She looked as if she were about to burst into tears, but she was wonderful at catching the ball of her own mood in mid-air. ~ Rebecca West Hey, Lovelies. Well, this has certainly been the year. As you know, I live with a complex bucketful of dodgy genes, autoimmune diseases, chronic infections, post-viral […]
One Of The Best Gifts I Ever Gave Myself
The best gift I ever gave myself is a gift that keeps enriching my days. It’s a gift of time and care, of comfort and support, of gentle and of hard questions, and sometimes, hard answers. It’s the way I manage life. The way I cope with the things that should break me. I highly recommend it…
Finding The Calm Strength Within – Monday Oracle 16 March 2020
“Instead of forcing yourself to feel positive, allow yourself to be present in the now.” Daniel Mangena Hello, Lovelies! March is a month for creating space in your life, for breaking patterns and creating new ones, for inspired thinking and new directions. It’s also a month where extreme self-care and deep rest may be needed. […]
Shiny Unicorn Attack (Cos It Had To Happen…)
“Never laugh at live dragons.” ~ J R R Tolkien So, I’m standing in a health food store yesterday, waiting while someone finds a product I’d ordered. I’m miserable. My eyes are streaming and one is gummed closed. My face is blotchy and puffy. I have a UTI and a chest infection and I am […]
An ordinary night of magic!
“The purpose of life, after all, is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience.” ~ Eleanor Roosevelt We’re in the city right now, and last night something quite wonderful happened. Our neighbour joined Ben and I and we walked a few blocks down […]
Only Someone Who Has Chronic Pain or Illness Knows…
“Illness is the night side of life, a more onerous citizenship. Everyone who is born holds dual citizenship, in the kingdom of the well and in the kingdom of the sick. Although we all prefer to use the good passport, sooner or later each of us is obliged, at least for a spell, to identify […]
The Very Valid ‘Not Coping’ Style of Coping
“It’s funny: I always imagined when I was a kid that adults had some kind of inner toolbox full of shiny tools: the saw of discernment, the hammer of wisdom, the sandpaper of patience. But then when I grew up I found that life handed you these rusty bent old tools – friendships, prayer, conscience, […]
Choosing Your Emotional State
“Bad things do happen; how I respond to them defines my character and the quality of my life. I can choose to sit in perpetual sadness, immobilized by the gravity of my loss, or I can choose to rise from the pain and treasure the most precious gift I have – life itself.” ~ Walter […]
Dancing Out Of the Lymelight
“Stubbornly persist, and you will find that the limits of your stubbornness go well beyond the stubbornness of your limits.” ~ Robert Brault I’m off to see my Lyme Doctor today, and I’m hoping for a good report. In the last few months I’ve noticed real and sustained change. I have more energy. People […]
Where’s Your Focus?
“Very occasionally, if you pay really close attention, life doesn’t suck.” ~ Joss Whedon On Friday I posted about a beautiful ordinary day, and how much I had enjoyed such simple things as a trip to the farmers’ markets, clean sheets on the line, sunshine and crisp ripe apples. After that post I received two emails, extracts of […]
One of those nights…
“She used to tell me that a full moon was when mysterious things happen and wishes come true.” ~ Shannon A. Thompson Tonight will welcome May’s full moon. I love a full moon. Unfortunately so does lyme disease. Many lyme sufferers find an acute ramping up of their symptoms in the day or two before a full moon. […]
A Moment of Perfect Peace
“Spirituality is not to be learned by flight from the world, or by running away from things, or by turning solitary and going apart from the world. Rather, we must learn an inner solitude wherever or with whomsoever we may be. We must learn to penetrate things and find God there.” ― Meister Eckhart Very […]
Exhausted, with Aprons…
“If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales.” ~ Albert Einstein What a lovely weekend I’ve had. Our friends and their children visited the farm, and to my delight I found that these particular children had a […]
Lyme and Making Plans
“She had learned the lesson of renunciation and was as familiar with the wreck of each day’s wishes as with the diurnal setting of the sun.” ~ Thomas Hardy, The Mayor of Casterbridge “Success is when everything that goes wrong, fits in your plan.” ~ Gary Rudz When I was diagnosed, finally, with Lyme disease, back in […]
Catching My Breath
“Breath is the bridge which connects life to consciousness, which unites your body to your thoughts. Whenever your mind becomes scattered, use your breath as the means to take hold of your mind again.” ~ Thích Nhất Hạnh, The Miracle of Mindfulness: An Introduction to the Practice of Meditation The past few days have been a […]
The Power of Story
“After nourishment, shelter and companionship, stories are the thing we need most in the world.” ~ Philip Pullman The past few days have been rough for me. It’s a lyme thing. Partly because of the pathogens that have invaded and taken up residence in my body and partly because of the ongoing treatment to evict […]
Nurse Bert Reports
“Nursing is a kind of mania; a fever in the blood; an incurable disease which, once contracted, cannot be got out of the system. If it was not like that, there would be no hospital nurses, for compared dispassionately with other professions, the hours are long, the work hard, and the pay inadequate to the […]
Small and Nasty = Bartonella
Musings The little poets sing of little things: Hope, cheer, and faith, small queens and puppet kings; Lovers who kissed and then were made as one, And modest flowers waving in the sun. The mighty poets write in blood and tears And agony that, flame-like, bites and sears. They reach their mad blind hands into […]
What May Come
“Fate is never fair. You are caught in a current much stronger than you are; struggle against it and you’ll drown not just yourself but those who try to save you. Swim with it, and you’ll survive.” ~ Cassandra Clare, City of Ashes This morning I have gained perspective. It’s not much, but it’s […]