Well Oh My Winter Sun

Here

..............I am exceedingly delighted to be here in front of this open fire, with two feet, red sock clad, soaking in the warming glow of flames and embers and all things imaginably warming in winter weather. I am happy, I have a lightness and a sense of arrival tonight. A gentle flicker of gold fills my heart as I recount and recall these last few weeks. I can rest now, I can be here in my new home.

I love it, in fact I may be in Love with it. These walls, so old and stony and sure, are holding me as kindly as any warm blooded fella could. And when that winter sun shines and silvers up the lake, reflecting light through every pane of glass, the fire crackles to let me know we are here together.

Today was the first day I could paint, having finished unpacking and being almost done with all the other bits and bobs associated with moving all and sundry.  

We have adjusted to being here. It was a trying few weeks, to move before Christmas. I would never move in winter again, I can quite see why its not usual. I learned the hard way, and I think it added twice the stress to it all. But we rose to it, and its done.

We had a quiet Christmas, just unpacking enough to get us through. Our old potted Christmas tree from Tristan and Jenny came back to us to bejewel another year and Christmas eve my sister came, and we made a ginger bread house( my first attempt).
We decided it was more like some of the run down cabins we saw in the Appalachians, it had a rustic feel to it rather then the cleaner lined scandinavian style; ) It was delicious all the same, and we made it gluten free too. The eating of it seemed about the most moorish thing in the whole holiday, but we had help.

Little M has found her new places to play outside and in, making a little house under the stairs with a sheepskin and silks and her little pots and pans, I would live there too if I was her size and a new fountain to run around too.
I haven't taken many photos yet of here, but this is one of her watching out at two crows, dating she said, sitting on the wall and kissing beaks.

She has a great space for play here and to keep her toys, and we can have animals too, which we have both pined for a while, as much as we love our Patches and Nutmeg( guinea pigs).
We have sent out our wishes with shiny pennies in ponds on starry nights And turning three times under new moons, for a puppy to come and join us. I am trying to hold off till Spring, till I can have a breather before the next big event, but little M's enthusiasm is bound to bring some little bright thing into our lives before we know it.

.......................Its big here and has a kind of grandeur about it, but at the same time holds this old barn feel to it, it keeps its modesty and has lots of depth. I saw possibilities here for my art and my life to take steps forwards and expand a little, like wings that needed to stretch out. I can live, work and show my art here.
I will open the studio from equinox to equinox, and have 'visitors welcome' written on my gate and we shall see what comes. I have missed online here, this space, and the lovely friends I have met and the tracking of their logs. I wore Milla's medicine pouch almost through the whole month of moving. Her beautiful dreamcatcher hangs over my bed easing my dreams to the lighter side even under the stress of it all............

...........For Now I prepare in these Winter sun days ...

........................and nights where that sun comes through fire on wood, from trees that stretched up and took that sun in. They bless me with their warmth, toasting my toes and helping me remember the way things are.

Winter Sun Moments

We made a trip to Fanore, a tiny village on the west coast a few weeks before we moved. We stayed in a place looking over the sea for two nights. We played on the beach and watched the resident dolphin play with the surfers and visited a bird of prey education centre.
We were also just opposite the grave yard where the poet, philosopher, teacher John O'Donohue was buried. He is a mighty inspiration to me. His writing transports and transforms and holds you and your heart, it breathes you in, and you breathe it too. I met him once when I was about 12 years ago and never forgot him, He had peaceful shiny eyes like none I had ever seen, and I wanted to know more about that. He died just a couple of years ago, he was just 53 and in Paris.
Me and M visited his grave, and sat there a while while the morning sun shone out to the islands bright and clear, and around us too, warming us just enough so that the sea air didn't bite our noses.

Good night and thank you dear reader.

More Art and Heart soon ...... perhaps even some prints to sell, I wont give too much away just yet
xx

E

the life that shapes me.........

.......

I have had some great conversations lately with my neighbor and some other kindly folks one might meet at school or roundabout. Lots of food for thought. I have read lots more blogs as I spread my wings a little wider into that world, and am inspired by it all. I am coming a little closer now to understanding what I write about and why I am here, still exploring though. A curious soul I am. And it gets "curiouser".

 I try not to wonder so much that I miss the point of feeling alive in a mystery but its in the very essence of my nature to question the days pass, and the way of things. 

After I dropped off Little M to school today, I hung out the washing along the line. The sun was just above it, twinkling over the edges of my tea towels. I felt a feeling for meditation. 

Looking round to the half moon, I was inspired enough to do it too!

After a summer of no routine and a flu to beat the band, as we would say in Ireland. I felt like my meditation practice had disappeared, gone off somewhere down the garden path. Luckily it was there I found it again, one still Thursday morning, under the fig tree, somewhere near the compost bin. I do seem to have some good ideas there...must be all that transformation; )

It was in my sitting still that I noticed how quiet it all was but for the birds, sunny too. Finally a reprieve from the wet winds.

It put me in good order, as it was sure to do. Even the very effort of it seems to bring about a little peace. And if Peace is what I am after, which I am most definitely partial to, then this is where I begin. 

To the woods then and a walk to the studio, with contemplation in mind. The sun had me melting into the trees. Deliquescing in the long shafts of golden light and scattering leaves, my worries and woes of these last few weeks drifted by.

 It being a year since I switched on this Elisheva Project, its also the week that I finally took the plunge and ventured to the big city with my paintings under arm( though a little uncomfortable, as some are quite large, I managed) to have prints made with the intention of selling and circulating my work. Its a huge step for me. Voices of doubt crawled and creeped and scared me all week, or weeks till I finally turned to speak with them!

The loudest have been my sense of value I put on my own work, and trying to make some kind of balance within me between the useful critic, that knows when something feels good or needs a bit more or less and the very irrational critic, that really doesn't like anything I do at all; ) but does gets very excited when I finish anything. Oh my fearful ego.

Its a trust issue, and one I have to work with.

It feels like such a different relationship with art, quite distant from the last, perhaps if this were a metaphorical globe I would be on the other side of art world. Its like day and night, from where I used to be. This time I feel I can make a mends. I may have come far enough along.

As I stood in the little white gallery out front from the printers in dublin, clean and white surrounded by framed work, new work, different work from mine, Oh so different. I took at look at myself on the inside and out. I wish I had a picture of meself there to illustrate.

My hands, big hands with very long fingers were shaking as I opened the package of my work, It was a little birth to bring them out, so new. A new way of working for me. Now I paint in a bright attic. I could say I have gone back to my roots, but I really would be speaking of the woody kind. So far back and deep down are those ones I don't remember where that began. But it feels so right, and that has been the truly guiding factor of this last year and my efforts to make art again. It kind of feels holy to me, and that little critic is enjoying some of it deep down, I know.

This art reflects who I am now.

Who is that then? 

Well, Tallish mother of one sparkling child, in green raincoat, brown hair, tweed skirt, unusual gray shirt with buttons sewn along the neck, a little make up, hair askew from the wind, and green shoes with mud all around the edges: )

And Inside .......A little tired because M has a cough that I have been listening to it for three nights, slight ringing in my ears from my flu thats not quite left me. And a heart healing with a kind of joy that seems to grow, finally. 

Also, Having completely fallen in love with a woodland in Clare, so much so its all I can do to paint about it and write, and talk about it!

I have lived here three years, and this environment has had such a deep impact on me, I am where I am, its become me, by osmosis, these rich woods and all they hold, this home and garden, my neighbors, this community full of happenings and workshops and festivals and people who choose to celebrate it all even if we are in the midst of very messy economy. 

This wonderful waldorf school and all the magic that offers and sense of occasion in life. The connectedness with the rhythms of the seasons that brings into my home, is a vital part of my way of living now and raising my daughter. 

The compassionate understanding of the different needs of each child, and the respect that emerges from that has taught me more about relating with people in the world then just about anything else I have come across. A day in the kindergarten, is a day spent with a whole spectrum of personality and emotion held peacefully and confidently by teachers who have a real pedagogy and vocation in their work. 

I had never thought how children as human beings that move and create, cannot be expected to spend half their childhoods sitting in a chair to learn. As the alphabet can come later, as most scandinavian and other european countries have chosen the age of six and seven to teach letters, waldorf schools hold on to that too, till a child appears ready to be in a formal class environment. As one Mom said to me, your child can be in education for a life time if they choose, but childhood doesn't last so long. When they are ready, they learn faster too! Can you tell I am enthusiastic about this.

I feel so touched by being Here, but I also know now that Here could be anywhere really, and was everywhere I have ever been. The difference being now I am open to it. I can be conscious or not of that, but it is something that has changed in me, my art could be about the seashore one day, that would be nice too, or the sun, don't get me started on sunshine. For now the forest is my love, I better tell Pj though I think he may have suspected all along; )

What shall I give back to the woods I wonder? And to this community?

Since coming to this village and growing into my motherhood, I have let go of parts of me that I don't need here and now, and I have gained others. Maybe its more like parts are resting whilst others are waking up. Just life really, and an intrigue about that, that I can't help but be eager about unfolding. Being present with it is everything. Its easier said then done, but a little goes a long way, and I can't tell you how hard it has been at times not to be aware of that, maybe sometime I can share that too. 

A couple of days ago, I met an american woman who is traveling here. We discovered quickly we were both EFT enthusiasts and spoke a little more about writing blogs, I told her about this post and then she recites quite brilliantly this poem. s She meant every word of it, and I had that lovely shiver down my spine!

Lost

Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you
Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here,
And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,
Must ask permission to know it and be known.
The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,
I have made this place around you,
If you leave it you may come back again, saying Here.
No two trees are the same to Raven.
No two branches are the same to Wren.
If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you,
You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows
Where you are. You must let it find you.

David Wagoner

I have come across such wonder..... HERE too, online that is. Such awe inspiring writers and life lovers traversing each others days across these maps of words and pictures. These windows into lives we get here, with such authenticity and heart at times that it takes my breath away. The creativity in motion abounds, the sharing of art's work and the trials and tribulations impels me on in my own quest and supports my dream. Could I ask much more of this space? It seems I can. Its never ending....

Thank you dear reader

And a special thanks to my new neighbor, who has brought such heart to my doorstep, kindness and evening conversations, maybe even a little of that 'urban' me that I had left behind, that likes reading newspapers and going to cafe's: )

xx E

Today poems!

They must be golden tipped boughs now
touching the water top, out at the bay edges,

Where soft water invites you in,
Skin is made into silk there under lake water


Like otters we dived under 
becoming wild again.


Madeleine has not learned to swim on the silver surface, 
She tirelessly jumps in again and again


Only a second to take her new breath between each dive,
Her natural confidence surprises me and pleases the mother in me.


The lake is mirror still but for us
and a ripple from beneath the tallest Bull rushes.


Far out beyond us swans are white specks
in the reflection of stormy blues, moving quickly into heavy greys.


The rain is hanging there, almost here.
But, The thunder rolls.


We can feel it in our bones, Its a sensory superfluity now, 
first raindrops on our faces, and silver circles break the surface.


We crouch in the water, I am on my knees
Our fingers entwined beneath.


The water nestles around our shoulders
we watch this vista soundlessly waiting.


The laiden sky gives in 
We have got a soaking


laughter resounds across the way and up the hills
through the greens


We turn, splash, run, wade our way back, stirring it all up
Pulling my legs up against the weight of water


And holding hands we yip and yell like animal calls
finding our voices again


Lightning cracks when we reach the grassy shore
Under the hawthorn trees our clothes are still wet through


summer rain warm with chills
I look back to the hills, a glance


From the forest I stand with rose hips in my hands
and one acorn, I have disturbed a red squirrel that scampered here


A dash in brilliant auburn red, a flash of autumn
up a beech, till high enough to safely stare back at me 


In his utter stillness I halt, then
Wood pigeons flurry and fly overhead, dead branches fall


Its a hundred days since summer swimming wild
In this portal of earth change, I turn to the direction of the bay to smile. 






Thankyou dear reader xxx E

"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

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