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.