perplexity and peace

I'm grateful for dentists ~ honestly! I know that without them life would be a lot more painful and horrible...can you tell I'm trying ever so hard not to complain about the challenges of impressions and extractions...and having to eat cold cauliflower cheese very, very slowly. I'm also grateful for anaesthesia, but I don't much enjoy that either... As a matter of fact, in this respect,my usual blatant disregard for injury deserts me totally - well it's self inflicted normally so that's ok!
    I remember my friend Dan who was trollied off for cancer surgery laughing, saying that the dentist still reduced him to a nervous wreck and so it is with me, nothing else comes close...Still, I'm grateful for dentists, honestly!
             Gradually the world outside is beginning to dry up, the sweet peas are spending the daylight hours outside now, the tomatoes are up and I'm hoping for a dry spell over the weekend to get a patch dug for shallots and garlic and to get some salads started. It's a flower day tomorrow Moon gardeners (sidereal Libra/air sign astro peeps) so I'll be sowing some aquilegia and gypsophila  in the propagator.     

 

 

Today I'm grateful for peace. Our country is being run by a bunch of crazies and I don't expect that to be changing in a hurry, but so far,thank heavens, my life and that of most of us alive in Britain today has been lived without the daily horrors and deprivations of war. As a child in the early sixties I used to hear heavy planes droning overhead as I lay in the huge iron bedstead of my Grandmother's  spare room and quake with terror waiting for the dreaded 'atom bomb' to explode. I'd heard my Nan and Fred the Baker discussing this phenomenon in some detail when I should have been elsewhere ~ invisibility was one of my several talents ~ I never told them that I was scared but I still remember the terror, night after night as the planes came in low to a wartime RAF station nearby.  Last year, I was following Harry Fear's late night broadcasts from Gaza as Operation Pillar of Cloud took place a world away. Drones endlessly circled the city all the long, dog barking night and I got just a whiff of the same feeling. With today's atrocities reeling across the TV screen, I'm feeling more grateful and privileged than I can say that I have lived my life in relative peace.

Aromatics

Thanks to the person whose vehicle number plate 666 RRR made me smile.
    Today I had every intention to go to the allotment and make a start on cutting up the pittosporum tree which blew down last week and is seriously in the way of progress. A combination of drizzle and lethargy weakened my resolve however and so I turned my hand to making tummy salve.
         Butters, oils and beeswax combine to make an aromatherapy treatment for nervous tummies. You know, it's when you're worried, angry and generally emotionally overwrought, the digestive system is often the first way your body responds. You're 'gutted', 'sick of it', running to the loo and worse.  This pleasantly fragrant salve is massaged gently over the solar plexus chakra in a clockwise direction ( that's the way the digestive system works) to soothe and relax the jittering and churning which are so uncomfortable. Soon you're breathing more slowly and deeply and feeling calmer and
back in control. This salve doesn't react badly with sunlight on the skin and it's safe during pregnancy ~ it will even help to prevent stretch marks.

  
 There's a good strong one for adults and a milder version for the under 12s. A baby salve is on the way too just made with pure camomile.  I'm grateful that we can almost always find something in our environment to comfort and heal . Do you have a particular wild plant that flourishes in your garden? Before you complain too much, just check on the medicinal properties of that plant - does the answer ring any bells?

Buskers

Snowdrops, as you probably know, are best planted 'in the green' - meaning in full growth, and here in the far west that's about now. So I was delighted that after a few whopping hints, the Beloved arrived home at lunchtime today with a couple of nice clumps of snowdrops ~ thankyou, you're a Goody!

 

I love street music; In town this afternoon it was really good to hear the first buskers of the year, Flats and Sharps ~ a young Penzance bluegrass band ~   (you can tell if they're good because they have a guitar case instead of a hat) doing rather well too, deservedly so, thanks to them and all musicians,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Y0Z81t9hfo

 

catch them here.

 

For myself and many of us who work alone, one of the best of modern innovations is the podcast ~ hours of cold and tedious work now fly by in thrall to a multitude of  fascinations. I learned more stuff about the Iron Age today than I realised there was to know and if I listen to it a few more times I might even remember some of it. Gratitude then to experts of all sorts and to the BBC which in spite of some glaring shortcomings is still, in my opinion, worth the licence fee.

And although in principle I'd rather supermarkets didn't exist, I have to shamedfacedly admit to being rather infatuated with the brand new Sainsbury's store which opened here a month or two ago, I'm captivated by the little solar panels on its carpark lamps, its recycled rainwater in the toilets and its lovely lighting and air conditioning that you actually don't notice - it's just clean, tidy and lush and though I may well fall out of love with it and its GM Desiree potatoes quite soon, like all infatuations, it's pleasant while it lasts..

 

Smelly Henry

Monday is housework day chez Morvah so today I'm grateful for my little vacuum cleaner whose  smiley face belies its true nature and purpose which is to fill the house with the fragrance of 'Old damp dog, lately cavorting in foul marsh' while it does its job of sucking up our filth. So I'm thankful for nice smells again; the room spray of fresh roses that I made before Christmas comes into its own on Mondays.  Thankfully, open windows are at last an option again, and it's possible - if a tad ambitious - to hang washing outside, it seems so long....
     I'm grateful for little snippets of interest and amusement from my friends on facebook. I like that it's possible to  'chat' in real time sometimes or to take hours or days over a conversation, or just send a smile or blow a kiss if there's no time, so thankyou all of you - you make my day better by being there.  Of course it's also a source of learning and I'm grateful also to those of you who teach me so much about so many things ~ we're all learning together perhaps, even we old'uns! My long love of astrology, studied alone for the best part of thirty years has been enhanced  so much by finding the astrology community online ~ thank you all.
  

                                                                                                                                                                                  

We've lived in this street, with a couple of short breaks, for seventeen years. In that time we have lived in three of its eleven houses and made gardens in all of them. Sadly two of them have been cleared away for the purpose of displaying rank weeds and rubbish. The first is next door to where we now live and has been stripped repeatedly of any sign of survivors of my planting and left to long grass and mud - until this winter a new tenant has arrived and started to dig over the garden. She has struggled through  water and mud to get it done and planted up. She's very young and keen and we can't wait to see flowers over the garden wall again so I'm grateful for my lovely young neighbour and to all those who make gardens everywhere, Spring is on its way!                                                                                                                                                      

 

Sunday

Any of you still up and reading this on facebook should be in bed.I should be in bed and am only here by dint of commitment to a daily stint of gratitude.  Plenty to be grateful  for today, none of it Earth shaking but all of it a pleasure.
   For Sunday morning lie-ins and slow breakfasts and for a gorgeous, sparkling sunny morning with the first ground frost of the winter, I give thanks.  That we live so close to Marazion beach I'm grateful. Rarely - maybe August bank holiday - have I seen so many people there as today. Granted, at least half of them sat in their cars eating burgers and chips without even a window open, but at least they got away from the TV.  The beach is still all over the car-park and is strangely loose and gravelly, there's a lot of seaweed and disconcerting bits of cars but for beach starved walkers it's a dream.

    I'd also like to give thanks  (I've been watching the BAFTAs) for :

                 The Beloved, who is my best mate and who cooks on Sundays,
                 Pebbles ~ I never return from the beach without a pocket full of pebbles,
                 A very weary dog who had a happy time chewing seaweed and smiling at people,
                 The smell of Date and Walnut Sunday cake in the oven,
                  And finally my bed ~ I love my bed and happily I am off there now,
                  Sweet dreams!

Calm

At bedtime the world was in turmoil, wind and water and LOUD....by morning the wind had dropped to a stiff breeze,the rain had stopped and it was so QUIET you could hear  the birds singing. I'm grateful for quiet, so grateful, it's balm to the soul.

                          "  Be not afeard; the isle is full of noises,
Sounds, and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.
Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
Will hum about mine ears; and sometime voices
That, if I then had waked after long sleep,
Will make me sleep again; and then in dreaming,
The clouds methought would open, and show riches
Ready to drop upon me, that when I waked
I cried to dream again."            Shakespeare   The Tempest

      Nice enough for a walk up on the moor after collecting our eggs at the farm where newly born calves and budding daffodils herald the spring.  It  was still breezy but with moments of calm when the sun felt warm on our faces ~ bliss!  Jester was beside himself and ran around like a crazy pup with an expression of pure joy...So I'm grateful today for Sunshine, for the good clean air up there that gets you high; for the fabulous views of the bay to the South, the hills to the East and West and the rocky outcrops of the high moors above the North coast and that the great sky above is once again full of birds.
         I'm grateful for the heartstopping green of mosses in the granite hedges. Unshaded by leaves, they flourish and flower before the spring, loving the wetness, tiny perfection.

 Back at home, tomato and chilli seeds have joined the flowers in the propagator today..will we get a good summer to grow and ripen them this year?   It's an act of faith, some you win, some you lose ~ every year a different success and a different failure so it usually pays to plant a good variety.
   I'm grateful for afternoon snoozes too ~ dog and self spark out.  Looks like being fine again tomorrow ~

Lunacy

It's a short one today because it's late and I'm too tired to write much but hopefully the power will stay on long enough for a little natter...Isn't it amazing how quickly you can get used to things?  A couple of months ago, a storm like the one blowing out there at the moment would have had me peering anxiously out of the window, listening for the next howling gust and being generally a bit agitated. Tonight it's not bothering me half as much, I'm just truly grateful we're not flooded.
      With no possibility of gainful employment and climbing the walls with cabin fever, we took advantage of a break in this morning's deluge to make a quick foray to the allotment in search of veggies. Nobody else was about but it actually felt rather nice to be out; it was very mild and green, a definite air of spring - the birds think so too.

    The allotment path over the stream was too alarmingly flooded to cross so it was a much longer walk than expected to go the long way round. The heron who fishes by the bridge was diverted too, forlornly flying around looking for somewhere safe to find lunch . The allotment is best described as 'laid waste'. A few dry days and it'll look less daunting I imagine but there's so much to do, things should be planted very soon and there isn't a hope at the moment.  Very grateful for a good bag of vegetables though; parsnips, leeks, sprouting and kale, rosemary and pussy willows for the windowsill.
        What made me most very grateful today were a couple of pots of golden crocus bursting into bloom in spite of the weather. They're new corms this year, bought from the garden centre in September and I'm willing to bet that before planting out in our courtyard they've never seen actual daylight or rain or moonlight and yet...in another pot are a mix of crocus that have been kept for several years, flowered, died down and come back up without any interference from us. Today the yellow crocus in that pot broke their buds too, and you know why ? Because it's the Full Moon!  My sweet peas and antirrhinums are coming up too for the same reason. I'm grateful that regardless of the machinations of mass producers and their genetic tinkering, the Moon still effortlessly beckons and we all respond...you didn't? Are you sure?

staying in

Huge resistance to writing the blog today, self discipline's not my strong point and I'd rather curl up downstairs with a book or a little snooze. Either way I'm most grateful that I no longer have to walk to my Thursday job as the intermittent hail storms today are violent, electrical and cold.    Poor Jester hates them and insists on occupying the tiny space between kitchen and bathroom where it's dark and we fall over him. Bless him - I'm grateful for his company, he's a nutter but he has a Leo Moon so he's a lovin' boy and gets away with  far too much. He hasn't had much in the way of walks over the last week or two - his usual morning haunts along the sea front are still inaccessible to pedestrians owing to large pieces of the sea wall and path having collapsed and the green where he usually has a game of ball being more or less part of the beach for the moment.  We haven't minded much; Jester and I are happy enough to wait for something a bit less alarming.
    Having said all that, I'm grateful more than I can say to the Beloved, who has manfully gone off to work whenever it's been calm enough to stand upright.  In fact, thankyou to everyone who has struggled through the storms to keep life ticking over almost as normal.
  There have been one or two other moments of gladness from the past 24 hours.  The night sky when I went out just before bedtime last night, Jupiter blazing away up there right above the rooftops with Gemini clear as crystal and the almost Full Moon lighting up the night; Finding that the bunch of
 hazel catkins I brought from the allotment over a month ago when the hazel we have planted there had it's first little coppicing, has taken root in the jug and is opening perfect new leaves  ~ new baby hazels!  Bread, fresh from the oven ~  filling the house with warmth and smelling so nice; Clean sheets on the bed, roasties later, I'm so grateful for roasties...maybe tomorrow I'll come up with something more worthy but for today, the middle of February, roasties will do fine...                 

Stuff

In serious danger of cabin fever due to the endless gales and hail showers making any excursion from the house pretty uncomfortable, today I set myself the task of sorting out the 8'x7' box room which passes as my art/craftwork/yoga/sewing space cum storage of all associated materials and equipment, my seed propagator - oh yes, and the Beloved's wardrobe and dressing room (and let's not forget that he's a Leo.. )  As you might imagine, with fingers in far too many pies as far as 'projects' go, this space is rarely organised for long and from time to time needs a complete overhaul. To this end I purchased two large plastic storage boxes with dinky little wheels and spent most of the day reorganising Stuff..  There's candle making stuff, cosmetic and medicinal concoctions stuff , Painting and drawing stuff of all kinds, enough for my teenage dream foundation course, beads, ribbons, driftwood, shells, stones etc,etc; a couple of shelves of poetry and astrology books - I like good company on the odd occasion that I can find room to be creative in there, a work table, all my notes going back eons; a gorgeous little Victorian fireplace full of fir-cones, and a bunch of uselessly dried up willow...and on it goes.      Sorting it out is like that game you have as a child where mixed up tiles are set into a square case with one tile space empty and you have to arrange the tiles into rows of the same colour. Eventually however I arranged it to my liking in the manner of a broody old bantam about to settle on a nice clutch of eggs. What will hatch, if anything at all, is anybody's guess but I love this little room full of dreams and found plenty in there to be be grateful for today.                   

      Today I'm grateful for colour and texture, for green beads and smooth pebbles, for red ribbons and slippery Aloe Vera, for rough watercolour paper and the pearly pink fragments of long-ago- summer tiny shells.
    I'm grateful for fragrance, for chocolatey cocoa butter,  cool, sweet cardamom, musty old books and my beloved beeswax.
     I give thanks for the peace and calm of my tidy room, my slightly tidier mind and for the precious hours of a stormy day to dream a few dreams...

Jackdaws and Milkjugs

  This morning I opened the top half of the back door and took a deep breath of fresh air.  Up in the spindly remains of the oak tree across the stream sat a jackdaw, head on one side, regarding me knowingly; 'Burnt the toast then?'  he said  'Chuck us out a bit..'   Can't get away with anything around here but I'm deeply grateful for jackdaws.                                                                                         Today I'm grateful for all the people who have the courage to stand up and challenge the feeble posturings of those who have failed our country...again.  Being grateful that we're not flooded seems a bit smug in the face of the enormous wave of suffering that has taken so many by surprise, for having your home destroyed is devastating.  There was this Somerset pub landlord on TV this evening. He'd been proactive from the beginning of the flooding, organising the production, filling and distribution of sandbags with his friends without recourse to local authorities. He'd kept the community spirits strong, just a good man. It seemed as if he'd reached a point where he could see that something had been swept away for ever, he had to turn away from the camera, unable to bear telling without tears of the ruined stuff and children's toys in the flooded houses. I'm grateful to him for doing all that and for having the courage to break through the awful TV silence about how bad it is.
     A little later, young Poppy Noor who, homeless at 16, only got to Cambridge because she was able to get housing benefits, challenged a conservative MP to explain how the proposed removal of housing benefit to the under 25s was going to work without making thousands of young people homeless - without getting past first gear she wiped the floor with his hopelessly inept defence. http://bcove.me/p5iy45pm .   More and more often I'm seeing young women - very young women - showing extraordinary courage, speaking up for things to be made right, demanding it with steadfast confidence in knowing that they are right and for all those young women I'm utterly grateful.
    In a world where a generation of young ones are badly stressed by an uncertain future, whose expectations are shrinking and who are so very disillusioned, whose lack of spiritual guidance has left many frustrated beyond telling, I am so grateful to parents who give up a lot of time to teach their children simple skills away from their screens..we're hard wired to remember the stuff our parents teach us and it doesn't have to be all bad...How to light a fire, make a shelter, find north without a compass, read a map, know what plants are edible - all that stuff that might just save their lives one day.. Bless you Mums and Dads...
   
    And finally I'm grateful to my manifesting angel who, having been requested this morning to produce a pyrex jug for melting wax, with a handle that would hook over the side of the water pot without getting too hot to use, came up with a 60's Arcopal, hook handled  milk jug complete with pink flowery decoration and currently selling on EBay for £15 in a charity shop for £1.75....I suppose if I had any sense I'd sell it but ...... thanks Angel, I owe you...

lost for words

How often does it happen that an idea crops up when you're busy with something else? It might be a solution to a problem that's been on your mind or you suddenly remember where those notes/seeds/recipes are when you're up to your elbows in compost/soapy water/shopping...well my entire writing mind seems to have fetched up after a Pluto/Mercury transit  feeling a bit like something resembling a landfill site. All the things I used to write about and the way I wrote them now seem tired bland,pedantic and not even recyclable...what's to be done? Because here and there in the mess, are little glimmers, sudden phrases that snag the heart...
    So let's do it like this...let's deceive ourselves a little and imagine that this is a gratitude blog...you know the sort of thing - it's an exercise, a commitment to finding something to be grateful for every day - how hard can that be? Then maybe one or two of those glimmers might slip in and snag our hearts...

  Today the wind and rain of the past weeks - it seems like months, has abated so I'm grateful for a quiet night's sleep without shrieking and roaring with random bumps, crashes and hailstones. I'm grateful that in spite of much flickering, our power stayed on because we share power lines with the local hospital and unlike last year when we came within a whisker of a wet carpet, the drains have been cleared and the waters are so far contained. I'm grateful to the man rocking around on a cherry- picker in a force eight gale on Saturday night getting the street lights back on - in fact to everyone who went out in that terrible weather so that we didn't have to.
   I've set up my heated propagator in the upstairs window today with sweetpeas and antirrhinums and was really grateful for hot water to thaw my frozen hands after mixing seed compost..
   Now I'm off to finish cleaning some beeswax to make candles - plenty to be grateful for there - especially the glorious rich honey smell of melted wax...