Serious planning

So, it's March tomorrow and we are into some serious planning for our future life, but it's all so difficult. Why is something so simple that we want to do so bloody difficult? We are very lucky in that we both own property (well, part-own it with ex-partners and the bank!) and so we have capital we can invest in our plans - except - that we can't actually get at the capital without selling our home out from underneath ourselves without anywhere else to go! If it was just the 2 of us adults, I'd have no hesitation doing this, but there are all our children to consider, plus we need constant access to a workshop so we can be making the things which will form the basis of our future income. And so the whole thing gets more and more complicated, as we research more and more outlandish ways of getting our hands on the cash or of bridging the homeless gap. And all that is without the difficulty of trying to find a suitable plot of land of the right size and composition, in the right place, at a vaguely suitable price, and at the right time.

It would be easy to despair and just carry on with the same old jobs/mortgage/small house in a town grind as everything else just seems so hard, but we won't let go of this. There *must* be a way, we just need to find it. I won't be made to live in a way which feels increasingly alien to me when we could have our own land and live our own way.

We're planning a trip to a local(ish) Sustainability Centre to get some ideas and some practical inspiration in the near future, and in the meantime, the building of our first yurt continues apace. the crown/wheel is now pretty much finished and looking great. We have collected over half the poles we need, we have acquired an old-fashioned, heavy-duty, hand-cranked sewing machine for sewing the canvas, so I suppose we are making slow, small progress. Watch this space.

Up and Down

That is how I am at the moment. Now, I do tend to the volatile at the best of times, and usually February is not the best of times for me, but I have to say I'm rather more violently up and down at the moment than is usual even for me. I guess things have been changing so hugely and I've been clinging to a small wooden raft of sanity riding the heavy, storm-tossed seas of a completely and rapidly changing life. Given that circumstances have been so extraordinary, I have found within myself an emergency measure of optimism and a genuine sense of excitement and anticipation at the thought of our new life which has kept me going over one of the greyest and dullest winters I can remember recently.

But yesterday I felt so utterly down and defeated, and do you know what triggered that feeling? Something so utterly stupid that I was ashamed at myself for letting it get to me so much: the internet broke. It's not the first time this has happened and I'm sure it won't be the last time, but this time it did it half an hour before a friend came to take the children to the home ed group for me so I could have the rest of the day to do some much-needed work. I work online. Do you see where this is going? This was Thursday, the phone helpline assured me that there was nothing they could do to fix the fault right there (we'd already tried all the usual quick fixes) and that an engineer would speedily be with me... on Saturday. I nearly cried. Then I started swearing. Not at the call centre person, I hasten to add.

So I spent the whole day not being able to work, and not being able to do much else useful either due to a broken toe preventing me from walking very far. And do you know what? Five minutes before the children were due back, the bloody, sodding internet magically came back! And how stupid did I feel that I'd let such a trivial thing cast me down so much? Very stupid. And yet, could I manage to pull myself out of the Slough of Despond. No, I bloody well couldn't. So there you have it, a day in the life of my emotions. I have enough distance from them to be able to see how silly I'm being and yet can't seem to use that self-knowledge to fully change my state. Very frustrating. But hell, today is a new day, the internet is working, it's Friday, I still can't walk very far, but the determined optimism is back. Everything *will* work out OK. I hope anyone reading this is also having a better day.

Imbolc

So, Imbolc is nearly upon us and I finally saw my first snow-drops yesterday. I'm feeling very in tune with the time of year this year. So many things in my life have been in limbo, lying dormant over the the dark time between Samhain and now. But, now I can feel the new growth, new ideas, creativity and new life just waiting to burst out. It's pulsing, sap rising, just below the surface, and the flurry of action and activity is about to burst forth into bud, leaf and flower.

We attended a fine Imbolc ritual at Anderida on Sunday and I feel that Brigit's awen and Bardship were fully called into being and celebrated. It was fiercely cold on that hillside under the watchful gaze of the Long Man, and I had to hobble up the hill and then down again with much help from a staff and other people as I had stupidly and clumsily broken my big toe 3 days before. It was probably a silly idea to even try to do it, but it was just one of those things that I *had* to do. I needed to be with my tribe and celebrate the returning light and inspiration.

This year is not going to be an easy one. There are going to be many challenges, many practical difficulties, many steep learning curves, a lot of changes, and even at the end of all that, we may not get exactly what we want, but I know that we'll give it the absolute best shot we can, and that's what I'm holding on to. Whatever happens, things will be very different by the time we arrive at the next dark time. I'm excited by what lies ahead, and very much looking forward to seeing where we are by Samhain this year.

Blessings of Brigit to you all.

A New Era

As you may have noticed, I haven't been blogging regularly for some months now. As those of you who know me in real life know, this is because of a major upheaval in my life. I met and fell in love with someone new and we have both moved heaven and earth, including splitting up our respective marriages, to be together, which we now are. And here begins the new chapter in our lives. This year is going to see some huge changes in our lifestyle and living and working arrangements. We are hoping to be able to buy some land and start some businesses on it, including sustainability workshops for children, managing the woodland, keeping chickens and bees, growing our own food as much as possible, wood-working, maybe charcoal-burning, meditation workshops. We are hoping to gain permission to live on the land in temporary, low-impact dwellings, preferably yurts, and thereby be mortgage-free and needing much less income. So far we are just in the planning stages and much depends on things that we don't know yet, but I'm aiming to keep a record of what happens here, and also to be able to promote our businesses as each gets up and running - hence yesterday's post about my life coaching and my partner's Etsy shop. I hope some of you will be interested in our journey, as the home education of my children also continues, and my partner's 2 children also join in our adventure as and when they are with us. As Imbolc approaches, I can feel the new season starting and the time for new ventures ripening. Watch this space...

Etsy shop

Well, it's been a long time since I posted anything on my blog and I'll try to get back into the habit of updating it a bit more. Life has been hectic and included some major and fundamental changes since last September. Slowly, a new life is taking shape but there's plenty more change to come yet, probably including a house move this year.

So, here's what I wanted to say today. This is my partner's Etsy shop - he's a talented wood-worker and wood-turner and he has some lovely stuff on there - handmade rune sets, wands and such-like. He can also do commissions or make stuff to order - so contact him via his Etsy page if there's something you want to discuss.

Also, I have now got my life coaching business, Firefly Life Coaching, up and running. So, if anyone wants life coaching, please contact me! I practise from a spiritual and intuitive perspective, but I'm also fully qualified and insured and can coach by phone wherever you happen to be!

That is all for now!

Aftermath

The following poem was written by Siegfried Sassoon in 1919, less than a year after the end of WWI. He was already afraid that the horror was being forgotten, that this could happen again, after all their sacrifice. Thinking about this year and the deaths of the last few WWI veterans, the suicide bombers, the wars, the nuclear proliferation, I wonder what he'd think about the world of 2010?

Aftermath

Have you forgotten yet?...
For the world's events have rumbled on since those gagged days,
Like traffic checked while at the crossing of city-ways:
And the haunted gap in your mind has filled with thoughts that flow
Like clouds in the lit heaven of life; and you're a man reprieved to go,
Taking your peaceful share of Time, with joy to spare.
But the past is just the same--and War's a bloody game...
Have you forgotten yet?...
Look down, and swear by the slain of the War that you'll never forget.

Do you remember the dark months you held the sector at Mametz--
The nights you watched and wired and dug and piled sandbags on parapets?
Do you remember the rats; and the stench
Of corpses rotting in front of the front-line trench--
And dawn coming, dirty-white, and chill with a hopeless rain?
Do you ever stop and ask, 'Is it all going to happen again?'

Do you remember that hour of din before the attack--
And the anger, the blind compassion that seized and shook you then
As you peered at the doomed and haggard faces of your men?
Do you remember the stretcher-cases lurching back
With dying eyes and lolling heads--those ashen-grey
Masks of the lads who once were keen and kind and gay?

Have you forgotten yet?...
Look up, and swear by the green of the spring that you'll never forget.

Is it just me...

...or does anyone else feel a little bit uncomfortable about *celebrating* VJ (Victory in Japan) Day? I mean, I can understand celebrating the end of the war, and I know that many Japanese POWs were treated horrendously. But just remembering those 2 atomic bombs - Little Boy and Fat Man - that ended the war and their consequences for the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as well as for the world in general since, I can't help but think that celebrating this in any way is somewhat distasteful. Especially bearing in mind the questions that have since been raised about whether or not they were actually 'necessary' (putting aside general discussions on whether the use of atomic weapons can ever be deemed necessary).

As ever, no answers, just questions, doubts and points to raise.

Pondering disasters - man-made and natural

Today is the 65th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki which killed around 80,000 in the first day or two after detonation. The 65th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima was on Friday, and Little Boy killed 166,000 people there in the first two days alone.

Discussion continues recently of the best way to preserve and restore Auschwitz as a historical site so the Holocaust can never be forgotten or denied.

The current floods in Pakistan are affecting around 12 million people now, and although the known death toll is only around 1500 this is mainly because many bodies have yet to be found (and probably never will) and because the diseases and famine which will kill so many more have yet to strike.

I've been thinking about these items which have come up on the news in the last few days, and wondering how to expain them to my children - to all our children. The floods are the easy part - children seem to be born with a natural appreciation of the awe-inspiring power of nature. Nature is neither good nor bad, it just is. And natural disasters happen. Though it is hard to explain why we can't help more, why rescue workers can't get to people trapped in valleys by the flood waters.

But how to explain atomic bombs and the Holocaust? In fact, I think I'd find it easier to explain atomic bomsb than the Holocaust. Obviously, children need to know and need to know thoroughly about these things, to ensure they never happen again, but bloody hell, doesn't some of your innocence die when you discover mankind is capable of such things?

Disaster in Pakistan

Over 1 million people have been affected by the floods in Pakistan and as the flood water contaminates the drinking water, disease will surely spread. All those of us who have children can imagine what it would be like trying to nurture your family under those circumstances, so I urge everyone who can manage even a tiny amount to donate the appeal now.

Coming up to Lammas

And this year I'm feeling much more connected to this special time of year. Due to such a late spring, my own garden harvest is more in tune, time-wise, with the wheat harvest, so they chime together this year. Also, I feel I am progressing along my spiritual path so much more than last year. I've made a lot of changes, met some people (coincidentally?), started some spiritual studying, been meditating much more regularly and deeply, and started studying and practising journeying.

Looking at our lives in the year since the previous harvest, I wonder what we'll be harvesting, in a personal sense, this year? There is a general sense of plans long laid finally coming to fruition, what with my husband's new job really taking off and me finishing my life coaching course and finally starting to set up my practice. When you add in my son finally self-weaning and the the whole feeling of 'moving on a phase' in the area of child-rearing, things are exciting and scary as changes are happening.

So, we'll be making our Lammas loaf with love this weekend, and I now have a group celebration to go to as well the following weekend, which I'm also looking forward to. There is balance. For now.

Oil

After the devastating events in the Gulf of Mexico recently, you'd think people would be extra careul there with oil, wouldn't you? Well, actually, no. It seems that a boat knocked the top of a shallow-water well-head only today! Which made me wonder what else is going on that is only reported very quietly, or not at all?

Obviously, there is the Chinese oil spill which may or may not have been contained now, depending on which news you read. And which has not been reported with anything like the excitement of the Gulf of Mexico one.

Then there was an 8 day spill into the Red Sea last month which didn't seem to be reported in the major news outlets at all.

Plus spills in Salt Lake City, Singapore, Great Keppel Island in Australia, Port Arthur in Texas, and the Yellow River in China - and that's just in 2010. People seem to be mighty careless with this increasingly precious resource - and that's just the oil, as to how they treat the enviornment it leaks into, that's nothing short of criminal. And yet there don't seem to be criminal charges pending as a result of any of these spills, to my knowledge.

Is it only me who finds this very disquieting?

Sudden Oak Death

Felling of thousands of trees has started due to Sudden Oak Death, a disease also known as Phytophthora ramorum which was first discovered in California in 1995 and has now spread to Europe. Despite its name, it doesn't only infect oaks, and in fact it started in Japanese larches in the UK. It is hoped that by felling trees around known areas of infection, the spread can be halted. There are now 40 sites of suspected infection in Devon and Cornwall and the disease has also been found in Wales and East Anglia. Landowners and tree-lovers are asked to be vigilant and report signs of infection.

Pagans, nature-lovers and anyone who has a morsel of decent feeling should be deeply concerned about this, and other recent outbreaks of diseases affecting our native trees.

New henge found

You wait for a henge for 2000 years and then 2 come along at once! Archaeologists have found a new henge only 900m from Stonehenge. It was discovered as part of a new 3 year survey of the whole area around Stonehenge and the scientists involved are confident that other huge discoveries will be made before the time is up. This new survey could throw new light on the meaning and use of henges in the area, and indeed around Britain for that matter.

Thoughts on Beltaine

Well, I haven't posted for a long time as I've had lots of stuff to work out in my head which has been too private to share. Finishing breast-feeding has really felt like the end of an era and has prompted a lot of soul-searching before realising that, obviously, the end of one era is always the beginning of a new one. This realisation has been liberating and exciting as well as terrifying and worrying. I've had to do a lot of thinking about what exactly I want to do nowadays. Who am I now that that first white-hot crucible of intense motherhood has cooled a little?

So, now I feel my creativity is returning, I want to focus more on my spirituality, spread my wings outside the family circle a little, get involved with things a little. But, as much as that attracts it, it also scares me a bit. The cycle of change has already started though, and I can't stop it. I don't want to stop it. I'm sure that it's no coincidence that my son stopped feeding just before the Spring Equinox, kicking off a year's cycle of change and growth. I wonder where we'll by by the winter solstice this year?

Some thoughts on the end of breast-feeding

I think we really have stopped, although I suppose the real test will come with the first non-feeding illness. But, for the moment presuming we've stopped, I have a few thoughts on the matter.

Given that breastfeeding, especially when combined with co-sleeping, seems to affect the deepness of a person's sleep I am currently also wondering about its effect on meditation. The reason is this. I meditate, and have tried to do so semi-regularly for years. When I had my first baby this went out of the window for a bit and it certainly did when I had my second baby. However, when they went past the baby stage and especially when my son started actually sleeping during the night, I started meditating again. It did seem hard and a struggle and I presumed this was because of lack of practice or focus, however, now that he's stopped feeding I suddenly find it much easier to get back to that deep level of trance that I used to achieve. I also definitely feel much more deeply asleep at night, despite still co-sleeping with both children (and of course my husband!). Has anyone else experienced this?

I am also wondering about the effect on the relationship with my son. The breastfeeding relationship gives you a very intense closeness with a child. I can't comment on how it is different to a relationship with a bottle-fed child as I've never bottle-fed, but I certainly remember feeling a shift in the relationship between me and my daughter when she finished feeding and now I'm noticing a similar shift with my son. I presume it is a temporary thing - a re-establishing of the relationship in a different way, but it was different with my daughter as I was heavily pregnant and about to gain a second child, so all that issue was also wrapped up in the end of the breastfeeding relationship. Also, with her the relationship was only almost 2 years old, rather than 5 years old.

I'm not really sure of the point I'm trying to make but I'd love to hear from other full-term breastfeeders about the thoughts and issues they had when the journey finally ended.

Spring Equinox

So, another equinox and this was a good one despite the incessant drizzle. We dyed hard-boiled eggs using wet tissue paper:

We made Marble cake for it's equal darkness and light kind of qualities, plus it was very nice to eat!
And we had an equinox egg hunt, in which the children found these:

Plus of course much thinking of balance and the start of new projects. I had the image of an eagle in my equinox meditation which has given me much food for thought. I hope everyone else had as good a start to the summer!

Another birthday

This time my son's 5th birthday, made all the more piquant by the fact that he finally weaned 3 days before his birthday, making it feel all the more like an end of an era and the start of a new one.

The birthday cake this year was an aeroplane, which was amazingly difficult!



And I made some felt tarts - my son's is the blue one and my daughter's (unbirthday present) is the pink one.


It was a lovely day seeing family and lots of good food, and the inevitable reminisces of the day my son was born, can it really be 5 years ago? My little boy is really growing up - though don't tell him that. He has decided he will not be getting any older than 5 and a quarter, so we'll just have to hope he changes his mind at some point during the coming year.

Wanting to get active again

So, I find the wheel of life is turning and once again I am wanting to focus more on my spirituality, and share it more with my children now they are old enough to understand. I would love to find a person or two in the local area that I can share my Pagan path with and maybe do the odd eclectic ritual even! Preferably in family-friendly gatherings with children involved.

The trouble is (and all you Pagans out there will really know what I mean here), how to find people who *aren't mad*? I'm very wary of getting involved with any of the big groups, having gone down that route rather less than successfully. The PF don't really have any moots, groups or gathering close by (and I've been to their London Open Rituals lots of times in the past and not really been that impressed) and I'm not getting involved with CoA again. I am too scared to put a note in my local new age shop because that will definitely draw out the nutters.

My faith is not ceremonial, not Wicca, not 'new agey'. My faith is very practical, very down to earth, mainly based in the kitchen and the garden, but I'm feeling the need for some 'outward display' for want of any other term, partly in order to instruct my children in this, the faith of their family.

It would also be great to be able to meditate with other people, whether this be in a shared 'working', or just as individuals practising together.

I'm a bit stumped and hoping that if I put this idea out there in the universe, some link will be made and a sane friend of a friend maybe will become known to me.

Those of you who are Pagan and practise with a group, how did you find your group? I repeat, I'm not Wiccan and I'm not looking for initiation or a coven, just a few like-minded people. I don't particularly wish to teach or be taught, just a kind of sharing as we each wander our own path.

Any ideas?

Thoughts on violent play

I hadn't really had to think about violent play until recently. My children (boy and girl) both get very physical and I generally leave them to it unless they're breaking the furniture or really doing my head in. I'm really passionate about free play for children and they need that safety valve. But recently we had a problem with violent play that went too far at our home ed group and so I've been researching into what could go wrong, and found these words in Sue Palmer's 21st Century Boys: How Modern Life Can Drive Them off the Rails and How to Get Them Back on Track: "Critical to this was that the 'gun, fashioned by himself, was his own imaginative construction and could thus become whatever he wanted. A shop-bought toy gun doesn't have that same transformational power. In the words of the major British researcher in this field, Penny Holland, when a child is given a manufactured replica toy, 'the toy determines the play, not the child'. So the problem is not little boys running around shouting 'bang, bang, you're dead' but a society that commercialises every aspect of children's lives."

She goes on to say that this commercialisation means that children are "trapped in a manufacured adult fantasy".

And this is the nub of the matter, I feel. I'm finding Palmer's book very interesting, at least as practical and useful as her earlier Toxic Childhood: How The Modern World Is Damaging Our Children And What We Can Do About It which I reviewed a long while back. However, the trouble is, what do you do if you bring your boys (and girls!) up right, don't give them commercialised toys, don't expose them to marketing and junk play, but then they come into contact with others who have been saturated in this kind of rubbish? My boy isn't so easily influenced thankfully, purely because he doesn't seem to be your stereotypical boy, but in a group setting when the oldest and those looked up to as role models are trapped in the commericalised adult fantasies, it skews the whole group dynamics and means that trusting that free play will be safe and fair cannot be done. Which is a shame.

Birthday

It is my daughter's 7th birthday today. So, firstly, a couple of pictures. Her birthday cake, lovingly hand-crafted by me (it's a butterfly of course, just in case you can't tell!):


And the felt cakes I made for her as part of her birthday present (the one with pink icing) and my son as an 'unbirthday' present (the blue icing):

Birthdays are a strange thing - stressful and exciting and unsettling in equal measures, even when the birthday is not your own. Of course, the birthday of a child brings to mind thoughts of the pregnancy with that child and of the day they were born. It reminds us of time passing and of how much the child has changed and learned and developed into their own person.

It also makes me think of how much I have learned as a parent since my daughter (my eldest child) was born, and makes me wonder if I could do it all better if I were to do it all over again. Which I am not going to.

And then there's all the social pressure associated with children's birthdays. I'm lucky, as my children are home educated there hasn't been any peer pressure on them to request big, expensive parties with every person in there class and junk food, party bags and lots of consuming of plastic tat. Or maybe it's just their personalities anyway. Either way, it's been lovely to have a relaxing but fun day with visits by various grandparents, uncles and aunts throughout the day, a homemade cake with all organic ingredients and no colourings, homemade pizza for tea, and fairly low-key presents, such as books and craft kits.

It's just made me wonder why we have to wait for a birthday or special occasion to gather everyone together. Hmm, one to ponder on. How to get all the family together in a similar relaxed fashion more often?

So, now all there is to do is to pop the wrapping paper into the kids' craft box for re-use in art masterpieces, look forward to my son's 5th birthday in 2.5 weeks, and have an evening in a very weird head-space thinking about birth and pregnancy and fertility and the passage of time and parenting skills.