sacred space

more than novels, i enjoy reading about the people who wrote them...

sometimes their lives were even more interesting than the books they wrote, or the pictures they created. to learn about the lives they lived, and where, can leave me feeling inspired, or just thrilled and dreaming. accounts from people who knew them, or historians who puzzled together the day to day, the mundane that can give lovely insights in who the people were before, while or after making the creations we know them from. 

almost 2 years ago, when i was in England on my week in East Sussex, i visited a few of the houses where the Bloomsbury set - and related folks - resided. modest places, a farmhouse, a cottage, and a medieval looking place that oozed history, lived in by Vanessa Bell, Duncan Grant, Clive Bell and others {in Charleston Farmhouse}, Virginia Woolf and her husband Leonard {in Monk's House}, and Vita Sackville-West and her husband Harold Nicolson {at Sissinghurst Castle}. numerous books have been written about these people, about their unusual, unconventional set-ups, assumptions made, reasons guessed at, facts cited.

feeling slightly like a hindsight groupie, it felt strange to be inside the homes of these people, as if i was intruding on their sacred space, places they held dearly and felt safe in, either hiding from the world {Woolf} or being surrounded by endless natural beauty and inspiration {Bell and Grant}. it was easy to understand why these houses were the places where they created their novels or paintings, where they pondered on life, or enjoyed the family life that was as much a part of them as their artistic exploits. the kitchens where they would make their cups of tea or butter a thickly sliced piece of bread, the bathrooms where they would wash and read and ponder, the fire places where warmth would be on cold days... it felt strangely intimate... 

a peep through at Sissinghurst Gardens

looking out the window
at Monk's House

Woolf's writing desk in the garden house

Sackville-West's writing space in the tower
of the castle at Sissinghurst

the arch under the writing tower at Sissinghurst

the sitting room in Charleston Farmhouse

spirits in a material world

yesterday, while having a little catch-up/birthday chat with a friend in England, we got talking very briefly about - among many other things - the fact that she's missing her mother {who passed away about 2 and a half years ago} a lot. we then also got chatting about the notion that another {dutch} friend had sold her house last week, for way more than the asking price, in a matter of days. 

both of those things got me to mention spirit guides. my friend who sold the house asked her spirit guides {a few specific ones} to help her with this, and i mentioned this to my friend in England. also that i talk to my dad sometimes, ask him for help in specific situations, and that this appears to 'work' - things shift, situations occur, coincidences happen. my friend in England was bemused by this. she's very sensible and rational, and can't be doing with this kind of stuff. she has a friend that i know as well who's also into spiritual and intuitive living, and i know how mad she thinks this friend is sometimes for even suggesting that there's Help available from the spirit realm, or that her long term illness could be to do with stored childhood trauma, or whatever. so my notion that i trust spirit guides, or my angels, or whatever i call them, i tend to keep for myself.

maybe it is just a comforting thought, that my dad is available as an angel, or a guide, and nothing more than that. maybe it is just a coincidence that situations change in my favour whenever i've asked him for help... my rational side does question this too. my rational side is highly dubious of my sensitive, dreamy, trusting side... but if it makes me feel happy, and calm, and relaxed, surely that's a good thing?

my friend in England won't be talking to her mum, i'm fairly sure. she'll probably file me under 'Going Slightly Bonkers' and we'll carry on our occasional, fun chats about Life and Cakes and our kids. i wonder what they make of us, the spirits who watch over us humans...?

sharing sunday #2

since it's my birthday today, and the age i'll be becomes a nice no. 7, i'll be sharing 7 things

1. there was a time when i went to the cinema almost every week. thanks to The Situation i haven't been for over a year {it just never got back into my system...} but i do love watching them. i have a few favourites {one for every mood i might be in...}, and choosing has never been my strongest point, so, a few that will always make me happy: Pride {"Dai, your gays have arrived!!"}, Maurice {"Now we shall never be parted... That's finished..."}, Into the Wild {"The core of man's spirit comes from new experiences."}

2. reading is something i either enjoy, or i don't... i can't be doing with books that annoy me, or i don't get a good vibe from. so a lot of the so called classics or top 10 best sellers don't get a look in... silly romance, on the other hand.... Maurice, by E.M. Forster {written in 1914, published in 1971, on which the film was based} is a favourite since 1989, when i first discovered it, and loved everything about it - the love invoked, the language used, the heartache felt. will reread this every now and then. far from silly romance, but romantic it certainly is, in its own way
    the original book version of Into The Wild, by Jon Krakauer, is also a recommendation. it goes deeper into why Chris McCandless possibly did what he did, the history of young adolescent guys choosing to seek this kind of adventure, and other matters related to the discovery of McCandless lifeless body, back in 1992.
    no. 3 is the book that i found was the inspiration for the BBC series of a few years ago, called Living In Squares, Loving In Triangles, by Amy License, from 2016. not so much a novel, as it is a collection of facts and thoughts about the Bloomsbury Group's main members {if that's the right word}, namely Vanessa Bell, Virginia Woolf, Duncan Grant, Clive Bell, Leonard Woolf, Lytton Strachey, John Maynard Keynes and others, people who have captured my imagination for many years... 

3. with Polly in the car on the way back from our holiday in Gelderland we discussed whether or not one can call oneself a fan of someone if we only like one of their albums... or a few of the trillions they made... or only three songs... we concluded that it doesn't matter, and so here are a few songs that i recently discovered or loved for years...
    # What is love - George Harrison {only recently did i figure that this song of pure joy is by George!?? what the hell... somehow i thought it was by someone else, and 'just liked' it...} # Queen Bitch - David Bowie {love this Velvet Underground tribute song from Hunky Dory so much, and have to sing it along in the camp voice that Dave used - bliss!!} # Crayfish Hora - Fanfare Ciocarlia {thank you Shazam...} # Somewhere In My Heart - Aztec Camera {Roddy Frame was one of the guys i adored in 1987, at the same time as wanting to BE him... he was so beautiful...} # Istanbul {not Constantinople} - They Might Be Giants {had a cd of theirs but can only remember this song and the Birdhouse one}, but this is one of my faves}

4. some restaurants that i enjoy going to here in Breda: 
- De Jongens Van Zand En Klei {not just guys there...}
- Inspire Coffee Company {yummy toasties and other goodies...}
- In Kannen En Kruiken {gorgeous garden and other things...}
- Sunshine {as if you're somewhere far away...}

5. dreams:
to find a lovely roomy chalet in some woodland settings to live in, a campervan to travel with, a soulbuddy to share my life with, truckloads of money, more than enough time to write and read and dream and create and chat with friends and go for long walks and... 

6. having discovered that the phenomenon that kept happening to me {All The Things I Wished For, Happened In My Life Somehow} had a name, and was called Law Of Attraction, i spent years trying to get the magic back... it had disappeared after i got together with ultra-realistic ex, and while other things developed {self-confidence, liberation from my home life belief system, children}, that somehow stopped working in the relaxed way it once did. thanks to the books and teachings of people like Esther Hicks, Wayne Dyer, Louise Hay and Sonia Choquette {and my friend Mo}, i'm now kind back to where i was in 1991... check some of these folks out for yourself

7. life motto:

the sky is not the limit. 

your belief system is

bring on the crazy dancing

when we moved to Holland in 1999, one of the many things on our to do list was finding a school for the boys. Oldest had been going to the one that we could walk to in St. Leonards, a sweet, very British primary school with kind teachers and classrooms that were filled to the brim with learning equipment. no way was this school going to produce illiterate children who would have trouble reading books {UK had a bit of a reputation for not delivering enough academics to secondary schools, and was trailing in the European statistics...} and Oldest was lapping up the stuff he was offered to learn about. which at 5-and-a-bit was fairly promising, if you've been raised to be impressed by academia. which we were... 

the list of schools that we obtained from the council of the town we were aiming to move to had a lot of similar seeming schools - normal schools where the kids were going to learn normal stuff and probably become normal teens who would be having normal lives. so far, so normal... until my eyes saw a few anomalies - a Montessori school, and a Waldorf Steiner school... the first one i was familiar with {had read a lot about Maria Montessori's ideals about education, which seemed to me very impressive, and if Oldest had not been in the little friend group that he had been since babyhood - comprising of a bunch kids with aspiring middle class parents who had become my friends over the years - i would have seriously considered the Montessori playgroup that was a short drive away... but all his little buddies were going to the school down the road, and no way was i going to deny him his social life... 

but since we were moving to another country, and he was going to start afresh anyway, his education, and that of his little brother, was a blank slate. one of the reasons why we moved to Holland was the fact that education was so much better organised, and due to other factors, kids were going to have such a better chance at becoming happy, balanced people than they would be in England. only, the dutch system was never known for its love for the creative, nature-based, spiritual or intuitive... 

in the months before moving, i had gotten to know someone who was a teacher at a Waldorf Steiner school in the south of England. the way he talked about the things he was teaching sparked something in me. someone else in our friends group had been to a similar type [boarding] school, and the more i was reading about this - finding the odd book in the library, applying for info at the schools themselves - the more i was convinced that i wanted this for my kids... 

ever since leaving school, i vowed to not let my kids [if i ever had any] become disheartened by their peers, to feel like they were weird, or wrong, for being who they were. and the Waldorf Steiner Schools [Vrije School in dutch] seemed to offer all the things i felt were lacking in the school i went to, and the regular schools that were on the list. so we went over to have a chat with someone, had a look around, let Oldest have a look around, and put his name down for when we moved. 

Oldest was less than impressed when he got over the initial shock of being plonked into a classroom full of people whose language he wasn't fluid in, playing with blocks and wooden things, he had been used to learning to read and write, to have homework, to hold a pen, and to be challenged - here he was back in playgroup?! he'd done all that - where was the meaty stuff he could get his teeth stuck into?? it took him a while to let go of this notion, and he settled into his new routine, made new friends, learnt to speak dutch within weeks, found his place in the school and did well. his little brother did too, although he was a totally different temperament, and [unlike his older brother] rubbed teachers up the wrong way, but had heaps of friends, flourished in his own way and found his own voice and feet in his own time. 

the school has been as much a place of education for me as the kids... 
i learnt so much there - things about myself that i never knew existed... i learnt physical skills {felting, painting techniques}, reacquainted myself with ones i had learnt ages ago, learnt about the Edda, drawing certain shapes [vormtekenen] and the reasons behind them, i learnt about nature and minerals, i learnt about the connections between so much more, i learnt to find my inner Self, about what makes me Me, the Astral body as well as the Ether body, the importance of natural materials and my Soul Purpose, about Organic food and Biodynamic farming, about the phases of the moon, about Eurythmy, and the fact i can Sing... to name but a few... 

my daughter has just finished her 12 years of Waldorf Steiner education, although she also did 3 years of the infants school, and 1 year as a toddler, which makes it 16 years of being steeped in it. and she probably got a bit of it when she was dragged along to school with her three brothers as well, as a baby, so basically all her life has been that weird school, as her oma once called it. she did her End Of School Presentation, leaving me feeling so incredibly proud of the accomplished, mature young woman that she has become over the years. the boys never went to the secondary school, for reasons that made sense to them, but i had wanted them to have had this as well, the connectedness to the others in their year, to the others in the school, to nature, to Life, to their Soul Purpose... 

i'm glad i found the school on the list, back in 1999, twenty two years ago now, cos it changed our lives, and it helped us to find a ground under our feet, and a long list of beautiful people who became guides, and helpers, and friends... 

more can be read here:
[in dutch]
* de vrije juf
* vrije school breda
* antroposofie.nl

[in english]
* wiki about anthroposophy

trigger happy

part for the course of being introspective {or Self Obsessed, as some people call it} is wondering why visits to my mum are such a wrench. especially {but not only} when the kids accompany me, it can feel like i've signed up for a bout of flogging... all my triggers are being pulled, and i find myself halfway feeling like sh*t. like a sh*tty person who's horrible to their dearly beloved mum, who's always been there for them and shall probably always be...

when i was growing up, my family of 4 {me, my brother and mum and dad} was 'divided' into two camps - my mum's {consisting of her and my brother} and my dad's {him and i}. camp 1 was practical, loyal, simple-minded {as in not deluded} and provincial; camp 2 had their head in a cloud, were dreamers, had aspirations that didn't fit their milieu and wanted to see the world. or Europe at least... until i got together with my ex, both camps kind of worked okay together. although there were tensions, many of them, and i was feeling increasingly hemmed in by the way my parents wanted me to be {in order for them to be able to deal with me}, it kind of worked... 

until it stopped working. due to the insights i gained from being with my ex, it dawned on me that i wanted so much more, and once the kids came along, i {and he} became the parent we had hoped to have had ourselves. probably lacking in other areas, we gave the kids freedom to be themselves, boundaries where needed, structure where needed as well, but mostly the space to fail and learn, and gain confidence in their abilities {such as making their minds up about things & coming to conclusions that might not always make us feel comfortable}. and that appears to have worked, cos i see before me 4 awesome people who all weigh up pros and cons and conclude, and it has made me wince quite a few times, but i hope i never made them feel that i thought they were wrong, or deluded. they live their lives, and i watch them become who they are. and i admire them. 

until i go to my mum's with them, or alone, and i'm right back to being the little kid i was once, looked at by her and judged, feeling a need to fit her description of who i ought to be {so that she can feel at ease}, but can't, and in failing to do so, within seconde my hackles go up and i'm fighting an urge to yell at her, to tell her to love me, to like me for who i am, for who i always was.... 

when my dad passed away, almost 5 years ago now, i lost my only lifelong ally. we always had each other's backs, he was proud of me and i of him. he got me when my mum didn't. camp 1 had each other, my brother likes to be cared for by his mum, and will run to her for every small thing that goes wrong in his life. for me it is the last thing i want to do, and i will always look for admiration for sorting my own stuff out. my ex used to think it was normal to do this and being with him has kind of taught me to not expect praise for it, but deep down, i want someone to tell me i'm doing well... that i'm admirable for being me... for not asking for help, for working stuff out by myself... but the one person i want this from can't... 

so i'll have to do it for myself. and learn to accept that this is what it is... 

sharing sunday #1

inspiring videos/channels

* Happen Films - an Australian/New Zealand crew of folks who seek to find answers with regard to sustainable living and alternatives to the way we 'use' nature. this documentary that was made a few years ago drew me in to begin with - beautiful!

to b+ or not to b+

having done the work i get paid for since 2010 {selling + advising about organic food}, i've seen my share of fad diets, and people who suddenly have a food 'intolerance' that they were never aware of before. some of course are totally genuine and it has been completely life-saving to have found what it was that was making them feel sick, or dreadful, some i'm not so sure about... but hey, who am i to question people's gut reaction...

i've come across {and done} Food Combining {no carbs with protein!!!}, seen all the gluten-free, lactose free, no nuts, only nuts, Paleo, Keto, superfoods, Pioppi etc. fads that have come on the market since then, can almost tell you the day that Quinoa and Goji berries were unattainable from the wholesalers cos the demand was suddenly so high, and then their price went through the roof as a result. veganism became hip and happening before my eyes and 'whole wheat bread' and 'full fat milk' became curse words. and then they became superfoods... 

so when this thing called Blood Group Diet came across my radar, i was wary. not another one!! i can't recall where i read about it, but it caught my eye, and i read some more about it. and some more again. and it kind of made sense {but then, so does the Paleo diet...} but what was my blood group? i'd had a blood transfusion after i had given birth to my eldest son, so it was in my notes from the midwife - B+, it said in amongst some other things that mattered about my first pregnancy and subsequent birth. back to the literature. B+ is fairly rare in the west, it said, and B's are descendants from nomadic tribes from the Himalayas... right... 

thing is, i am too heavy. i can't wear nice clothes {or at least, ones that i like, that don't immediately make me look like a middle-aged person who's given up on life...} and i HATE my reflection in the mirror... i used to weigh 56 kg. i can't recall the last time i weighed myself, cos i dread to see what the scales tell me. my trouser size in C&A says enough... i don't eat very healthy... despite working in a shop that sells EVERYTHING to keep me on the straight and narrow... i prefer the licorice and the chocolate, and the pastries and cakes... at least they're organic, i tell myself as a way to stop me from feeling even more crap... what's making it so hard for me to stop eating the treats, rather than the vegetables?!

the list of things i was 'allowed' to eat was encouraging - salmon, pineapple, bananas, spinach, yoghurt, goat's cheese, walnuts, broccoli, ginger, mackerel, oatmeal, licorice root and spelt were already things i liked, so not a wrench... the 'neutral' list was okay as well {yay! cheddar, brie, para nuts, pecans, asparagus, courgette, mango, chocolate, dates....} and would be allowed. now, the 'avoid' list was less fun... no more chicken, sunflower oil, cashews, pistache, pumpkin, sunflower seeds, chickpeas, lentils, soy in any form, corn, whole wheat, avocado, tomatoes, coconut, cinnamon or aloe vera..... what?!! but i tried for a while, to see what would happen. and i felt better. 

what happens, apparently, is that the 'avoid' foods do things to your blood that make you feel ill. or lethargic, as they are slowly killing you. if you can skip them from your daily diet, you'll feel better, cos your body isn't trying to deal with these 'assassins', and in eating better you'll probably lose weight in the process. 

i wasn't losing the weight... cos - damn it - my list of 'neutrals' had bread in it. white bread. and i love white bread... and i slowly slipped back into old eating habits, and forgot all about the diet... and was accepting that i felt awful {life, menopause, psychological disadvantage, upbringing...} cos it is easier than doing something about it. 

and then i saw the booklet i got with all the lists of foods i am allowed, and gave it another go. if i wasn't losing the weight, at least i would feel better, physically. that was worth something?! and this time around something seems to have clicked - i'm no that bothered about the white bread anymore. the veggies seem more appealing... who knows....

[more can be read here]

let it go

was thinking more about the post from a few days ago, where i claimed that my life seems to be a road of unease. on the one hand that's how it does feel - always feeling the odd one out, the one who's different, and having figured that being a hsp + introvert puts you in that position often anyway, especially when you've not been given the tools or the confidence to negotiate life. if your parents or guardians couldn't teach it to you, you'll have to search for others who can. that's what creates the road of unease.

in the last 10 years i feel that the tools and the confidence have been found, within myself. i have felt more than once that Things Land On Your Lap when you need them, People Appear In Your Life when you ask for them, Help Is Available if you ask... some people call this Faith, and say they believe in god, or that Jesus helps them, others call it their Angels, the Universe, a Spirit Guide, Allah, Yahweh, whatever - it all boils down to the same thing...

we let go of the ego when we ask for help, or pray. we let go of the loud inner voice, and make space for a quieter voice, which gives us a sign, or makes us look a certain way, or go a certain direction. that's what is the Faith that bible bashers keep going on about - the Faith that there is Help, that Something has your back in ife, that you're not alone {and not mad when you think this...} but have the backing of the whole Universe... 

time out

for the first time since we moved to Breda, we've left the city behind us for a few days and trekked - by  car - to the east of Holland. at first i had thought about going to Germany, as i miss the hills and the Otherness, but i couldn't make much sense of how welcome we'd be, so i plumbed for here... plenty to discover in the country i was born in, so much i don't know yet, so we scoured Airbnb for Anywhere Near Zwolle, and found an old bread baking house {as most farms had, back in the days when making bread yourself was a necessity} that's been converted into a sweet home, set on the edge of a lovely garden. 

we're in the midst of Hanseatic towns {more can be read about this here} which carry a long history, with many of the towns and cities still bearing plenty of proof of its long and rich past, as well as some of the few National Parks that are still to be found in this country - the Veluwe is on our doorstep. we have rich pickings for days out, so -rain withstanding - we should be good for the next 4 days!

first impressions of where we are - inspiring for a lot of reasons

the road of unease

i won't take the easy road

a line from the song Silver Lining, by First Aid Kit {at first i thought that Easy Road was the title...} which i've liked for a few years {apparently it was used in a car advert...} and it keeps coming back into my mind every now and then. 

take the road of least resistance, say Abraham {through Esther Hicks}. take the Easy Road... yeah, okay, but how does that work, when your sheer existence seems to bring up the resistance you're supposed to ignore, or release...? 

my friend Mo and i used to have this running line that we wished we were more like our class mates, and just go through life without all the questions and the dreams and the wonder... that we would just be simple like them, and want the easy Life, with the husband and 2 kids, and the house and the 1 holiday a year and a new car every few years, and Do What's Expected... how easy would that be?! but - as i said to my daughter when she asked how my life at school was - we had no idea how to fit in. i personally always felt like an alien, plonked into a Normal village, into a Normal Family, but they forgot to give me the rulebook... i never knew how to be like the rest of my class. they knew the rules, i was oblivious... 

it still feels like i'm living without a rulebook. i try to do Normal sometimes, but it feels like i'm playing pretend. i look at what other people do, and i copy them and hope they won't notice... maybe i just needed parents with a stronger sense of self, who could have guided me through life better when i was young, who knows... maybe that's why i was drawn to my ex, a very strong-willed, confident person who had little truck with my timid, quiet, insecure side often... 

i feel confident in myself now, after years of doubt and wonder and uncertainty about my worth in this world. there is a place, and to get there i had to take the road of unease. would i have wanted it any other way? don't think so... it was my road, and it took me to some very interesting places, both inside myself and in the world. i wish i had listened to my inner voice more often, and had less fear, but it was what it was... and it will be what it will - wherever i'm going next...

i will take the nicest looking road...