All Fingers and Thumbs

My beautiful tree has had her branches tossed around by storm Doris this week but is soaking up the sunshine out there today. Such a joyful "after the storm, spring is coming, soon, promise" kind of a day. All of my daily ten minutes craft prescription time plus a fair bit more has been dedicated to tree stitching. On Sunday I just parked my tired, achey little body by the door and stitched until I felt a whole lot better. That restful absorption is the craft therapy magic I think. I love that the trunk is emerging, and is feeling really true to life. She's looking a little more silver birch than plum right now, but the choice of the sideways stitch to reflect the striations of the bark makes me happy.

I have embarked on an epic project. I want to caption this photo "can you tell what it is yet?" with Aussie inflection but that phrase from my childhood is out of bounds these days. Anyway it's a trunk. Of a tree. I'm stitching a portrait of my most beloved plum tree . Everyday companion for the last twelve or so years, we haven't got long left together. I don't think I will see her blossom again. Sob. We're most likely having an extension built. It will be amazing to have more space but I wish, I wish, I WISH I could keep my plum tree too. It won't work. If anything it's too close to the house already and should long ago have been dispatched to the great orchard in the sky. I feel like a sentimental ole fool, what a palaver over a tree. Then I think about how many memories are wrapped around that trunk and nestled in the crook of her branches and it makes a little more sense. I love that tree and enjoy it every single day. I am lucky to have s...

Though the silence here might suggest it, I haven't actually been hibernating all winter. It's kind of been like my  summer  but colder, greyer and damper. A bit like Eeyore in a puddle. As soon as I work out which country has only spring and autumn, I'm there, till then I seek coping strategies. So far this year I've found three great ones - No.1: a day long yoga  retreat  with my regular class teacher. It was such a gentle day I felt lovely and mellow that evening, full of the kindness that I had been cultivating in the practice and then I spent the next four days in bed! It had been coming a while in all honesty, I think the work we did just unlocked a wave of exhaustion and made me face where I really was. The only way is through. No.2:  A seasonal virtual retreat with that bodhisattva of self-care  Mara . Happily a shade less dramatic physically but it has really helped me pick my heart up from the lows of that crash. I signed up ...

... the mercurial moods of autumn: from the the bold, dazzling colours gleaming in the sun, through golden twilights to murky, mysterious misty mornings... pigeons cooing and moulting a hundred feathers... my dear Auntie Jo... the bite of wind that brings roses to my cheeks... Luke Sital-Singh serenading me... finding a peaceful path through complicated relationships... the ginkgo trees in the park... the smooth, golden bark of the eucalyptus... oh all the trees, always... chai tea... Halloween... my little spare room space... rose petals... baba ganoush... the smell of incense... a weekend filled with friends, Friends...

The beech are catching my eye right now. I'm taking my time with them. Sinking in and letting the feeling of my heart dancing bubble up. There are huge, gracious, glories in my local park and hanging out with them is a daily joy. The magic of watching them takes me deeper into love with my life. I noticed for the first time this spring how soft and vulnerable their concertina leaves are as they push out of the long, spindly buds. Reaching out for the light; sure of their purpose. While I'd revelled in that acid green of fresh beech woods I hadn't realised what tender pleats they start out in. Collected, fallen beech leaves were my one reference. Shiny, summer toughened, autumn browned and I assumed they popped out hard and ready for their work ahead. In one breath I'm not quite sure how we've swept from those tender spring days to these so fast. In another I am just, so grateful, to be here. There were times when I thought the summer would never end . ...

There is some kiss we want with our whole lives, the touch of Spirit on the body. Seawater begs the pearl to break its shell. And the lily, how passionately it needs some wild Darling! At night, I open the window and ask the moon to come and press its face against mine. Breathe into me. Close the language-door, and open the love-window. The moon won't use the door, only the window.                                          Rumi

Just back from our three-weekly date night with a stack of new reads. Love the freedom in library picks, choosing on a whim, judging by covers, blurbs, mere fancy much more than when I am paying for a book. I find it easier to stop reading too if it doesn't catch my imagination. Back it can go and nothing lost. Our little library visit has been a regular in the diary since my trip to the States last autumn. I visited two glorious libraries in Provincetown and Boston . Stunning buildings with huge collections that made you itch to just pull up a chair and stay all day. The previous summer I visited the most delightful gem of a members' library in Providence that seemed so perfectly formed it could have fallen from the pages of one of the novels it housed. They seemed to honour the beauty of the books that lived within them and like they would capture and create new bibliophiles second by second. I felt like our libraries paled into the background against these widely varie...