remnant of what it might once have been destined to become.

Darkness brings a silence so loud that I find I need to listen very intently and am not surprised when people tell me it is always easier to talk to another of deep vulnerability when light wanes. I think this goes for talking to my self, to listening and facing what I hear and embracing accepting and sometimes even glancing becoming. In the darkness that autumn heralds and winter delivers there is a great deal of assurance for the sun does still continue to rise even if sometimes it seems to be so low as to not make it up over the hills of the valley and I know that even on the darkest day of the year in a few months time the Earth will begin to turn towards spring and the awakening of energy and intent fuelled by the stillness of the darker days.

I feel this to be good model to follow and my wish is that in these coming days of waning light I may embrace the possibility and promise for my own self when the warmth of light and its energy seems to be weak because the dark seems intrusive and all enveloping whereas the darkness itself holds possibility and promise if I continue to walk forward with a smile on lips and in heart lit by the certainty that the sun continues to rise even if I am in a place where my eyes cannot see and my mind cannot comprehend.

On this day of balance it seems good to begin posting here again as the act of sitting and tapping away is a means for me to realise how much light I have in each day and to consider how best to express this through the darkness. Posting as always will be regulated by life beyond computer but thoughts have been explored whilst I’ve been away and with the slight tweaking of the look of the blog and the addition of new links in the sidebar continuing with this ‘lark’ seems a good idea.

This month has contained thousands of miles driven, many a u-bend inspected closely, desperate phone calls at 3am and many other hours of the day and night, a few hurried inspections of floor with my nose:0), discovery of beautiful vegetable outlet, enrolment on a course not wholly attended because of u-bend distraction, beginning class to learn new skill, acquiring an expansion to photo possibilities, not completing the decoration and tiling of bathroom, delivery of many kilos of chippings for rescue and rebuild of garden, freecycle finds and givens, walks in forest and along river paths, sleeping on the floor so no further distance to fall, beginning to recover a diet that feeds my body gently but accepting that fried egg sandwiches, chocolate digestives and sweet milky coffee fuelled the possibility of getting to places my body just shouldn’t have been expected to manage and that further beating myself up would be daft, exploring ways to exercise that build up what fitness I have got, reading airport type paperbacks as well as treaties and enjoying both, still bagging and sifting contents of cottage and sheds and seeing much more leaving this environment with gladness, considering my daily life and beginning to formulate ways for this to be as creatively lived as possible, letting go and limiting areas things people places but never possibility and peace; so it’s been a quiet month:0)

Today has arrived as warm as a summers day and the gift is to see for miles in to the distance and understand that the only distance I need ever consider is really just how far away my living strays from heart informed by light.

On a day of balance I suppose I could be seen as a joke. Physically, I sway with the grace of a felled wildebeest, intellectually, concentration and comprehension veer off to crumple into unformed heap, emotionally, there is sense that finding middle ground is often wide of the mark at best, mentally, balancing on razor blades could easily be the most useful metaphor but that doesn’t really get anywhere near the truth and spiritually breathing easy in a moment happens and then another arrives and I forget to breath BUT today I am glad to find that I feel that it is a day where my life can and is reflected because all the elements are not separate they are part of a whole and in the whole I see all around me on this Autumn Equinox of Earth I understand not perfection but possibility and that seems a good place to begin again here and continue on with life and living it.

Comments

[Cathy]

I missed you - and this post reminds me how you have graced my life.

[caroline]

welcome back from your break! What a lovely harvest, literally and figuratively. I like the harvest colours of the blog, too. There must be something in the equinox for I have received 3 messages since last night of people I have not heard from in a very long time. In fact, one sent equinox greetings! It's a wonderful time for looking back and reaching out to those you'd not intended to leave to the past, and looking forward to the seasons ahead. Much love, caroline.

[maria]

Welcome back -- and it's hard to believe that those two lively creatures have been keeping you company for a year now! And wha a lovely harvest, indeed!

[Cathy]

This most beautiful post was worth the wait. There is so much here to savor. For me, though, the following was transcendent, a talisman for turning towards approaching winter with sturdy resolve:

" . .my wish is that in these coming days of waning light I may embrace the possibility and promise for my own self when the warmth of light and its energy seems to be weak because the dark seems intrusive and all enveloping whereas the darkness itself holds possibility and promise if I continue to walk forward with a smile on lips and in heart lit by the certainty that the sun continues to rise even if I am in a place where my eyes cannot see and my mind cannot comprehend."

Yes, as Caroline stated, what a lovely harvest. I'm so grateful you are sharing the bounty of your mind and heart.

Love,
Cathy

[Reya Mellicker]

Wow this is so beautiful, evocative! Thank you, thank you. I love the pics - your dogs on the couch, napping, the vegetables, all gorgeous! Glad to know you're out there, contemplating a naked run down the street, contemplating balance and grace. I look forward to more posts, whenever they rise to the surface and make their way to this page. Happy fall!

[Daisy]

Welcome back, my friend.