Hello I'm not here anymore!!

In an idle moment, I thought I'd wander onto the dashboard for this blog and check the stats....you're still visiting!! But I'm not at home! Except just nor of course, to encourage you to follow instead here at my new blog.

But there's lots happening...my first exhibition  for starters.....you can read about that, about wildness, procrastination oh all sorts....so head over and make a cup of tea, put your feet up...its time to catch up!!

Blog giveaway today...!

I've really appreciated all your comments, support and presence here, its made every post worth writing, knowing you're there.
As a thank you, I'm offering a little giveaway on my new blog over here.

I'd love you to come with me as I journey on, writing, discovering painting, growing, it's amazing to have you on board.
See you there!!

I'm now somewhere else....blog move....

Hello, and goodbye...no...please don't leave, I've just hopped over to wordpress, come over and follow me here 
Just a warning, that as part of the move I've had to manually republish all of my archives, and some  have rather strangely republished themselves out of date order. So occasionally an unseasonal winter post from two years ago may pop up, sorry.
If anyone has any remedy to this...let me know..in the meantime...see you over there, I'm having a little giveaway within the next week to celebrate the move.....
See you there!

Wednesday gratitude

This week I am grateful for...This joyous little being.....yes just look, pulling himself up already....

Fresh greens, abundant and life giving

Green smoothies, new breakfast....

Openings to sorrow...more healing and life affirming than grey

Sugar and dairy free hot chocolate, made by blending a banana with rice milk, cocoa powder and maca, whisking in hot rice or soy milk...so delicious!!

Firewood, we still need it....

Our pregnant cat....I'm trying to relax into this one...


White feathers....always..

Wednesday gratitude

This week I am grateful for....

Nettle risotto, the first of the year, with fresh nettles and wild garlic...so delicious.

Planting seeds, basil, lettuce, hyssop, dill, echinacea...... the promise of healing to come.

Finch in the polytunnels, playing for the first time instead of tucked up in the sling.

Air drying clay and our coil pots, my first in about thirty years......

Heart sharing, and listening, being heard...

Bare feet outside, I'd forgotten.

Spring flowers and the sunshine....   and hawthorn leaves. Lily used to refuse cabbage and spinach but munch happily on wild greens every Spring.


The lengthening and brightening days start to awaken connection, feeling, sharing, crying; after the months of hibernation I always feel newly peeled in Spring, slightly raw and exposed, less grey, feeling more intensely, joy and grief in equal measure.

Starting a new writing project.....an important one....

What are you grateful for this week?

Wednesday Gratitude`

Yes I know its Thursday, but I couldn't yesterday and that is fine.
So today on Thursday I am grateful for:

The Spring and all its decadent, delicate finery and frippery, flirting frilly daffodils, primroses, declining snowdrops and the beginnings of pink frothy blossom. So Joyful.

The City. Tansy and I went to Plymouth to shop.... This is something I never do....away from my hippyville rural existence...it was fun.

My new pastels. Result of my trip to Plymouth

Talking with women...they just get it.

First meeting of the herb group in the community I live in....exciting discussions and planting plans.

Home ed trip to a beautiful and inspiring art exhibition.....left filled with notes and ideas for me and them!

Finch's new sleeping pattern ..more evening time.....

Bed time.....hot water bottles, books, a pen, herb tea ...sleep... bliss...

What are you grateful for this week?

Pacing restlessly about

Ok, its ten in the evening and I have finally settled to work. The internet is playing up...or rather a combination of old computer and tenuous internet cable; which needs to be delicately wedged into place by a strategic piece of cotton wool/matchstick/slim book. The slightest movement disconnects me immediately, and ten minutes of rejiggling the matchstick/ cottonwool /slim book ensues, before I can carry on. I am supposed to be transferring an article about my  blessingway ceremony from paper to laptop, but I'm blogging instead and posting arty pictures of horses on Pinterest

The problem with starting at ten is that of course I am pretty much ready for bed. Finch at seven months is obviously in the throes of producing some more teeth and our fairly low key  nights have ramped up to several unhappy  nocturnal awakenings during which I alternately groan, beg, (for sleep) sing, swear and ultimately give him what he wanted all along. ....we all know what that is....

But I'm tired.

And as usual I feel as though I am clinging to the rock face of my daily existence by a fingernail.

The washing up bowl is always overflowing, and the sink unaccountably often full of a sludge resembling rice and carrots. The laundry tumbles into our bedroom in a frivolous and insensitive manner every single day and no matter how many hours I stolidly plod through the monotony, I mean meditative process of folding, sorting and putting away, it never diminishes. The compost bin is always full,  ditto the bin, the recycling, the cat tray, my head. Everything is full, and I haven't even got onto the random detritus/belongings which surge into every available space.

A couple of days ago , Tansy and Leo were in the midst of their Thursday morning tidy up...picking up clothes, sorting toys. Tansy decided to muck out under her bed  and I found her, practically weeping, surrounded by a sea of nameless and useless objects which I'm sure you can all imagine. A painted rock given by a well meaning relative..make that five actually, a torn sylvanian rabbit dress, various fragments of paper, a broken doll chair, three notebooks and four discarded purses....etc.

'But Mum I don't want any of this stuff I can't deal with it', she wailed.

We now have  box containing five painted stones, a torn sylvanian rabbit dress, and many many other delights which await my involvment to sort and categorise and bin/ bag up for charity.

And mountains of unworn clothes.

And sometimes I wonder if my life is this, pacing restlessly from room to room, a baby on my hip scanning continuously, noting areas which need my attention...oh yes, Tansy's jodphurs, must mend them before tomorrow...don't forget to return that bag of maternity clothes to Rowena, God that pile of dirty tea towels, must run that to the laundry on my next trip up the stairs, oh the beansprouts haven't been rinsed for two days and I MUST pay the rent and tax the car and  do that DBS form for our German student . Jesus the toilet and Finches woollies, and WHAT THE HELL ARE WE GOING TO EAT TONIGHT??


And I keep pacing, swapping Finch from hip to hip, less from a desire to balance my back than from sheer restless frustration at how little I can achieve of these interminable, dull tasks. As if the pacing and swapping can somehow soothe and placate me, until his nap when all I really want to do is paint. And breathlessly I race through the most urgent jobs, tripping over my feet and banging my elbows and hips in my haste to get to my beautiful sunny bedroom all full of delicious, creamy acrylic paints and paper and gesso and charcoal.

When Finch's  head rises  up from under his blanket and sends me a bleary little smile, his cheeks all rosy from his nap, I have such a twist of emotions...a sinking that it will be several hours, or more likely a day , until I can paint again, and a rush of love for this dear little thing, so sunny so soft and adorable.

And the sun shines, the crocuses bloom under the big lime tree on the front lawn and what is important?

Why am I pacing about and sorting through piles of rubbish when life should be simple?

Does anyone else struggle to keep things in balance?
I'm sure its not just me.....

Wednesday gratitude

I know I didn't do this last week apart from in my head, I was in a bus all day, and ...well its plainly not the day for complaining....so that story will have to keep.!!

This week I am grateful for ....

The sun. It was nearly warm today....

The community I live in.. as Spring rolls closer, I am coming out of my winter hibernation....planting trees, chasing chickens, dropping by for cups of tea. We live in such beautiful land and

New painting and printing techniques...so exciting

Snowdrops and crocuses...Tansy, Leo, Finch and I spent an hour sitting among them this morning and making felt flower fairies in the sun.

My crawling baby.....

More beautiful photographs from my talented son.....

Being tired.....well there's got to be something positive about it!....it makes me whittle down to the basics.....and yes go to bed a bit earlier!

That's now..night night!!

Wednesday Gratitude

This week, I am grateful for,

Doing my back in...(really) and spending a day and a half in bed with Finch.  Although in severe discomfort it helped me gain perspective on my harried, goal orientated life...and remember how it is to sit...or lie still. I have felt calmer and more focussed since my time in bed and can manage to walk now and actually be in the moment of walking....rather than planning next weeks menu or the next article or painting in my head.

Having my article White Feathers published on my friend Kate's website..do take a look.

A lovely home ed morning in bed, painting and making animal finger puppets for learning French.

Bread made with Khorosan.kamut flour....hot from the oven with dripping butter its irresistable....!

My very wonderful mother's group which I mentioned in my previous post. We met and cried and laughed and connected in a beautiful hand built round house. Supportive and nurturing.

My  first painting out in the world..in a lovely brand new online magazine.... here

My partner Hugh for bringing me breakfast in bed when I was ill..the ultimate luxury...and taking Finch away so I could eat alone....and giving me a much needed back massage..

And you? What are you grateful for this week?

Two swans between the houses

Space.
Spaciousness.
Room to breathe and connect.

That's what I need.

Each day seems a breathless scuttling of doing, rushing, half doing, kicking things under the sofa just so  I don't have to deal with them in that moment, squeezing things in squeezing things out. I have developed a strange, scurrying scuffle, brought on in part by the slightly too big faded lilac slippers I wear around the house, partly by the gasping need to be beyond my next destination, five minutes ago. Too many gaping loads of laundry to process, too many loaves of bread to cook, vats of soup to produce, and tantalising sticks of charcoal waiting on the side, tubes of delicious paint luring my gaze from the latest batch of flapjack in progress.

This afternoon I drove home in the cold shivering rain from a particularly nurturing mother's group I belong to. Our children are cared for in a creche for two hours, and  and  we sit in circle, in silence and in deep listening, and our tears and heartfelt connection and support are like a true balm, for us harried struggling 21st century mothers living in our isolation and overwhelm.

I felt particularly soothed and connected to the women in the group today, and usually as I drive home after my group I feel resourced to cope with another week.

But as I drove today  I realised I was progressing more and more slowly, I DIDN'T WANT TO GO HOME.

I was dreading walking into mess and disorder, jobs shouting at me from every corner...Me Me Me, and poor little Finch dragged around trying to half complete them all, never ending. Stuff, detritus, things to sort, things to clean, things to make. I wanted none of it. I wanted still, peace, calm, silence solitude.

And then I saw them. Maybe for ten seconds, on the river, a glimpse between to houses. In the rain against the unappealing mud brown of the river Dart in flood.

Two swans.

Nothing special, just two swans, stretching their necks and doing their thing in the rain, in the cold, in the mud. And I wanted to be there, with them, heck I even wanted to be them.

Simple calm beautiful wild and free.

I felt as if I was in chains.

But who has the key to the padlock?

I could have got out of the car and walked through the mud and rain and sat with them, the wind beating in my ears like a wild thing playing its mournful song.

But I had three children in the car and I didn't. I came home and got a bit frustrated, tried to paint. Got cross with everyone. Tried to remember the swans. Forgot them.

But now, late at night I remember them.

Remember their grace and simplicity.
How they must feel, down there on the mud, not thinking, stressing and flustering around in baggy lilac slippers.

I want to be a swan.

I don't really want to be  swan, but I want to learn from them.

Learn to use my thoughts less, my head less, listen from my heart, my belly, sniff the air, sharpen my ears, soften my gaze. Sit by the waters edge with nothing to do but BE.

Just Be.
Be like a swan.

Wednesday gratitude

Today I am grateful for,

My lovely vintage typewriter, so many cool things I can do with this!

Fresh salad still in the polytunnel, to eat with our Bavarian meal tonight....(brought by our German students dad yesterday..)

 Art journalling, a new found pleasure and potential exploration into a healing tool to share with others.....

A good homeschool day, coming in the wake of one where I was ready to give up. Yoga, weaving, reading,  cooking, a pleasure....

Another painting getting there....

Celebrating Imbolc with Tansy and Leo, and watching their beautiful focus making Bridie dolls to honour the goddess Bridget and carry our germinating seeds of inspiration......

 Those minute shards of time when I can lift a paintbrush, place two words to sing on the page together, sit and take a solitary breath....they are precious  indeed.

And you?

What are you grateful for this week?

Gathering tools and baby steps

 I'm on the edge of a precipice, leaning out against the wind, which beats against my face with its torrent of breath. Even at the edge, still with my feet on the ground. I am nearly at the vortex, a spinning cyclone of images, phrases, ideas possibilities, openings, outlets; reaching at me, grabbing me.The wind's fervour excites me, inspires me, scares me rigid.
 Should I go should I jump, should I stay tiptoed at the edge or retreat to the balmy flower meadow and a rather dull picnic. Or even quite a good picnic, sugar free of course, with quinoa and sprouted seeds and raw chocolate delights with a helathy sprinkling of gogi berries?

That's the problem. I often stand at this edge...although never quite so near, and always end up returning to the picnic. Literally. An idea will come to me, one of those running for your notepad and grabbing the only writing implement available .(usually a pale yellow beeswax block crayon) type of ideas, and having noted it down...(as far as am able with yellow crayon in the margins of my bank statement); I might limply retire to the kitchen and bake some muffins, or fetch the laundry, and then the baby is awake and oops, oh well can't do it now. Hmm

The precipice is churning with colours, and possibilities, it is a tumult of unknown,  a shiver of fear, a dazzle of brightness. And yet I turn away.

But NO....I WILL NOT. And here, publicly, with you to hear me....

At the moment I am caring for five kids four of my own plus our German student, with their myriad needs demands and issues, from constant breast milk, to spelling to gym membership and lifts back from paintballing, more printer paper and a white gel pen NOW and my coloured pencils again, and patiently reflecting back the needs of a furious six year old and deflecting angry fists,while holding a baby, trying to cook and tidy up the tornado that is the kids room and......anyway you get the idea...did I mention the laundry?/.

But.... I'm also taking two online art courses (more about these in another post when I have dived into them more deeply) in the wake of the amazingly transformative Flora Bowley course Bloom True which I have talked about at length already here which has already started me to the edge of the precipice.
 By sheer fluke I have also just won a free place on a funky Instagram based pithy, quick fire writing course, which is exciting but also overwhelming as my phone has just given up doing Instagram and it starts on Monday. I'm also not sure how I can possibly squeeze even one more thing into my already overflowing day but I will try. Everyone can have dirty sheets and baked beans on toast for a month.

And then two days ago my signed copy of The Rainbow Way arrived, the fourth book of the inspiring Lucy Pearce. I plan to do a review of it when I have read it but in short it is about  the burning need some of us feel to create and mother simultaneously without causing harm to either. A treasure of a book which I am reading in tiny snatches and I am now part of an online forum of women.... (some places still left I believe open to those who purchase the book direct from Lucy) support and opportunities in bucketloads.

From this forum, one of my paintings has found a place in an inspiring new online magazine, to be found here at Raising Loveliness which is also really exciting.

In my nearest town my favourite cafe has a chalk board outside calling for artists to put their work on their walls. I need to finish two more paintings to have enough to approach them for my first ever public showing....

I have finally finished a written piece on loss and recovery for a friends website, which I will link to as soon as it goes live....



Are you getting a theme here....it's exciting; things are moving, shifting, progressing, tiny steps maybe, but in a life as full as overflowing as mine it feels big, it feels like the tip of the wave. The tip of a huge powerful swell which I can ride...if I dare. If I have the time...but will I ever have the time?

Have I the the ability to work in minute snatches and snitches of time, but without hating the person who interrupts me or curtails my flow? Because they will and they do.

 I currently write and paint at the kitchen table, as our bedroom is so icy its hard to do anything there apart from sleep surrounded by hot water bottles. There are seven of us in the house...everyone likes to hang out in the kitchen/sitting room which is very small. And I have a 6 month old baby....I have to keep remembering that.

So will  I sink or swim if I jump? I can only try....




 

I keep adjusting the blog, ...as you've probably noticed...but 

Wednesday gratitude

This week I am grateful for....

A little boy who is suddenly very firmly on his hands and knees..

Charcoal...forgotten how fun it is.....thanks Misty Mawn and Pauline Agnew

Incorporating my online art coursework with home ed mornings, so fun and beautiful to create together and have fun.

My weekly organic veg order, delivered to my door in boxes and bags, a cheap and convenient way to feed seven hungry people three (and more) times a day.  (I nearly missed the deadline this morning which is why I'm particularly grateful!1)

A path. My darling made this to replace the mud and carpet which have been excusing themselves as a path since we opened up a blocked door as our new entrance. We turned our old entrance into a bedroom for our German student.

Living in a dilapidated mansion where there are such things as blocked up doors and tudor dining halls and a myriad of old staircases, corridors, cellars and crumbling wonders.

The sun

My son's passion for photography which is his guiding light right now

Wednesday Gratitude

I think the universe is challenging this new gratitude space of mine. My first Wednesday...and one of those days which is so eye poppingly full of tiny challenges, huge challenges and enormous  tests of patience.
In my regular way I could chronicle this quite entertaining catalogue of domestic tribulations (I must just mention cat vomit as the grand finale..)

 BUT.

I won't.

Instead.....
I sigh, and breathe out and thank, thank...myself first for remembering to use my skills of listening to divert and soothe a major melt down at a home education group

I am grateful....... for this space here which reminds me to practice being grateful.

                      ........... for the beautiful gardens around me, and the food they produce.

                      ...........for our chickens, the girls have started their spring egg laying with a great fervour, such a treat to hold warm eggs on a frosty morning


                       ...........for the chance to paint and create again, this time with Misty Mawn and her Full Circle online course,

                      ..........for getting to make a handmade art journal for my course with the kids, and its also home ed.

                       ..........For the new climbing club they attend tomorrow which they love and means I get to hang out and drink coffee with some cool mamas and discuss inspiring stuff while Finch naps.

                        .........For sugar free apricot and carob bars, a tasty new recipe which Tansy can eat.....and everyone likes.

                          .......for having a nursing baby which makes me sit down in the middle of the day.....a big exhale several times a day.

                           ....this music which I bought at our table top sale today at the home ed group, and which dramatically improved the atmosphere at our homecoming....cat vomit notwithstanding


Well I already feel better  .......it would have been easy to slip into a moany evening.....

And I'm grateful for you reading this! Of course!

What are you grateful for?

Blooming True

   

This is what I have been doing...in between . In the little moments. The tiny hours where a baby
might sleep for a moment, the hour where a child might play, a teen might be at school, when I am between jobs, between needs, slipping between the marching daily hours to feed myself...more nourishing than food...

Twenty five years ago, I  was told not to pursue art at school because, 'only thick kids do art'. Really. My dear physics teacher, thanks Mr. W, uttered these fateful words, backed up by....well everyone apart from my Art teacher and me actually. We were both pretty keen. But my keenness, my love, the light which sparked in my belly every time I stood in front of a row of pencils, pastels, paints in an art supply shop;  the way in which everything else faded away when I was immersed in drawing or creating, well it wasn't tough enough to fight. I wasn't tough.
 I let myself be pulled away 'don't waste your brains you could do anything...languages, sciences...that's what you need'
'Keep a little sketch book if you like......you have to be really up there to do anything in art...'.

'Birds..' nearly finished!!

And so I was 'good' sailing (academically) through the rest of school with an ache every time I stood at the door of the Art room and saw my friends printing painting, sculpting and sketching...
Since then, I've drawn..a little bit, painted, a little bit...made birthday cards, and then......

Well I discovered, via the inspiring Lucy Pearce at Dreaming Aloud , someone who could help. Someone who could help release the good girl syndrome which held me back, stifled my creativity, made me think I couldn't, shouldn't, perhaps just wasn't meant to. Someone inspiring, joyful and life affirming and full of joyous colour and soulfu,l beautiful art.

I enrolled on a Bloom True course     with Flora Bowley.   A brave move for someone with a two month old baby...but a blessed move, an inspired move, the right move.

I hesitated before enrolling...should I spend the money, could I commit the time.....Flora posts six in depth posts every week for five weeks....
The answer was YES!!

Flora Bowley 2011

                                                        


For the first time in my life I felt free when I painted, free from self doubt, self criticism, free from 'shoulds' and free to paint from a place of intuition and playfulness.

Sneaking up to my bedroom with Finch every moment I could, to my makeshift studio by the window I layered glorious colour  upon colour, inspired by Flora's daily lessons which encouraged me to let go, be brave and let my intuition be my guide.

                 Flora Bowley 2012                    

  More than just a painting course, Bloom True encourages the participants to find their own voice, their true, and authentic intuitive and courageous voice, in art and in life.

Through professionally shot videos we were led through the progression of two large paintings from start to finish, interspersed with studio exercises, instagram prompts, and  daily encouragement and tips on painting and life.



For me the course was worth every penny....the magic happened on the canvas as I built up layer upon layer of paint, not planning, or thinking too much just doing what felt right in the moment and trusting that was right.

Joy

There is a Facebook group to share work and thoughts, and now, months after the course has finished, many of us are still posting and supporting each other in the group. It has become a very special forum for sharing artwork and advice about not only painting but how our lives have been affected by this adventure in colour.

We all have our journeys...our damaged, joyous, painful and beautiful lives. A vibrant, loving and graceful spirit sings and paints among us; and healing and magic is happening even now as we continue to paint and create and share in our group. Art helps me heal. It helps me grow in confidence when people actually talk of buying my work.

When I started the course, one of the first exercises was to do some journaling and set intentions for the five week program. My first instinctive thought was to create something of what Lily has left me. Her love and joy and the feeling that I must not waste my life. It seems wrong to shy away from my longings, it seems wrong to be fearful of trying things which I burn to do...not wrong but somehow a waste. We are all designed to shine, we were not created to hide and apologise.

Angel

 Lily's seven short beautiful years mean so much, and I have learnt so much since her death that I realise that I must start shining, with her light and with mine.

Being brave was the theme for the fourth week of painting with Flora and probably the hardest for me. Always the 'good' girl, doing what I think is expected...it felt so liberating to do what I wanted and to find ways to know what it is I want.

Flora Bowley's e course has changed the way I paint and helped me take a giant step forward on my path in life,  and I wholeheartedly recommend Bloom True course, the next one starts on Feb 10th....sign up you won't regret it!


This post contains affiliate links as I support Flora's work and want to share it with you.....

Life Loss and Gratitude

I don't quite know why I've abandoned this space for so long. Its grey windswept corridors blown about with tumbleweed and debris . Life comes and life goes, blown by the wind, warmed by the sun watered by the (near continual )rain. People are born, people die, days are passed and tempers are lost. Love is found and divided out in slices, the Christmas tree is  down. Its the end its the beginning. I have no time.
I have little shards of time, tiny splinters which glitter like hard won jewels dug from a deep mine far away on a lost continent. I have to be as creative, flexible and bending with my time as a serpent. So flexible. So creative
.

A week ago an enormous church in our town was filled with people: remembering the life of a creative, generous, gentle man who spread singing across the world, a member of the community I live in. A ceremony of singing, sighing laughing, remembering. Sometimes, I barely managed to coordinate the keeping -everyone- occupied activities of finger knitting, French knitting and nursing nursing a teething, wildly possetting baby, child fights and demands, ...all in a whisper; sometimes I was  engulfed in a wave of tears with the vast singing community of people who will miss him;

The songs we learned. Dance between the practicalities of caring for children in a reverent space, and moments of immersion when they disappeared to play upstairs.When someone dies it is as if everyone who has died is present too, a shimmering haze, amongst us and beyond us. Joyful and sorrowful, entwined, woven into the same cloth. There were certainly angels there.

And life on either side is full, a blurred juggle of endless food preparation..(We have gained another teenager for twelve weeks, taking the head count to seven, a German exchange student) converting our entrance hall into his bedroom; Christmas quilts hurriedly finished, New Year clear outs and purging. My bedroom especially, a growling lair of unsorted papers, half finished weaving, sewing and knitting projects, bags and bags of children's clothes which need rationalizing reducing cleaning...throwing out.

Did I mention the rain?

You see I can be a moaner, a grumbling whinging oh its not fair kind of gal....ask my partner if you don't believe me....he gets the worst of it....

So my intention is to be simply grateful.  Hmm its becoming a bit of a trend isn't it? Gratitude Fridays, Thankful Thursdays........ no blog complete without one.

Well maybe it works.

Finding just one teeny tiny thing each day to be grateful for, in between all the challenges, demands and whines of life can become a habit, and even grow. Stopping to notice the watery sun appearing outside as I complete the fifth round of washing up today, or the delicate tracery of Jack Frost's fern magic on the windows as I shiver to the bathroom. Pausing to watch just how Finch can now pursue a favourite rattle with his eye, and make attempts to retrieve it, and how Tansy appeared unasked with a full basket of clean laundry hauled up from the cellar wash room 'because I knew you needed it Mum, and were busy.'

 Little things.
Important things.
Things that make me smile relax and BREATHE.
Slow down.
Feel a moment of love, a moment of Connection...With the sun. With Jack Frost. With Finch. With Tansy. It spreads...its contagious....before I know it I've noticed something else, someone else. A hug a look a smile, ahh it all seems better for a moment.

Gratitude. The only question remains...which day will I post? Today!!
So, every Wednesday, its gratitude day, and I will post my daily gratitudes from the week

What are you grateful for? Do feel  post a link to your blog if you feel moved to join in