Simple and few…or trying to keep it that way. For looking back over the last year or two, I see a confusion of lovely ideas and offerings and advice that I invited into my eyes and mind and hours. And as the year came to its end, I noticed the same sort of fullness in my senses as I have felt in my body lately after the usual holiday indulgence.
So much deliciousness! Yet at some point, too much.
After more than twelve years of online life and business and all of its shifts and changes, some that have taken awhile to sink in (or spill over, if I stay with the fullness image), I find myself on a quiet threshold of wanting to get back or make my way to a small, open, wind-kissed path free from the mire and briar of monetizing, marketing, messages, ads and strategies.You may not see much of that here, but it surrounds and seeps in anyone’s wanderings…around the web, in bookstores and cafes…we even see it when we drive our roads as ranting, hand-painted signs have sprung up here and there in recent years.
Like the blooming spring flowers I gathered yesterday that sit in the glow of our Christmas tree’s lights, the world more often than in the past can feel bewildering, in the midst of its ever-constant beauty. I live in the countryside, with all its dear and ancient associations…but as I take in the view of gentle green curves, my spirit’s response is not untouched by the knowledge of the chemicals, poisons and unknown effects of the GMO seeds planted there, year after year.
It was a joy and blessing to be home this New Years Eve, to open the door to it in safety…but not unalloyed joy as I heard the staccato of automatic weapons join the usual chorus of fireworks booming and saw the red beam of yet another tower planted on the land through the winter-bare trees.
Without burying my head in the sand, or abandoning the “world” because of its complexities, it feels important to me to choose more carefully which paths I turn down and which provisions I take along with me as 2016 begins. I am seeking a sweet sufficiency.
Here, that will look like the adding of a few things as I can easefully manage them. A blogroll will be the first addition, as I want to leave bloglovin’ as soon as I can. It is one of the many places that over the years has become too shiny and pressing with its materialism and offers. But in the way of things, (and unlike how easy and uncomplicated a thing it was in old Blogger days) such a small thing is proving a bit of a tangle to figure out.
But I will sort it out, for I am determined to keep discovering and creating paths and places and ways of wholesomeness and peace where we can take shelter for a spell, catch our breath and plot out our next steps as we journey on with our loving and creating.
Ah well, my thoughts are not so simple or few, as it turns out! : ) But my intentions are. And I shall see you here again soon when I pause again on some inviting overlook or sit with back against a sturdy signpost and rest and sip from my thermos and look for my sister wayfarers….
