Tuesday 31 May 2011

Want / Need / Guilt

I am still feeling tired and my skin is still with rash, but it is still going down and has no blisters. I am off to the Doctor's though in a bit, to see what he has to say.... And I may well get to wait in a room all by myself, the receptionist will know by the time I get there....

Not to sure what to do with myself in the meantime.... I would love to go back to sleep but there is not enough time to do that and shower and stuff.

What I hate most is I always feel so guilty when I am ill. Not at weekends - I can be happily poorly then, but during the week, when I am taking time off, then I feel as if I have to be miserably sick. My works attitude towards illness does not help. Mind you I have had no other time off sick since I have been there, except for my long period with Swine Flu / Pneumonia (my diagnosis *laugh*). Even so, I know my Boss hates sickness, she battles on regardless.

I am a cog in a machine.

Sometimes, like now, this bugs me. but most of the time, I am happy to be where I am, doing what I do, with my fellow cogs...
Mostly I just want to go back to sleep....

Sunday 29 May 2011

Shingles, Maybe

Suspected Shingles :-(

I get to wait for blisters to form on my rash to confirm this. I posted this morning and then went back to sleep. I only woke when F came home from work 4 and a half hours later....

If it isn't shingles it is likely to be a skin infction, so either way....

Saturday 28 May 2011

More Wedding Stuff

All is good.

I found a tenth feather on Friday, snarled in the grass right by where I park my car. I expressed a desire for a tenth as I arrived in work and there at lunch time, my eyes found the tiny fluff of black snarled in the grass, despite the strong winds and exposed location.

I spent yesterday on the phone and on the internet. I ordered my necklace - a beautiful stone known as a drusy. A polished rock with a vein of crystal exposed. It has then been coated with metals so it shimmers and shines. A tear drop shape in irridescent cobalt blue with an irregular crack of a vein that shimmers blue and purple and red. The company I ordered from are a husband and wife team of lapidarists in Yorkshire called Designer Cabochons and they will glue bails to the back of their stones on request. My something blue.


I then decided to look up flowers. My dress designer suggested purple lillies so I was looking them up and discovered beautiful purple calla lillies. So I did a search on images of purple calla lillies and right at the top was an image of a bouquet which happened to be on sale via Etsy and made in the UK by Indigo Daisy. So I bought that too!


And then I spent a lot of time on the phone. I told my Mum about the button-holes. The f M-i-L rang one a work night at ten to ten and was asking lots of questions about this and that. She knew F was working and had already left a message on his mobile but wanted to leave a message with me to.... about nothing very much. She has been too much this week! I spoke to her last night as well, and she knew he was working then too and had again left a message on his mobile about nothing very important.... *sigh*

Anyway, while she was asking about this and that, she asked about button holes and should she sort them out for her and her side. I went quiet. I am not a big flower person in many ways. I loved to wander in the garden as a kid and cut flowers to bring into the house but the overly commercial florist industry is sometimes alittle much for me. I like a bouquet as much as the next person but I like to keep my flower wasting habits to a minimum. The thought of filling a church with expensive flowers and then seeing them for half an hour just well.... I guess it isn't a priority for me. So I had not even thought about button holes.

So after my pause, starting to get more than a little frustrated with her, and not really having any desire in having such a chat right before bed, I said I hadn't even thought about them, that I wasn't sure that I was particularly fussed and that I wasn't sure I could see a need for them. To which she replied that she would be needing one. To say I came off the phone stressed, wound up, frustrated and more would be an understatement! I spoke to F on the phone when he was able to shortly after and told him and we ended up in fits of giggles about the whole thing....

I spotted that Indigo Daisy also did button holes with the Calla Lilly theme so I had much chat with my Mum about them. I was pretty definite in the fact that if f M-i-L was having a button hole, my Mum sure was too...... So the upshot is that the wedding party is going to have white calla lilly button holes with the ladies ones having a little more fluff and such. F will have a purple one to match my bouquet.

Except that the more I look at the bouquet, the more I notice the lilac - and that is not a colour in my dress.... But Inidigo Daisy suggested my bridesmaid have that one due to size, and maybe she should.... Lilac will not be such a problem with her dress I think. Those lillies look perfect but a little tweaking of the colour of the feathers.....

I have also found the perfect paper company - they sell colours in several weights of paper with folded card and envelopes in the same finishes. So I can actually get a co-ordinated look..... It comes in handy having a Dad who knows the industry.... I have a swatch pack on it's way. The nice thing is, I know I shall be able to use those little bits of paper in all sorts of ways...

F has found a nice old style convertible VW Beetle and I have asked for advice and a quote from a local coach company. At least I am hoping we can get a minibus for my family but the wedding reception venue is hard to get to. Some people would not be happy taking cars there. It would be handy to make sure that my non-local family do not get lost as both the church and the reception venue would be tricky. And of course I want them to drink!

All these details are so time consuming! But I am having a whale of a time! For now anyway - I suspect that as the day looms closer and I realise my hosue is still a bit of a tip and I have all these people expecting to come and sleep here.... then I suspect I might get stressed....

Wednesday 25 May 2011

Birds of a Feather....

I have signed up for a online workshop called Magic Fairy Wool. I am really looking forward to this and my lovely bag of rainbow wool all the way from Australia is ready and waiting. Very recently I read the list of supplies required for the course and I have most all of them except for two, a wool needle and the feathers you need to make the little birds shown in the post linked above.

Now craft shop feathers of the sort you can buy in the supermarket tend to be very bright and garish. Certainly not light and fluffy. To get nicer feathers I would need to go into town, find someone with birds or find some feathers. As I sat in work I considered that someone upstairs sometimes brings in eggs....

Still considering I went off to lunch and wtahced my magpies, and fed them as normal. The book has helped me understand better what is going on and what to pay attention to. I know the long bank used to be all one territory but now, after many ceremonial gatherings - a social device used by pairs with no territory to edge their way in, the bank is now divided in two. I feed the birds and one end and sometimes watch the birds at the other.

There is a baby bird, probably male because he is larger. He has fluffy feathers interspersed in his plummage and often sits low to the ground and fluffs himself up. There is Mummy bird is smaller and sleaker. Mummy and baby are less bold. Baby does not often stick around if Daddy turns up. Daddy is big and bold and clever. It is Daddy who sussed me out and comes and asks for food and comes the closest to get it. Often being scolded into sharing by Mummy, who did not dare to come so close.

Baby and Mummy often watch me for food and I reckon they let Daddy know when it has turned up. Then Baby goes off to do whatever Baby does....

So today I fed them. Baby vanished and Daddy turned up and got the food Mummy had been to scared to get. I saw her with some so he must have shared it to. I had a stale corn cake from yesterday so I was being quite generous. The two birds were just taking off with a piece of corn cake in beak each when four or five seagulls swopped down. One went for one of the magpies - it all happened so quick I don't know who. The magpie swopped off, still with food, leaving a puff of little feathers behind.

I felt pretty outraged.

No way was I going to feed those seagulls and they knew it and quickly left. I had time to feed the magpies again before the end of my break and I am glad to say I saw Mummy and Daddy and both seemed fine. I guess I know now why Baby goes and hides when the food comes out... For the gulls would surely go for him...

When I left the car I could see little fluffy feathers caught on the bank in the grass. I picked up those I could see, that had not been swept away by the wind. Little beautiful pieces of fluff, soft downy underfeathers. Nine of them. Mostly black but all but a couple have white ends, some more white than others.

A gift from the Univers. From my totem. very unexpected. very appreciated. very useful.

but I so hope that the magpie was not injured and is going to be fine. I know feathers regrow...

If I could have had any feathers for my little wooly birds, then of course, magpie feathers would have the most meaning for me. I have never been gifted with magpie feathers before, ever. Years of watching them. But here they are, just when my own little bird creations need their own wings....

Monday 23 May 2011

A Good Day

I had a good day today. Well a bit more than good really....

I had a day off. Always a good thing (unless you have to go to the dentist)

I had to go and meet the lady that I want to make my wedding dress. I had a lovely time. we looked at cloth and she drew some sketches. A cheap sketch and an expensive sketch. I of course fell in love with the expensive one.... I left with prices.

My folks are on holiday but with the aid of mobile technology I called them anyway and my Mum said she would text back my Dad's reply. Apparently he turned a little white around the gills but said yes! yay!

Off I went into the big bustling city of Truro (I have known many a town bigger than Truro but it has a cathedral you know!) I bought Lush goodies. Posted the wedding shoes back that don't fit. Bought some beads for my bedroom. Bought arty things (cardy stuff to make stencils / masks, re-positining spray stuff so the stencils will stick but be removable. interference red paint and coal tar medium). Bought more pieces of cur glass wonderful-ness.

Then called the lady back to say yay! we got the go ahead. and I ended up going to see her again to be measured.

Then I went to Tesco and bought tea and bumped in to a friend and his wife and had a good chat and showed them (mostly her) my fabric. Then I came home and spoke to my Sis and discovered that the Loreena McKennitt cd I ordered months ago has arrived.

All good... but...

The designer is incredible - she has designed to make me look thin.... An aubergine skirt and top with a full length coat over the top in aubergine, red and cognac. And it is all sooo lovely. My niece is going to get a stunning dress as well.

But she is a great person to. So full of life and talent and vibrant and interesting.

She started not by discussing the clothes but by discussing posture and giving me some exercises to make sure I glide down that aisle. Later on she told me my correct bra size and explained how they actually should fit. Later still she did some NLP with me (expect the unexpected - dress and hat designer / NLP practitioner) looking at my body image and weight loss and food habits. Inbetween I drank herb tea made with sage fresh from her garden and played with her dog. But mostly I just had fun!

It is all just sooo exciting! *does a happy dance*

Sunday 22 May 2011

Progress

Well....

Still reading supernatural. Still doing heaps of washing to sort through the mound of stuff. Still painting pallets.

Ever feel like you are stuck in a moment? *laugh*

Would I have started this bed project if I had had any idea how much it had involved? Maybe not.... Probably have done some procrastination.... but I want my bed. The pallets look lovely all shiny and white. We would have finished it this weekend - if I had not forgotten about the headboard. It needs sealing and undercoating before glossing, so there goes a fair bit of time. but it has been sanded and sticky uppy excess bits sawn off and some spare pallet slats screwed onto the blocks behind the headboard to make a slightly hidden shelf. I also got all the brackets and things for fixing it together and to the wall. So progress indeed, might even finish it next weekend.... yay!

I must do some pictures soon as well. I need to post about Natasha's course on 21 Secrets and my last two fullmoon dreamboards and the wardrobes and general room painting. I can however post about the lovely Three Little Words course from 21 Secrets.... Maybe I should do that in a mo.

I like being busy and having things to do and feeling motivated and good about stuff. Things are prgressing and I can see the progress (for a change and it isn't backwards either) so all is good.

Saturday 21 May 2011

Hoarding Hell

I am sat here. Feeling chilled and relaxed on a Saturday morning. Except F has promised to do what I want all day. And here I am, letting him play computer games instead of tidying and organising and painting and all the many other things we should be doing.

I know soon I will muster up some get up and go but for now I am procrastinating, and he sure is not about to stop me.

The questions is - how long can I keep writing this relatively inconsequential drivel and convince myself I am doing something worthwhile?

From where I am sat, I can see the pile of junk to be sorted.... It may have halved in size but there is still an awful lot that needs attacking.... I have woolens in the washing machine waiting to go on the line. And a whole heap of stuff waiting to jump in the machine after....

Old dog beds to go to the animal charity(Little Dog likes sofas and beds way to much). A box of teaching books to go to the education library. Bags of textiles for recycling.

My clothes in the wardrobe fill a tiny amount of space really - because the amount of clothing that actually fits is such a small proportion of what I have. Then you exclude the stuff I don't like or is worn and holey..... Somehow I am disguising how little I actually have under a pile of junk that is of no use to me....

And sometimes it just all seems too much.

Eight and a half years. I think in that time F and I must hardly have thrown anything out..... I am sat in a room with S's toys, no chance of him ever playing with them again. And boxes - why does F insist on keeping boxes that things came in? I can see pristine shoe boxes for shoes that are long dead *laugh*

We could become hoarders. We so could. This is our chance to avert that future.....

Best get on.....

Friday 20 May 2011

Come What May

This has been a week of much growing and learning for me.

It began with that dream. I decided to email it to Wapeyit as she had recently written about someone's dream and interpreted it on her blog. She very kindly interpreted mine for me as well, and for this, i can not thank her enough.

I shall not repeat all her words here but, in essence, this is her interpretation.

I am looking for my purpose in life, my soul is traveling within dreams to find it. When I return to the wall, I am visiting an ancestral memory, which I need to remember and bring resolution to that life. The ancestral memory involves death at sea and the spirit man is an old love who has become a spirit guide to me.

She finished by asking me if I was trying to get pregnant, or had been pregnant, about my connection to the sea. I went away and these questions and the dream and all it meant circled my head that day and one thing popped into my head strongly and that was the story I had written on my old blog, Footsteps in Ink.

I had started this story and never finished it, I had become stuck and clueless as to how to end it. I had also forgotten much of this story, well most of it to be honest. I had also never considered that it might relate to me. obviously the story is fiction but I can see my past life story within it. It begins to make sense and as i can see my story, so I can see how the fictional story should end. So after all this time, I have finally finished it.

It seems that in a previous life I was wedded to a fisherman. He died at sea and i spied pieces of his boat in the waves. In sorrow, I jumped off the cliff. I ended my life and that of my unborn child. I have no idea if I even knew I was pregnant.

This explains to me why I have such fears of F dying and leaving me alone. I have been there and it is a wyrd I am unpicking. My hope for this life is that the baby will find itself being born to me, as F and I hope to start a family following our wedding. I also hope that F and I find ourselves together at 80, in full health, bickering amiably as we sit on our rockers together drinking tea as the sun sets.

but who knows exactly what wyrd has in store for me during this life? I shall wait and see and I shall endeavour to do my best and live my life well, come what may.

Wednesday 18 May 2011

Dreams in the Mist

Life feels very, very busy right now. Overtime. DIY. Wedding. More than enough there for anyone!

but tonight I nipped into my creative spot and did a dream board for the full moon. Compared to last months (which I still need to post) this one is empty. A beautiful flower, blooming at night. A cute Cornish Cottage nestled in a very green and verdant locale. Three seagulls wheeling above the waves. A giant head, side on, created as a stage prop. A bevy of barn owls. And words. Words don't usually occupy much space on my dreamboards, but tonight they were what shouted loudest.

nurture the soul
make a splash
sisterhood
footsteps of the past
unlocking your dreams...
where it all begins

and these start to all feel a little eerie. Not in a bad way, but.... there is a coming together here. of many things. I can almost catch a sense of an outline... almost...

The lovely Wapeyit of Rattling the Bones has been helping to interpret my vivid dream of the other night.

How do you dig at past lives? Can we really remember? or is it only the merest fragments that we can bring together like a handful of pieces from an old and faded jigsaw.... There is so much going on inside my head. From wedding shoes to how to fix pallets together. From candle decorations to curtains. but underneath all the real world stuff, there is all this spiritual stuff going on as well.....

Sunday 15 May 2011

Dreams (Can Come True?)

Last night I had one of THOSE dreams. The ones that feel important.

It started off very innocently with my sister and her man woes and that is all I can remember of the beginning, it wasn't THE dream, just the lesser dream THE dream grew from.

I was an environmental scientist (yay for actually being what I trained to be) and I needed to go and investigate a site called the North Wall. This was a feature of a rocky outcrop situated off the south coast of Britain. The North Wall was a narrow rocky ridge between two larger rounder rocky outcrops. An almost island. The wall was at the North of the almost island

We, myself and three others, took a boat to the North Wall. Once there we found that there was a rope strung along the wall which we had to grab, everytime a wave came, for fear of being washed away. Three big waves came and we all grabbed the rope. The fourth wave came and we all went under.

Next I was floating upwards. There was dots of light, kinda like amoebas. I blacked out, time passed.

When I woke, I was in a cathedral and I was confused as to how I got there. The vicar came to help me and all I could really remember was that whatever had happened, had happened at the North Wall and I had to go back there. He helped me get there, to the harbour town where the boats to the wall left from.

The day was calmer, sunny and I took a tourist boat to the wall. As I climbed on to the wall and walked along it, I first met the ghost of my baby. I was surprised to discover I had even had a baby. Then I came across the spirit of one of my companions from the wall exploration. He told me some stuff which I don't remember, but it became clear that I too, had died.

I persuaded him to get on the boat with me as it was time to leave. He did but was uncomfortable, he continued to tell me things, to explain. As we got to shore he told me could not stay on the boat when it docked because to leave the sea and the wall would be too much for his spirit. Because he had died at sea, on the Wall, those were the places his spirit could travel to. When I had died, my body had been taken from the sea and had traveled to brighton and then on to London and because of this, I could travel to. One month had passed since I had died.

He dived into the sea. The boat docked and I stepped onto dry land.

I woke and knew this was an important dream. Partly because of the level of detail but more importantly the 'feel' of it. I know that much of this dream is shaped by the things I have been reading recently. Supernatural by Graham Hancock. Sum by Sam Eagleman. The North Wall comes straight from Game of Thrones which I am watching on TV. but

I also know that given the detail this will take quite some analysing. But I know I need to.

***

So, Supernatural.This books is all about the range of human experiences that shamans experience and how they are common to ALL societies, at ALL times, including our own. That the spirit world exists and interacts with our own. That every society has shamans who experience interactions with the spirit world, drug induced or not.

I am currently reading about the similarities between alien abduction and shamanic trips to the spirit world. It is very compelling to me and feels right.

It seems many people who experience these happenings do not remember but that they tend to have had certain types of experiences within their life and these happenings can be accessed via hypnosis. 1 in 50 people, at least. So what is the probability for me? Not bad, given my life.

So, the experiences often begin in childhood. The spirit guides often make themselves known in the real world first. People who spontaneously become shaman often have a period of illness or of mental unhappiness and this is often accompanied by intense dreaming. They often have unexplained scars.

Well I can't remember things but, I do often get that feeling of falling back into my body as I wake up. I remember feeling that as a child too. I also wake up sometimes, with that feeling I have been somewhere wonderful. I experienced a long period of illness in my teens which culminated in a nervous breakdown, so I experienced both of the life events that can be symptoms of the change in to a shaman. I definitely get the dreams.

I have a long thin scar on my left breast, above my heart. I have always had it but yet no one remembers how it got there. It was there all through my childhood. My Mum, who is medically trained, shrugged her shoulders and told me it was probably a cat scratch or something that resulted in scarring because of it being on sensitive skin.

The Medicine Cards recently revealed that my totem animals have a strong canid bent, with dog, wolf and coyote walking along side me. What better animal to have entered my life as guide than a dog? And there was one. A stray we found on the way home from school, that bonded very strongly with me and who, everyone agreed, was a dog in a million. She knew. She always knew. As I coped with my illness, walks with her, on the hill, were my only solace. She turned up shortly before I got ill, no more than a year before.

Other things in the book, so far, just resonate with me. One of the most shocking was in the colour pictures. Included are some paintings of scenes from the trances of a shaman. In the very first of these is a figure, a sleeping green, voluptuous lady, on her side. As my painting of myself in BIG I painted a sleeping lady, on her side in a very similar pose. Mine is less voluptuous but that is not because of the image in my head being very different, it is because of my aversion to my own weight. The skin colour is also different and the arm placement is slightly different. But I look at her and feel that she is too similar to ignore and she sleeps in the background of this shamanic painting.

I have just read about how some shaman are given books of knowledge. I too, have been given a book, but in my dreams.

Supernatural looks at trance as a route into the spirit world, but what about dreams. I know I am a dreamer, maybe, just maybe....?

So... I am going to start Sam Eagleman's book Incognito next and I know he talks about all the things our brain gets up to without letting our conscious mind know. I don't think my oh so logical consciousness can cope with some of this stuff, very easily because it does not fit with it's view of how the world works (and that view is very important to me! Last time it broke, so did I). Supernatural is helping expand my view so that these events are possible, so that if I were to believe, a little bit, it would not break my world apart. if it had happened to me, I would expect my brain to filter it out. My consciousness often filters out emotions. It can be very good at it. I have had to learn how to unfilter some of these messages.

It also helps explain a dream a while back in a different light. I asked about my lack of energy (which has since improved dramatically and I no longer feel the cold in the same way) and the dream message came back as something along the lines of we didn't know, we will fix it. I interpreted this as higher consciousness.... but.....

You see, I know, most people who read all of this, who make it all the way to this point, will be my friends, who share similar world views, who won't think I am crazy. A lot of other people would read this and think I am crazy.... Maybe I am. I don't really care. Time to think about going to work....

Heart of Glass

This weekend has not been the most exciting weekend, not by a long shot! But I have, just about achieved at least some of what I set out to.

I have four pallets, sealed with PVA and fully undercoated drying happily. That represents14 hours of slog by me and a further two by F. He was working yesterday but he sanded them earlier in the week.

I then dragged him, kicking and screaming to a car boot. I had to bribe him with MacDonald's. Of course, he wasn't so grumpy when we got moving and we mooched around happily in the field of toot. I am on the hunt for glass.

The castle where we will have our reception is tiny but it has a number of little windows with slate ledges set into the bar granite walls. The rooms are not well lit and personally, I think the candle light they have choosen to use is much the best choice for such a lovely room. As there will not be individual tables laid out with their inidividual candles and because I like candles a lot, I have decided to have lots of them. Each window ledge will be full of them.... and glass..... with a few pebbles and flowers thrown in for decorative affect.

So today I was mooching for glass for these window displays. I got a number of small glass bowls and dishes and things, six I think, including a box where I can use both the lid and box inidividually. I also came across some boxes of old bottles and bought four of them in different sizes. I already have some glass tea light holders, a mason jar that held bath salts and a glass vasey thing for putting a candle in. I am sure some normal glasses and jam jars will work their way in their too....

At some point I shall go up to the castle and measure each window. I shall mock up each window on the cardboard and plan which items will go in each window. I shall snaffle paper boxes and allocate one for each window, with plans on the lid, and put inside the items for each one. I will also collect pebbles, some I shall leave grey and the others will be painted the colours of the weding, which are a little in flux right now... (torn between red and purple)

I think there is a power in putting objects together and adding a few things like flowers and flames. It doesn't really matter how old and dowdy the items, it is all about how they catch the light.... I just hope it all looks good on the day....

Tuesday 10 May 2011

Witness

I recently read 'Art is a Spiritual Path' by Pat B Allen and well, it helped formulate some things I have been thinking.....

I don't like the whole praise thing. Not one bit. yes it is lovely to be praised but we get reliant on it. If you post a blog post, put a picture on a Ning site and no one comments, where are you left? What happens when you make something that is not pretty, is not nice, is not likeable but is completely honest, completely personal. if you have become addicted to the praise thing then it gets harder to put such things out there for view. We as a society, like to create the good, the pretty, the praise-worthy and then receive our just deserts.

No.

not right

Not healthy, not good. Life is balance, good and bad, ugly and pretty. Life is about living honestly. The book advocates a practice of witnessing. Artists share ther work and talk (or not) to a group. The group makes no response. no judgements. no comments. no noise. no facial expressions. nothing. They purely witness.

And this leaves people free, free to create and show their art honestly. Because to comment is to judge. and to not comment is to judge as well in our society. but if not commenting can be changed into a positive supportive thing....

You see, I read blogs. I often have nothing to say. I enjoyed what I saw but beyond a bland that was nice, thank you, I have nothing to say. I read a post so honest in it's pain and hurt yesterday that I had to respond but I had nothing I could write of myself as I had not been in that dark place, I had no insights, no wise words, but I wanted to let the write know I had been, I had read, I had witnessed. So I left three little words - I hear you.

The author did not post my comment, which is fine. Those words were a statement of witnessing, of solidarity, of quiet support. Know that I walk alongside you, without judgement, but I am here, sort of a thing. No need to share them with anyone else.

But i want to do this more. Let people know I have been, I have witnessed and I have left again, keeping my judgements to myself and that the person is free to be, all that they are.

But how do you do this easily and gracefully. in life, people know you are present. and I don't want like or dislike boxes either, because they are a judgement to.

I am not saying I don't want to post replies or to get them myself but I want them to be a discussion about stuff, to fill in gaps, to help others and myself understand more. I don't entirely feel happy with the pat on the head thing. Yes I love to receive it (although sometimes it is too much and can be embarassing) but the discomfort I feel in doing it tells me much much more...

What do you think?

Monday 9 May 2011

Updating

Just charging on through!

We had a three course meal last night courtesy of Tesco Clubcard points. All we paid for was the drinks and tip and it was all lovely! We told S of our coming nuptials to.... All good.

With the demise of my laptop I am on less so there are fewer posts but not less to say!

So very quickly. 21 Secrets is going well. I have been playing with Three Little Words and Improvisation Station as I am sick of paint still! I have signed up for the Sketchbook Project and am really looking forward to this! I am doing Along the Line.... I have also signed up for Magic Fairy Wool and will be making animals, gnomes, fairies and so forth - a nice way of working with wool before braving felting! I shall provide links to all these things some other time and posts for those with no links!

Time to run!

Saturday 7 May 2011

My Friend 'Pie

So, I started feeding the magpies at work occasionally this Winter, because it was sooo much colder than we are used to... It was only an occasional thing, because if they were not around then some other less nervy bird would spot it, like a crow, or jackdaw or gull, and grab it.

There is no way I want to be responsible for attracting a flocl of gulls to work on a regular basis. Locally, Gulls can be a nuisance. If people feed them, they tend to nest nearby and then they attack people. They are also exceedingly messy.... People who feed Gulls are very much disliked by their neighbours...

So my magpie feeding was an occasional thing, with them anxiously hopping around at the top of the grassy bank, hoping I could throw far enough for them to get it before some other bird got it. i didn't feed them very often but just recently I have noticed a huge change in their behaviour towards me.

One magpie now comes and sits by my car, no more than two metres away and waits for me to feed him. He will come as close as a metre now, as long as I don't look directly at him, I have to do a kind of sideways look and if I look too directly he will freeze or hop backwards. Not that he doesn't know I am watching, of course he does....

Yesterday he had half a corn cake he came and sat by my car so many times.... They are apparently believed to be one of the most intelligent of animals. This one certainly figured out pretty quickly how to get food from me, that I had no intention of harming it and what I and my car look like exactly. He never sits by any other car and I know he clocks me walking to my car too....

From what I have read so far males are much bolder than females. I see his mate to, she stalks the bank, hunting for food, but she does not come to be fed.... They are lucky magpies to have someone who feeds them in their territory. Magpies are generally not so very popular.... I loe them though.....

Wednesday 4 May 2011

Master Money

We can never escape sorrow, or change. And the two often seem to come together. I was happy yesterday and no doubt I shall be happy tomorrow, once change is happening but for today, the knowledge that it is coming makes me sad.

It seems to me that money is what causes a lot of fast change, people if left to their own devices would change less abruptly. But at that point where things become uneconomical, it is as if a button gets pressed and peoples lives change and it seems so instant, although by the end of it, i suspect some of the people most affected will find it drags on far to long, once the wheels begin turning of course....

But then, they were turning some time before we even knew about it. Money works like that. It is not an entirely honest master, Money, is it?

Monday 2 May 2011

Something Blue (Books, Decorating and Creative Stuff)

So this is my last day off before I go back to work. There has been four bank holidays over two weekends and I was lucky enough to get the three days inbetween off as well. Hence the big DIY project.

So this final day sees three quarters of my floor finished and the varnish hardened to it's full diamondlike qulaities, apparently. The remaining quarter just needs it's final coat.... A couple of touch ups are required here and there with a little brush to cover up a few errants whisps of the navy floor paint. And then this phase is done! *does a happy dance*

So two days clearing the room. Then seven days taking care of the walls, ceiling and floor. Now hopefully one day of putting up the wardrobe.... *crosses fingers* I just hope our ceiling can hold the poles and that they don't rip it down or that we don't have to do some complicated and tricky jiggery pokery in the loft to make it all secure..... OK so we still have the massive washing and sorting operation as we filter the things we want back in to the bedroom. You should see our spare bedroom right now... Talk about overflowing *shudders*

I have not found an awful lot of time for other things this week..... But a few have crept in here and there. I have started a necklace that was a possible for my wedding but I think not. I intend to wear red and the necklace is in red beads and I think the two together would look...tacky.... there I said it.... Maybe in grey instead.... Or maybe one of these lovely cabochons on a silver snake like chain..... Imagine one of those lovely blue ones as my something blue.....

I have not really had time for 21 Secrets and I certainly have not felt like playing with paint in my free moments! So when I did have time towards the end of this week, I chose Natasha's Improvisation Station course as I knew there was a writing element. I have been thoroughly enjoying this and shall give it a post all to it's own when I finish the journal page that goes with it....

I have been reading as well. I finished Art is a Spiritual path and thoroughly loved this book. I wish I had a group of artists to share space with in the way she has. I love the idea of witnessing. Quite often this tendency we have to comment and be encouraging etc etc about others artwork and to receive about our own is not.... quite right. This idea of witnessing feels good. I may not have the group thing going but I am determined that I should spend time with my creations and write down what they say to me from now on. Starting with my journal page a la Natasha, when it is done....

I have read as much of Dancing the Dream as I am going to anytime soon. Basically, it divides spiritual progress into seven paths. The first and second made no sense to me what so ever, I felt no spark of knowing as I read about them. I identified with the third, fourth and fifth but on starting the sixth path, it is clear this a step to far for me. I am nowhere near the six path and I have no desire to read about it or the seventh. It is enough to know they are there... I need as it is to let the three paths I identified with simmer for a bit and then re-read them. There is so much in this book to digest!

I am reading Supernatural at the moment. Again after reading the introductory chapters I had to let it rest a while. Basically his idea is that hallucinatory drugs were responsible for the evolution of birth of art and spirituality within the human race. That is a really, really big thing and I had to sit with that idea for a bit and let it take root, or not. As it happened, it has, I can see it and this is now part of my personal world view and I am continuing with the book. I don't think it will be the only perceptual challenge waiting for me within these pages....

The Medicine Cards have become part of my regular practice. They are so much more friendly and helpful than tarot it feels....

The magpie book.... not read much of this at all. I read the first chapter on territories and I have enjoyed watching the magpies and seeing how it works. It has expanded my view of their world. When I am ready I shall read another chapter or two and observe some more....

i also did my dreamboard for the last full moon and need to post about that. Boy is it a more hectic one than some of my past ones! A lot going on there. Fiery volcanic stuff, paths through undergrowth, bluebell woods, a baby scan image, a wild wolf, a VW van and it goes on.... Obviously a lot going on in my head right now....