Seasons, Rhythms and Rituals.

Today is my eldest sons 10th Birthday. This morning, he walked down his "fairy path", which he knew would be there, on it sat 10 gold coins. He arrived at his place at the table, where his seat was draped with a rainbow cloth. At the table was a vase, in it 10 blooms from the pink Japonica which flowers every year right on time for his birthday. 10 hand sewn felt gnomes, sit - like a rainbow around the base of the flowers and 10 flames flicker as if to wave a sweet hello.
All this was expected, all this was known, all this provides an anchor to the rest of the day which will be full of feeling - excitement, yes. Joy, yes. Embarrassment, quite possibly. Disappointment, hopefully not.

I am sure many of you create your own rhythms around birthdays, be it the knowledge that each year the cake will arrive, or be it the early wake up call and pajama present unwrapping, there is something reassuring about the familiarity that this yearly rhythm presents.



I want more of this rhythm in my life. 


Daily grind is not the same thing - knowing I will wake up and see familiar faces, becomes a habit. Feeling my way through my profession in a similar way week by week, feeds the memory but does not nourish my soul.
I have for many years, watched with an envy as my sons grow through the Waldorf school setting. The natural feeding of rhythms starts simply in Kindergarten, with seasons tables and songs that arrive each season. As the children rise in age, they become part of the rituals, their bodies being introduced to Advent Spirals, Maypole dancing, lantern walks until the crescendo of their school life with a drum beaten walk towards a fire to set any soul alive.

The difference then between a rhythm which is a habit to feed the brain, and a rhythm which is a habit to feed the soul - surely must be ritual.

The search for meaning and purpose is not a new crusade, for years many of us looking for "that something else" - reach outwards scouring libraries, the internet exploring tribal customs that seem to root right back into our ancestral blood. A recent holiday to Tanzania, saw me standing among the beauty that is the Masai people - watching them stirred a feeling deep inside my soul, a candle I have been fostering suddenly burst into light.

Yet, the books I have read, the research I have done, even the adventures that Tanzania provided me with, none of this feeds my ancestral blood.  I am not Tanzanian, I was not born in the 4th Century, and i have no shamanic line, my body does not "do" yoga, and I have no interest in doctrine or religion. I crave something that meets me and my family, and my wider family as it is here and now.

I turn to the pages of "Jane Meredith" and "Rituals of Celebration"
(link to amazon http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0738735442?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00)
a book that I stumbled across in an amazon trawl, and my hope is rekindled. Jane, in simple language - talks us through her way to celebrate the year. Her friends and family come together for rituals that are both profound and beautiful. Children breathe in experiences that only their bodies will understand - the heady understandings left to the wayside.

This year will see the planting of seeds which i hope will erupt into a symphony of body felt experiences which will be created by the stories, poetry, art, dance, and ritual that my friends and I will co-create. There are those of us, who have heart connections to something spiritual, those of us who are comforted more by what can be seen with the eye, It will take a level of compromise, a commitment to playing with the diversity that each of us bring. But in the end, we will surface from our difference with rituals that will meet our here and now bodies.

I look forward to the creating, and crave the becoming. It will I think, provide me with the same anchor that my children feel. A regular space to return to - to understand the waves around me.

New Beginnings and clean kitchens.

So, I'm finally jumping on the blog band wagon. A little window perhaps into the madness that circles around my brain.

A collective jumble of craftiness, therapeutic insights (and outsights), the daily moments of parenthood and my struggle with getting this body fit ! - First run this year !!!!! (but more on that later)


Today is Sunday. Today my children will trash the lounge I tidied yesterday. Today I will trash the kitchen that I now pay a cleaner to restore to pristine-ness once a week. Today I will laugh at least once, shout at least once, and I will most definitely be on the sewing machine - at least once.


I want to begin this blog with a discussion on something wonderful I've finally gifted myself.
Its taken some time, and some wrestling with guilt and shame and all those horrid feelings which actually serve only to stop me doing things I want to do !


"I have a cleaner."


Its an interesting concept this, "having a cleaner". I've always thought people who have one are upper crust individuals who aren't prepared to get stuck in with the horrors that lurk in shadows. I imagine tall hats and floral bouquets upon tables adorned with the finest of silver ware and linen napkins.  It is a fact that my family have already formed an opinion of my "having a cleaner" - this somehow confirms their believe that I am lazy, too good for the jobs which I now ask my lovely Nicole to perform.

Yet now "I have a cleaner", I feel truly relieved.

The certainty I had that cleaners were for those on higher end incomes, is fading into the background. In fact, when talking to other such purveyors of services thus shamed, we all seem to be the same people. Working too many hours, spending too much time being overwhelmed by THE MESS we are unable to sit in our houses and just enjoy the feeling of being at home. Nicole does not come armed with starched uniforms nor a shame stick to beat me with - quite the opposite, she is young funky and extremely patient - 4.5 hours in my grease stained kitchen is no mean feat !

Nicole will delve into my darkest of corners, poking around in among dust and cobwebs and bits of lego that were grieved over months ago. Nicole will take layers of disgust away from my surfaces and they will be beautiful once again. Nicole will show me new places to store things, I will wake up one day and realize that my furniture looks so much better "that way round". And when I'm sitting in the mess that others around me have made, Nicole will usher me out the door and tell me to not come home till she has cleared the way.

Like my clients, I pay Nicole to help me sort out my mess. My disarray. I'm glad to say she appears non-judgmental and incredibly loving. Shes going to love my home when I'm just stressed out with it, and at some point, I'm sure I will learn to re-love my home all by myself.  And today, when my creative juices over flow in the kitchen, I will not fear the wrath of the overwhelming shame - Instead, I will just breathe and know that it is only 3 sleeps until Nicole supports me once again.