When summers are recollected in smells and tastes, Sensations on bare skin and grit between toes. When familiar routines, songs and recipes bring expanding of heart. When they touch a plant and it warps them viscerally back decades. When we’ve done our best to savour and enjoy, Summer and our children.
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Lockdown Life
Read moreThere’s more time on screens, but there’s also more time in the garden. There’s less time with friends, but also more time to work through recurring sibling issues. There’s more disagreements, but more time to see their personalities and interests. There’s more time in our unfinished house but more time to push through some projects. There’s less things that can go on our to-do lists but more time to consider what should be on them. There’s more to worry about,…
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Shift your focus
Read moreShift your focus. If you’re feeling the tightening of overwhelm, I find shifting focus up or down really helps. Life can always feel like a never denting to-do list, chaotic with kids and the multitude of decisions that come with them. But life now is extra pressurised. Try shifting down to a detailed manual task such as cleaning, handicrafts, writing, painting your nails, seed sowing, anything that takes concentration, focus and care with your hands. Or shift up; gaze at…
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Deep Water
Read moreDanger deep water. No swimming. We’re not swimming. But we’re not sinking either.
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The lapping season
Read moreThe in-between season. Embracing still the quiet reservedness of Winter. The headspace. The concentration and relaxation. The cozy and the sleepy. The coolness, the naked branches, the pause. But Spring feels tangibly close. It’s in the wings, waiting for its cue. The colours, the music, the hints of warmth on cool breezes. The new air greeting our lungs, stirring our souls to look outward, get out and embrace the world beyond our walls and fires. The lapping of Imbolc on…
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Birthdays
Read moreThirty-seven trips around the sun, Thirty-seven birthdays, another year begun. Quietening silver reaching into gold, Entrenched smiles and laughter enter the fold. Thankful for warm candles and loved ones, Songs of joy shouted from their young tongues. Knowing and growing into all that is me, Thirty-seven years to practice being free.
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Magical Moments
Read moreMagical moments in magical spaces. When love overspills into headlocks, Stories are repeated with silly twists and, The last of the day fizzes between their fingers.
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Family Chords
Read moreHarmony: “the blending of simultaneous sounds of different pitches or quality”. Harmonies can turn a good song into a great song. Harmony can be considered as a concept to aim for in family life: Different temperaments, personalities, preferences blended together to become something better than the sum of their parts. All members of the family respected, allowed to be themselves and learning the ‘filler’ of life – how to all get along together. Harmony at home brings flow to life.…
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In the In-between
Read moreFlexibility for the in-between, Never a forte of mine. A bit of both, a Wonderland dream, A transitional unclean drawn line. This season of two seasons, This home ours but not home, This unsettled life with reason, Letting go to grow, restrict to roam. Be gentle on yourselves, they say and I know, Nature’s energy shifting, coinciding with place. Waning to Wax, receding to grow, Saturday morning pancakes in the in-between.
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For the Love of Learning
Read moreArticle published in Learning Through Living magazine. Through my getting reacquainted with learning I have rediscovered love. A love I can show myself by following my interests with no regard to a quantifiable product at the end
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Learning to Learn
Read more“What did you learn today?”, “That’s a beautiful picture!”, “Do you know your alphabet?”, “Have you visited….?”, “How did you get on?”, “Tell me what you know about….” Some of these may sound familiar. You may have been asked them, asked them yourself or heard family members asking your children. Whilst they may be indicative of interest, what do they all have in common? A focus on end results, final product, completion, achievement. What if education wasn’t seen as moving…
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Wild + Free
Read moreAfter lots of questions about what the Wild + Free conference I attended last weekend was all about, and finding myself struggling to put it into a snappy summary, I decided to capture my reflections on the beautifully interconnected web of ideals, practices and intentions the hearts of the speakers had shared. (Turns out even the Wild + Free website needs a few paragraphs to describe themselves!) Although the majority of Wild + Free members are home schooling/educating, no specific…
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Samhain
Read moreBelated Samhain blessings to you and your kin. For a thin veil, that space between the living and deceased has sure felt tangible this week. It has felt odd to not be producing a flower arrangement for a funeral: my grandmothers died one year and two years ago, both at this time of year. The sense of loss from their passing has surprised me, and become familiar. I hope we have many more years of marking Samhain with fire, and…
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Intuition – for an authentic holistic life
Read moreArticle published on Holistic Kitchen’s blog, ‘Holistic’, to me, means integrating all the parts into the whole; we cannot be whole without knowing all parts of ourselves.
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A Fruitful Life
Read moreA nut to crack or a delicious fruit to ripen? I’ve come to realise that we can’t be nutcrackers, weilding what we think are the right tools, ready to crack the ‘nuts’ of our children’s education or our own personal development: these things are ripening fruit, on their own unique timeline, which shouldn’t be rushed if we are to get the full juicy delicious flavour. So water, feed and wait. A fruitful life is worth waiting for and comes in…
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Lightning
Read moreNeck tingles, heartbeat stronger, I lurk by open windows and a door; Rooted in habitual safety, compelled to run wild. How does this electric force awaken primitive instincts, as well as my soul? A surge of potential energy through me, at every crack and fork. I imagine hair loose, standing unprotected, open to its force. A storm in the skies, every way that I look, But a clarity of awakening within.
