it's been awhile

it has been awhile, hasn't it? I have been going through a very quiet time.. maybe I am intune with the seasons..but I have been doing alot of inner work & learning quite a few things about myself.. lessons in life, you could say.
we had a lovely few days away & returned home to rain.. and it has been raining on and off ever since.

I have been taking part in a couple of online workshops - True North Arts 'storytelling collage' & have recently joined Barb Kobe's Medicine Doll workshop..as well as working through "Walking in this world" - it may seem alot.. but surprisingly or not, they seem to interlace with each other . I am still in two minds whether to share here or not.. I have learnt that I must trust my own inner guidance on the art work..

while we were away, I was in the company of some amazing trees.. complimentary of Mother Nature..

I went walking one morning and came across this tree.. I just had to take Joe back so I could get a photo of me hugging it. the bark was amazing

I actually gathered some of the fallen bark. it can be used in art work. the Aboriginal people of Australia, used the bark for many of their baskets and in many other ways. it is brilliant.

Goddess Tree. this tree stood out to me, as soon as I saw it.. a lovely, lovely energy

have my blogging days come to an end? I don't know.. I will visit as I can & my posts, well we shall see what happens.

off for a few days

dutch husband & I are off on a little adventure.. riding up the north coast for the weekend..
I have been rather quiet as I have been working through Walking in this World.. & as Julia Cameron tends to do.. stuff has been coming up for me so I am doing a bit of inner work.. have joined the collage workshop as well as a medicine doll workshop with Barb Kobe..

I finally found a naturopath who I am comfortable with.. I had a long session with her today and she is of the school where no supplements are taken but heal yourself with whole foods.. a very positive lady who shares recipes and herbs from her garden with her clients.. I came home with an armful of kaffir lime leaves and quite a few recipe ideas! she also said to make myself a mix of clary sage & geranium essential oils in a carrier oil to rub onto my breasts and ovary areas to help with the night sweats.. and 'ordered' me to do yoga at least 3 times a week.. [she is yet another butterfly in my life now.. very compassionate and warm.. just what my soul needs at this moment in time..] oh and buckwheat pancakes for breakfast & home made sushi for lunch.. looks like I will be cooking quite a bit. fun. looking after myself with food, creating for myself.. treating myself with love & care..

busy, busy, trying to sell Inglewood

the past week has been busy - we had an open day on Saturday at Inglewood and the past week I have been getting the home ready.. I tend to go a little overboard.. wanting everything to be perfect...
plus working through Walking in this World and the online story collage workshop.. well, I am sure you get what I am saying.

Inglewood has been on the market officially for 2 months and it is slow..
we have had about 5 viewings. the first one, I have my suspicions about.. a woman and her sister came to look and adored it and raved about the home & wanted to come back for another view with her husband [that is the feedback from the real estate] - when the real estate tried to contact her, she had given a false number.. I am beginning to believe that it could have been a reader of this blog, sticky beaking.. just a gut feeling I have.. a very strong one. and that bothers me. but not much I can do about it.

what I am trying to do is trust - trust in the order of things.. that it is all being orchestrated in the heavens to bring the new owner to Inglewood.

I am wanting desperately to move to Villa Maria and even though i keep telling myself that all will happen in divine time according to the divine plan.. my impatience is getting the better of me..
but then of course, if Inglewood sells right at this very minute, I would be panicking as our new home is no where near ready to move into..
I do believe patience and trust [as well as loving myself] are two of my biggest lessons in this life.. will I ever learn?

today as I drove up the road to Inglewood.. about 4pm.. the autumn sun was beginning to go behind the mountain and I gasped as I looked at our maple trees that line the road. the colours were absolutely brilliant...

the liquid amber is performing brilliantly this year. I will rake the leaves and take them to Villa Maria to enrich the poor dead soil.

this lipstick maple is brilliant. autumn is gorgeous in the mountains.. once the days become cold.. the trees put on an autumnal colour splash...
and now.. off you can go to Villa Maria & read about my Sunday there..

some collage art ~ journey work

this is my first collage in the online workshop that I have joined ~ [at first, I hesitated to post this but sometimes, comments help me work through things]

[a call to journey]..
and my interpretation:
*the staircase reminds me of the one in my grandma's home. we weren't allowed to go up them & the door was always locked
*the little girl on the stairs is me, I know
*the quince on the stairs reminds me of a uterus, I wonder if this has any connection to the hysterectomy.
*have no idea why the bed, the old woman or the shirt are there in the picture nor do I know what the house signifies. the bed does remind me of my grandmas bed.
*the Goddess I had in my collection and had forgotten about it until I started gathering for this collage. after studying it, I saw the celtic cross made of wheat in her hand and realised it was Brigid. the celtic Goddess of healing, childbirth, inspiration & inner healing.

[the 'quince uterus' on the stairs. I seem to be ready to walk past it and leave it behind (the anger & bitterness that goes along with all that happened is going to be left behind too)].
I am going up the stairs towards the door and didn't notice until last night that there are lights behind the door.. and maybe the bed means that once I leave the anger & bitterness behind, I will be able to find rest [the bed]...

a few weeks ago, I went to my acupuncturist -..she said that the area where my uterus was is very cold & that alot of my anger is repressed and could be connected to my hysterectomy as well as the menopause.. and maybe I didn't grieve when I had the operation .. and suggested a ritual, although late, to move through it..so what to do?
how does one go about doing a little personal ritual for this kind of thing?.. I ask this because I know that one of you, my wise women friends will have a suggestion or even I can take bits from all the suggestions and come up with one just for me..

tugs at my heart?

why is it that today while working in my journal for this weeks Walking in this World..
cutting and pasting into my journal,
playing happily..
that I get an overwhelming sense of loss and grief over Daisy... will I always grieve for her? it came from no-where.. she popped into my mind and my heart began to ache...I felt lost.

then later tonight, while watching River Cottage - [Hugh was cooking for some friends] & the word 'tea' was mentioned.. and it tugged at my heart as that is what my Pa called dinner...

these little feelings of loss have me perplexed.. why all of a sudden do these kind of things pop into ones mind?

jus' bits of my weekend

not much happening here at Inglewood.. I worked really solidly in the garden, all day Saturday ~ just generally tidying up.. and some of today was spent in my vegie garden.. all the autumn vegies are growing well. Dinner tonight is simple.. roasted capsicum & pumpkin soup [both vegies from my own garden], served with Croque Monsieur [which is pretty much a toasted ham & cheese sandwich].. a perfect meal for a cool autumn night.. dutch husband came home late as he is doing some work at Villa Maria ..
an old, old recipe i had saved from when I first became a mum - 35yrs ago..

I have had such fun creating my little paper doll for the swap.. I spent quite a few hours, playing happily with paper and glue. I cannot share her just yet.. but once the recipient has received her, I will surely post a photo.
over the weekend, I tidied up my art space so that I had an orderly space to work through Walking in this World [and by the way.. Tales of Inglewood may, over the next few weeks, have glimpses into this journey.. hope you don't mind! but sometimes, I do tend to use my blog as a place to sort out my head stuff]

a new post at Villa Maria!

[oh and did you know, that it is now a year since Paul died? hasn't that gone quickly!PAUL]

synchronicity

alot has been happening in my life or rather in my journey the past few days..

last week, I began to work through Walking in this World (Julia Cameron) -
visiting my friend Tinks blog, I noticed a gorgeous round robin she was involved with. my heart sighed with longing - I so wanted to do something creative.. but I am not good at getting started... so I emailed Tink, and asked her if she ever came across a round robin or a swap that she thought i might be interested in, then could she email me - I said please [of course].. and two days ago in my inbox was an email from Tink, telling me of a paper doll swap [funny, because just last week while journalling, I had remembered how I loved to play with those paper dolls. my nan would buy me a book of them.. the doll and a whole wardrobe of clothes - in paper and I would cut them out carefully and spend hours playing.. they were all kept in a little plastic suitcase - long gone]...

I followed the link and the swap is a Guardian paper doll swap [right up my alley!!] and of course I signed up..
.. but not only that, I discovered another world.. by following a link on the sidebar I found a collage group .. and I signed up for that too!!! - this is all absolute synchronicity.. no doubt about that.

and this morning, the anniversary of my dad's death - a kookaburra [my dad's favourite bird] sat outside my window while I did my morning pages...

and then, when I was eating my breakfast.. a magpie dug for worms outside in the garden, looking for his breakfast... him & I connected in that moment, by the simple task of eating our breakfast. I worked hard in my garden today at Inglewood.. but I can feel the garden pulling back from me.. kind of disconnecting.. that is a good thing.. I think Inglewood and all it is, is ready to embrace the next owners.. I trust that it is all under control & everything is being orchestrated, in the heavens.
[ps - something is working because my hot flushes and night sweats are lessening. but the joints are aching now.. but that is ok.. I can deal with that!]

whoa another hot flush

today was a mixed bag of sorts.. I was supposed to go for a walk with my friend Bea, to Minnehaha Falls [an aboriginal women's sacred place] to do a little ritual to help me with my anger /rage that I have been feeling..
over the past few days, I have been doing alot of journalling and 'work on self'.. and Bea, being yet another one of my butterflies.. offered to do the ritual with me.. but upon arrival at her home, she was suffering dreadfully from menopausal women's problems, herself.. so we sat and had tea on her shady verandah instead.. and she proceeded to don her Feng Shui hat when I told her about the numbers thing with my home(s) - those 8's. 1's and 9's..... .. [I am not sure what I think of this Feng Shui business]..
tried to work out which element I am but became confused and ended up being either Earth or Metal.. still not sure. does it matter? but i did think twice when Bea exclaimed loudly 'don't paint your home pink! stay away from pinks and apricots!'... and of course now I will, me, being who I am .. don't like to upset the feng shui elements. so back to the drawing board on colours for Villa Maria... I am leaning towards a mushroom with either purple or blue shutters and door..

my plan for today was to take my inner little girl out after our planned walk and buy her a gift to celebrate.. but my inner little girl is not one who likes to sit and blow bubbles or draw alot [she finds it hard to play].. so I took her to the nursery and bought her an indoor plant.. very feng-shui -ish... [the little girl that was me long time ago, loved to play outside among the plants..and had many friends among the leaves and flowers]

while I was at the nursery choosing the plant and admiring the many water features and the gorgeous wind chimes, I could feel the heat building up inside, i flung my coat to the floor, exclaimed loudly 'menopausal flush'... and proceeded to fan myself furiously with one of their brochures... the woman behind the counter, who I know quite well, turned and said to me 'don't ya hate that.. it has been happening to me for years.. I don't think I will ever get through it'.... - thankyou very much I thought to myself.. - years ?! . I only wanted weeks or at worst case scenario, months... but years ? oh puhlease....
[today, while washing up at the kitchen sink, I looked out the window and the resident Magpie with the sore leg was digging for worms with his beak while 7 crimson rosellas nibbled at the grass seeds nearby.. each in their own little world but sharing it with others]

chasing Mary or the day I nearly burned down a mission

I thought that because it is the month of Mary.. I would tell you of yet another time that I went in search of her..

I had read of Our Lady of Guadalupe somewhere once.. and decided that I would visit the shrine when I went to America. but silly me didn't realize that this particular Guadalupe was in Mexico.. I did find Guadalupe in California somewhere, though.. not the same..

so instead, we drove to San Francisco to see the missions that we had also heard about.. quite a funny scenario actually.. dutch husband, myself & 3 children age 12, 7 and baby Sophie in a pram .. traipsing to the missions - (it was more like me racing all over the place and them following behind wondering what the hell I was doing now), through some, let's say undesirable areas..
completely oblivious because I was on a mission of my own. to light a candle in an ancient church for my friend Bernadette who was dying of breast cancer at the time.. finally found our way to the mission and dutch husband took the children out into the herb garden while I prayed..
I bought a taper and proceeded to light a votive.. all went according to plan until I tried to blow the taper out and it would not go out.. it kept burning, with me blowing frantically on the flame.. shaking it and blowing.. I turned round to find dutch husband videoing me.. by this time the flame was quite big and all I could think of was burning this 200yrs old mission to the ground. so I threw the taper onto the floor and stomped on it... anyhow.. candle was lit and I went out and wandered the herb garden for awhile and then began the walk back to our 'home' - a hotel somewhere in San Francisco... back through the undesirable parts, [not knowing they were undesirable at the time.]. - a taxi screeched to a stop and the taxi driver said to us..'what the hell are you doing walking this neighbour hood? get in, I will take you where you want to go'... he didn't want paying, but we gave him a tip.... many times like that in our world travels.. being totally oblivious to the dangers of where we are.. not sure if I would do it now ... maybe Mary was protecting us.

and you know what? I cannot for the life of me remember the name of that Mission.
[hope you enjoyed that little story.. ]

the month of Mary

May 1st, the month of Mary & my first full day at Villa Maria - .. well, not living there [that won't happen until we sell Inglewood], but working & renovating. there is a post at Villa Maria about my day [link in my sidebar]...

there are many similarities to Inglewood & Villa Maria.. this time 10yrs ago we received the key to Inglewood and began renovations. Inglewood at the time was no.81, Villa Maria is no.18...[and others which will come to mind over the next months I am sure]...
so to the month of Mary... Villa Maria will have a shrine built in honour of Mary [dutch husband is going to build it for me] and my plan is to crown her with flowers.. just like a road side shrine somewhere in Italy... but in the meantime, I will place flowers at her feet here at Inglewood, where she stands just outside my front door.