May15

The story of a very small house

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Life will give you whatever experience is most helpful for the evolution of your consciousness. How do you know this is the experience you need? Because this is the experience you are having at the moment.

~Eckhart Tolle

Once upon a time, a woman and a man, newly met, decided to move away from the big city and back to the place where the woman had grown up. Her mother had offered her a job, but that wasn’t why she wanted to go; she already had a job. Really, it was just the right time. She told this man what she was going to do, and casually asked him if he might like to come too. He thought for one moment, maybe two, and said okay then; as long as we have a place near the beach and a dog of our own.

They moved in May 2000. By December of that year, the man and the woman had a house by the sea and a tiny little black puppy. The man settled in quickly; sometimes she wondered if he was one of those people that are born in the wrong place. His father’s family were farming folk, so maybe that was it, who knows? She took a little longer to settle in – she missed her friends and was annoyed by the terrible coffee, bad food, poor service, and pubs filled with old men who stopped talking and stared when new people walked in. She grew to love it later, when she had children – but she had to drop a whole heap of baggage about her home town first.

The time came, as it does, when the couple wanted to buy a house. It was too expensive on the coast, so they started looking around in the hinterland. The woman had grown up on a farm way up in the mountains – she didn’t really want to do that again. She had watched her parents work themselves to the bone on that farm, keeping up their day jobs and working the farm every spare minute. And it was 45 minutes to the nearest town. It made her nervous to be that far away from civilisation. The woman’s parents were still there, but not for long – her mother was agitating for change.

Nevertheless, they found themselves looking at a little weatherboard cottage in the same valley, but closer to town, across the road from the primary school that the woman had attended when she was little; that little school held such warm memories for her. The woman remembered what she had said when she left her home town: never, I am never coming back! And then she remembered what her mother had always said: never say never. She laughed – she was old enough to appreciate irony, and nearly old enough to laugh at herself.

The man and the woman looked at this property. It was one acre, and had two little houses on it. The main house was a 2 (maybe 3 at a stretch) bedroom weatherboard settlers cottage, recently renovated. It looked clean and tidy, and felt like a happy kind of place. The floor rippled in the kitchen from a dodgy re-piering job, and the ceiling was so low that the woman could touch it in some places, and it was tiny. But…it was on tar road, which the woman wanted, had a kerbside garbage service, a pipe to the river and a pump so they didn’t have to rely on rain water, and there was a second dwelling that had established tenants paying rent. There was rich soil, big, beautiful trees – and they could afford it.

They made an offer, and in May 2003, they had their very own mortgage. In May 2004, they had their very first baby. They never seemed to have much money, but they did a few things to their house – they put awnings on the western side windows, put screen doors on to keep out the flies, and a glass sliding door on to the verandah. The man worked very hard in the garden, landscaping, digging vegetable gardens and growing ducks, one batch of ducklings after another.

The woman still hadn’t really settled though, and was restless. The house was too small, too far away from town, all her friends lived too far away, she was sick of driving everywhere, she didn’t like her community. She had a job in a town one hour away and wanted to move there. She insisted they put the house on the market. The man was surprised, but thought he’d let her run with it to see how far it would go. The Universe was not so relaxed and sent a termite invasion. Everything got too hard, and the man persuaded the woman to take the house off the market.

The woman was getting lessons in the futility of forcing change against the flow of things, as well as the necessity of staying with something until it was ready to be released (it wasn’t her first lesson of this type and it wasn’t going to be the last either). In defeat, she said Goddess, if I must stay here, send me friends and an opportunity to be part of a thriving community. The woman left her job, fell pregnant with her second baby and found a swimming hole down the road. When she closed the escape hatch (she always liked to keep the back door open in case of escape) and looked around, she found that this place was full of beautiful people that wanted to be her friends, and lots of opportunities to create a vibrant community.

In May 2008 they had their second baby, and in the same month the man was made redundant from his job. All the big things happen to them in May. Things got really tight then; jobs were hard to find, and the woman was at home with two little children and a husband with not enough work. Sometimes she wondered if they would make it, and would walk to her escape hatch and look out, longingly. Their first child went to school. The man and the woman had an opportunity to borrow some money; their house, always small, was cramped. Their second child had the tiny half-room at the front of the house, so small that they could hardly fit the bed and chest of drawers in it. They decided to build two rooms onto the side of the house,

Or start it anyway. They didn’t have enough money to do the whole lot, but they could make a start. Lucky them, the woman’s old friend, a family friend from childhood and their children’s godfather was a master carpenter and he offered to build it for them. Plans were drawn up, put through council, a new electricity pole was put in, foundations were built, the wood was purchased.

the building site - the verandah has been taken off, piers buried in the ground.

the building site – the verandah has been taken off, piers buried in the ground.

The frame was built – and they ran out of money. Truth be told, they had run out of money before that, and if it wasn’t for the woman’s brother, they wouldn’t have been able to pay for all of the wood. Thank goodness for the kindness of friends and family. So, work stopped in December 2011. Money was so tight and work was so intermittent and hard-scrabble that they wondered if they would ever have the money to finish it.

The frame was built - and stayed that way for the longest 16 months EVER.

The frame was built – and stayed that way for the longest 16 months EVER.

Both the man and the woman needed to learn about acceptance, faith and patience. Luckily for them, life gives the un-accepting, faithless and impatient ones many opportunities to transcend themselves. So they waited and worked, waited and prayed, and slowly they became more trusting, more patient, more accepting. In May 2012, they heard from a friend there was a good job available – and this friend put in a good word for the man. This job changed things for them, and the woman started to get some work too. They saved and saved until in January 2013 they had enough money for the roof. Friends gave them windows and doors. They saved some more and they had a floor. In May 2013, this is what it looks like:

Roof is on, weatherboard cladding is on, doors and windows in, even a floor. Woo hoo!

Roof is on, weatherboard cladding is on, doors and windows in, even a floor. Woo hoo!

It’s not finished, no not yet. It needs gyprock on the walls and electricity inside the walls. But it can be used. In a couple of days the glass sliding door that separates the new house from the old will be taken out and put into its new spot, thus connecting the two halves and sealing the new house totally.

Somehow, it seems symbolic.

Have faith said the woman to the man – her faith tends to be stronger. Stick with it said the man to the woman – his tenacity is always stronger. And it’s true – his faith is stronger now and she has learnt that sometimes you have to stay with something to the very end – that there is a deep satisfaction in that. Not that it is the end (is it ever?).

As your faith is strengthened you will find that there is no longer the need to have a sense of control, that things will flow as they will, and that you will flow with them, to your great delight and benefit ~ Emmanuel Teney

Apr25

No, I can’t do that. Actually, maybe I can. Hey! I can do it!

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I’m not really sure how to begin this post, except to say: these ideas that you have about what you can and can’t do, the things that are too hard or to big to begin – often these ideas are formed in a time of perceived failure. We don’t think to ourselves Oh, right, maybe I am not ready to do that yet, or maybe if I try that a different way it will work, or maybe I need some help to do that, or even let’s sleep on that and try again tomorrow. 

No. We are not so forgiving of failure in our magnificent selves. Instead we think things like Oh crap, I can’t do that, it’s too hard, what was I thinking? I am not strong enough, clever enough, creative enough, disciplined enough, anything enough to do that very difficult thing – and I probably never will be.

I say ‘you’ and ‘we’, but really I mean ‘I’ and ‘me’. All my life I have been telling myself these kind of things, and believing them too. No, I can’t do that, No, I don’t like that, No, I’m no good at that. No, no, no. Yes, I am a stubborn bull who says No a lot. An awful lot.

I’ve had a few experiences in the last six months where I have had opportunities to challenge myself to do things that I have always wanted to do. Opportunities have arisen to say yes instead of  no and I have taken them. Those of you who have been reading my writing for a while know that I had an opportunity to be a beta reader for Kara-Leah Grant’s book 40 Days of Yoga, which in turn inspired me to do my own 40 days of yoga. Which I did, and as a result of that, I have my own daily yoga practice, something I have wanted for years. I had an opportunity to go to a writer’s group a month ago, which inspired me to start 40 days of writing. I’m on day 26 now, and I have written over 13000 words.

It’s funny though – it wasn’t really these events that woke me up to what was going on;  what the 40 day process did is open my eyes to the internal dialogue and self-defeating process that goes on inside of me when I do new or challenging things. So, I’ll tell you a little story, a yoga story if you will.

So I am doing yoga at home most days, but something is bothering me. There is something missing from my practice, and I know damn well what it is – there are no inversions in my sequences. No headstand, no shoulder stand. I know how important they are – they are the king and queen of asanas, and for good reasons too. I have very good reasons why I don’t do them - Oh, I can’t do these poses because I need specific, expensive props that I can’t possibly justify right now, because I am not strong/brave enough and I don’t really want to/need to do these inverted poses. 

Still, I am nagged by the thought that I want to do headstand, I need to do it - how can I do it? I read this article on preparatory poses for headstand, and I think to myself ok, I’ll have a go. I talk to my mother about my desire to do headstand and she says Oh I have this pad that I found very helpful when I was younger and wanting to do headstand – do you want it? Yes I do – anything that will help. The next day, with the help of a chair to put my foot on, and a little foam pad I am up in head stand! Yippee! I love headstand! I feel so strong and brave!

I see Gretchen, a friend of mine who is a second generation yoga teacher at a BBQ lunch on the weekend. I tell her about my success with headstand, and she says to me Great! I hope you are doing shoulder stand to balance the headstand. Oh crap. Shh! I don’t like shoulder stand I say. It makes me feel fat and weak I say. I need one of those special shoulder stand chairs like we have in class I say. Gretchen laughs and says I need to do it, because the feminine shoulder stand is needed to balance the masculine head stand. I know this, but…

Anyway, I go home thinking about it; more and more I am on to myself, and more and more I am sick of the same old crap that my brain tells me. So I think to myself - there are probably other ways of doing a supported shoulder stand other than in a chair. I’ll google it. 

Supported shoulder stand

Right I think, I can do that. 

So I do this supported pose for a couple of days, lifting one leg off the wall at a time. I think to myself Yes, I can do this, and it’s ok, although I can’t imagine being able to do it properly.

The next day I lift first one leg away from the wall, and then the other, like I have been doing. I felt strong, so on the spur of the moment I took both legs away from the wall – and went into the straightest, strongest shoulder stand I have ever done. I held it for 30 seconds or so, came down and just lay there for a moment. And thought to myself I can do anything I want to – I just have to start from a place that I feel comfortable in, and go from there.

How good is yoga?

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Apr14

A story of me.

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A friend asked me this morning why I hadn’t written any posts for a while – and how is she supposed to know how I’m going if I don’t write?

Well, if thinking occasionally about writing a blog resulted in a blog being written, I would have had five or six written by now… :)

Friends, forgive me for my absence, both from reading your blogs and writing my own (the two go hand in hand I find). To make it up to you, I’ll tell you a story which might explain where I’ve been.

Once upon a time there was a little girl, who at 4 decided she was ready to go to school. She was small and shy, and probably a little bit young to go to school, but she was set on one thing, and one thing only. She wanted to learn how to read. In her mind, to do that, she had to go to school.

So, her mother, wanting to do the right thing, sent her off to school. Where she spent the next 2 months crying every day because it was so big and scary and so different from preschool where she knew everyone and had been so happy. This little girl got used to this big school (sort of) and went about the important business of learning to read, which she knew how to do very competently by the time she finished kindergarten.

Luckily for this little girl, her mother moved to the country and sent her to a tiny country school with 50 children, along with her brother who was old enough to go to school as well. As this little girl grew up, she devoured books, one after the other. Enid Blyton, Anne of Green Gables, Little Women, Heidi, The Secret Garden and whatever else she could get her hands on. She wrote too – long, complicated stories, poetry, diary entries, letters to her grandmother; whatever she could think of. She thought she might like to write books one day.

To this practical Taurean girl, writing novels seemed a little self-indulgent, so at various times she transmuted this desire into more practical career paths – a librarian, a book shop owner and later, a journalist. She told herself that she wasn’t very imaginative and she didn’t really have any stories to tell anyway, so she grew up and did other things. Environmental science (yuk, hated that), massage therapist (ok, but not as a job), homeopath/nutritionist (stopped studying when the dread of of actually doing it for real overpowered the interest she had in studying it), shop owner (liked working in health food shops, but no good at handling money), community builder/market manager (liked this very much but finds dealing with people exhausting). Pause.

Her family  becomes a one car family; her husband takes the car to work 5 days a week. She spends a year at home with her freedom drastically curtailed. She is not used to staying at home and is very frustrated at first. She starts blogging and studying media and communications. All of this writing is a revelation – she loves it.  This not-so-little girl (she has two little children of her own by now, a house in the country and a 13 year relationship) is starting to think she might be on the right track.

Three weeks ago a friend invites her to her very first writer’s group where the homework was to write 500 words on ‘the birthday’. It just so happened that this not-so-little girl had been keeping a story in her mind for about 4 years called ‘the birthday’. It seemed like a sign, so she wrote it down, and took it to the meeting. When she was writing it, she remembered how she always wanted to write fiction – and how freeing it was to write compared to the constraints of blogging and media work. She could write anything she wanted!

Her piece was well received in the group, even though she was so nervous she had to get her friend to read it out to the group for her. On her way home, she thought to herself again that maybe she did have a book in her. Oh yeah? said her mind. You don’t have the discipline to write a whole book. That is a very big undertaking. Your family won’t support you, you won’t earn any money from it – and don’t you think writing a novel that might not even get published is a bit self-indulgent? Other people out there are living real lives of suffering, and here you are…blah, blah, blah.

Oh right, said the not-so-little girl. I know you. That is complete and utter bullshit. The reason I know it’s bullshit is because I have just done 40 days of yoga, and you said exactly the same shit to me when I wanted to have a daily yoga practice. I have a daily yoga practice now, and you were wrong about that, and I bet you are wrong about this as well. To prove it, I am going to to do 40 Days of Writing.

This not-so-little girl is on day 15 of writing today. Every morning she gets up early and writes for an hour. She has imagination and she has stories to tell. She has discipline, and her family is supportive. What’s more, she is so happy writing she gets teary just thinking about how good her life is, that she has her cottage/retreat to write in, the time, space and inspiration to write with and a husband that goes out to work to look after them all.

People, that’s the end of my story. It’s just the beginning too, and it’s a fragile beginning. I don’t really want to talk about what I am writing; I’m still in a bit of shock that I actually am writing. So shhhhh, don’t tell anyone yet.

I am mother, sister, blood-sister and wife,
Drummer, web-weaver, passionate for life;
Dancer with fairy dust, sun, sea and snow,
Creatrix, embracer, I go with the flow;
Tiger, butterfly, complex and free,
I am glorious, juicy, and free to be me;
Grace, gratitude and love is my creed,
I warmly give and receive what I need;
Explorer, authenticator, drifter on dreams,
Truths are unleashed, words flow in streams;
Insightful, intuitive and naturally wise,
Good fortune is easy to materialize;
Spinner of stories in the celestial skies,
Connected to earth, reaching Heaven-wise.
Shimmer, sparkle, giggle and shine,
Awaken, be bold, and behold, my divine!

~ Anita Revel

Mar21

You are enough.

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‎One of the most calming and powerful actions you can do…in a stormy world is to stand up and show your soul. Soul on deck shines like gold in dark times ~ Clarissa Pinkola Estes

I was talking to my uncle the other day – my mother’s brother. This side of my family are oddly isolated. Each family member and their little family operates much like a satellite – spinning around in the atmosphere, occasionally bumping into each other and then bouncing off again on their solo journey. Even more oddly, many of us live in the same neighbourhood. I am no different – I love to bump satellites with them, but rarely go to the trouble of organising a proper get together. A shame really, because I really like them, this eclectic bunch of healers and artists.

So my uncle and I bumped satellites at a function I helped organise for the area’s complementary therapists; my grandmother, uncle and mother have been practicing complementary medicine (chiropractor, osteopath, homeopath, naturopath, herbalist) in this little valley for more than 30 years. When they started, the country folk around here had never seen such things before, although some of them still used home remedies that their mothers and grandmothers used. After initial mutterings of quacks and witch craft, my family settled in and have been in constant demand ever since.

Have you found that sometimes you start telling one story only to end up telling another? Here I am telling you the story of my family, and I still haven’t told you about the conversation that sparked this post!

So, anyway, here I am at this function and my uncle and I are chatting, as you do. I ask him how his daughters, my cousins were going – they are about 10 years younger than me and off doing young women’s things in the big city, much like I did when I was their age. He replied that they are growing up beautifully, and that he didn’t need to worry after all :) . So we started talking about the fears that we have as parents, the worry and the hope, all mixed up in this unruly package of love. I made a joke:

first-40-years-of-parenthood-are-always-the-hardest-funny-poster-print

And then my uncle said:

You know, our children choose us because they need what we have. The most important thing in being a parent is to just be yourself and love them, because that’s what they need from us.

I let his words percolate and settle within me, and felt a great sense of peace and relief (a sure sign that I have come across a truth). This wisdom has revisited me quite a few times over the past few days. One of the roads of thought it has taken me down is a reaffirmation that my style of mothering is perfect for my children – they chose me, they need me to be who I really am.

I am feisty, strict, demanding – and I will play board games and read stories for hours. I yearn for freedom, space and solitude – and I am reliable, I keep promises, turn up on time and know all their friends’ names. I am not sporty, crafty or good at dancing – but I play backyard cricket whenever my son wants me to, I make sure my kids always have art supplies and a place to create; and music, books, good food and beauty are always present in my home. Sometimes I shout, yell and curse, feel disappointed and am just plain old bad tempered – but I never blame anyone else for my moods and I apologise if I step too far out of line. I can be distracted and irritable – but I am always there when my kids really need me.

I am that I am and it is enough.

The other road I have travelled down when thinking about this wisdom is how women torment themselves because they do not fit into our society’s ideal mother image. Newsflash – no one does. This is not an image, it is a caricature, grossly deformed and completely unattainable. I see women quietening their loud voices, strapping down their wildness and modulating their laughter to squeeze themselves into an illusion. It breaks my heart, it really does.

None of it is real. The only thing that is real is you, the real you. Where do I find this real me? Look for it in your favourite places – and it doesn’t have to be the kitchen (although I like to cook, not everyone does and not everyone should). Look for it in your favourite things to do – and it doesn’t have to involve your family. Look for it in your favourite books, movies, music and art. What is it about these things that you like?

Your work then, is to uncover the real you (the clues are everywhere, always) and be true to her (or him). It’s called integrity. You may know it as being real, having a strong moral compass or being true to yourself. It’s the most important task you are to do here, and your children are here to help you.

And the Great Mother said:
Come my child and give me all that you are.
I am not afraid of your strength and darkness, of your fear and pain.
Give me your tears. They will be my rushing rivers and roaring oceans.
Give me your rage. It will
erupt into my molten volcanoes and rolling thunder.
Give me your tired spirit. I will lay it to rest in my soft meadows.
Give me your hopes and dreams. I will plant a field of sunflowers and arch rainbows in the sky.
You are not too much for me. My arms and heart welcome your true fullness.
There is room in my world for all of you, all that you are.
I will cradle you in the boughs of my ancient redwoods and the valleys of my gentle rolling hills.
My soft winds will sing you lullabies and soothe your burdened heart.
Release your deep pain.
You are not alone and you have never been alone.

~Linda Reuther, from Homecoming (via ShamanTube)

Mar8

Structure and discipline. What?

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So, as many of you will know, both of my children are at school this year for the very first time. I had big plans and expectations (damn you expectations!) as to how this year would look, mostly along the lines of massively increased productivity and freedom.

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Yeeeessssss.

I am not sure how or why, but for some reason I am less productive than when the Fairy Queen was at home – or if not less productive, then certainly nowhere near as effective. I haven’t even been able to fit in a daily yoga practice!

I have been becoming more and more frustrated with how my days seem to be evaporating with nothing to show for them – unless you count a flourishing facebook conversation and a clean feng shui’d house! Not that there’s anything wrong with either of those things…but.

My inner boss gave me an absolute pasting the other day. You need to be more disciplined and structured. Resistance! I want to be free and unrestricted! But you don’t get anything done! Hmmmm you have a point…but I still want to be able to flow with the day rather than putting rigid restrictions and timetables on my day – I have had to train myself out of that! Well, you need to find a middle way. Get on it. 

:)

The more I thought about it, the more I went around in circles, getting nowhere. So I decided to stop thinking about it, and hand my problem over to the Divine (as Tosha Silver talks about in her amazing book Outrageous Openness) or God, or the Angels or your guides or the universe or your higher self or whatever you want to call it . That night as I lay down in bed, I told the Divine (or whoever was listening) my problem, and asked for help in solving it. Clearly, I saw an image of myself getting up early (like I normally do), going over to the cottage (like I normally do) and then not turning on the computer :) . Instead, I lit some candles and an incense stick, sat down on my cushion and began to breathe.  That’s it. Just breathe. I needed to get in touch with myself and the flow of the day and let that connected, grounded self plan my day. And then I needed to ask myself, what do you want to do next?

That first day, what my connected, grounded self wanted to do next was yoga. After that, I switched on the computer – but I had a completely different head space! I got the kids ready for school, whizzed around the house, hung some washing out – and then did more on my assessment in one morning than I had done in the previous 2 weeks. I had to go over to the school that afternoon to listen to the children read in the afternoon, but I had gotten a whole day’s work done in the morning, so it didn’t matter!

The second day, today, my connected grounded self wanted to do yoga, and then start writing this blog. By 2 pm I have managed to finish my assignment and send it in, do a bit of work for an event I am helping to plan, write and publish this blog, as well as do the housework, plan dinner and play on facebook – and there is still plenty of day left.

Was it starting the day with yoga? Was it starting the day grounded and connected? Was it all of the above?   I don’t know, but I can tell you this:

  1. Some problems cannot be thought through with the mind because they are caused by the mind.  

einstein

2. We get into ruts, all of us and we fool ourselves into thinking that these ruts are helping us. They are not.

3. There is a lot to be said about our morning routines and rituals and how they contribute to our whole day.

Have you ever had this problem? What did you do about it?

This post was inspired by this article.

Mar3

Rainy day pleasures.

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Well folks, it’s still raining. It hasn’t really stopped since I last wrote, although it slowed down enough for the river to come down, the roads to become passable, the kids to go back to school and the electricity, phone and internet to come back on. Steady on though – the rain’s come back in with renewed determination this weekend, and it’s flooding again. Sigh.

If there is one thing that I have learned though, it is that it is completely and utterly pointless to resist and complain about what is happening. It’s raining, and there is nothing I can do about it! The only thing I can control is how I feel about it :) .

So, what to do when it does nothing but rain?

  • Bake. Today I made apple crumble – do you want a recipe? Oh alright then :)

4-5 large apples, peeled and sliced and put straight into an oven-proof dish. Squeeze half a lemon over the top and sprinkle over 2 tablespoons of sugar; mix well. To make the crumble mix mix 1/2 cup plain flour, 1/2 cup of sugar, 3/4 cup of rolled oats, 3/4 cup of desiccated coconut and 75g of softened butter. Combine with fingertips until crumbly and scatter over the apple. Pop your delicious crumble into the oven and bake at 180°C for 30-40 minutes, or until the crumble is golden and apple is soft. We like our crumble with plain yogurt, but vanilla ice cream is also exceptionally yummy. I even told the kids they could have it for breakfast and they were thrilled at the idea of having dessert in the morning!

paleo apple crumble

Apple Crumble (Photo credit: Amber Karnes)

  • Do yoga. I haven’t done yoga for nearly a week because I had some mystery illness that made all my joints stiff and swollen. I felt almost back to normal today and I wanted to try out this great yoga sequence that a friend had sent me for neck, shoulders and upper back. Bliss, I tell you, bliss! Bliss to be doing yoga again, and bliss the amount of space and movement I had in my upper body after this sequence. Thanks Michelle!
  •  Summer came early, sauteed, baked and fried us and has disappeared early in a trail of puddles. It is technically Autumn – we are in March – but summer usually takes its sweet time in leaving. Not this year. I took the opportunity to wear lots of clothes – black tights, maroon long sleeved shirt and a purple short sleeved knitted cowl neck top over it all that another friend had bought for me a couple of days ago. Thanks Jules! Don’t I have good friends?
  • Listen to music. Oh, I know this is an any day, everyday pleasure, but today was extra special, don’t ask me why. Yesterday I poked my head into my children’s classroom to find them singing John Lennon’s  ‘Imagine’. That was a moment, I can tell you. Not only is it one of my all time favourite songs, it was radical 40 years ago and it’s still enough to cause a revolution today. And the children at our school are learning it. Lucky? Are we lucky? You bet we are.  Today, this song by Jose Gonzalez took me places too: 

  • A little space: physically and metaphorically. Both the children were scooped up unexpectedly on separate play dates this morning – the Fairy Queen was invited over to do a little painting and have some morning tea with the twins up the road, and the Soccer star went up to his Godfather’s house to have a play on the farm. Space on a rainy day?  Yep :) . Add to this my little cottage where I spent a good part of the day today and you have a recipe to kill off cabin fever.
  • Watch a movie. Yesterday I had a few hours to myself so I decided to spend some of them doing something I hardly ever do: watch a movie only I would like. So I downloaded The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, and spent an intensely pleasurable 2 hours in India with seven old people who have taken a risk with their lives to find some joy. The Bear snorted in derision when he saw what I was watching - yeah, that’s just about your age group - but I don’t care, I’m not ageist, and  I felt good after that movie. I will tell you a secret – I only like feel good movies. For me, movies are a purely escapist pleasure, and I don’t count suffering (mine or anybody else’s) as a pleasure. Also, I love Judi Dench and she has inspired me to cut my hair short in a pixie cut again. I love changing my hair style :) .
  • Be inspired by beautiful art and words:

Learn to forgive people and release them. Life feeds back truth to people in its own way and time. ♥


This is so beautiful - i wish i knew whose work this was so I could credit them. Do you know?

Dancing The Lifes Web Star Gifter Does by Stephen Lucas

 What is your favourite thing to do on a rainy day?

Feb25

Things I love about being flooded in with no electricity…

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Australia’s beloved poet Dorothea Mackellar wrote in her famous poem:

I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges,
Of droughts and flooding rains.
I love her far horizons,
I love her jewel-sea,
Her beauty and her terror -
The wide brown land for me!
 

 It doesn’t matter where you live in wide land of ours, Mackellar’s poem will sing to you. Halfway through last year it stopped raining. Those of you who are regular readers of my blog will notice that I started talking about the heat and how dry it was. Where I live, the rivers run freely and greens compete with each other for brilliance. My spirit is nourished by such abundance and fertility, so I suffered along with the land when it dried up.

The rivers stopped running, and yellows, browns and oranges dominated the landscape. Rainwater tanks emptied and it became harder to find a clean spot in the river to pump from, let alone swim in. December and January baked us then burnt us in bushfires. Nothing grew in our vegie gardens, some of our young fruit trees died and even mature trees dropped their leaves.

Some things like a hot dry spring and summer – flowering trees like the jacaranda and flame tree were spectacular this year, in striking contrast to everything around them. Rosemary, sage, lavender, yarrow  and lemongrass, those hardy, woody herbs were the only plants that would grow in my herb garden.

On Australia Day, 26th January the rains finally came. The resilience of the land showed through, and a week later the river ran deep and clear and the greens started their verdant competition again. My spirit felt nourished again, and everywhere around me was beauty.

And guess what? It’s raining again :) . And when I say rain, I mean torrential, flooding, cyclonic, saturating rain. Major flood warnings have been issued all up and down the coast, and flood-plain towns to the north and south of us are being evacuated. School closed early – they only made it to morning tea before the school staff had to leave to make it home before the bridges went under.

I think the drought has broken :) .

Later that afternoon the electricity went out as well… mostly we’re lucky and the electricity stays on – but not always. This time, the electricity stayed off for over 48 hours, and we had no phone for 24 hours this time too!

All through that weekend though, all we could think of was how lucky we were and here are 10 11 12 13 14! reasons why:

  1. Evening entered our house spiked with the light of tealight candles on every flat surface. It looked beautiful.
  2. We are always grateful for our gas stove and oven. The rain is pouring down and we are eating potato and bacon soup with crusty toast.
  3. Our house is built in the old way and is as solid as a mountain. It doesn’t leak and when the wind starts howling the house stays firm.
  4. We have torches, book lights and fresh batteries to go in them. I read the Fairy Queen a bed-time story by torchlight and then I finish Cry, the Beloved Country and sigh in envy of his clear, compassionate writing.
  5. We knew the flood was coming so I had stocked up on food. This morning’s breakfast was pancakes with lemon and sugar (or honey, banana and macadamia paste for me). The kids and I bake chocolate berry muffins for morning tea and we had nachos for dinner. The water had better go down soon or we’ll all be as fat as little piggys! I’m not sure how long our food will last with no fridge – fingers crossed!
  6. We have heaps of board and card games. The soccer star and the Bear have played many games of chess by candlelight (the one game I will not play – I find strategy incomprehensible and impossible), and over the weekend we have played monopoly, scrabble (junior and adult), trouble, guess who, snap, pictureka and uno :) .
  7. We have two houses. Gold. The little cottage I have spent the last two months cleaning, clearing and beautifying is filled with natural light and is a calm, clean space. At least it was until we had 3 boys come to visit and they made forts inside of it to shoot each other from :) .
  8. No electricity means we have had an enforced break from screens – no computer, tv or wii; we have no mobile reception or internet and no hand held devices. The soccer star occasionally gets waves of longing, the Bear is sometimes fidgety and annoying with boredom and I get the occasional urge to indulge my social media addiction – but we’re surviving easily. The children start playing with their toys – they spent an hour playing with their farm set – together! The played cars, played in the rain and we all played a long, hilarious game of backyard cricket.
  9. The Bear has an old portable radio and fresh batteries. We listen to ABC local radio and get up to date reports on the flood situation, locals call in with flood stories, and the announcer plays really bad music. We don’t care – it’s so comforting to feel connected to the larger world when you’re in the middle of nowhere isolated by flood waters.
  10. I have heaps of books to read that I am catching up on from last year. I start to read Don Quixote and am amazed at the premise – A crazy man (and I do mean completely mad) and his simple friend set out on a horse and donkey on a quest for adventure. I find myself laughing at the humour and thoroughly enjoying it. I love reading the classics :)
  11. We have chocolate!
  12. Our chickens are still laying in the rain, so we get fresh eggs every day.
  13. The Bear is in charge of bathing – a challenging situation with no running water. He decides to use a 9 litre watering can – 8 litres of cold water and 1 of hot water (boiled on the stove) – and we shower, one by one like that. Did you know that you can easily wash your whole body and even your hair in 9 litres of water?
  14. I have a whole new appreciation for cleaning machines – dishwasher, washing machine, vacuum cleaner – and the simple pleasure of running water!

The power came on last night – it was off from Friday afternoon and came back on Sunday night. The Bear excitedly turned on the tv – and 15 minutes later he turned it off and came and lay on the bed next to me and read his book :) .

Have you experienced isolation and no electricity? How did you cope?