Be Your Own Reprieve

Lotus Bay, the NY shores of Lake Erie

It has been a time of too much. Too much work, too many demands, too many emotions to process. I have turned inward and found my reprieve.

I am good food and early to bed. I am diligent nature journal and early to rise. I am seated on the floor with tarot and tea. I am cat adoration and silence. I am new-found love of water. Ideas and inspirations and I-wonder-ifs abound. There are treasures too numerous to name when duty is done and the world is decidedly held at bay.

It is such a beautiful world when news and broken things are ignored. There are secret coves of goodness lapping at our shores, calling us to wade~ ankle-deep or full-body plunge~ into their healing waters. Turn inward, I tell you. Every now and then. Decide you've had enough and make it so.

Shun the forecast, the propaganda, the orchestrated chaos bent on mass control. Get your ankles wet. Dive headlong into the pleasure of what calls you deeply. Swim in the cove that bears your true name, where time is enriched and stands perfectly still. Refresh yourself, body and soul, with the activities and style of rest that heals you.

Find a way to balance the chaos. Be your own reprieve.

52 Photos Project~pink

All the stylin' gals wear pink.

For Bella

spring in the unmanicured yard

the afterbirth left at my door

the profusion of soft, butter-yellow

the mystery twig of 3 years

 that finally revealed its identity.

Be softly reborn.

 

Reveal your inner beauty,

right where you are. 

Your time has arrived.

52 Photos Project~ in locomotion on the north sea

private train to the German hallig (island) of 

Nordstrandischmoor

no cash is exchanged for the ride over the sea.

you pay the driver with liquor.

view of the tiny tracks from the alfresco seating.

you have arrived.

the main attraction.

there is 1 small restaurant. northern German cuisine.

take it or leave it.

there is a movie theater.

there is a school.

 for all 3 students.

with a human population of 27,

there are more sheep on Nordstrandischmoor than people.

For Bella~ locomotion

Carry Me Onward

mangrove tunnel

kayaking in mangrove

so many wildlife sightings, of late

busy, busy, busy with flowers

finding the beauty in the tangle

Where to even begin? Here in the middle of May, my year has been very full. Aside from my busier-than-ever full time job, I have spent the lion's share of my time facilitating the first run of my online course about finding and honoring 3 levels of home. The months of preparation and the actual 8 weeks of the course lifted my soul above the fray in ways I can barely describe. All the participants were magnificent. Since the end, I am changed and contemplative. I am empty and full. I sit in silence a lot.

I am at home with myself like I have never been before. But growth is eternal, so new ways and ideas of home are evolving daily. Nature has always played an important role in the quality of my life and the balance of my psyche, yet suddenly the importance has accelerated. I am keeping a nature journal again and its pages are filling up rapidly. It has become the map to carry me onward. 

In the midst of all this, I went on a whirlwind trip to Florida to swim with the wild manatees (I did, indeed, stroke one full length under water), kayak among mangroves and play with abandon with my beloved cousin. And my Mother was dismissed from oncology care. She is now in the long-term care of the wonderful people from hospice. We are fully into the next phase of her journey with cancer and it is now all about comfort and love. Tears of sorrow and tears of healing are flowing. Hope and acute gratitude rule each day.

A part of me wants to stop everything and just sit under a tree with tea and the cacophony of birds. I need to digest and integrate these past monumental months. I will have to do this in snippets because heart-felt duty and rivers of ideas keep coming on. There is another online course begging for life in my brain and more magazine issues have been requested.  My Mother takes priority now, but there is magic moving in from the periphery, as well.

I am letting the birds and the flowers and the foxes carry me onward.

motherly advice

at last, because it hasn't been at first, we must learn to mother ourselves.

The Parrot Tulip

 

flowers are the breath of my soul.

bird watching

There has been and still is so much going on.

But I have no words to tell you.

They just won't come.

All I can do is wait.

Until they do.

Meanwhile, I'm bird watching...

Herons

Red Tail Hawks

Falcons

 Eagles/MN

52 Photos Project~let the sun shine in

Vitamin D, blue skies and apple blossoms.

Bliss of a heavenly degree.

~For Bella~