I am alive in this moment, right here, right now. The rain is pattering on the wooden roof on the boat, it's cosy within with our new solar lighting (clever hubby is already spending his work-free days wisely!!). There are seabirds calling as they come in to roost on nearby rooftops. Our kitty, back from the brink of imagined impending doom by some overzealous vets, is eating chicken in our galley kitchen. He's fine and happy, loving his cuddles as ever. We went out to sea today for a crazy wild sail in a friend's boat - the sense of thrill and adrenalin is still within when I remember the boat ripping through the waves tilted on its side. Shit, I was scared!!! But I was also excited and felt completely, fully alive and alert. I felt/feel in awe of the vastness of the oceans, of their changing moods and colours, their drama and danger. How a beautiful calm blue sea can turn into a frenzied grey whirlpool in moments...
Sometimes, like just now, when I lie on my bed in the boat, I imagine all the creatures beneath me, right down to the murky depths. The sea pulsing her sweet rhythms on the underside of our boat, the fish moving as one beneath the hull.
I have been having a beautiful and weirdly wonderful connection with all the babies I've seen in the last few days. When I pass them in pushchairs and prams in the shops, we stare at one another for what feels like ages, their eyes following mine as we go our separate ways. I say weird simply because I thought a baby's range of vision didn't extend that far... But it feels special, sacred, as if they can sense something or know something I have lost a connection to. These wise souls just arrived, they know it all.
Friday, 30 July 2010
Tuesday, 20 July 2010
good conversation
Two interesting conversations I had yesterday and today:
1). Yesterday, I saw a client who I have known and treated for nearly five years and who has now become a good friend as we both write. I started seeing her towards the end of her TTC journey four years ago when I didn't really understand (I also wrote an article on holistic health for fertility around this time that still makes me cringe!! - as with all things, you kinda have to experience it to get it!) but tried to treat her with love and compassion.
I didn't see her again until she was pregnant with her child who is now 2. I saw her yesterday and she is pregnant with her second. Although I don't usually tell clients about our journey, I recently told her because, as I say, we'd transcended some of the therapist/client boundaries by becoming friends anyway! She told me that she had tried EVERYTHING under the sun: acupuncture, nutrition, healing, reflexology (from me - eek!) and, finally, IVF. Eventually she decided to go back to university and study and set up a band. Within six months, she was pregnant (after a night out with a few drinks and unhealthy food!). The same happened with her second though this time they weren't really trying at all as they'd been told it was medically impossible. A birthday party with friends and whoops, along comes number two! True magical miracles. Her story really made me feel good.
2). A lady came up and chatted to me today when I was sat on the deck of the boat. Funnily enough, her friend subscribes to the magazine I edit so we were talking about that and then about her beautiful daughter asleep in her pushchair. She told me that she didn't think her daughter 'would have come along' unless they had moved to a boat and pursued a simpler, far less stressful life. Soon after they sold their house and downsized to a peaceful boat, they conceived. Well, you can imagine that was music to my ears!
Only 4 days until R leaves his job for good and we are together...I picture long cycle rides along the seafront, fish and chips on the beach, time to laugh and talk with one another, picnics in the park...we'll have much less cash but much more bliss. I can't wait.
1). Yesterday, I saw a client who I have known and treated for nearly five years and who has now become a good friend as we both write. I started seeing her towards the end of her TTC journey four years ago when I didn't really understand (I also wrote an article on holistic health for fertility around this time that still makes me cringe!! - as with all things, you kinda have to experience it to get it!) but tried to treat her with love and compassion.
I didn't see her again until she was pregnant with her child who is now 2. I saw her yesterday and she is pregnant with her second. Although I don't usually tell clients about our journey, I recently told her because, as I say, we'd transcended some of the therapist/client boundaries by becoming friends anyway! She told me that she had tried EVERYTHING under the sun: acupuncture, nutrition, healing, reflexology (from me - eek!) and, finally, IVF. Eventually she decided to go back to university and study and set up a band. Within six months, she was pregnant (after a night out with a few drinks and unhealthy food!). The same happened with her second though this time they weren't really trying at all as they'd been told it was medically impossible. A birthday party with friends and whoops, along comes number two! True magical miracles. Her story really made me feel good.
2). A lady came up and chatted to me today when I was sat on the deck of the boat. Funnily enough, her friend subscribes to the magazine I edit so we were talking about that and then about her beautiful daughter asleep in her pushchair. She told me that she didn't think her daughter 'would have come along' unless they had moved to a boat and pursued a simpler, far less stressful life. Soon after they sold their house and downsized to a peaceful boat, they conceived. Well, you can imagine that was music to my ears!
Only 4 days until R leaves his job for good and we are together...I picture long cycle rides along the seafront, fish and chips on the beach, time to laugh and talk with one another, picnics in the park...we'll have much less cash but much more bliss. I can't wait.
Tuesday, 13 July 2010
Really getting into the Abraham teachings channelled through Esther Hicks - books such as 'The Law of Attraction', 'Ask and it is Given' etc. If this all sounds a little loopy and not really me, it's not a cult or anything. I was hugely skeptical when my friend M got really into their stuff years ago and for a long time I tended to filter stuff out when clients raved about it. Eventually my sister (wise one, always gently pushing me forward on my path) was talking about some of the stuff she'd learnt from them and she bought me one of their books.
I was lying in the park having had a long conversation with a stranger about her not being able to have children. She was 51 and resigned to a childless life so we were talking about adoption and fostering and then we naturally moved on to our beloved pets and how much they mean in our lives. I was playing back all the things we had said to one another, all the ways in which we had affirmed our status in life as childless...our conversation, having sprung from nowhere really, made me very thoughtful. I pulled out the book my sister had given me ('Manifest Your Desires') and turned to the first page I was drawn to. This is what I read:
'If there is something that you desire that you currently do not have, you need only put your attention upon it, and, by the Law of Attraction, it will come to you. However, if there is something that you desire that you currently do not have, and you put your attention upon your current state of not-having-it, then the Law of Attraction will continue to match that not-having-it vibration, so you will continue to not have that which you desire.'
I knew this in my heart of hearts. I think that most of the time I live my truth, I think I fill my mind with positive, hopeful thoughts. I think. But there I was having a conversation with a perfect stranger about my not having children. I think about that far more than I think about a blissful future full of children. I was amazed that this lesson was thrown onto my path at this auspicious moment. I lay in stillness, watching sunlight reflect off the black feathers of a bird, smelling the rich brown earth and thinking 'wow, I am alive! In this moment!'
So I began listening to some of their CDs, I don't want to slavishly follow their stuff, I just love to accumulate more beautiful thoughts, ways of inspiring and uplifting myself and those around me... And it has reminded me to listen to my lovely fertility hypnosis CD which includes visualizing R and I and a baby, and a baby growing in my womb. It feels good to channel my energies into these pursuits rather than on feeling angry/sad/resentful for what hasn't yet manifest. That makes me feel stuck, depressed, heavy, grey.
I am learning to put my intentions out into the Universe and to trust that all will be okay. I needed that reminder to float into my life just now.
I was lying in the park having had a long conversation with a stranger about her not being able to have children. She was 51 and resigned to a childless life so we were talking about adoption and fostering and then we naturally moved on to our beloved pets and how much they mean in our lives. I was playing back all the things we had said to one another, all the ways in which we had affirmed our status in life as childless...our conversation, having sprung from nowhere really, made me very thoughtful. I pulled out the book my sister had given me ('Manifest Your Desires') and turned to the first page I was drawn to. This is what I read:
'If there is something that you desire that you currently do not have, you need only put your attention upon it, and, by the Law of Attraction, it will come to you. However, if there is something that you desire that you currently do not have, and you put your attention upon your current state of not-having-it, then the Law of Attraction will continue to match that not-having-it vibration, so you will continue to not have that which you desire.'
I knew this in my heart of hearts. I think that most of the time I live my truth, I think I fill my mind with positive, hopeful thoughts. I think. But there I was having a conversation with a perfect stranger about my not having children. I think about that far more than I think about a blissful future full of children. I was amazed that this lesson was thrown onto my path at this auspicious moment. I lay in stillness, watching sunlight reflect off the black feathers of a bird, smelling the rich brown earth and thinking 'wow, I am alive! In this moment!'
So I began listening to some of their CDs, I don't want to slavishly follow their stuff, I just love to accumulate more beautiful thoughts, ways of inspiring and uplifting myself and those around me... And it has reminded me to listen to my lovely fertility hypnosis CD which includes visualizing R and I and a baby, and a baby growing in my womb. It feels good to channel my energies into these pursuits rather than on feeling angry/sad/resentful for what hasn't yet manifest. That makes me feel stuck, depressed, heavy, grey.
I am learning to put my intentions out into the Universe and to trust that all will be okay. I needed that reminder to float into my life just now.
Monday, 12 July 2010
So, I just cancelled my place on a baby massage instructor training course. I thought it would be the ideal thing to compliment my work as a pregnancy massage therapist as I tend to gradually lose touch with my clients after the babies are born. I so enjoy meeting their babies for the first time, holding them when I have come to know them so well in the womb and connected with their phenomenal wise energy. But at the weekend I suddenly just thought about being faced with a whole room of new mums and dads and their little people and realised I could not do it. Yes, business-wise, it'd be great. But emotionally I think it would be a step too far.
Somehow, without realising, we've entered a new phase of waiting to become a family. Moving onto the boat heralded a new chapter and all the immense changes and challenges it threw up meant our attentions were focused elsewhere. We did not chat about fertility so much, my fertility vitamins ran out and I forgot to buy new ones, the acupuncture petered out....
And here is the strangest part; family and friends seem to have accepted our childless status. When my cousin's wife became pregnant, my dad told me without the usual quiet acknowledgment of our own emptiness. Friends on their second and third pregnancies are no longer careful what they say. Hey, I'm not saying I want everyone tiptoeing around me but it seems so odd that it's been completely forgotten. As if R and I had said some time back we didn't want kids or something.
And around us, friends and family become pregnant, give birth, have houses full of toddlers, birthday parties are celebrated, the years keep on ticking by....
I feel strange today because an old client got in touch as she's in her last trimester and wanted to book pregnancy massage up until the due date and I thought 'hang on, when did that happen?!' With those first pregnancies of friends and clients, I was right on hand, massaging, allaying fears, supporting, sharing birth books, cooking nourishing food for new mum, rocking babies etc etc. I would bake cakes and draw pictures to decorate the nurseries and now...well, these days it seems babies pop out of nowhere - I'll bump into a non-pregnant friend and ten minutes later I'll see her again and she'll be 6 months gone. Hmmmm, know this says more about my general reclusiveness than anything else. But today I feel sad and that's just how it is.
Somehow, without realising, we've entered a new phase of waiting to become a family. Moving onto the boat heralded a new chapter and all the immense changes and challenges it threw up meant our attentions were focused elsewhere. We did not chat about fertility so much, my fertility vitamins ran out and I forgot to buy new ones, the acupuncture petered out....
And here is the strangest part; family and friends seem to have accepted our childless status. When my cousin's wife became pregnant, my dad told me without the usual quiet acknowledgment of our own emptiness. Friends on their second and third pregnancies are no longer careful what they say. Hey, I'm not saying I want everyone tiptoeing around me but it seems so odd that it's been completely forgotten. As if R and I had said some time back we didn't want kids or something.
And around us, friends and family become pregnant, give birth, have houses full of toddlers, birthday parties are celebrated, the years keep on ticking by....
I feel strange today because an old client got in touch as she's in her last trimester and wanted to book pregnancy massage up until the due date and I thought 'hang on, when did that happen?!' With those first pregnancies of friends and clients, I was right on hand, massaging, allaying fears, supporting, sharing birth books, cooking nourishing food for new mum, rocking babies etc etc. I would bake cakes and draw pictures to decorate the nurseries and now...well, these days it seems babies pop out of nowhere - I'll bump into a non-pregnant friend and ten minutes later I'll see her again and she'll be 6 months gone. Hmmmm, know this says more about my general reclusiveness than anything else. But today I feel sad and that's just how it is.
Tuesday, 22 June 2010
goodbye to a dear animal spirit
It's been a long time since I last posted but for very good reason. Our dearest beloved friend G the sausage dog passed into the Light at 8.40am on Sunday 13th June. We spent a week prior to that trying to make her life as peaceful and restful as it could be for a dog suffering from heart failure. I went to pick her up from our friend's house (or her 'other mum' as she was the original owner and we 'shared' the dog after she went travelling for several years) on Saturday 5th June and noticed that she was breathless and exhausted. Her other mum felt it would not be long and we nursed her through a long dark night, fearing the worst. After a visit to the vets in the morning, armed with heart drugs and a diagnosis we took her home with a 50/50 chance of survival.I felt strange prolonging the inevitable - is it fair to fill our wise animals with drugs to prolong their lives if they are suffering? But the extra week it gave us filled our hearts with love and joy. We both took time off work to nurture and care for our little friend, spent time gazing at the clouds and lying in the grass asking the Goddess to protect and care for her. Friends visited and gave her reiki, she was surrounded by crystals donated by our neices who tenderly sang and cared for her, she nibbled on her favourite treats and slowly, slowly we came to realise it was the end of her time with us.
On the last night, she shared the bed with us (as she had done all week, we got minimal sleep!) and I stayed up with her and tried to help her on her Journey. I knew her time was coming, I did not want her to suffer but I also wanted to follow her lead. I pulled an Angel card earlier in the week - Listening - and in those final hours, when my heart filled with doubt and R thought we should call out a vet to put her down, I went on a journey to meet her Higher Self. There she was, on a woodland path, with a sparkle of circular light at the end, and in her endless generosity she was turning back to see that we were okay. I asked her if she needed help and from the look she gave me I knew I was in the presence of a wise, wise spirit and simply to trust with all my heart. We called her other mum in the morning to tell her that it would not be long and she wanted G to come to her beautiful peaceful seaside home to lie in the grass and feel the healing energies all around. She talked about getting a vet to help her 'over the bridge'. I whispered to G 'we're taking you home, my darling' and after R had got up to collect her things, she died. Beside me there on the bed, the light went out in her eyes. Wise wise soul, how blessed we were to be guardians of your sweet, bright spirit and to be recipients of your manifold gifts.
Through G, I came to understand the meaning of Unconditional Love, love given freely from the heart. She was always by our sides; gentle, centring, present. I witnessed awe at the mysteries of existence and came to realise how death is like birth...if we are able to step back and allow, if we let go of our need to control and completely surrender, then almighty Nature knows what to do. I know there will come a time when I am birthing alone, or just with R and my sister by my side, when I will call on the wisdom of those eyes, recall the beauty and truth of complete surrender. As the days become weeks without her here, I have come to know that we were gifted an enlightened spirit who gifted us great love, joy and wisdom.
On Saturday we are gathering with a group of G's favourite human companions to raise a glass, plant a tree, remember happy times and set off Chinese lanterns into the night sky....may she always know peace and light
Friday, 28 May 2010
Ahoy there!
We're aboard! Officially aboard on our lovely, leaky, problematic but nonetheless adorable houseboat. Perhaps I will somehow get over my technophobia and share some pictures with you... I have started a new blog describing our life aboard http://seashantiesandsausages.blogspot.com which I hope you will visit. I know I am not always the most reliable of bloggers, but what with writing my journal and walking and working and eating and sleeping and loving my most loveable of husbands I kind of run out of time. I hope that time is something we'll have much more of here, without working slavishly to make ends meet.
R is giving up his job on 20th July and will officially be free, free, free! I'm so happy for him, feel that this de-institutionalisation (hey, that's a word and a half) will be what he needs to relax and revive him. And there's nothing quite so lovely as seeing him getting stuck in on deck, using his hands, being creative, not draining away in an office suffocated in a shirt and tie. I have yearned for this freedom for him for so long, want to see him become his true self again. I have taken another job so that we've got a bit of extra cash coming in and he doesn't have to worry financially ('cause it seems to me that's what men like to do).
The social worker didn't get back in touch with me. Perhaps she thought my email about living on a houseboat was mad? Well, her silence gave me pause for thought. Life has thrown up so many synchronisities of late that I'd be burying my head in the sand if I ignored them. Whisperings everywhere I turn, urging me to wait. Wait. Pause for a moment. So, I am going to enjoy the liberation of throwing away the charts and the thermometer and just enjoy a summer of relaxation, watching my lover mend the boat, singing sea shanties, that kinda thing. And we'll see what the future holds. I'm not going to get too hung up on the future just now, I want to be present IN THIS MOMENT and enjoy it. If, by some crazy chance, we did pregnant, I would still like to adopt one day, not least because we've done so much emotional preparation but also because it's always felt like a calling (if that doesn't sound too pompous), one I didn't know was that strong until the last few months.
Did you see the magical magnificent moon last night? She'd been up to all kinds of full moon mischief with things breaking, going missing, exploding (in the case of a boiler at work), blocking (in the case of my sister's drains - not her personal drains, mind) and leaking. What turmoil and havoc at play! And then there she was, casting a bright shimmering pathway across the sea, perfect and still in all her May glory. I made a wish and basked in her beauty.
R is giving up his job on 20th July and will officially be free, free, free! I'm so happy for him, feel that this de-institutionalisation (hey, that's a word and a half) will be what he needs to relax and revive him. And there's nothing quite so lovely as seeing him getting stuck in on deck, using his hands, being creative, not draining away in an office suffocated in a shirt and tie. I have yearned for this freedom for him for so long, want to see him become his true self again. I have taken another job so that we've got a bit of extra cash coming in and he doesn't have to worry financially ('cause it seems to me that's what men like to do).
The social worker didn't get back in touch with me. Perhaps she thought my email about living on a houseboat was mad? Well, her silence gave me pause for thought. Life has thrown up so many synchronisities of late that I'd be burying my head in the sand if I ignored them. Whisperings everywhere I turn, urging me to wait. Wait. Pause for a moment. So, I am going to enjoy the liberation of throwing away the charts and the thermometer and just enjoy a summer of relaxation, watching my lover mend the boat, singing sea shanties, that kinda thing. And we'll see what the future holds. I'm not going to get too hung up on the future just now, I want to be present IN THIS MOMENT and enjoy it. If, by some crazy chance, we did pregnant, I would still like to adopt one day, not least because we've done so much emotional preparation but also because it's always felt like a calling (if that doesn't sound too pompous), one I didn't know was that strong until the last few months.
Did you see the magical magnificent moon last night? She'd been up to all kinds of full moon mischief with things breaking, going missing, exploding (in the case of a boiler at work), blocking (in the case of my sister's drains - not her personal drains, mind) and leaking. What turmoil and havoc at play! And then there she was, casting a bright shimmering pathway across the sea, perfect and still in all her May glory. I made a wish and basked in her beauty.
Thursday, 6 May 2010
packing, drumming, chanting...
The day after our 3rd anniversary...but it's been 10 years since we met so a very special year all round. I still haven't heard back from our social worker after pouring my heart out to her in an email about why we were moving onto a houseboat. I so hope no news is good news. I'm kneeling on my slippers to write this because everything is either in boxes or going to charity (including the computer chair). Massive, massive purge today...my sister helped me let go of a huge amount of stuff, a lot of which we put outside the front of the house. It was gone in record time and it was great to think of it going to new homes where it will be loved and appreciated. This computer is on its way to charity and we've bought a second-hand laptop for our new tiny living space.
An uplifting day though - going to vote this morning made me think of all those women who fought with everything they had that we might have the privilege of choosing who governs our country. How far we have come as women. It gives me pause for thought and it was with gratitude in my heart that I cast my vote today. And yes, I voted Green! I think they stand a very good chance of getting in down here.
I spent a wonderful weekend with family. My sister treated me to a beautiful drumming day with a wise woman I have loved and respected for a long time: http://www.seventhwavemusic.co.uk/ to hear her magical voice. A circle of women drummed and sang, chanted, crafted, cried and laughed together and I came away feeling peaceful and strong. Then my sister, brother and I drove to Wales to spend a few days walking, talking and enjoying each other's fine company. We've found a huge family house with lots of different apartments that we want to buy together so we stayed there and marvelled at the views and the fantasticly sweet energy it exuded. Somehow we've just got to come up with the crazy amount of cash required but I'm sure we'll manifest it somehow - it just feels right.
I came home to find that R had done a massive chunk of the packing so I've been really knuckling down these last few days, making sure that we're free of clutter and full of bright anticipation as we move onward into our future together.
An uplifting day though - going to vote this morning made me think of all those women who fought with everything they had that we might have the privilege of choosing who governs our country. How far we have come as women. It gives me pause for thought and it was with gratitude in my heart that I cast my vote today. And yes, I voted Green! I think they stand a very good chance of getting in down here.
I spent a wonderful weekend with family. My sister treated me to a beautiful drumming day with a wise woman I have loved and respected for a long time: http://www.seventhwavemusic.co.uk/ to hear her magical voice. A circle of women drummed and sang, chanted, crafted, cried and laughed together and I came away feeling peaceful and strong. Then my sister, brother and I drove to Wales to spend a few days walking, talking and enjoying each other's fine company. We've found a huge family house with lots of different apartments that we want to buy together so we stayed there and marvelled at the views and the fantasticly sweet energy it exuded. Somehow we've just got to come up with the crazy amount of cash required but I'm sure we'll manifest it somehow - it just feels right.
I came home to find that R had done a massive chunk of the packing so I've been really knuckling down these last few days, making sure that we're free of clutter and full of bright anticipation as we move onward into our future together.
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