2016

Since I last wrote here, the Winter deepened and so did I. But all is now blossom and tiny fresh green leaves sprouting on rough grey branches and I am happy to be here, writing and sharing.

I celebrated a birthday while I was away…

…and did much Spring Cleaning of the papery sort…

…until I have only what I value and want to listen to…

Then I was free to create my own many-layered system, borne out of my own life and longings and now only have the living out of all the patterns and rituals I’ve created. Devotion is the warm and lovely word that leads me on. You shall see if I manage it when you find a new post here each Friday.

Other new patterns are being woven in my kitchen as I get back to entirely nourishing and wholesome cookery after too many post-holiday months of indulgence. The symptoms and pounds are slowly fading back away and I am truly enjoying the soaking and chopping and stirring and the spirit they are bringing to my kitchen and my meals. Oh! To not stray quite so long and far next time…just enough for delight and variety.

You know, looking at these snowdrops, I thought of Rilke’s words (at the top of the page) again. And what I would like is to, each year that I am upon it, be more like the earth and have learned by own life by heart. That is really what is behind…underneath…all my questioning and unease with the way the worlds of all sorts go along…online and otherwise. Those ways can so easily draw us away from our hearts and the learning of them.

So I’ll be here more often, sharing the lines of my own poem as I choose and learn them. There will be more sharing of my creations. I’ve been so tentative about that in the recent past, but the truth is, each of my businesses come straight from my heart and spirit. And they are each strands of the Wild Simplicity I am trying to weave, as so many of us are, so I shouldn’t be shy or hold back. We women…humans…have always helped each other by sharing. That is the whole point in blogging, is it not?

I’d like my blog to have more of the atmosphere of the blogging of years ago, with lovely things to find here and there as you explore, including the sharing of other blogs. So I created an “old-fashioned” (smiling here) blogroll in one of the circles above. The list is short, tho’ it should grow as I finish rooting around my bloglovin’ account and then close it. When I get in the rhythm of blog-visiting again, I hope to find more to add. Since there are so few blogrolls to be found these days, at least in my wanderings, I may seek them out by visiting links in comments or just let it unfold in the natural way of serendipity and happy chance.

A glad Spring to you all! May you find bouquets of moons and blooms and poems.

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….