Moments of solace

These days are challenging.

There's nothing like the whisper of change to cause brewing storms around our home. The threat of 'different' , the worry of  the 'not expected'  the anxiety of a changed routine. When there's definitely a big loud change right on the horizon, well that brings up all our anxieties and throws them into the pot together and gives them a good old stir.
So when we're say, moving house in 2 weeks and again in 2 months, you can imagine we have a potent mixture brewing.
When we're leaving the place where we have our last memories of our daughter and sister, and where her accident took place, you can begin to see that these are challenging times indeed.

I'll save the challenges for another time, because right now I'm trying to focus on keeping a positive flow running through myself and my family.

Actually, I haven't really been looking for help. So tied up with my anxiety, grief, dread, worry and a million practical concerns, I have been forgetting that help and solace is all around me and in me too. Luckily it comes searching for me sometimes, even when I forget to look.

• Yesterday, it was a huge flock of wild geese flying in formation over the busy street in town as I scurried late to the dentist. Lifted from my distracted thoughts, my gaze was captured by the power and beauty of their unity and purpose. A moment of magic that provided real soul nourishment deep down, and brought tears to my eyes.

• The day before it was a little toad hiding under a log as we cleared the garden. And a midnight badger waddling into the hedge as I drove home under the round silver moon . They danced into my clunky day deepened my breath, and reminded me of my connection to all four leggeds, and six, eight, or two legged beings. Life became simple and beautiful again.

• A little while ago it was Jo. Our cat brought him in one evening and I put him in a box with some sheep's wool and a saucer of goat milk over night. A rainy disgruntled Sunday at home was transformed. Squabbles, insecurities and demands melted away as all the children united in the care of a tiny blind baby rat.  Fed from a dropper with milk and nestled down again for 'naps,' Jo was lovingly tended all day. I was amazed at the change a rodent 2cm long could bring to our small home.
• Every day it is having an outside toilet! Having no drainage in the woods, we have a compost toilet a little distance from the caravan. Even when the winter frosts freeze me to the core, to walk out of an intense little home into the woods is always a blessing. A little wren hops on the handrail outside the toilet door, a tree creeper whisks up the big old oak tree nearby, a squirrel races off the woodshed roof and back into the wood. A moment of quiet to put my troubles in perspective. 

• It is a sunset streaking pink and gold over the hills of Dartmoor beyond our woodland enclave. opening up my narrowed vision.
• It is a moment of shared understanding with a friend at a busy school pick up.
• It is my four year old offering me a foot massage 'because I love you so much'
• It is laughter..how good that feels.. to break throught the tension and stress and connect with someone else light heartedly.

It is so many things, and they are always there, I just need to see them.

I guess it's all about connection. When I am stressed, I disconnect and burrow deep down in my own private little pit of misery, when the world reaches out to me and I respond, well my whole family benifits from the change! I just need to remember to keep open, the universe isn't the one closing down....