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Friyay

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  It's been the most beautiful day. Our local bread shop reopened on Thursday after their August holiday shut down and I felt the urge to walk over this morning and gather some of their goodies. Such a unique bread, it was so satisfying to bite into it again after a month off! I love that they shut down though, sort of old-fashioned/ new-fashioned. It feels good to me to see small businesses model sustainable ways of living, balancing life and work. It breathes hope in to my wish that we all start to live a bit more like this.  It is a lovely September day, mellow feeling, perfect for a little wander with treats in store and a pop to the post office to send a long overdue package. Simple trips out like this are so precious to me. Solo time to sink in to the present, gently occupied my mind doesn't get up to so much mischief! Under the soft grey sky I meandered, delighting in signs of autumn peeking out at me from the hedges and edges. I saw a garden FILLED with french marigold...
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The Betwixt and Between

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 That blue sky in the top photo is well hidden right now. The candles are on, incense lit and the sound of rain pounding down out side makes me smile. Feet in slippers I'm glad for the cosy space here at my desk. I'm a creature of the twixt and tween. These seasons around the full show of summer and winter make me happiest. I'm glad we roll gently through them in England, and I'm capturing all the magical shifts I can. Autumnal themes are creeping in to my sketchbooks as well as my camera, watercolour mushrooms courtesy of a great tutorial from Shayda Campbell.  I'm excited for what comes forth in these next few months. This gathering up of the year before we settle in to winter feels magical to me always and this year perhaps even more so. Spring was so changed by lockdown I'm hoping for lots more wandering adventures this autumn. With waterproof to hand perhaps!
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Heart messages

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I think a lot about what it means to listen. To listen to our selves. Do you hear conflicting things? I feel like moment by moment one self speaks and then the next. I assign them names: heart, ego, Nigel. Physical personas: wise woman of the woods, puppy,  unicorn. Sometimes they come together in a wise council. Of course I like them to be sitting around a round table, a la the Knights of Camelot, or gathered in a meadow, held within a fairy ring. More often they seem to wandering around on their own, just saying confusing things.  I say that the heart or soul voice is quiet but is it? Is it actually just overlaid by distractions. Its messages this year have been consistent: be soft, go gently, let delight lead, sit quietly, look around you. Often it feels in conflict with what the world asks of me. Or more accurately what I believe the world is asking of me. What I interpret. What I'm conditioned to believe. I'm making a series of little cards to capture some of what I hear ...
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Wandering

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"Our stories and images and sounds create, explicate, or point to a deeper meaning that helps us receive, celebrate and be fed by beauty and bear what is hard. And if the meaning revealed by the process of creating is often more implicit than explicit, still it does not fail to feed us. Because what it feeds is not our minds but our souls and souls do not need explanations; they need only to touch and sit in the centre of the meaning that is enfolded in being..." Oriah Mountain Dreamer  Earlier this year I participated in  Meghan's delightful Horsefeathers course which was an utter revelation. She shared the quote above with us and encouraged us in a practice of showing up creatively that has really unlocked my ability to make things joyfully without worrying about whether they (or I...) am good enough. I'm so grateful for that piece of the puzzle which has really shifted my daily experience and allowed a lot more whimsy to flit through th...
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Wings and whimsy

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Over a year since my last confession but I'm at the start of three weeks of whimsy! Led by delight I have an urge to write here. Who am I to argue? All this whimsical wandering is facilitated by furlough leave from work, I wonder how many other dusty blogs will see a little more love during this coronavirus pandemic? The images here are some of my creations from the Spirit Wings painting course offered on a pay what you can basis at the moment by Kelly Rae Roberts . What an utter delight it has been. Full of inspiration, an exploration of what creativity is and a whole framework for playing and opening a channel to listen to your intuition/highest self/ the Universe. It's been an unexpected shot of pure magic. Something that I have been craving and trying to find my way back to these past couple of years. "Rediscover your worth, your potential, your creative spirit and then go and fly on its wings to places you w...
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Ways I keep together

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I feel like this world breaks my heart about a hundred different ways every week at the moment. The horrors we witness, and then up through the cracks of the latest tragedy, the tender shoots, the beautiful ways humans reach out to one another to help each other tentatively move forward again. Those of us still blessed or cursed or blessed to be here. I hear an internal narrative that says it's all too much for me to take in. I am challenging that, staying present for the reality of it, mindfully, finding personal stories behind platitudes and headlines, understanding more about how we all process and grieve and flail. I look for the moon. I knit. I think about the equinox. I stop and smell primroses. I say thank you to my toes. And I love, the best I can, as many as I can.                                                             ...
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Removing the shutters

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Somewhere in the middle of last month, while working through my initial reactions to the conversations about racism in the knitting community, I saw the danger of avoiding the Political. In the words of others, who didn't want their false picture of a cosy community disrupted, I saw a reflection of myself.  In the last couple of years I have tried to shut out the world when I haven't liked what I am seeing. When I sought to avoid the Political I attempted to also avoid the political. I hadn't fully acknowledged that. I hadn't seen that even being able to attempt to avoid the political, was due to my layers of privilege. If anything, I'd resisted acknowledging it, because I felt like I didn't have the strength to work against the structures that distribute so unfairly. I'll be forever grateful to the women that spoke up, and continue to speak up. Grateful that finally they are being heard more widely, more loudly than before. I'll be forever sorry I ...
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