"beauty anywhere"

People say walking on water is a miracle- but to me, walking peacefully on earth is the real miracle
Thich Nhat Hanh

I walked baby steps down to the end of the garden the other day, slowly slowly, breath by breath. An enforced walking meditation, so it seemed. I was in pain, wincing with each step but made my way down with kitchen peelings for the compost heap. I stopped to rest just about at the fig tree. There I found myself smiling at the earth under foot. "Hello down there" I said, "it is nice to feel connected again at this pace, its been a while".
The sun shone behind me, casting my shadow long across the late afternoon lawn. Here I finally gave in to accepting, yes, I have really hurt my back and I shall have to simply rest and do nothing. What a battle I had had previous to that, trying all my tricks of healing and remedies to determined wellness, but to no avail. Perhaps though they helped me along to the point of resting, a weary me I was.

I went to my Father's for a few days, Me and M packed a wee bag and made our way down. I wasn't sure what to bring but got my sketchbook in there and my crochet with hopeful thoughts. He cooked for us, and was all matter of fact as he is about organizing us, and seeing that I get well, his way of loving and supporting us.

I have had lots of rest and oodles of thinking time. Going between bed and than up to watch Madeleine play, or talk with Dad, sitting out the front of his house in the sunshine.
Sitting perfectly straight has been the only way I could manage it. As any self respecting and proper lady might: ) In fact I fantasized about a beautifully ribbed corset embroidered richly with the flowers all about and gold threads, simultaneously supported and styled seemed just about right.
I also wondered which came first, the incredibly erect and perfect posture or the corset. Did one bring about the other? I cant imagine I could sit like that always, but am trying. My posture is much improved from my younger days and perhaps there is more room for improvement, especially if it helps my spine to stay happy.

Madeleine and Dad get along beautifully, and they had their time together. He lives with his magical garden that he has shaped and worked with for almost twenty years to finding himself now the keeper of a haven for small birds and wildlife, filled with little paths, trees and old places and new ones he has created for Madeleine to explore. With surprises around corners and sweet fruits to eat and smell, things to wonder about, for a six year old girl, its an enchanted place.
She spent hours consumed in summer grasses, picking strawberries, making leafy houses and making barley wine, she informed me, and all manners of flowery feasts for fairies and the likes.

I took these photos of her on our last day. I think they are asking to be painted and drawn. Which reminds me I haven't been posting anything from my studio, and I wonder about that. Is is a secret what I am making? Don't I want to share with you sweet ones? Ach, I do indeed, but I have thought a lot about what it means to blog, and during my respite I had plenty of contemplation time and came up with a few interesting ideas. I think I would like to write about those first before the art comes, but come it will.
Baby Steps; )

Here is madeleine in the beginning of a crochet piece I am making. I call it a sun hug, its my own design. It will come down over the shoulders and will have a button up collar a bit like a poncho but shorter, more of a hug; ) The yarn I have used is a silk blend and handspun, I bought it locally from my friend Jenny at woollygathering.

I did take a little time to catch up on some of my favorite blogs I follow, I am such an avid blog reader now, and am completely hooked. You will find some of my favorites on the list on the right hand side.
A year ago I didn't get this at all, and here I am settling into my place in the blogosphere, a virtual wonderland of folks sharing so generously their lives and creations, And their readers and the conversations that come about.  I feel very inspired by The Girl who married a Bear these days and her hive of activity, thoughts and peacefulness in the forests of Northern California, in what must be a " bee loud glade".

I am home again, and listening to my beloved music in these old walls. I am well enough, walking freely seeming like a small miracle, and will get my strength back in no time, with great thanks to my chiropractor and plenty of EFT I will start stretching again in a few days.
My body says rest now though and its good to be listening.

The moon is rising and its time to dream with eyes closed. Its quiet now, step by step we go "into the mystic".

thank you dear reader xx

E

Visiting Motherhood

This is Mom! This is her passport photo from when we were tiny tots. We recently had a remembrance day for her. She passed ten years ago now and of course we miss her. We, me and my family, wanted to do something for her, to honor her beautiful, kind, generous, and most graceful spirit. 

We invited all her lovely friends and ours that had known her well, all together. We reminisced all day about her, sang together, played together whilst eating her favorite foods, listening to her favorite music and having tea with proper cups and saucers: ) as she would have thought to.

Me and my big Sis Joanna, couldn't let the day go and stayed up till all hours singing songs with the night owls. We miss the music so. She had been a singer and what a rich and resonant voice she had. I would hear her late at night when she thought we were all asleep, she would sing and play and lull us all to some perfect place. I would have joined her on the weekends. 

But to drift asleep with the sound of the piano and her efforts to sing softly would be heaven to me now. Like so often in life, it takes loosing something to know how much you love it. But hang on a minute; )Right now, Maddy sleeps softly upstairs, the Guinea pigs still scratch about kept awake by my typing and lamp light, the clock ticks and tocks. The stars shine above me, the earth moves below me, my feet are planted firmly tonight. I am here now, undisturbed in this now. 

I am mother as my mother was mother to me, listening to night breathing and anticipating my early bird by my side. First thing in the morning she will tweet to me about the coming of the day, and something always is. That now feeling, and You let go and you get something in return, an dfind you have lost nothing, Really? Yes, and it always just goes like that. Life following life. And Love coming into it with some feeling of grand spaciousness in your heart when you decide to accept things as they are.

I have moments locked in me of holding my Mother's hand as a child, roughened from Winter work and washing dishes, but warm and perfect to me as in summer with the smell of strawberries from picking in the garden. Perfectly formed memories too and staying always. Those warm sweaters, always in blues or browns, that wrapped me like a cocoon of absolute softness and her voice that always had care in it somewhere. 

I watch Madeleine's hands animated in play, talking to each other often, or clasping a beloved doll or even clasped in mine, so small, so big since I last looked, so perfect. Just right for now. 

In some true way we are all here, I know it. And, on her remembrance day I felt like I gave her something for the first time in ten years. I could give her a song, a cup of tea, a piece of shortbread, as I served her friends and myself, I was serving her, sharing and visiting with her, and her with me. Smiling with her.

 I wonder is there a better way to say this. Ach I don't wonder, I bet there is

 But its just such a kind of feeling thing. To fathom the idea of separation from death seems so much more difficult than to accept that we are all in this together now : ) And That she is sharing my Motherhood is a very nice thought indeed. When I think that thought, a whole lot of real heart seems to awaken. 

Rest in Mother

What else matters now?


you sleeping soundly from your long day of running through the greens of May, June, July


Its just another part you know?


This is my life, and this is another part


Whats this?


Joy?


Were you expecting this?


Whats this?


Love
with a capital L


And Hope, for more love and more joy and space for more, and anything and everything now.


What is this child in my arms?
let me lay down and listen to her breathe. Let me breathe with her.


Nothing else matters now.

                

xx E


Thank you dear reader

Resplendence

                                  

"This is Splendid", says Madeleine yesterday evening. Yes it was indeed I thought, Sitting by the fire in the garden with supper in our hands. A sunny evening too!!!!!

Summer arrived Yesterday to Ireland! The clouds finally parted, the rain curtain lifted and we were all covered in sunlight, all day. We spent the afternoon in the garden to make the most of it, mowing, weeding and planting. And having been stopped mid -mowing at least eight times to be exact by Madeleine, who had a question or something to tell me, which happens frequently whenever I am doing something that needs my attention for a prolonged period of time. I was feeling a little a little aggravated and impatient to get finished, cook supper, Maybe get get her to bed; )

Then, I remembered there was no hurry to do so............... I found my hands in the earth momentarily planting flowers with her and planning a campfire for the evening to have supper by. How easy it is for me to get get caught up in the stresses of life even in the most perfect of places. My garden in all its lovely secluded peace, the sun shining and my daughter running down the paths the mower made and dancing up them with daisies in her hands. Where am I?  but in the paradise of the moment of being, will I always keep on forgetting that? and having to remember again and again. Thats how it is, right? To be just glad of a sunny day in the garden, to watch the flames of campfire leap in the evening sun, to eat outside again after a long winter, with such a great friend of my spirit, I have waited for this feeling to come to me, this FEELING to come to me. 

Its tricky here about summer, no one knows when it will come and sadly sometimes it doesn't last long. We spend hours, in fact days discussing with friends and neighbors how the summer might be, how it has been forecast and what we can hope for. If we deserve it at all for that matter, after having a good March, and whether it will be a heat wave in August or an indian summer in September. So light deprived we are, we obsess and rightly so. That we are deeply interested in this most important part of our lives, is quite reasonable. We must have light, and after the long dark winters, it seems natural that we would be ever hopeful of a bright summer. 

What ever the weather, Madeleine brings me new things to learn, and seems to manage to find even more space in my heart to grow. She makes everything brighter and Lighter and has dragged me along to this place, where I want soooo much for her to grow with a sense of peacefulness about life that I dedicate myself to practicing my own kind of Peace to pass on. That will be my inheritance to her. If I can show her a sense of peace about being alive and joy about the magic of that very experience, I will be the most satisfied mother. Ironically it is her being here that brings me there. In learning to be her parent, to love her, accept her, support her I learn to do the same for myself. Her presence excells my own evolution many fold. I never knew it would do this.

All This reminds me of this below : ) A wonderful poem I heard about last summer from a wonderful lady I met in Asheville NC, we had a lunch in Laughing Seed ( I am linking this, because its not the first time I felt some magic in this restaurant, and the food is truly delicious!!! but thats another days stor/ blog) one of my most favorite spots and desert in The chocolate Lounge, all with a wonderful conversation and exchange of poems and fascinating life stories. Here it is!!!!!!

HOKUSAI SAYS (by Roger Keyes)

Hokusai says Look carefully.
He says pay attention, notice.
He says keep looking, stay curious.
He says there is no end to seeing.

He says Look Forward to getting old.
He says keep changing,
you just get more who you really are.
He says get stuck, accept it, repeat yourself
as long as it’s interesting.

He says keep doing what you love.
He says keep praying.
He says every one of us is a child,

every one of us is ancient,
every one of us has a body.
He says every one of us is frightened.
He says every one of us has to find a way to live with fear.

He says everything is alive -
shells, buildings, people, fish, mountains, trees.
Wood is alive.
Water is alive.
Everything has its own life.
Everything lives inside us.
He says live with the world inside you.

He says it doesn’t matter if you draw, or write books.
It doesn’t matter if you saw wood, or catch fish.
It doesn’t matter if you sit at home
and stare at the ants on your verandah or the shadows of the trees
and grasses in your garden.

It matters that you care.
It matters that you feel.
It matters that you notice.
It matters that life lives through you.

Contentment is life living through you.
Joy is life living through you.
Satisfaction and strength
are life living through you.
Peace is life living through you.

He says don’t be afraid.
Don’t be afraid.
Look, feel, let life take you by the hand.
Let life live through you.

Thank you dear reader

Love

x Elizabeth

Tea, guinnea pigs, pompoms, fairies, and a rainy day weekend

Oh thank god for rainy days!!!!! : ) I have to say that quietly, because I am in Ireland, the true home of rainy days, and not everyone is enjoying the weather presently.
I am though. Its kept us in on this first weekend at home for a while. I have been so busy between studio, school and other commitments that I have hardly come up for air, and that never suits me too well. Now long lengthy tea days do. And I mean real tea making with pot warming, tea cozies and refills: ) that is a tea day.

Madeleine is choosing her tea, she always goes for liquorice every time but still likes to browse

So we unusually didn't make it into the woods this weekend but we did make tea and craft and be together, which was just as lovely and just what we needed. 

I cant go a moment further though without mentioning our two new additions to the household. Patches and Nutmeg arrived a couple of days before Madeleine's birthday in April, we have quickly become friends and Madeleine has assumed the role of Mother, asking me repeatedly if I think, they think, she is their mother. She speaks to them with a Mary Poppins like tone, like, "Come along now little guinnea pigs", and brings them for little adventures around the house, or makes them treasure hunts of carrots and cucumber under the couch or behind a shoe: ) She especially likes laying on the floor and places them on her chest so they can hear her heart, I think I may have encouraged that by doing the same with her. 

We discovered on You tube that guinnea pigs do like a luke warm bath with rub down and Madeleine has been very enthusiastic to say the least about doing this. 

Yesterday was the day!! They weren't so keen on the idea, but did settle down after a bit of cuddling in the towel, and do look remarkably fluffier today. 

They will be well loved little pigs and although they may have to endure a moment or two in a dolls pram or in Madeleine's dolls house as furry visitors, I think they should have a good life here.

Other weekend pursuits was POMPOM making, Does pompom need capital letters? Such a great sounding word and soooo reminiscent of childhood days. I was making a hat, which was ordered last week and a pompom was most importantly requested. I thought we should make two and Madeleine agreed, helping to make one for her own hat.

Pompom making instructions

below is said hat completed- I think I love the pompoms,  I also think I might be trying to find reasons to write POMPOM.

I edged it with some beautiful hand spun wool from The States. I found it in the bottom of my yarn basket and there was just enough to finish this in hand spun beauty. I remember the spinner called this yarn Dawn on New Snow. Its gorgeous to work with, if a little unwieldy. The main yarn was supplied to me by the buyer, a lovely Mom and Artist herself from School.

In the evening the wind roared around the stone corners of this home and trees bent and pulled up again. their new leaves shimmering wildly to hold on. We watched from upstairs, its been a while since the wind has blown so strongly. We can see the tops of the linden tree in the centre of the village from where we sleep. 

I was getting the feeling we were in for stormy evening, which made all the more sense to stay cozy as we were and allow the sky to be so loudly if it need be. Being in the crafty mood I got out the sewing machine, intending to start curtains for my kitchen, which I have still not gotten around to though I have lived here nearing two years. But, Madeleine had different ideas and I decided we could set ourselves up for a sewing sunday morning and we did, we got the bobbins and spools, fabric and ribbons and my trusty singer machine which I have had since I was 15: )

Its a fickle machine, only works when it really wants to. I have to stay calm and speak nicely to it, otherwise the tension gets all screwed up and it spits out all sorts of tangled messes of thread and ruffled fabrics.

Slowly sunday awoke us and we meandered through breakfast, me still on my detox/raw/caveman/ wanting to get off sugar diet which consists of lots of fresh juices and gorgeous salads, nuts other good things raw, but no dark chocolate sadly. Madeleine had a bowl of honey pops contrastingly.

To sewing!!! A lovely friend gave Madeleine a wee box for sewing for her birthday, stashed with some wool felt, beads, buttons, embroidery threads, and she was more than ready to use them. We set about making a brooch for her, in felt and bead and thread. She wanted to make a moon fairy, and it so happened that Mia had put a crescent moon button in there that made a perfect face. 

We machined the dress and arms, Madeleine having her very first go at pushing the material through and cutting threads, We then needle felted her white hair, as only a moon fairy should have. 

To my amazement Maddy blanket stitched the edges onto a backing where we had sewed on a safety pin. 

She has been learning sewing these last couple of months in school. I am so delighted at this part of her education as you can well imagine and its great emphasis on handwork. I love the thought that so much of it will be natural to her, a part of being.

I pulled out one of my UFO's ( unfinished objects), A Bag O' The Woods I like to call it. It will be my bag for little sketchbook, penknife, apple and whatever else I pick up along the way. I am thinking of making it with straps for the bike, so it will attach on to the front and a shoulder strap too for walking days. I started in winter and perhaps will finish it by summer. Here it is below with handsome heads of lettuce from Jim on the market in Killaloe. 

Its leaves and shapes are appliqued scraps of felt left over from my crown making, sewn onto boiled wool, and next the lining.

  

Well now I look out the window and see the sun is breaking through on my rainy monday and that entices me out to walk in the woods, to walk to the studio and draw before collecting M. 

What a log today for one weekend, and all the other days between will come another day, maybe in May. I love to write here, I get to write and spin words, share my little way back to art, and the lightness of being that comes these days, quite unexpectedly I assure you. 

Thank you dear reader and for all the lovely responses on facebook, by face and spoken word, and email, and here too. Its a lovely thing to share experience, thats another days blog though and I have a sun to catch.

xx

I smell like a Gypsy.....

....and its great, every little bit of me is smoked with wood fire.
I have not been camping on this drizzling, cold and windy day. But I have kept remarkably warm inside and out.
It was pizza day in Madeleine's kindergarten. Each Friday a parent volunteers to keep the fire going in the outdoor pizza oven whilst the wee ones go for their time in the woods. Today twas me.
Madeleine has been so excited. I have done it once before and each week she has asked me to do it again. Last sunday she hung a piece of paper over her bed, and every morning she had drawn a little green cross on it to count down the days to today. Her excitement has been a joy to share and a realization on my part on how important it is for her, and me, that I come to spend time there. It too, is a wonderful opportunity to share in the kindergarten and get a little birds eye view( or a little robin's eye view to be exact) of the unfolding of a morning in Madeleine's life there. I come away always wanting to be there more.

The oven is built cob style and sits in the baking house, an open wooden structure that has stood its test of winds and rains and held strong. On one side its filled with wood for burning, picked from forest paths or cut by and brought by children, staff and parents. On the walls, pieces of wood that have twisted and turned naturally in a way that is beautiful and been collected and brought by one or another over the years. Then there are benches set out for little ones and whoever comes to share the meal.
Its a kind building with ever open arms come wind, rain or shine and a warm hearth never cold for long.

When I arrived this morning, there was a silver pot in the the oven. When we pulled it out we found fleece was in it being dyed in Lichen and having sat in the warm embers of yesterday's fire. It had done its work and dyed to a yellow tone. One of the kindergarten assistants is a fiber artist, who makes natural dye. One particular day, she showed me a basket of her wooly treasures. What a richness of color, all wools dyed with plants from the woods, often collected with the children. It was a treasure basket indeed, and made me want to use nothing but natural pigment in my own work somehow. ( a thought not lost, and a goal for some point in the road)

I am so deeply contented to sit by any fire. This is a happy job for me. This one holds more than heat though, there is a little magic to be had there, and to witness too. Little children all between the ages of four and seven come and go from it like butterflies with helping hands or news to tell or little things to show that they have made in the wood. Great spirited expressions at each part of the lighting process and the choosing of the logs to burn next. And every now and then, another little warm hand slips into mine with a smile and a hello that would melt any heart.
Maddy was beside herself with excitement at my presence, and what seemed like utter satisfaction that she was to have me there all morning. Soon though she found her play and fluttered off with the rest of them.

Circle time comes then, where there is greetings and welcoming of the day by all the children and staff, lovely irish songs were sung, that jog my memory to my early school days, airs and old words of my mother tongue come floating back to me as I hum along.
All is quiet after circle. They have gone to the woods for their walk, another little adventure to be had.
This quiet time is when I hear the sparks, the crackle, the sounds of warmth and the smells of wood around me, in the wet from the rain and the sizzle in the fire. Quietude!
A little robin visits each pizza day, fat and wise with his choice of trees to build his nest. I have brought my crochet and worn my coat with big pockets, enough room for my ball of yarn to turn whilst I make my rounds and it pull through. I lean back with a big breath and work away.
I am making yet another hat, a pink one for Spring. I see Maddy's winter hat getting heavier and hotter in this weather, soon I think it will itch in the woods from sweat and heavy wool against her forehead. This one is in a lighter merino, its a beret shape, which seems more spring.

A little help with cleaning inside and then it rains gently and there is a change to the air and the sounds. I hear voices in the distance, they are on their way back. I think of the seven dwarves returning from the mines, but I am no snow white and these are butterflies are they not?,  newly popped from their silk cocoons. In all their colorful raincoats they return ready for pizza, with twig puppets and dragonflies made with sticks and fleece, rushes and lichen.
Madeleine all smiles and at my side ready for baking with her friends.

It all feels very peaceful. I would never have imagined before experiencing Waldorf education for young children, that being around so many little ones, could be so peaceful. But it is!  I know it comes with this immense reverence too. There is a constant sense that each child is considered and cared for and such an aura of natural respect for each other which is also being constantly nurtured by the staff. There is of course a great method to this and a great deal of understanding, experience and theory that creates this space where children get to be children, to play and be entirely themselves without pressure but for an expectation of goodness amongst themselves. And through their day they are all learning all they need to learn through imitation of each other, and the staff through song and rhyme, through play and climbing and walking, communicating and really being allowed to just be in a natural state of being.
I felt like I had just come from a retreat today of at least three days of silent meditation and a large slice of mindfulness. Here I was again with all these wise folks all present and bright, with more wisdom then all their years put together. Their ability to be present and happy with each simple thing. For a while at least, no rushing about, no car seats to strap into, no shopping or banking or Mommy making phone calls or planning something or other. Just a garden by the woods, sitting, eating pizza in the rain with a great band of friends, and being very glad about it.
That sounds like a Haiku: )

xx As always Thank you dear reader