my threshold year…

In January, the last time I wrote here, I thought I was coming back to blogging regularly. And here it is mid-June, and I haven’t written a single post! So I suppose I was not coming back. This year so far has been one of gentle awareness…slowing down and letting go…experimenting with newness and also finding myself in old patterns…days of vitality and the making of progress with my aspirations…days of pain and lethargy and doing very little.

This feels like a threshold year for me, not in some grand, clear, decisive way, but in ways that come out of quiet noticing and thoughtful responding. It makes for interesting times with my creating for the world beyond my home and garden, I can tell you. All that I am deeply certain of is the beauty and wonder of becoming a grandmother…and wanting to spend more and more of days making do to mend the earth and become ever more my own. My threshold is wide and comfortable, and I am sitting upon it, looking out and looking within, here for as long as I need to be.

So on this late morning as I am simplifying some online things…and putting together a week-long simplicity retreat for Wisteria & Sunshine, I thought I would leave a note here. In a few days, I am leaving on a long train trip to Maine to attend an herbal retreat and visit with dear friends. Two twelve-hour journeys there and back with spacious hours, removed from my every~days, to plumb the depths, dream and ponder. Hours to stare out of windows, see fresh-to-me every~days and sights, to look at my life from a distance and take stock…and to relax and enjoy the pleasures that come my way, of course.

I’ll be back here sometime this summer when I know more clearly what this space is for. If you’ve been receiving emails when I post here, please know that I’ve let go of that service as a part of my simplifying. But you will still be on my mailing list, and I will let you know whenever I do leave something here in the hedgerow post~box for you to find. If you aren’t on my mailing list, I welcome you to sign up here.

Wishing you a peaceful, clarifying summertime,

Lesley

xo

coming back…

…to this space…to feeling like I just might have the headspace and energy to write here more regularly. I’ve wanted to for so long, but with all the writing and sharing I do at Wisteria & Sunshine, my designing and then the usuals that we all do online, being in front of the screen again hasn’t beckoned.

But one of the many realizations I’ve had during my gentle January, when I slowly slowly sift and sort through my life, is that I do have certain thoughts and sharings that will fit very nicely here. I now have a pocketful of them, gleaned from the past year’s notebooks, in the new notebook I am creating from bits and pieces I already have.

Yet…I am not ready to begin. January continues very quiet and cosy and unhurried, as I like it…as I intentionally make it, as much as I am able. The tiniest of colds keep coming around after several days of actually accomplishing the work and well-being rhythms I gently set out for myself. Today is one of the those days when focused work feels impossible, so I am leaving this little note for you to find and probably won’t manage much else that is productive.

I’ll leave you with a few tidings from the past week…

~There is a new film over at my youtube, long and peaceful.

~I’ve put all of the papery things back in my shop. I’m not feeling quite ready to fill orders but I know some didn’t place their orders before I closed shop in January, so I’ll nudge myself to get back in studio. : )

~And I wanted you to  know that you are receiving this because it sends automatically to everyone on my newsletter list because that used to be linked here. If you’d rather not receive these blog posts in your inbox, please feel free to unsubscribe below. You will still receive my newsletter emails.

I’ll probably be here again in early February, when my body and spirit will likely begin to wake up a bit more. But for now, back to my cocooning. Probably some tennis-watching on the living room sofa and then some reading by the fire on the kitchen sofa…and a very belated breakfast.

Hoping your January is gentle,

Lesley

xo