Angel wings and Herb tea

Candle light in the woods

2012-02-24T08:24:00.000-08:00

Dusk falls, dawn rises, the sky beyond the edge of the woods swells gently in and out of night and day. When the moon is bright, it rises and turns the wood to silver and drenches us in its ethereal light. The curtains are going up slowly, on average one a day, so until dark moon came, our nights were bright, but snug under our warm blankets.

Life outside our cabin in the woods is continuing as normal, not pausing to let us breathe after our move and settle into the land. Commitments continue but when I dissolve into the golden lamplight every night it feels as though the sanctuary of our new home is enfolding us in a warm embrace. Because our electricity is limited at present to one leisure battery, (nearly flat) its candles and oil lamps in the evening, and the atmosphere of calm this creates pervades nearly all of us.

Candlelight is limited to right where we are, and it is soft and gentle, blurring the edges of the washing up not yet done or the laundry not yet done. It brings me into the moment, this one right now.

Last night, Leo bathed in the golden glow while Tansy practiced her lyre, and as I put the finishing touches to our veg crumble I felt suffused by an immense calm and gratitude for the moment I was in. I spend so much time living outside the moment, that these moments of sinking into the present feel like a precious balm. Everything seemes perfect, everything flowed.

How do you manage to find these moments of tranquility and connection to now?

Water in the woods

2012-02-21T13:26:00.000-08:00

Water, how we appreciate it at the moment. When we turn the tap and it actually flows, it seems like a miracle! For the time being, we are tapping in to our neighbour's bore hole, some three hundred metres away, and pumped up with a pump in another neighbours house, with a generator owned by someone else, and stored in an enormous tank. Sounds complicated? It is. The over ground, unlagged pipes currently in place are woefully inadequate for use in sub zero temperatures, hence our sporadic supply in the cold snap. In time, we will bury the pipes, in the longer term, we will connect up to our own bore hole (located on yet another person's land) and fill our own tank when we have the time and funding in place. Phew!

For the moment our water system is archaic, as the drainage from our cabin is also not complete. So every drop of water used or consumed inside must be manually carried out by the bucketful...washing up water, laundry water, bath water, ...and when the pipes freeze, carried in too! It certainly makes us careful with our water use. Our ancestors must have been a hardy, strong bunch, constantly on the move, carrying shifting, tipping, scrubbing, fetching. My arms are feeling capable, my poor back is not!

Tin baths are well established now, but preparations must start early! First bring in the bath from outside to warm and prepare the area with rugs. Then heat two hot cauldrons of water on the stove, whilst setting up the clothes drier covered with a blanket as an improvised screen for peace. Mix the hot water with two buckets of cold, rustle up a quick cup of chamomile tea, and settle in to quite a deep cosy bath. Then decide whether you have the energy to start bucketing out the water or if it can wait until the morning!

Make a hot water bottle and go to bed!

My back aches, but at least I feel responsible for dealing with our water waste and can see the consequences of where it goes and how it can be reused in future. It feels good.

Valentine's day

2012-02-13T04:00:00.000-08:00

Huddled by the gas cooker at one end of our cabin last night, waiting for the water to heat for our hot water bottles, Hugh and I had a hasty discussion in low voices.
'God, it's Valentine's day tomorrow, have you done anything?'
'No have you?'
'Nothing.'
'Well,'.... a hesitation...'shall we just... do nothing?'
'Ok, if we both promise.'
'Cool...' we poured the hot water bottles and went to bed, but it felt wierd.

It's not that we usually indulge in lavish displays of gifts and meals out, but we usually make a card and write a poem for each other, and Hugh usually picks some flowers and I might buy some little edible treat to share in the evening. A tangible reminder of our love and appreciation of each other in the midst of the turmoil and rush that our lives can sometimes be. Cutting through the hasty communication and barbed retorts, the rumbling resentments and sniping that it is so easy to fall into, despite our best love and intentions; the Valentines day poem never fails to reach the beautiful core of why we are together, and warms the cold February morning.

I put aside the futile and petty moans about what I think he should or shouldn't be doing and appreciate not only the practical genius of a man that has, after all, almost singlehandedly built our home, but the understanding , encouragement and acceptance he extends to me.
The man who reminds me, even though its really up to me to organise, that I need to take some time to myself, and look after myself..(my back, my sleep deprivation, need for solitude)
The man who accepted me and two children who weren't his and happily loved them as his own and then loved the two that we produced too! And who lightens a tense moment with craziness and laughter.
The man who has brought so much wisdom and love into our family and works with me as we guide the children through the maze of our life together.
The man who slows down when I speed up to remind me that really, is it that important? (yeah I admit this one is challenging!!)
The man who quietly carries out a myriad of practical chores evey day which easily become invisible until he goes away for a few days...
The man who breaks the rules and breaks out of the constraints of duty and 'shoulds' because that's where the gold is.
The man who loves me...

But now we've agreed....we've just moved, we're still struggling with water and toilet issues and a multitude of practical (more on this next post Laurel, promise) we're both really busy, do we really have time to create beautiful poetry before bed?

So we woke up today in a very ordinary way, and I came to town to write in a cafe where there is power, and I suddenly realise that Valentine's day is tomorrow! We got the day wrong! It's not today.
Now what?
Better get writing.......

Outside again

2012-02-10T03:15:00.000-08:00

Suddenly we're spending time outside again. After our three months in a house, where I would sometimes find that days had passed almost entirely inside, now, our life is connected inextricably to the wood around us. Our time in the cabin is made complete by the time slithering down muddy paths to the compost toilet at night; by stepping outside in the morning to the frozen, rosy dawn beyond the trees and over the hills; by nipping to the woodstack for an armful of logs for the burner. Last night as I grabbed the nearest blanket to wrap around me, shawl like, to accompany Tansy on a night time loo trip, I felt as if I was stepping further into the past with each step along the path.

The memory and spirit of the women who came before me, my ancestors; stepping out on their night time winter paths, holding their lanterns before them, stumbling through their woollen petticoats and shawls, feeling the cold on their skin, the mist on their cheeks, the cry of the owl in their ear . I felt so close to them, and a tiny glimpse of what it was like to live away from the slick, quick, glossed over shininess of the 21st century. I have read and absorbed countless stories and histories of domestic realities in previous centuries but it is only in living it again that I feel it in my body, the reality of it. The relentless practical tasks and the raw chapped hands, the living close to the bone. Our neighbours who live in two beautiful yurts, expressed just what I felt. 'Living like this you experience the real highs and the real lows, you don't get the dull daily hum drum of mediocrity' It's either spellbindingly beautiful or really quite desperate!

When I was carrying all our water into the house in 19 litre containers, and scrimping every drop, it was a challenge, especially on my back, (lugging it down my friends stairs after filling up in her bathroom, thanks Darcy and Becky!) but it made every drop precious. I found myself gloating when discovered three full hot water bottles in our cupboard, what could I use the water for? This morning the tap produced water, as we have a milder day, and it felt quite decadant to just use what ever we needed!

Seven white doves

2012-02-03T03:48:00.000-08:00

There was a beautiful moment yesterday. In the middle of my third day clearing and cleaning the house where we have spent the last couple of months, and feeling thoroughly disheartened by the amount of dirt and stuff to deal with, I heard the thud of a package on the doormat. Expecting it to be for the new tenant moving in, whose mail has already started to arrive, I trudged gloomily out to the hall to retrieve it, cleaning rag in hand. It was a package from the US for me! A beautiful packet all wrapped in tissue paper and little hearts, containing seven white paper doves.

A while ago, I admired a little bird mobile over at We Bloom Here and mentioned how I would love to make one, but didn't have time as I was moving house, and the lovely M. Bloom offered to send me one. In the course of messaging her, I told her that we had released seven white doves at Lily's funeral, one for every year of her life. And so there in the middle of my dismal morning, surrounded by mops and dust, out tumbled a dove mobile and lifted my day. Sprinkled with tears it was admired and hung up in OUR NEW HOME yesterday evening. A truely magical moment. Thankyou so much to such a lovely woman so far away.

Oh yes, I forgot to mention, we have now moved into our very own cabin in the woods, it's warm, tranquil, cosy and such a sanctuary...more next time!

Thresholds

2012-01-27T14:21:00.000-08:00

Last Saturday, I took a day out from my life, a whole day, from ten until five in a cosy studio with seven other adults and two enormous dogs. There were no children, and no packing and cleaning, there was no insulating or painting or dashing around holding ten things in my head, while I just quickly text someone and stir the onions and pull Leo out of the fridge. For six hours (one hour was devoted to a sumptuous bring and share lunch) we wrote and shared and reflected, and felt our way into this still new year of 2012. I feel this day may become an annual occurence, compassionately and creatively held by the wonderful Roselle Angwin of Fire in the Head.

I rarely have the time and space to step back and reflect on my life from the outside. Especially at the moment, with our build nearing completion and our next house move looming, it has become very important to remember just exactly why we are doing this. And to remember that we have chosen this path, and we will continue to influence the direction it takes through life by our decisions and motivations. How I needed to know this.
Prompted by Roselle's exercises and questions we worked in pairs, alone and as a group to dredge the gold and the slime from our lives.. ...with a grand finale of verbally releasing (and writing and burning in the fire) the things which had not served us in 2011, and welcoming those we wished to embrace for the new year.

As always I found the power of free writing without pausing or censorship to be revealing, insightful and surprising. A trust in the process of following where the pen leads, without pausing to edit, uncovers the treasures which are always there when we stop thinking! I was surprised for example when in answer to the question, 'what would you do if you had only a year to live?', I wrote, 'stop cooking'.

'Well that's ridiculous,' my censoring mind immediately thought, 'wouldn't you get rid of all your things and travel the world or some other traditional only-one-year-to-live activity?' So I dutifully and limply wrote, 'travel the world and give away my belongings', but fortunately came back to the cooking.
Yes, I realised I had let cooking dominate my life. Feelings of guilt at not being a wage earner gnaw at my fragile sense of self worth, so I cook copious amounts of nutritious, delicious, fresh, home baked goodness each and every day. From slow cooked millet or oatmeal in the morning to raw energy balls or sugar free muffins for mid morning snacks to carefully planned vegetable grain dishes at dinner time I pride myself on being the paragon of wholesome food. Which is great, apart from the fact its got a bit obsessive. Of course, I really do believe freshly prepared organic food is important for my family, but do I have to take it to extremes which prevent me from doing something more meditative, creative, social or physically active?

It's a useful avoidance tactic, being feverishly busy with a seemingly necessary task. Finish editing the children's book I am writing.?...No can't possibly I'm up to my ears in making sauerkraut and being good and looking after my family. So I sidestep my fear of failure in writing, but at least I've got a few jars of preserves on my shelves.
And I can justify my existence by being visibly useful instead of doing something self indulgent like writing or meditating or dancing. Grrr...I've got to stop being so good all the time.

We can and do create our own reality, and I left the Thresholds workshop with several poignant and compelling affirmations which I will copy out and pin liberally around our new home.

Including,

I breathe love and acceptance into every moment, and I remember that the pain I feel is caused by my own aversion to misfortune.
I release my attachment to the outcome
I am living in this moment. (that's a big one)
I am connected to everything.

And others still brewing....

Thanks so much to Roselle for facilitating the process of reflection and intention setting, I'll be back next year!

Watch the quiet opalescence of dawn,
Listen to their sleeping breath,
and the cat's stealthy paw.
Smell the smoke of early morning
Feel the night drifting from my limbs.
I am here.

Home

2012-01-19T14:54:00.000-08:00

Where is home? Where your parents live? Where you live? Where you are right now? Where your loved ones are?

Home...the word has such a lovely hum to it, home is always where I feel most comfortable; making homes, and being at home, and I will happily turn a tent on a one night camping trip into a cosy home with the help of some blankets and a few flowers. When I arrive home, wherever that is, I invariably feel my shoulders melt into the ground and my breath lengthen as I exhale into familiarity and comfort. Maybe it's because I feel able to drop all my barriers at home, stop trying so hard, to be liked? to fit in? to do the right thing....? So my home becomes an oasis, where I don't have to pretend..yeah I know I shouldn't pretend anywhere, but that's a work in progress.

In my defence, Cancer features very heavily in my astrological chart and the lovely woman who drew my chart, mentioned the word 'cosy' several times during the course of my consultation with her. I like things to be cosy, and curling up next to a warm winter fire, by candlelight, with some snuggly children nestled in for a story is a blissful feeling.

I think that's why I have struggled with feelings of restless and insecurity during the last year when I just didn't know where my home was going to be, and then when I did know, facing a double house move in two months.

So, as we begin the countdown to our final move to our land, I will be readjusting to another home. I know I will feel impatient to get curtains and rugs scattered around very quickly (I should be making them now....) and the children's rooms comfortable and welcoming. (Hugh and I will be sleeping in the sitting room for a while, but we've done that before..it's very cosy!) I know that the strange, slightly exhilarating, yet uneasy feeling of novelty will soon wear off and we will sink into our new ryhthms and ways on the land.

blanket walls

Back to an outside composting toilet, still awaiting completion...

Almost no electricity, save what we can glean from a leisure battery....plans for stream generated power are afoot... (shhhh! we will have a gas cooker, at least to begin with.)

I've abandoned ideas of a whiskey barrel bath tub (they leak if they dry out) and am resigned to a tin bath in the corner of the kitchen for now with heavy curtain drapes for modesty. Later we have plans for a rocket stove, wood fired shower, in a separate room, luxury of luxuries, but we must wait for time and money..Actually I really love tin baths, and harbour romantic memories of sitting in front of the wood stove in our yurt, soaking and watching the dancing flames, as the candles threw their shadows on the canvas walls.

My laundry will now be completed with the help of this lovely item, for my birthday present from my mother in law , a Victorian washboard, and a mangle yet to be purchased.

Lots of candles, and I will have an entire blog post devoted to candles very soon.

And lots more mud, and outside, and cosy firelit evenings.

I long to be settled. I have moved far too many times since children, and although I do have a restless changeable nature, I yearn for stability, security and a longterm home where I can root myself in the land and gather my scattered plans, thoughts and dreamings into one place, where they can flourish and grow. To sink down quietly into the earth and gather my family around to retreat and reflect for a while before this winter is over. Before the headlong full blossomed rush of Spring.

I'm looking forward to going home.

Where is your home?

Running away from grief

2012-01-12T14:44:00.000-08:00

I suppose it's a bit of a tendency of mine to run away from difficult situations; walking out when an argument gets too heated; leaving a gathering when the atmosphere becomes uncomfortable for me, stopping my train of thought when things go a bit too far. Walls of protection, quickly put up, by me,.. saving me from what the hurt could bring. Or barring me from the healing that suffering can bestow...

Two nights ago I ran away. From a beautiful group of people who meet together to share and move their grief together. We met last year at a grief tending ritual on Dartmoor, a ritual practiced by the Dagara people of West Africa. The ritual has been adapted for western practice by Wisdom Bridge and was held for us by Maeve Gavin at Way of the Village . For the Dagara people, the ritual is a weekly event, for everyone has grief to move and to speak. Grief is not a wrapped up solitary affair confined to laced edged handkerchiefs and funerals and the confines of our bedrooms. It is a flowing universal force which howls and beckons and surges in the beauty of its power. It needs to move and be shared and witnessed and this is what the ritual taught me.
The ritual was a turning point for me. For two years I had been 'the grieving mother' supported and loved, yes, but feeling as if I was on an island of grief that only I could experience. But we don't have to lose a child to grieve. We can mourn a damaged childhood, we can mourn the loss of a way of life that our ancestors expected as their birthright, close to nature and each other, we can mourn the devastation of our planet, the suffering of so many children, animals, plants.....grief is something that every single one of us will experience and how we deal with it will have a huge impact on our lives. We can stuff it inside with numbing techniques such as drugs, overeating, drink or retail therapy, or we can let it out... and that's scarey..
During the ritual I was able to be witnessed and supported in my grieving, my tears emerged from my bedroom where they had been welling for so long, and it was terrifying for me. I almost ran away, but something, some tiny kernel of courage and wisdom deep inside, wouldn't let me. I'm so glad I stayed. I felt the love and support of a group of people who I had only met two days before, and, crucially for me, felt strong and able to support them too.... through their grief. I felt openess and love filling us all and above all, connection ...to myself, to the people around me, to life itself. The tears were cleansing and releasing, a universal experience. It was a beautiful and life changing weekend.

So why did I run away two nights ago?
Well, life's been pretty disconnected recently. I have forgotten to spend time connecting with what's going on inside. It's tricky when you've got to finish building your home very quickly and still keep a cohesive family and get through a busy Christmas. I jumped into our grief meeting from a very busy day, in a very busy week with my mind and body reeling from the onslaught of a thousand tiny needs and demands...
And as everyone at the meeting shifted down into writing or drawing as a means of expressing the grief present for them, I froze. Images of Lily alone in her shining land seared into my mind...I could draw that...images of me alone and unable to reach her...I could draw that..but you know, I couldn't. I knew that the meeting ended in the not too distant future, and I just couldn't dive into that huge well of pain and emotion and then drag myself out again and drive home. Maybe I should've, but I didn't . I ran out in a rather sudden and dramatic way.
But I'll go back again. We'll all meet again, and next time I'll stay. And in the meantime I'll make time in my day to connect and be quiet, to be with myself, to be with Lily, and maybe to cry..and not always by myself......

Gratitude

2012-01-07T15:07:00.000-08:00

Last week I felt odd, hence last weeks odd post. Jumbled up and sleep deprived and rushed and hemmed in.
A little space this week thanks to two days of granny care for the children. I have been next door to our wonderful neighbour's house for a yoga class. My family and I ate a delicious New Years day lunch at the house of some lovely friends who wanted to give us a break from building our house.

These may seem like little things, but in the whirlwind of these final house building days they are precious moments of rest, positivity and rejuvenation. It has been to easy to be dragged down by the mud, the relentlessness of the tasks still to complete, the demands and needs of the children, but these interludes have given me the space to remember that life is good and reaching out to others and receiving the gifts they have to offer is a blessed thing. It often feels more comfortable for me to be the giver, makes me feel better, like I have earned my right to be here. And so for me to receive the gifts of others is hard, but completes the circle of friendship. There are times when I can be supportive and help others and there are times like now, when to receive with grace and no apologies is the most loving thing I can do.

And in these moments of gratitude and receiving I find I can also appreciate those things that I have found hard to accept, like building a home in a place where Lily has not lived.

As our little home in the woods nears completion, (Hugh and Freddie nailed down the last floorboard yesterday) I can honestly say that I am now quite excited that we'll be moving in next week. As I have spent more time on the land, stapling recycled blankets on ceilings, hammering on wall slates, being in the woods, I have begun, slowly to accept that this will soon be our home. For a long time, despite the excitement that everyone expresses when I talk about our little cabin on the land, I found it hard to share the enthusiasm, Partly, because as we are right in the middle of the build, in winter, racing against a deadline, and it's hard to see the bigger picture. Partly because I found it hard to imagine living away from the place where Lily spent her last months. Now, thanks to the generosity of friends we are having a two month 'holiday' in a house, and I am finding it possible to live here, despite the fact that Lily has not. It is ok to move on.

And it will be ok to move again, to our new home. The clear spaces and little interludes this week have enabled me to feel wisps of excitement, feathery between the tiredness. How the land will develop and flourish....herbs, goats, vegetables....secret plans....And I've even started making curtains, and researching old whiskey barrels as bath tubs!

I'm so very grateful to the many people who have helped us along our path. We have asked for , and been offered so much practical and loving help and support, we don't feel alone. It's hard to ask and hard to accept help but the bonds of community and connection and love are far more beautiful than the stranglehold of independance and isolation. And I also love being here, writing, and reading your comments, the stolen moments where I can sneak in a new post, the lovely words of sharing, encouragement and support.
Thankyou.

Today

2011-12-31T11:29:00.000-08:00

Today was different to yesterday. Yeterday was a mizzling understimulated mopy day with low level feelings of guilt hovering above me in grey wraith like wisps all day. Guilt that I was not helping to build our new home, guilt that I had not initiated any inspiring activities with the children and we didn't get out of our pyjamas until lunch time, guilt that I could be a better mother... etc. Sometimes I just need to step out of the suffocating web of expectation and disapproval I build for myself, walk away from the intense enclave of my home life and be free to just be, to think or not think, to nip to the loo without three children immediately needing my assistance with a burning project.

But then, today, the clouds cleared, the ones in my head anyway. Despite interrupted sleep again, (Leo lost his wolf twice in the night, Tansy lost her duvet, the cat brought a mouse in) we had fun. Decorating gingerbread for Granpa's present we sloshed chocolate and icing around in a sticky relaxed mess, without any uptight concern from me about how much sugar had gone into Leo's tummy instead of onto the gingerbread moomins.

Then I was left alone, am alone, in the house, for the first time in many weeks, to do exactly what I please. The last time I had two kid free hours I had all my Christmas shopping to do!) Hugh very lovingly suggested that I didn't need to come to his parents house today and they would quite understand my need for rest and peace.
I do need rest and peace.
When I am not surrounded by the details of my life there is space for other things.
When I don't have to wash up the fourth load of dishes that day and simultaneously solve an animation software problem, find Leo's wolf and help Tansy cast on twelve stitches please, I can look at my life with softer eyes, see myself with more tenderness and love, and feel immense gratitude for what I have.
I can feel things that are usually brushed away and sealed under a welter of practical tasks.

When I am not enmeshed in domestic minutiae, I can physically walk out and feel the wind colour my cheeks and notice and remember things I wouldn't at home.

The excitement and love in my kids eyes when I forget about chores and dance and sing with them.

How good it feels to move, to run along the cycle path, to dance on Boxing day evening, to cycle up Castle hill into town...my body doesn't do sedentary well.

The slender egret, hunched like a white shadow by the weir as I walked to town this afternoon, balanced on one delicate, black leg. The pair of swans, serene and fierce drifting below the rapids.

The feeling that some emotions are so deep, swirling dark blue fear trapped far, far down under thick layers of ice that I only catch a tiny fleeting glimpse as a shaft of sun pierces the gloom, for one moment eughh no... a shudder, and the ice forms again and down goes the memory.

The realisation that I am not being selfish or indulgent by wanting to spend time alone, meditatively, or writing or creating in some way, that it is necessary to me for my spiritual and emotional well being, and hence my physical well being and hence my family's.

Three children with severe disabilities on my path to town which could have been Lily if she had survived.

The memory of the feeling in me and the noise I made when the hospital consultant said losing her eye was the least of his concerns. I don't remember this very often.

Space for Lily that's what's hard when I'm at home. I passed the funeral director on my walk today too. Last night Fred and I realised the card game I had bought for him for Christmas was for three players. Hugh was out. Where was Lily? We looked at each other, Lily would have loved it, we said, and played it anyway, it was fun.

Time for me, time for Lily, time for love, time to be. Time for my living family. There is enough time really when I realise how important we are. And enough love for everyone else too,

I wish you all a New Year filled with love and beauty and the realisation that there is always time for what we need to do in our wonderful lives. Can you remind me sometime?

Before, during and after

2011-12-27T15:52:00.000-08:00

Before Christmas I became quite obsessed and compulsive about creating and making the perfect handmade Christmas, even though it was quite plain that we were in fact trying to finish building our new home which we are due to move into in three weeks.
When I was at home I locked myself into cutting delicate paper mobiles, crafting applique cushions, rustling up sugar free mincemeat and Christmas puds, and while I really really tried to enjoy the moment I was in, the loving creation..the reality was quite frenzied. Spirit of Christmas? Hmm. But I couldn't, (or wouldn't let myself) stop. Night after night I stayed up just a bit past when I should to just knit, sew, cut one more line, really wishing I didn't feel the need to keep making, but making myself all the same.

When I was at the land with Hugh hauling an enormous window frame into place, slipping down the muddy precipice with yet another piece of 2x4 balanced on my shoulder, or sitting round our little camping fire feeding Hugh's brother pheasant stew when he came to help, well, that felt satisfying and necessary. We are roughly on track with the build and have had some loving support and help from many generous friends and family, but there's still so much to do. And Hugh did struggle with my seeming inability prioritize a bit of breather membrane on the roof over say, a paper dove.

But I still wanted Christmas to live up to my expectations. And that's what it's all about, expectations. I always make cards and presents, and do genuinely enjoy creating gifts for loved ones, but I now expect myself to live up to and possibly exceed last years efforts. What am I trying to prove? Is that what Christmas is about? Hmm.

Of course, I really like my children to participate in and witness lovely calm homespun activities around Christmas, and to experience togetherness, creativity and laughter over and above mass material consumption. BUT, when mum is so exhausted from being up all night sewing and then attending to bad dreams that emerge from light sockets (not mine I hasten to add) that she cannot organise a baking session without taking several time outs to just breathe...well it's time to simplify.
And simpify I'm afraid I did not. I was still sewing a last angel on the dual carriage way on the way to my Mum's on Christmas day.

What did my kids need? A calm, happy, loving mum.
What did Hugh need? A frequent calm holder and operator of tape measures, drills, angle grinders, ladders and breather membrane. Oh and all the home stuff obviously!
What did I need? A massage, peace, love and laughter with my family. And sleep.
You see none of those involves making salt dough hearts.

This year would have been a good year to say NO to presents ouside the immediate family, and very simple and tiny within. We do keep it minimal within, but oh it's so complicated further afield. There is so much emotion and guilt and expectation around gift giving.

So, Christmas day itself, was about rushing, to finish opening our presents so we could hurtle up to North Devon and open more. We sang carols in the car and that felt pretty festive, we saw a tiny Christmas lamb which made me cry, we ate a lovely turkey, thanks mum, we walked around the village where my paents lived and came back and ate ham sandwiches. We watched, actually this is lovely..(for our strictly no tv family) a little animation The Small Miracle which we watch every year. Magical.

And during our lovely Boxing day walk to the beach with friends, and an impromptu dance last night, and a wonderful yoga class next door tonight... I re-evaluated.

The baseline is: if it can't be done in truth love and serenity don't do it. Especially making paper doves. How can you make a stressed dove? Next Christmas, we should be a little more settled, but I will be focussing less on compulsion and more on being. It may involve baking a few gingerbread men, it may invove knitting a small item. But if I can't do it calmly and with love, I'll play a board game or snuggle up on the sofa instead. Or maybe go for a swim.

Or I could just go build a house....

Did your Christmas live up to your expectations? Did you have any?

Really busy

2011-12-14T14:40:00.000-08:00

I haven't written anything for a while..I'm really busy.
Really busy.
(Also my internet connection is not working.)
I'm trying to do a hundred Christmassy things..concerts, doll making, teacher presents, mobiles, biscuits, felt this and that, answer so many phone calls and messages...
But mostly WE'RE TRYINGTO BUILD A HOUSE.
Oh my God.. very quickly, and in the rain, and the mud.
That's why I haven't written anything, even though I have so many wonderful thoughts about life, seasons, thoughts, kids, the world....these thoughts usually only happen in the car when I have five minutes break, yes driving is now my relaxation, and I can't write anything down. Whoosh!Out of the window they go..the thoughts I mean.

Well I'll take some more pictures tomorrow, the roof is now going on between showers and kindergarten pick ups, but this is our recycled pallet wall. We spent our morning stapling old woollen blankets, and insulation up and hopefully, hopefully on Friday will have everything water tight.

So much thinking, night and day.....he's working so damned hard.

Advent, advent, the candle burns

2011-12-07T12:20:00.000-08:00

                                             Advent, advent the candle burns,
                                             Advent advent the candle burns,
                                             First one then two then three then four,
                                             Then stands the Christ child at the door.

These days of Advent are so busy, and at a time when the earth is drawing it's energy down, deep into a midwinter slumber, it feels as if we should do the same. We're not really. The days are running faster than my mind and my ever ringing phone. That's why, in the midst of hauling timber around our building plot, racing to school (late again) for the pick up, cooking vats of soup for hungry helpers, helping with homework and sewing projects, it feels so good to remember Advent.

Every evening we light our advent wreath before our meal blessing, one candle last week, two this week, three the next....

And every evening we walk Mary and Joseph a step further on their golden star path to Bethlehem, and sing the Mary song.

Last night, I played the tune first on my recorder and as we sang I could see the day's frenzy dropping from the little ones... they snuggled down next to the Advent table on their sheepskins, heads on my lap. Instead of a bedtime story from a book, they begged for a Mary one and I told them about a land far away where olive and lemon trees grew and a tired donkey lived in a stable near a young woman named Mary.

It was a beautiful moment and felt like a balm which soothed the rough and fractious edges of my day. These small, special moments of reverence and magic are so easy to pass by and forget, but they nourish me so deeply when I remember. And peace for the poor hurried children in these rushed weeks before Christmas. I crave peace and serenity and a rest. It's hard to find, and moments like this are like gold.

How is Advent for your family? Do you manage to steal quiet moments of anticipation and reflection amidst the overwhelming onslaught of fulfilling expectations at Christmas?

Walk to school

2011-11-24T13:47:00.000-08:00

How ironic that we are able to walk to school, now that we have moved out of the woods for a spell. Bundling everyone in the car every morning, and lunch, and sometimes afternoon too, felt so wrong. Stuffing into car seats, sealed in our box, the rising sun and autumn berries flashed by at 50 mph and we observed it fleetingly through our windows..high speed cinema.
Now we are staying in a house only a mile from school and we walk at least one way, Freddie cycles both.

When people ask me what it's like living in a house, the first thing I always say is 'we can walk to school now' even though it doesn't answer the question. It feels like such a treat.

It takes about half an hour to wander through the fields and pause to talk to the robin on the gate post or admire the strings of blood red bryony draped in the hedgerows. Somehow I forget to rush so much in the fields wreathed in skeins of silver mist, as we squish our boots through the mud and pretend to be dragons and whoosh our fiery breath at each other.

I am so grateful for this brief time when we live close enough to the school for a beautiful walk in. It has certainly made me evaluate the amount of car use in our family.

When we move our wood there will be more questions to answer and challenges to overcome, about our reliance on fossil fuels in general. Is there any point in going off grid and using a washboard and mangle (which we will be doing) and planning bike powered blenders and laptops if we are still guzzling gallons of diesel every week?

Nope. Well a bit I suppose, but.....

We've just gone down to one car, yes we did, gulp, have two...school runs, work needs, I know we all have our excuses, ours are as weedy as everyone else's. But the whole car thing, unless we live in a town, how can we not have one? Home educate? Bulk food delivery? No social visits or classes, or only those on a bus route?

The questions are evolving with the answers, but I know that we all feel so much better one car down. It's sociable, I've been hopping in more friendly cars of late; it stops me dashing around, because I simply can't, it reduces choice..sometimes I just can't go, and that's fine. We're getting more exercise as a family, we're saving money, not only on fuel, but on food because I'm not able to just pop out so much, and impulse buy. And we're using less diesel, yay!

But it is slow. I'm quite a quick person and naturally like everything to happen immediately, and its been a real lesson for me, that our crazy fast paced world is simply unsustainable, both in environmental and human terms. Really, our bodies and brains are not made to travel so fast are they?

Meanwhile our walk to school is simply beautiful, we travel at human speed and can stop whenever we like to examine the first frost crystals of the year.

There were frost crystals on this post, really!

What does responsible car use mean to you? Would you like to slow down, tell me about it!

Keeping memories alive

2011-11-14T15:13:00.000-08:00

In a new house there are few memories. A fresh chapter in our family history has begun, and any memories this house holds are not ours. Someone else's stories murmur within these walls, celebrations, sorrows, quarrels, moments of love, all there, but not ours.
Ours are elsewhere, in the woods, running and whispering through the trees in a scarlet coat; in an orchard on Dartmoor, bouncing on the trampoline and making daisy chains under the apple trees; skipping by the river Dart, under the shade of the big old horse chestnuts. We have so many memories, but because we have moved, they have stepped back a layer into our family history. They are no longer current, no longer fresh, it seems as though they are no longer alive.

What do you do when someone you love dies? What do you do? Do you try to forget they ever existed to blunt the sharp edge of raw unfettered grief? Do you plunge into an abyss of nostalgia and weeping for the past, and barely acknowledge the present; or do you struggle on with your life, punctuated by the agonising balm of triggered memories?
The agonising balm...ferreting in an old coat pocket of Lily's and turning out ten pussy willows, a Fry's orange chocolate wrapper, a rainbow string, a crumpled bit of tissue. 'Her fingers last touched these things! Where did she get that chocolate from? Weren't those the pussy willows she collected on our last mother's day walk along the tidal road, when she picked the pampas grass and wanted to make it into angel wings?'

Yes really, angel wings.. like she knew.

It's not only tangible Lily objects which act as triggers. Some little girls of about seven have fine straight hair the colour of a mouse's back, in semi profile their heads have a familiar shape, sometimes they have a similar cardigan to one of Lily's, or even an identical skirt, they might move with her easy, unobstrusive grace. Just for a second, if I screw my eyes up I could just pretend...

Sometimes we all look through her wooden box. She didn't have lots of stuff but it's all in there and we handle each scribbled note and china horse as if it were a precious jewel. It brings up emotion, unexpected anger from some, quiet withdrawal from another. We don't do this much. Since we've moved it's like she's taken a step away, or we've moved further on and left her behind. Her photo is still in the kitchen, with a candle and some flowers next to it, but she seems less present. Maybe she wants to go back to the woods, maybe she's still there, running up and down in her little red coat with no one there to play with.

Maybe that's rubbish.

We've been busy. I'm busy unpacking and simultaneously packing to move on again. There's the Advent Fair coming up at school and I'm making dolls and curry for it. I'm trying to write. Hugh is building our new home. Maybe it's us that hasn't connected with her, maybe she's knocking at the window and our heads are too busy to hear her.

Is that the way it is with someone who dies? No matter how you try, life on earth just moves on and away and we forget, not fully but in a soft focus, fuzzy kind of way?

Sometimes a flash of clarity, the exact tone of her voice, the set of her jaw when she was sulking...what would it be like without photos, without memorabilia?

My lovely friend Ruby has written about her experience of losing someone close where no keepsakes or belongings were kept and nothing was discussed, she talks about this at http://www.loving-transformation.com/ In our family we are lucky to have photos, a couple of video clips, school books, hair clips. But really, am I being too attached to material props? Are we all? They are comforting, but are they a distraction from the Lily that is real now? Do they put a barrier between us and a very real connection with her in spirit form? Doesn't our preoccupation with material things prevent us from connecting to the spirit that is in everything, even ourselves?

Old coat pockets and sweet wrappers will eventually rot and fade away, Lily's love will always be there.

If we believe that nothing ever really dies, then why is our grief at losing the physical form so excruciating?

Do you have any experience of this? How do you remember your loved ones who have moved on?

Too much........everything

2011-11-10T15:14:00.000-08:00

Do you know how I feel that my days are spent? Yes, I do cook, clean, care for children, write, knit, grow things, exercise, socialise and so much else, but do you know what really seems to dominate each and every day? Do you know what fills in all those moments when I'd really love to be doing something creative, something loving, something meditative?

Sorting, shifting, rationalising STUFF.

And I'm sick to death of it, absolutely had enough. It has been like this for as long as I can remember (apart from those careless light, and airy days on a Corsican goat farm, or travelling round the west coast of Canada with just a back pack, or any of those deliciously unencumbered adventures of my pre children days.)
My days are simply clogged up, like festering stagnant pools, with bits of God knows what, boxes of 'I really don't care what happens to this,' bags of things that I can't just take to the charity shop because they need to be sorted first. Aargh! They sit in the hallway, these boxes and bits, these bags, squat and sullen like a family of messy trolls, tripping me up as I walk by with their warty old toes. And I resent every minute I have to spend over them; I fume and cuss over the endless trails of ephemera, toys, paperwork, THINGS, which float like a miasma all over the house. Which I must sort, tidy and bring to order, again and again and again.
I'm sure you know what I mean.

I'm sure you know what I mean because I think it's the same for many of us over privileged members of western civilisation, to have replaced lives of basic necessities with lives which are cluttered and overflowing with a thousand little pieces of uselessness.
Ah! That's where it gets difficult, because actually, when you start examining the 'stuff' it can get pretty interesting...hmm remember Aunty Jean gave you that little pink box with the necklace that broke, maybe we'll mend it, Aunty Jean would be upset if we...oh! remember when you used to love this toy elephant, and I'd forgotten I had this....and so the pile of Stuff to Sort Later starts to grow.

So what's going on? We live busy hurtling 100 mile an hour lives, with twenty new things on our to do lists every day, our minds buzzing with the intrusion of phones, ipods, laptops, radios, tv's, new messages, new articles, books.....and our homes are groaning with the presence of things that we think we need, but can't cope with.
Because we really can't.

It's driving us all crazy.

It's driving some of us crazy because we can't have it and we think we need it, and its driving the other half of us crazy because we have it and we have to spend so much of our lives tending it, polishing it tidying it, worrying about it getting stolen, fretting about what happens to it when we die.
Do you know what?
It doesn't matter what happens to it, because when we die all we take with us are our beautiful spirits, and we leave all the tat and rubbish behind. So why don't we spend more time adding lustre and beauty to those instead? Here's some ideas:

We could stop buying things we don't need. You know what I mean, I don't mean sit in a bare room eating just potatoes, (although right now that sounds pretty appealing) I mean stop before you get your wallet out, and pause...will I be using this in 6 months time? Does it serve a purpose...do I NEED it? You've probably already got three at home, check first.
Stop doing, and just be, at least once a day, plant your feet on the ground and feel part of this earth, remember your body, wriggle your toes and remember they're there. We're all beautiful and shining inside, we don't need all the material crap to hold us up. Feel the beauty, of yourself and the world.
Yes, I'm coming to get rid of the rubbish, but here's the bit I find hard. Decluttering is very fashionable and feels good, but don't start buying again to fill in the lovely serene spaces. Things have a very sly habit of creeping in insidiously, and all those charity shops make it so easy to pick up a bargain, and quickly offload another brimming sackful. They actually encourage us to see objects as readily and easily disposable, with a tick in the box for helping charity a free ticket to buy more. DON'T!
Spend the time you have saved by minimizing your belongings on reconnecting with yourself, Find out what you're really like, journal, draw or meditate and just feel what it is to be you.Be still and breathe past where you usually would. I find it so hard to do this, surely it's wasting time, couldn't I be doing something more productive? Oh! productive, begone! Does the oak tree outside my window worry about being productive, or the squirrel scurrying past?
Reconnect with your family and friends. Sometimes I realise that a whole morning has been spent tidying and I have been pushing my kids aside to do it, or I turn down a lunch invitation because it just seems too much. Connection with others nourishes us deep within, unlike the quick shallow fix of a shopping trip.
Reconnect with nature. Now I realise that not everyone lives in a wood, so it's so much harder for some to do this. But try! Find a tree, a patch of wasteland, watch a sparrow hop on the roof, smile at a dandelion pushing it's way through the cracks in the pavement. We're all together, we're all unique important parts of our planet, but material possessions and concerns send us into a sleepwalk through life. We are dulled and sedated by the things we see in the shops and want, and buy. They literally make a barrier between us and our natural environment. If you can, walk, (don't take any stuff, well maybe a spare nappy for your baby if you must!) in the mountains, walk by the sea, walk in the woods, walk in the park, feel the bark of a tree, the raindrops on your cheek, the sea foam around your toes. That's what being alive is about!

We are not separate we are all connected.

I have just moved out of a very small space and will soon be moving back into another equally compact dwelling. It asonishes me how much stuff I have accumulated since my last move, and we now I have stacks of boxes sitting mutely in storage, all waiting to draw me in when I go and see them. I am SO DETERMINED to make new start and never accumulate again. Does that sound rash? Impossible? Unrealistic?
It's my challenge for the next year when we move to our new woodland dwelling, I am so heartily fed up of frittering away beautiful clear hours, days and weeks with sifting and shifting.

I don't want to die having only the shackles of my possessions around my neck like a noose. I want to fly free like a bird, to see clearly the shafts of golden sunlight, to hear the murmuring of my ancestors, to feel the rushing wind on my cheek, to love and be loved. What more is there?

Afterword: A few moments after I took the photo of Leo at the top of this post this morning, he crouched down in the grass, as I was rushing along, and said, with a dreamy look in his eye.
'Mummy stop, I just want to look at the dew drops sparkling in the sun.'
And I did. And it was lovely.

Food Choices, food treats

2011-11-08T04:44:00.000-08:00

Welcome to the November Carnival of Natural Parenting: Kids in the Kitchen
This post was written for inclusion in the monthly Carnival of Natural Parenting hosted by Hobo Mama and Code Name: Mama. This month our participants have shared how kids get involved in cooking and feeding. Please read to the end to find a list of links to the other carnival participants.

With material prosperity comes the ability to choose and refuse. When the threat of hunger or starvation has never cast its shadow at our tables, we have the luxury of developing discerning tastes. Our kids may love sushi, but hate curry; their mouths may water at the thought of a warm apple crumble but pucker at the thought of kale.

With a global food market at our doorstep, our tastes and 'needs' have become exotic and complex. I remember overhearing one of my children opening his lunchbox to check the contents before school.
'oh not mango again,' he sighed wearily.
Hugh and I exchanged horrified glances, what had we done wrong, that our child should have become so dismissive and bored about what to us was the ultimate luxury fruit treat. But then I didn't taste a mango until I was in my late teens. To me it seemed a luxury item to be savoured..well of course it's not, 2 for a pound in Tesco's doesn't encourage special treatment. You might even buy two and one will end up rotten in the compost bin.

Our children have the luxury of choice rather than the luxury of treats. Treats are every day now, the magic sparkle of their rarity dulled to everyday mundanity. I remember the excitement in my dad's voice when he described to me his first taste of banana after the second world war rationing ended when he was seven. The absolute thrill of the moment was as vivid as it had been all those years ago.
I love treats and I make sure that my children experience treats, but that does mean limiting their appearance to rare occasions, just to distil that exquisite pleasure of having something really special. I buy seasonally too, so the first taste of a summer raspberry just makes you sigh with pleasure and the memories of summers gone by, the first roast parsnip of autumn fills you with its mellow sweetness and promise of winter chills.

As for the luxury of choice, is it really a luxury or a burden? In our home, choice is pretty limited when it comes to food, as in, would you like nuts or apple on your porridge? Usually I just serve up. I believe that too much choice is confusing and burdensome for young children and puts them in an uncomfortable and uneasy position which they are not ready to take on. We are the adults, and hopefully have adequate nutritional knowledge to provide well for our children's dietary needs, and the creativity to make the food appealing. We also need the confidence to just decide ourselves what's best.

I make one meal and expect everyone to eat it. If they don't want to that's fine, but there will not be an alternative and no snacking until the next meal. Because there is no choice everyone does tend to eat, altough I do admit to having some sneaky delicious kale and swede ideas up my sleeve for those mainstays of our winter veg box! See end of post!

My method can be tough to carry out but it's simple and it works, it really does! Our choices with food in the west today may be tantalising and exciting but they have also contribuited to the pickiest kids in the world's history! And yes I have had a fussy one. Lily went through a long vegetable shy stage, and I had to take many of deep breaths to get through it, oh! and implement the two bite rule....two bites even if you don't like it, and do you know, before long, she did like it...whatever it was!
I love things to be simple, and I find too much choice overwhelming too!

But really my kids love food because we spend so much time in the kitchen. From the time they could peel a garlic clove or tip flour around they have all been cooking. Stirring, chopping, kneading, beating, creating. Leo stole some flour the other day when my back was turned and made a half decent, if rather solid raisin bread. Fred has spent vast amounts of the recent holiday cooking, (freeing me up to pack for our move!) rustling up a chicken and leek gluten free pie, and ratatouille stuffed pancakes, bread, and soup.Tansy is my steady reliable chopper and helper, always at my elbow with her little knife. It's so important for kids to see and be part of the process, what child is going to turn their noses up at something they have made themselves? Even if it does contains swede or kale!

Kale and swede solutions!

Pasties, a great way to involve the more challenging root vegeatables, chop small and vary the contents.
swede chips, yum, serve with homemade tomato sauce.
swede cakes, mash with butter and some potato and form into little cakes to fry.
Kale in sausage casserole, delicious and soft.
Kale and cream pasta sauce, boil tub of cream with 6 (less if nervous) cloves of garlic for five mins, then puree with bag of steamed kale. Lily's favourite pasta sauce.
Kale in anything really, chopped and added to lentil soups, vegeatable and grain mixes,
Kale chips, tear kale into pices and mix with scant olive oil, bake on a tray until crisp, they are delicious.

***
Visit Hobo Mama and Code Name: Mama to find out how you can participate in the next Carnival of Natural Parenting!
Please take time to read the submissions by the other carnival participants:
(This list will be live and updated by afternoon November 8 with all the carnival links.)

Baking & letting go — Cooking with kids can be a mess. Nadia at Red White & GREEN Mom is learning to relax, be patient, and have fun with the process.
Family feeding in Child of Mine — Lauren at Hobo Mama reviews Ellyn Satter's suggestions for appropriate feeding and points out where her family has problems following through.
Children with Knives! (And other Kitchen Tools) — Jennifer at True Confessions of a Real Mommy teaches her children how to safely use knives.
"Mommy, Can I Help?" — Kat at Loving {Almost} Every Moment writes about how she lets her kiddos help out with cooking, despite her {sometimes} lack of patience!
Solids the Second Time Around — Sheryl at Little Snowflakes recounts her experiences introducing solids to her second child.
The Adventure of Toddler Tastebuds — The Accidental Natural Mama shares a few things that helped her daughter develop an adventurous palate.
A Tradition of Love — Kelly at Becoming Crunchy looks forward to sharing the kitchen traditions passed on from her mom and has already found several ways to involve baby in the kitchen.
The Very Best Classroom — Alicia C. at McCrenshaw's Newest Thoughts reveals how her kitchen is more than a place to make food - it's a classroom!
Raising Little Chefs — Chef Mike guest posts on Natural Parents Network about how he went from a guy who couldn't cook to a chef who wanted to teach his boys to know how the food we love is made.
In the Kitchen with my kids — Isil at Smiling like Sunshine shares a delicious soup recipe that her kids love.
Papa, the Pancake Artist — Papa's making an incredible breakfast over at Our Mindful Life.
Kids won't eat salad? Try this one! — Tat at Mum in Search is sharing her children's favourite salad recipe.
Recipe For a Great Relationship — Cooking with kids is about feeding hearts as well as bellies, writes Hannah at Wild Parenting.
The Ritual of Mealtimes — Syenna at Gently Parenting Twins writes about the significance of mealtimes in her family’s daily rhythm.
Kid, Meet Food. Food, Kid. — Alburnet at What's Next? panicks about passing on her food "issues" to her offspring.
Growing Up in the Kitchen — Cassie at There's a Pickle in My Life shares how her son is growing up in the kitchen.
Harvesting Corn and History — From Kenna at School Garden Year: The kids in the school garden harvest their corn and learn how much history grows in their food.
My Guiding Principles for Teaching my Child about Food — Tree at Mom Grooves uses these guiding principles to give her daughter a love of good food and an understanding of nutrition as well as to empower her to make the best choices for her body.
Kitchen Control — Amanda at Let's Take the Metro writes about her struggles to relinquish control in the kitchen to her children.
Food — Emma at Your Fonder Heart lets her seven month old teach her how to feed a baby.
Kitchen Fun? — Adrienne at Mommying My Way questions how much fun she can have in a non-functional kitchen, while trying to remain positive about the blessings of cooking for her family.
Kitchen Adventures — Erica at ChildOrganics shares fun ways to connect with your kids in the kitchen.
Kids in the Kitchen: Finding the Right Tools — Melissa at Vibrant Wanderings shares some of her favorite child-sized kitchen gadgets and where to find them.
The Kitchen Classroom — Laura at Authentic Parenting knows that everything your kids want to learn is at the end of the ladle.
Kids in the Kitchen — Luschka from Diary of a First Child talks about the role of the kitchen in family communication and shares fun kitchen activities for the under two.
Our Kitchen is an Unschooling Classroom. — Terri at Child of the Nature Isle explores the many ways her kitchen has become a rich environment for learning.
Montessori-Inspired Food Preparation for Preschoolers — Deb Chitwood at Living Montessori Now shares lots of resources for using Montessori food preparation activities for young children in the kitchen.
My Little Healthy Eater — Christine at African Babies Don't Cry shares her research on what is the best first food for babies, and includes a healthy and yummy breakfast recipe.
Two Boys and Papa in the Kitchen: Recipe for Disaster? — MudpieMama shares all about her fears, joys and discoveries when the boys and handsome hubby took over the kitchen.
Food choices, Food treats — Henrietta at Angel Wings and Herb Tea shares her family's relationship with food.
learning to eat — Catherine at learner mummy reflects on little M's first adventures with food.
The Night My 7-Year-Old Made Dinner — Melodie at Breastfeeding Moms Unite! shares how her 7-year-old daughter surprised everyone by turning what started as an idea to play restaurant into pulling off making supper for her family.
Cooking With a High-Needs Toddler — Sylvia at MaMammalia describes how Montessori-inspired activities and a bit of acceptance have helped her overcome hurdles in cooking while caring for a "high-needs" child.
Kids in the Kitchen – teaching healthy food choices — Brenna at Almost All The Truth shares her belief in the importance of getting kids into the kitchen using her favorite cookbook for kids to develop healthy food choices now and hopefully into the future.
Make Milk, Not War — Tamara at Tea for Three remembers the daily food fights as she struggled to feed a picky eater.
teaching baby birds about good food. — Sarah at Small Bird on Fire writes about the ways in which her family chooses to gently teach their son how to make wise food decisions.
5 Ways to Enhance Your Baby or Young Toddler's Relationship with Food — Charise at I Thought I Knew Mama shares simple ways to give your child a healthy beginning to her lifelong relationship with food.
Toddler at the Table: 10 Creative Solutions — Moorea at Mamalady shares tips for preventing meal-time power struggles.
How My Child Takes Responsibility During His Mealtime... — Jenny @ I'm a full-time mummy shares how she teaches and encourages her 32 months old son on adopting good manners and responsibilities during his mealtimes...
Kids in the Kitchen: 6 Tips Plus a Recipe — Kristin at Intrepid Murmurings shares six tips for overcoming some of the the difficulties of cooking with multiple young sous chefs, and a recipe they all can agree on!
How BLW has made me a better parent — Zoe at Mummykins shares how baby-led weaning has changed her approach to parenting.
My Budding Chef — Jenny at Chronicles of a Nursing Mom is no cook but is happy that her daughter has shown an inclination and manages to whip up yummy goodies for their family.
Kids in the Kitchen: An Activity for Every Age — Gaby from Tmuffin describes how she keeps her kids busy in the kitchen, whether they are one week old or two years old.
The Phantastically Mutlipurposed Phyllo — Ana at Pandamoly shares how Phyllo is used to create enticing dishes at home! Anything can be made into a Struedel!
Kitchen Kids — Laura from A Pug in the Kitchen shares her children's most favorite recipe to make, experience and eat.
Independence vs. Connection in the Kitchen: won't you please get yourself your own snack already? — Lisa at Organic Baby Atlanta wishes her daughter would just go make a mess in the kitchen. But her daughter only wants to do it together.
Grandma Rose's Kitchen — Abbie at Farmer's Daughter reminisces about her childhood and dreams of filling her kitchen with people, love, noise, and messes.
Healthy Food Choices for Kids — Jorje offers one way to encourage children to make their own healthy food choices at MommaJorje.com.
Cooking food to thrive rather than survive — Phoebe at Little Tinker Tales is trying to foster a lifetime of good food habits by teaching her children about the importance of avoiding junk, cooking healthy meals, and learning about the whole food process.
Evolution of a self-led eater — Sheila at A Gift Universe shares the story of how her son grew from nursing around the clock to eating everything in sight, without her having to push.
10 Ways Tiny Helps In The Kitchen — Jennifer at Hybrid Rasta Mama explores the ways in which her toddler actively participates in kitchen-related activities.
The Complexity of Feeding a Child — Feeding children a healthy diet is no straight-forward task, but Lisa at My World Edenwild shares some general guidelines to help your child thrive.
Lactation Cookies — That Mama Gretchen shares a fun recipe that will benefit both mamas and babies!
50 of the Best Books, Websites, & Resources to Inspire Kids in the Kitchen — Need inspiration to get your kids in the kitchen? Dionna at Code Name: Mama rounds up some of the best books and websites that can serve as a source for ideas, recipes, and cooking with littles fun.
A 4-year-old's smoothie recipe — Jen at Grow With Graces and her son set out to make a smoothie without the usual ingredients. She let him improvise. See how it turned out.
Independent Food Preparation (My Toddler Can Do That?) — Megan at Montessori Moments shares simple ways for children to prepare their own healthy snacks.
Follow Your Gut — Amy at Anktangle shares her philosophy about intuitive eating, and how she's trying to foster her son's trust in his own inner wisdom when he feels hungry.
A TODDLER-STYLE LUNCH + RECIPE — Manic Mrs. Stone photographs how to have messy fun during lunchtime with a helpful toddler.

Moving day

2011-11-04T14:50:00.000-07:00

With exam butterflies in my belly I woke.
I wanted to stay in bed and knit.
I was too busy to feel anything I just had to keep packing, and shifting stuff.
At tea break I sunk into my knitting like a feather bed,
And then kept on packing and shifting stuff.
So much stuff.
Late afternoon, we staggered through the tiny winding lanes pulling a horse box (obviously the car was pulling, just realised how that sounded)
And a HOUSE was waiting for us, a two month stay in a real house before plunging into a muddy January wood.
And a bottle of wine, and firewood piled round the fire.
We baked potatoes in the Aga and wheedled tired children to their beds, a Milly molly mandy story later.
Not for Fred, he went to parcours, and wanted to demonstrate a back flip off the counter on his return at 10pm. I said NO.
Hugh and I were grateful for a beautiful somewhere to stay, we were grateful for our time in the woods and the countless lessons that we have learnt there.
The house feels so HUGE.
In the evening I turned my back on the boxes and carried on knitting.
Knitting, in five minute snatches has kept my sanity this past week, comforting, repetitive, creative soothing. Even when a hundred tasks want to snatch my mind and body, the sofa and the knitting needles are there, just waiting patiently.
And Tansy has some mittens!

Lily's shelf

2011-10-31T16:06:00.000-07:00

I have spent large parts of this holiday has been packing, sorting, reducing, rationalizing stuff. Boxes of things have been put aside for when we move onto the land in January, boxes have been put on another side to be taken for immediate use in the new house later this week. Slowly, slowly our shelves are emptying. But one shelf is still the same. In fact it hasn't really changed in essence since June 2009. It's Lily's shelf.
When Lily was alive she shared a bedroom with Tansy, and as the older sister appropriated most of the available storage space. As we live in a mobile home right now, this amounted to three of the four shelves in their room and a 'dressing table' area where she had a season table. Big sections of the shared wardrobe space were filled with her clothes, while Tansy happily squeezed into the remaining areas.

After the accident, everything stayed the same, clothes in the wardrobe, season table, books, dolls, jewellry boxes, all in the same place. Except the top bunk was empty. Tansy continued to use one shelf for her belongings and squeeze her clothes into limited areas of wardrobe space. After a few months, I condensed Lily's clothes onto one shelf, painfully removing a few which weren't her favourites, passing some over to her dad in North Devon.
Then we made a little dolls house for Tansy's birthday, where could it go? Slowly.. item by item I moved the season table, her little purple lizard, the vase of flowers, the coloured cloths, and Tansy's dolls settled in.
And so it has gone, over the last two years and four months, bit by bit, all physical evidence of Lily's presence in that room has been erased.
The clothes had to go when Leo moved in, a year after her accident. I hated not to see them in the wardrobe so I could pretend just for a briefest moment that she was still here. Even though Icouldn't even bury my nose in them to capture some tangible wisp of a Lily scent as they had started to turn musty.
I hated that her precious top shelf near her bunk was cleared of her horses and notebooks and crochet work, to make way for Tansy to move up. I couldn't stand next to her bed any more and pretend that she was still there needing a knee massage for her growing pains, or wanting me to look through the pictures of her drawing book with her.

But there's still one shelf left, Lily's shelf. The contents has ebbed and flowed slightly as other children borrow items and then put others back. but in essence it is hers.
Her music box, her marbling kit, some books, her puppets which I made for her last Christmas present, her magnets, a painted plate..... Most of her personal things are now in a carved wooden chest in the sitting room but I could never bear to empty her bedroom shelf. Proof that she was once there, lived and laughed and cried and played there. Was grumpy and wouldn't go to sleep, was loving and cuddled with Tansy and Leo in bed, was upset when I was cross with her.

The problem is, that I now have to empty the shelf, as in two or three days we will no longer live here, and her bedroom will no longer exist. In any new house, or dwelling that we live in from now on there will never be a place that Lily has inhabited, there will be no memories of her making beads at the table or looking at her flower fairy books in bed or eating her dinner with Leo perched on her lap.

For the rest of my life I will live in a place that Lily has not been in.

And even as I write these words I know they are not true, not really. Lily will always be here with us, wherever we are. Not the physical little seven year old girl who hated cooked raisins and mushrooms, but loved hawthorn leaves in spring, not her, but the intangible, undefinable, sparkling presence of Lily who makes herself known to us in so many ways, so often. Who still wants to be with us and still loves us, wherever we are.

A bedroom is just a bedroom, a shelf is just a shelf, her spirit is stronger and more enduring than that, and so are we.

Doing without and making do

2011-10-29T14:30:00.000-07:00

Doing without something that we usually take for granted, like electricity or running hot water, or bedrooms or bathrooms is a challenge I (rather oddly) enjoy. Although I might moan if the washing machine freezes in winter or the door falls off secretly I quite relish getting the buckets out and scrubbing away! I know it's wierd! But as if by magic,the washing pile is always smaller when I hand wash, and I am far more aware of what I'm washing, hmm, funny that one....

At the moment we have run out of the giant bottles of calor gas which heat our water. We have them delivered to the edge of the wood, then have to maneouvre them in along the little path into our clearing. As we are about to move, it was generally deemed not worth dragging a new bottle in, and as I am generally keen to reduce our reliance on non renewable fuels anyway, I was quite happy to do without. Now, I keep a huge cauldron of water on the woodburner and dole it out like a miser in giant tin cups. We have all experienced the joys of 'the splash bath' (standing in the shower and pouring tin mugs of water around) and I feel as if I have a new child to tend to, as I nurse the woodburner to just the right temperature and plan water use, monitoring how much has been used for hand washing so I can still do the washing up later on.

Strangely, rather than cursing the lack of easy quick hot water, I have felt more grateful for the water we do have. It feels more like the precious resource it is rather than an expendable commodity. The time I spend fussing over it builds my relationship with it; connects me with it, and I don't take it for granted. The sentiment is spreading....one of my children just asked me what he could do with last night's hot water bottle water, as it seemed wasteful to just chuck it away. Scarcity of resources engenders reverence and care, well it should, though we could learn a thing or two about oil.

It was the same in our yurt, where we lived for six months in 2008. For the first few weeks we had only an outside cold tap a short distance from where we cooked, and bucketed everything in. Finally Hugh found time to make an outdoor sink and we had running (albeit still outside) water. The moment Hugh turned the tap on for the first time felt like a festival, everyone was so excited and we all felt so grateful (well mainly me) that we weren't carrying heavy buckets every day. Weeks earlier we had been living in a comfortable house with hot baths on tap, but the period of abstinence completely changed our relationship to water, and lots of other things.

We all loved our tin baths! (the adults had theirs indoors by candlelight)

In tandem with our appreciation for a precious resource, and a greater connection with water, I did also realise what tough, time consuming labour it is, not having running water. In my time at the yurt, I found it hard to find time to write much, or have any personal creative time, and large parts of my day were spent kneeling by nappy buckets, sluicing and scrubbing! I felt connected by invisible threads to women all around the world who do expend huge amounts of energy fetching and carrying water and scrubbing things, babies, dishes, clothes....In fact I felt connected to everything, the water, the clothes, my sore hands, my knees on the hard ground. I was aware. It wasn't a bad feeling.
The problem is my life is too fast. I felt as if I was living in the 19th century at the yurt whilst still trying to maintain 21st century speed in all other areas of my life. Trying to maintain the two in parallel was exhausting.

What am I trying to say? I'm not really sure! A large bit of me longs to live simply and sparsely, paring down the dashing, accumulating, achieving parts of my life to spend time calmly creating what I need, with my own hands. Clean clothes, delicious food, toys for the children, knitwear, medicine, candles, toiletries......art work, crafts. My labour and time, not money or a switch. The problem is that I do try to do all this, but also dash around and put pressure on myself to achieve as well. Two life styles in opposition?

I do know that doing without a so called 'necessity' such as electricity or running water can bring me down to earth with a big flash of realisation about just how disconnected we have all become from what is real in our lives. The easier and quicker tasks are to achieve, the less I engage with them and the more I try to cram in. I don't have to use my ingenuity and creativity to work out how to do something or develop a system to cope with a difficult task.
The work involved to fill the gap left when I can't just flick a switch does help me to slowly slowly think about radical changes that I can make towards simplifying and enriching my life.

Times are changing for us.
How about you, do you find satisfaction from doing without? Do you become more creative and have fun from making do?

Once upon a time

2011-10-23T14:05:00.000-07:00

Once upon a time there was a little child.. This child was three, and had a sore finger which was threatening to turn septic. It bothered the little child, and the kind mama put some special herbal cream and drops on it every night to help it heal. All was well and the little child enjoyed having the soothing salve smoothed on to the sore finger at bed time.
One night however, the little child was especially tired, after a long busy day with friends, and everyone was tired and a little cranky. The kind mama had a headache and lots of fractious, squabbly children to put to bed, she also had at least ten very important tasks which she needed to complete that evening. The kind papa was out. Bed time stories were read, teeth were cleaned and after alot of effort and struggle, the little child was snuggled into bed with Sleepy the doll.
'Time for the magic cream to make your finger better', announced the mama in what she hoped were bright, breezy and encouraging tones. (Were they laced with a little exhaustion and desperation? Maybe)
' No! 'said the little child and hid under the covers
'Now darling', began the mother in as calm and reasonable voice as she could muster 'you know we must put your cream on or your finger will not heal'
'No,' the child buried further down and began to cry.
This exchange was repeated a few more times until the kind mother felt her blood begin to boil, just a bit. The child was screaming and sweaty under the bed clothes.

Now the kind mama had seen the sore finger and knew that it was quite nasty, and the cream really did need to go on. She could also feel white hot anger and frustration rising up inside her like a simmering volcano, her head seemed too small for what was inside. She could only think of two options, one, admit defeat and leave the child and the festering finger to sob themselves to sleep; two, she could rip back the bed covers and forcibly apply the cream. Neither option seemed that appealing, and both were guaranteed to make both herself and the child feel worse. However she didn't have the energy for finding another option.

Fortunately, just at that moment, the kind mama remembered to breathe, she felt her feet on the ground and looked at the sobbing heap of bed clothes below her, and the voice of her child's wise nursery teacher floated breezily through all the volcanic activity in her head.
'Just tell a story, that's what I always say to parents, it's very easy, it always works...,'
And right after that, a little mouse scampered in to the tired mama's busy brain and she took a deep breath started to tell his story.

A little mouse had found some delicious cheese and, tempted, had ventured too close and caught his beautiful long tail in a trap. A kindly grandfather rat was passing by and helped the young mouse free himself, and then took him home to his wife who boiled up some magical healing herbs on the fire. The rats took the herbs and some bandages and gently put them on the sore tail, and invited the little mouse to come back each day to have fresh herbs put on until it was better. The grandfather rat showed the little mouse his own paw, which he had healed a long time before, after his own mishap with a human trap. Before long the little mouse was well and his mother sent round a pot of hazel nut preserve to thank the rats for their kindness.

About half way through the story, the little child emerged from beneath the covers, and with wide, wet blinking eyes, silently held out the sore finger for the cream to be applied. The wise mama, never pausing in her tale, swiftly smoothed on the healing salve and calmly continued until the end of the story.
She kissed her child lovingly goodnight and left the bedroom, calmed, energised and strangely serene. The child drifted to sleep.
And that's a true story!

I'd love to hear about your tales of the amazing healing power of stories

Where we live, and where we are leaving

2011-10-20T14:54:00.000-07:00

This is where we have lived for three years, a mobile home in the middle of a wood in South Devon. We arrived as a family of six, fresh from our 18 foot yurt on Dartmoor, and before that our five bedroom house in North Devon!

In just under two weeks we will leave as a family of five for a two month respite in a house, courtesy of some lovely friends, before moving onto our own piece of woodland nearby; this time in an eclectic blend of a dwelling..part timber, part caravan, part bender. The first two parts of the eclectic blend are already in place, and the third part, the bender, will be built when Hugh returns from a ten day wilderness survival quest in the Pyrenees. I will be busy harvesting hazel poles in the meantime and chopping firewood, lots and lots and lots. Ready for a hungry woodburner and a cosy home.

It's so strange to think about leaving, my heart feels settled here like nowhere else. We have very kindly been allowed to live here by some more lovely friends, well past our expected stay of six months, and for me it will be hard to go, I have felt so close to life here, close to my family, close to the earth. Part of the surging swell of the year's cycle.

Life is lived close to the weather, we feel the spiky frosts through the thin walls and huddle close to the fire in woollen long john's, snuggle deep under the blankets for stories and hot chocolate. We know the winter so thoroughly, the dazzling ice ferns painted on our windows, the ice in the water pipes. We live the winter.

Life is lived close to the sunny open easy summer days, pattering barefoot, picking lettuce, a jay noisily flustering away among the trees, a precious blue feather caught in the ferns. The sun soaks us, fills us until we drift away into the cool trees quiet in the sun, dappled and entrancing. A golden bug, a shimmering damsel fly, the flutter of wings among the flowers. We live the summer,

Life is lived among the scents of May, the ringing of the bluest fairy bells, the promise of the unfurling burgeoning wood, spring swirls around us, dances with us, spins us around in the dizzying energy of new life, eggs crack among the leaves. We live the spring.

And we live autumn now, the settling down grumbling surge of the earth shifting under its leaf mantle, gathering, enfolding, hurrying to rest before the winter chills. Madcapping squirrels and their autumn carnival, chestnuts cracking in the fire,

We feel the change of the earth, the movement of the seasons here. We cannot escape the chills and changes, the mud and the hurried night trip outside in sheets of rain. We live in a very small space but have many acres of trees around us....outside happens alot.

Every corner of the wood, every corner of our home, holds a memory, an occasion, the skeleton of a den, a forgotten birthday song, a whispered secret, a lilting lullaby. Laughings, cryings, bakings, makings, firewood foragings, tree scrambling days, we have lived so much here. This wood has held so many tears and ragings so much loving and sighing, so much life in all its tragic and majestic complexity, in all its magnificent splendour. The flow of life, which moves on.. and on, and with us and through us and never ends.

And so we will move on.

Moments of solace

2011-10-16T05:37:00.000-07:00

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....

When the light turns blue

2011-10-08T14:36:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago I was driving to school for what felt like the tenth time that day to pick up the final batch of children. My mind was busy with a hundred concerns, such as what to cook for dinner and how to survive without a bedroom, and did I bring that cheque, and oh God I forgot the form that had to be handed in yesterday, will I have time to squeeze in a quick phone call at school..where is my phone?
You get the picture.
I was one hundred and ten percent in head mode and needed someone to comb my brain smooth and clear with a silken brush and remind me that actually I have a body and don't need to exist entirely in my head.
And so it was in that frame of mind that I was held up half way to school by traffic lights. I grabbed my phone.. a few precious seconds to tick something off my to do list. Texting, texting ......

'Mummy what happens when the light turns blue?'

There was someone in the back.. I'd almost forgotten, it was Leo.

'Well there isn't a blue light Leo, just red, yellow and green.' Why was my predictive texting not letting me write what I want?

'But mummy what does happen when it turns blue?'
I abandoned my texting, as the combination of trying to work out how to write thankyou (my phone seemed to be defeated by this challenge) listen to Leo and start driving again, was proving too much for me. I drove.

And then something changed.

What it was I can't remember, was it a glimpse of a glistening bunch of Guelder Rose berries in the hedgerow, or Leo's round eyes, trying to catch mine in the rear view mirror. Maybe I just managed to breathe a little deeper.

Instead of launching into a rapid fire educational explanation of what the red, green and amber light do in our practical world, I listened to Leo, really listened, and of course knew what he meant. Knew in my heart, not in my head. He didn't want rational, thought based answers, packed with nutritious information and facts. He doesn't have to exist in that reality yet. For him, anything is possible,
The traffic slowed again and I turned round briefly and whispered,

'Leo, when the light turns blue we have to fly'
His face lit up and his eyes shone, his whole body shivered in excitement..that was the answer he wanted.
We spent the rest of the journey to school in a blissful golden land of wings and blue lights. I felt much better, I'm guessing Leo did too.
I was reminded of a very similar incident when Tansy was tiny and wanted to know what the black tube running through our garden was. When I told her that it was the hosepipe to water the plants with, she actually looked at me as if I was slightly crazy. It took a few promptings from her before I breathed, left my head, and said,
'Well actually Tansy, it's a huge shiny snake that lives in the buddlea bushes and if you look carefully you might find her nest of babies.' The same shining eyes, the same shiver of excitement.

We live in the age of Too Much Information, it is a 21st century god
Every day, every hour, every minute, we are bombarded, attacked, cajoled, coerced, persuaded, by information..so much, so much, and how handy, just at our fingertips, at the touch of a button, day and night. The internet is a vast gluttons paradise, trillions of luscious morsels, to gorge on without ceasing, leaving us full, uncomfortable, dissatisfied and uneasily wanting more. Bloated and saturated. And yet we keep feeding. And we force feed our children.

It's hard not to do. How many times have I had to stop myself imparting an impromptu little educational speech? I don't seem to need much encouragement. An innocent little wide eyed question.. and Boom ...straight into lots of facts,

'Ah well in this case you see if you put this bit in here then x travels more slowly and sometimes this affects y, or in cold weather, z, and then .....' then I see the glazed, quizzical look in my younger children's eyes and stop.
But I am getting better, and with the little ones, often give the briefest of answers, or a story...or a cuddle. I want to let their minds stay free and dreamy and full of magic for as long as possible. Our children's minds are becoming as cluttered and overburdened as their toy cupboards, bursting with broken 'educational' toys. Little children are happier 'doing' not thinking..there's plenty of time to think later.

Do we really want them to think as much as we do? Do they need to know so much so quickly? Does it make us happy? Will it make them happy? What do you think?

Tansy

2011-10-03T14:09:00.000-07:00

One of my favourite books as a child was a series of books by Elizabeth Enright, chronicling the lives of the Melendy family, a rambunctuous brood of four children in 1940's New York State. I loved those books for their simple idyllic portrayal of a childhood full of busy family games and adventures. As an only child myself I was captivated by their lives. One of their favourite games was to describe someone they knew, as a vegetable, fruit or food, and then challenge the rest of the family to guess who the person was.

From then on I often felt that a particular food item or even a colour or animal just seemed to encapsulate a certain person.

Yesterday was Tansy's 6th birthday. Before I got up in the morning I made a promise to myself that my priority was not to rush around getting stressed about making party food or organising twenty games, but to ensure Tansy could glide calmly and happily through her day. So I started to think about her, and feel her presence around the home. When I thought of Tansy I thought of a bowl of creamy porridge, warm, sweet and uncomplicated. Or a plump turtle dove, burbling softly on a spring evening. Of a yellow daffodil opening its shy, closed night petals to the sun.

When I started this blog I decided that I was not going to overly expose my children's characters or relay endless personal anecdotes about them, but I celebrated Tansy's steady, kind, sunny and determined disposition yesterday, and remembered her birth and early baby days as some of the most tranquil of my life.

Tansy was my first home birth and quite late to arrive. I spent the last weeks of pregnancy following the hypnobirthing program and doing daily relaxation exercises. Everything was calm. But the midwives had started to moot dates for me to be induced in hospital, so one Saturday, when I knew my favourite one was on duty, I ate lots of chilli, walked up lots of hills, drank lots of herbs and did all those things which we do when we need our babies to come out on their own, without medical 'help.'

As I cleaned my teeth that night I suddenly found myself on my hands and knees in the bathroom with a contraction, and an hour and a half later Tansy calmly emerged in my bed. My CD of birthing affirmations echoed around the room as with each contraction I dropped deeper into my well practised relaxation. My previous two birthings had been quick and straight forward, but agonisingly painful. With Tansy my contractions were strong but not painful and I could feel the presence of the inspiring mothers in my favourite birthing bible, Spiritual Miwifery by Ina May Gaskin, glowing all around me! Pain was the result of a tense body and my own expectations of childbirth, I was relieved that it didn't always have to be that way.

Minutes after the birth I was cosy in my own bed, toast, tea and beautiful baby in my arms, and Hugh ran a lavender bath for me next door. I felt blessed and elated to spend the rest of the night sleeping three in a bed, and to pass much of the following week five in a bed as we all read stories, made paper aeroplanes and cuddled a tiny Tansy.
Life was calm and easy then. Freddie and Lily walked across the road every morning to the village school, I cooked soup and nursed Tansy in the rocking chair in our big kitchen, and sat in the warm October sun among the autumn flowers in our garden. I remember those days with fondness and gratitude. The golden baby days of Tansy..
Happy Birthday love.

Time passes

2011-09-25T13:47:00.000-07:00

Time passes. Time rushes on its winged feet, not bothering to check if I want to hop off and wait for a while. Day after day gallops by, dragging me on, a reluctant passenger, caught in the whirlwind of school runs, washing, cleaning, answering a hundred needy calls.
The seasons change, the rosebay willowherb turns to cotton wool in the hedgerows, the squirrels leap past our windows in a nut induced frenzy. It's autumn yet again and the days of summer have faded and gone.

It was close to midsummer's day when Lily left us, two years ago. A blue June sky and a sunset emblazoned with glorious gold to welcome her onto her new path. But the sun has kept on setting, over and over again and no one thought to ask if I minded. How could the sun know that I wanted to be suspended in an eternal June, where the foxgloves bloom forever on my daughters fingers and I wondered if she had enough suncream on her shoulders?

With the autumn mists and spider webs spun across my path comes another departure: from the last summer memories of Lily. This is the third summer I have had to leave without her, to walk into winter with only three children by my side. And each time autumn comes we travel further and further away from the physical reality of her. Those last walks by the river, the last dentist appointment a few days before her accident, the last school pick ups when she brought home origami doves that she had made for whitsun....Each year these memories seem to drop a little further into the mists, each year it is harder to move away from her. Each year, autumn creeps on insidiously, with its rosy fruits and golden leaves. And I mourn the loss of the wild roses and bright days of midsummer, so inexorably entwined with our last days with Lily.

And the seasons will keep changing, and moving, the years will keep rolling past and we will move on too. Much as I sometimes long to be held in a timeless June with my four children dancing around my feet, the reality is that Freddie, Tansy and Leo are growing and changing, and so are we. Our lives on earth are not over and we still have our paths to follow.
Lily's path led her away from her earthly existence into a realm which is very close by. Our worlds are not as separate we fear, but our focus on 'doing' and 'thinking' effectively blocks any connection between the two. If we can take a break from the frenetic, busy and head centred patterns of our material lives and listen with a quiet heart, with an open heart, what whispers will we hear?

Wake up Call

2011-09-20T12:56:00.000-07:00

It was an eye opening weekend. While I was busy foraging for nettles last thursday, (see last post) and connecting with nature spirits and the earth, Hugh was connecting with the earth in a different way.

Very soon, we have to leave the wood we live in, and have been very lucky to find an acre of woodland nearby to buy. The land there is sloping, and the tiny level clearing already there was really not big enough for even the most low impact shelter.
Together, Hugh and I decided that some trees would have to be felled, and a days work with a digger organised, to make room for our living space.

Last Thursday was digger day. At the weekend I went over with Hugh to see what had been done and I realised how different our weeks had been.

A huge scar was slashed across the wood, and something resembling a raw, minature runway slewed away from us and I wept for the tiny green clearing that had been destroyed. Tree stumps like ragged graves stood around... reluctant sentries for their new domain. Innocent that I am, I had not realised how much earth and shillet one digger can move in an eight hour day..

The irony of our very different Thursdays had not escaped me. How serene and probably very self satisfied I had felt as I gathered food and medicine for the family, how calm and centred Leo and I had been, as we made little homes for the fairies and sang to the plant spirits.

Meanwhile Hugh had worked so hard felling trees. Each night he came home white with fatigue, and on the day the digger driver came in Hugh managed to get himself 8 stitches in his knee as he was pulling the saw out of a Hornbeam tree. The digger driver had worked so hard, packing as much as he could into one day's labour. And I could only cry and shout how horrible it was. To be responsible for such visible destruction felt like such a terrible burden. To blast into a wood and change so much, to make such a big mark on nature, I think we both felt sick to the stomach.
Everything felt clunky and scratchy and uncomfortable.

It was time for coffee. I drink about one cup every month and it was definitely that time of the month...in more ways than one!
At our lovely local farm shop Hugh and I sat in the sunshine and drank coffee and talked about what had happened.

And what we realised is this:

In our lives we are not used to seeing the direct result of our actions. So many of our regular day to day activities have far reaching implications and consequences all over the globe...but we do not see those consequences.

We drive cars, which run on oil but we don't see the physical devastation that the extraction process causes.
We buy clothes but we do not see the young migrant worker in a Chinese sweatshop who makes them,, from cotton harvested by children in Uzbekistan.
We drink coffee, but we do not see the plantation in Guatemala where babies of the indigenous workers are often inadvertantly sprayed with pesticide, as they lie asleep in the shade of the coffee plants.
We use paper, and buy books but we do not see the swathes of clearcut forest that has been pulped to produce them.
We use electricity but we do not see the tonnes of fossil fuels which are burnt to generate it, or the mines it comes from, or the effects of the burning....

And so on. That is what our lives are like. Every day we indirectly cause destruction and devastation and discomfort all over the world. But because we don't see it, we can sleepwalk through our sanitised, convenient and plasticized lives and ignore it.

We don't have to ignore it. We can become aware that our actions do have consequences and we can take steps to reduce our destructive and enormous footprint on the earth. We can be aware that elements of our lives have become so disconnected from the earth that we have forgotten that we are part of it.
We are part of the earth, as much but not more than any cat, mouse, grasshopper, dandelion or hornbeam tree. All important, all equal.

So back to our poor clearing we went and thought about what we would build on the land, a low impact bender like shelter to begin with, whilst drawing up plans for a straw bale earth shelter in the medium term.
We talked about the fruit bushes we would grow, the herbs, vegetables and chickens and goats we could raise.
We talked about how we would use the felled timber, for floor boards, for bowl making, for firewood, to cook on and keep us warm.
We imagined the land in a year, loved, softened, flourishing. We felt connected to the land and could see the results of our actions as part of a holistic long term vision to nurture it and belong to it.

We felt content to be responsible caretakers for the land.

Thankyou (and foraging)

2011-09-15T14:13:00.000-07:00

I seem to be unable to reply to comments at the moment, either due to my incompetence and inexperience or a problem with Blogger, but I wanted to thank so much everyone who responded to my last post.

I received a deluge of messages, mostly via e-mail or on facebook..(it's also ok to comment here) offering words of love and support. It felt like a huge step, not only to start the blog, but also write publicly about such personal and emotional issues. I had thought about posting about Lily again today and in some ways it would seem appropriate.

However, in my life, grief, memories and feelings of loss are inextricably woven into a larger tapestry, and the colour of the weft threads changes day by day. Sometimes the weaving is bright and shining, sometimes subtle and dulled. The woven cloth is still there on the loom but each new row is different.
And so today, the sun shone and Leo and I went......foraging

FORAGING

With the new school year come new routines and rhythms. Thursday is Leo's Mummy Day. With sister and brother at kindergarten and school all day, Leo gets some rare time alone with me, and woe betide anyone else who wants to have a conversation with me on that day which lasts longer than five minutes! We sometimes do special trips, often just enjoy home... but today it was warm, bright and some of my herb jars needed filling.

I had nettles on my mind as I dropped the older ones off this morning. Leo is a very rewarding foraging companion and I wanted to take advantage of what I call the second Spring of early autumn. Plants that have been cut down some time ago send out a last flush of fresh spring like growth, providing supplies to see me through the winter. Usually at this time of year a nettle will have run to seed and look very different

but today didn't want the seeds..I will soon..only the soft leaves.

The energy in these leaves feels weaker than those fiery, thrusting, ferocious new shoots of the true spring, but as I wasn't very organised then, I am relying on these frailer autumn progeny to fill my jars for teas and oils and vinegars.

As always on a foraging expedition, there was a sense of excitement. Yet there was also a feeling of empowerment to be able to provide food and medicine for my family for free and I felt blessed to live in beautiful Devon which provides me with plentiful weeds!

Our first patch of nettles were still dewy, shyly fresh from their night under the moon. I picked these for tonight's dinner. Preserving wet plants by drying or storing in oil causes mould problems, but for nettle risotto they are fine.

Leo checked in that I had asked the nettle fairy permission (I had) but his gentle reminder made me pause to remember the times when I hadn't. I usually get stung, and the energy surrounding the harvesting feels clunky and awkward. Harvesting medicine is a chance for us to connect with the universal flow of energy which unites us all,(including nettles) and it is very humbling to honour the plants in this way. Today there were no stings

and we found several sunny dry patches of lovely leaves to process back at home.

My hair feels quite neglected most of the time and I have promised myself to give it some new autumn energy. Once I had put together some of our other pickings to make tea,

From right, clockwise, nettles, rose petals, plantain, comfrey

I found my extremely battered and beloved copy of Healing wise by Susun Weed http://www.susunweed.com/ and made nettle hair oil. My leaves were totally dry and, gathered just after the dew had dried, at optimum picking time. I gently snipped enough to fill and old tahini jar, and filled again with olive oil (could be almond) pushing them down under the oil with a wooden spoon to dislodge bubbles. Is is important for the plant material in any oil to be totally submerged or they will mould.

On a window sill for a moon cycle (and I should have started the oil at new moon to take advantage of the waxing energies and forces of the moon) and I shall massage some into my scalp a couple of hours before I wash my hair and rinse with nettle lotion to finish.
I divided the remainder of my harvest in two and while half made dinner, lovely risotto, the other I dried for winter teas. How wonderful to open a jar of home gathered herbs in January, and how pale and wan a tea bag seems!

Lily's birthday

2011-09-13T00:52:00.000-07:00

Ten years ago today, in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, my daughter Lily was born. The foot and mouth crisis in the UK was slowly drawing to close. It was a calamitous year.

Lily was born so swiftly that I hardly realised I had given birth..'Look down, look down' the midwife said, and there she was, a tiny waxy little girl. After giving birth to a boy, Freddie, two and a half years earlier, I had been (secretly) hoping for a daughter...my Lily

I could tell you so many things about Lily.

How, as a newborn she cried every evening but stopped if I took her outside to see the moon.

How she walked on her first birthday...although she didn't really want to be any where but my arms until she was three.

How she called orchids, 'awkwards' and buttercups 'hiccups' until she was nearly in school.

How she kept a little wooden fox by her bed because 'she saw foxes in the night' and was scared.

I could tell you that she was solemn with strangers, but kind, loving and happy at home and with friends. And she talked about poo as much as any other child.

I could tell you about how she used to refuse her spinach at dinner but happily browse on pennywort and hawthorn leaves in spring.

And how, when flagging at the end of a long walk, I used give her and her big brother Freddie one date each and the burst of energy sent them charging up the last hill yelling 'date power!'

I could tell you how she sometimes woke early and took Tansy and Leo into her bed to read and play.

I could tell you the wildflowers she knew...fumitory, black medic, scarlet pimpernel, guelder rose....The Flower Faries were her favourite 'reading in bed' books.

I could tell you so many things

What I can't tell you is what she'll be doing for her birthday today, although I know she'll be close by, in the whispering trees, in the iridescent damselfly which visits us every day, in the little wren who hides in the willow.

Lily's 6th birthday, 2007

I can tell you what we are doing. We are lighting a candle and remembering and loving her and wishing with all our hearts that she could be here eating cake with us again.

Lily Rose

13.09.01-11.06.09

Elemental tales- Fire

2011-09-12T12:17:00.000-07:00

Everyone watches as that first tiny spark, dancing so lightly, catches the whisper soft tinder of thistle seed, and slowly, carefully, is breathed into life.

'Ahh! everyone sighs and the smouldering tinder is pushed gently under the little wigwam of tiny dried stems and twigs. Soon porridge is bubbling and we scramble for bowls...
.
Fire comes slowly when you don't have matches or firelighters. It teaches patience and the meticulous search for dry tinder. In that time your nose anticipates the smell of the cooking porridge before it is even in the pan. When the first spark actually leaps into flame it is a wondrous moment. It seems like a miracle to create fire from the friction between two pieces of wood, and we gather around the dancing flames, transfixed.
We are lost in a moment that cradles us back to the lives of our distant ancestors, and we feel the fire in the very depths of us. And we feel great gratitude.

I feel very blessed for my children to experience this connection with fire. They follow the journey from the search for dry tinder, through to eating the food which has cooked over wood that they have collected. It is very real and tangible. Firemaking is a skill which they are learning which will empower them and bring the deep sense of satisfaction and belonging that no amount of switch flicking will do.

They are aware too of the awesome power of fire, and have a healthy respect for its wild strength.

guess who is always the first to the fire?

I would love to say that we live like this all the time, but alas! we have a gas oven for cooking and a woodburner (with matches) for warmth. But do I feel reverence and awe when I light the gas in the morning? No! Do I thank the cooker? No. I rush and scurry and drop matches, and hussle the children to get their clothes on!

But we have been connecting with fire more this summer, mostly thanks to Hugh who is just coming to the end of a year long course in bushcraft and nature awareness with Trackways and has been sharing his fire making skills with us all. And it's been such a gift for the whole family. I have had to frequently quell my quick impatient nature which always wants to get the newspaper and matches out. My fiery nature hasn't got time for fiddling with bow drills and fire babies!

In our yurt 2008

Fire is like a magnet, it draws us together, creates a centre, a temporary home, a warmth that heals and soothes the most fraught of days.
Last weekend we thought about going out for the day, then realised that it was just restlessness and fear of boredom that was leading the decision. We lit a fire in the clearing, and within minutes everyone was gathered; carving, talking, sewing, cooking, dreaming. There was no need to go anywhere but home.

The Birthday

2011-09-07T13:23:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow it is my youngest son's birthday, and his daddy's too. Four years ago, at seven thirty in the morning, drowsily propped up in my bed, I nursed my new little son and ate the birthday brownies which arrived in the post for Hugh, thanks to lovely Aunty Alice. Two weeks early, Leo took us all by surprise, but I finally had four children! My older three, then aged two, six and eight munched and cooed and cuddled as we all wallowed in that delicious, sublime morning.

Later Hugh's mum called to wish him Happy Birthday, blissfully unaware of her new grandson. Hugh asked her to guess what his favourite birthday present was.
'Was it the screwdriver I sent you dear?' she asked innocently.

How could anything compare to the mysterious wonder of the new little soul arrived in our midst? Hugh will love his favourite birthday present forever!

But will the gifts Leo and Hugh receive tomorrow still hold any interest or value in even four months time? Possibly, but possibly not..they are just things. Sometimes presents just seem like so much stuff to me. I cannot deny that there is a magic in witnessing a child's excitement and joy on opening a special birthday gift and taking their time to explore and love it and make it their own. Where is the magic however, in watching a child rip through a mountain of presents, discarding them as soon as they are open?

The giving of gifts becomes a meaningless gesture. It provides a momentary rush of excitement for the child, only to be replaced by the odd uncomfortable feeling of being overwhelmed, overexcited and slightly 'full.' Unable to interpret the discomfort, the only remedy seems to be for the child to ask for more and feel anguish when there is not.

I love celebrating birthdays and I do always buy a present for my kids, but just one, a special one. Reducing presents coming in from outside is an ongoing process but increasingly being met with understanding.

What makes a birthday meaningful?
Ceremony and ritual sound a little formal, and we're certainly not solemn around birthdays, but doing certain things together seems to nourish the birthday girl (or boy) more than a heap of presents. At breakfast I make sure that the table is set with cloths, flowers and candles and make a throne for the special person to sit on. A nice breakfast is important.. tomorrow it's croissant..shh!

A tradition I'm planning to start is for everyone else to think of one thing they love or appreciate about the birthday celebrant. Depending on the age this can cause a bit of squirming but a birthday is a chance to focus with love and gratitude on one person and make that person feel special. Cuddles and stories are good too! And then there's the party!
I'm sure other people have beautiful rituals they follow for their kid's birthdays.. have you? I'd love to hear ideas (sensitive and loving) on avoiding the swamp effect of gifts from lovely well meaning relatives too.