welcome home...

Let me tell you about our new home.
It's simple. It's small. I think it is the smallest house that we have lived in. But it has a room for my art, a room for my meditation and prayer and it has room for Joe's bike. Which is pretty much all we need.
There is a lovely deck along the back where I can sit and have tea.
My prayer room looks out into a garden, where eventually I will plant a tree. Not sure which one yet.
Two garden sheds in the back yard. One for me, one for Joe.
It's perfect.

It's been loved in the past, but neglected and all it needs is sunlight soap, hot water and me. Scrubbing.
Oh and painting, bathroom and kitchen makeover. Which are Joe's domain.
There is no rush. We have a plan. We always do.

The garden is there, the bones, I mean. It just needs some love, imagination and magic. I have plenty of all three.
In the back yard under the large gum of unknown species, lives a family of crested pigeons. There are magpies - of course.

There is a secret circle down in the back corner. Looking almost like it was created for me.
There are large gums, looking like guardians of the back yard and I can see my comfrey, valerian and celandine growing happily along side.
It will be a different garden to what I have had previously. I want to immerse myself once again in my garden. Learn to be alone.

The house is on a road that leads to Evans Lookout. A place that I can go see the sun rise. Where I can leave essences overnight and where I can sit and meditate or journal.
Where I can sit on ancient rocks like my soul needs to do.
I've decided to call our new home, Waratah Cottage. Because of the large number of the plants growing in the garden but also because it feels like I'm coming home. Not just back to the mountains but also coming home to self. Coming home to Australia. The deep yearning for Cornwall has been laid to rest. I now know that I belong here to the land where I was born

The energy of this home is very much like our home in Woodford. Sparkly, light energy. I can feel it as I walk between the trees. The smell of the rotting eucalypt leaves on the ground surround me and it's as if I have been here forever. I know this house and garden. It's like a reward for all that I've been through in the past year. And so begins another journey.

tears and rain

November 4
"driving yesterday, through the winding road to Kangaroo Valley, majestic trees lining each side of the road, magnificent trunks, silver, glistening in the drizzle. Leaves heavy with the rain. Mist enveloping each one as if in a veil. I knew them, they knew me. I could feel myself relax. Sighing with relief, letting go."
"the rain outside today is actually comforting. Early morning, birds still call and frogs are chirping somewhere in my garden"
"I miss the mountains mist, the mystery it evokes. The smell of the rain, damp on the rotting eucalypt leaves thick on the ground. I miss the spirituality of the mountains, different to anywhere else that I have been. It almost wraps itself around you, seeping into your soul. A part of you, forever. My heart longing to be back there. And I will be, I must learn patience"

November 5
"it's raining again and it is making me agitated. I never felt this way about rain before all the leaks in this house. Rain seems to put me on edge now and I feel as if I want to escape, run away. Like a pacing animal trapped behind bars in a cage.
I hope the feelings eventually change back to how I was in the mountains, the rain almost caressed my soul, nurtured and comforted me. Of course, there were times when days and days of rain annoyed me but there was never a feeling of panic.
The mountains drizzle, the wood fires and cosiness of the mountains. The nostalgia of the mountains and the feelings they evoked, of times past.

My heart and soul ache for that. The pain at times is almost unbearable. I know that I am going back but it seems to be far off in the distant future. Panic surges through my body, like a wild wave. I can feel adrenalin pumping, my body tingles and I burst into tears, sobbing.

I never expected to miss the mountains so deeply but they have captured my soul and it took moving away to realize that.
It took moving away to realize what we did have. But we also realize that if we had not moved to the seaside, we would always wonder .... some never move, staying safe. We've done it. We did take a chance, a leap. We took a chance.

Our little cottage awaits us in the mountains and I will soon be home"

sitting with fear

 

I am suffering depression. Not the lifelong depression where I need to take something to balance and help me, but a deep, soul changing depression, which I must learn to sit with. Learn to sit with, instead of trying to fix it.
Being taken into 'the depths of despair' as Ann would say. Or on a journey into darkness like when Jonah was swallowed by the whale, taken on a journey which it seemed, he had no control over, in the darkness of a whale belly. Or when Persephone was taken into the underworld, with seemingly no escape.

that's me.

my own depression is most probably not rational. I am sure no depression is rational. It grabs your mind, your whole self and it is as if you can not escape.

my depression comes with the movement of the planets, it comes with the trickery of my mind. fear about the future, my own immediate future. Of selling and moving, of homesickness and of not being in control of any of it.
and before anyone says to me to live in the present moment, I know all of that, but my mind doesn't. My mind races off into the future and before I know it, my  heart is racing along with it and my breath is shallow. Then my adrenals are stressed.
Yes, about not being in control, which is laughable really. Letting go of control and trusting. Oh how I struggle with that.
And not measuring up to all the modern day gurus, who make millions of dollars spouting off daily affirmations for us all to follow. I. just. can't. Which makes me feel like I have failed in a very unenlightened and unascended way. I cannot grasp the meaning of 'all is well in my world', when it doesn't feel like that at all.

I must allow myself to be in a dark place. As hard as that is. As painful as that is.
Is it wrong to sit with the pain, allowing it to engulf me? Apparently yes it is wrong. Don't stay there they say, get up, be joyful. But what if, what if one needs to stay there for whatever reason. If one needs to allow the darkness to completely engulf one. To hit rock bottom. To be bare. To cry buckets of tears, to allow oneself to feel as if there is no escape.

And that is where I am. I am functioning. I am doing my housework and cooking. Day by day. One foot in front of the other. Still functioning yes, from behind a glass window.

a mountain goat and a mermaid

how does a mountains girl find herself living by the ocean, a landscape foreign to her soul [in this lifetime anyhow].
but that's what happened.

One year ago, I woke up and decided to sell our home in the mountains and move to live by the sea [this was of course, after much talking with Joe].. The coast attracted me because in a way, it reminded me of Cornwall. The sheer cliffs, the pounding waves and, as it turned out, the rain, the constant rain was here too.
so we packed our goods and chattels and moved. Against the advice of many well intentioned 'others'.

It was wonderful for a time, almost like a holiday. The sun shone when it needed, the water beckoned. Everything played as it was expected to play. I played in the ocean, I collected shells and I sat by the lake in the early mornings.
but over the months, as we renovated our  home, cracks began to appear. Beginning with the leaking windows and then downhill most of the way. I tried to give our home a name, but it would not gel.  I felt at times as if the house was attacking my sanity. I tried to patch those cracks up, but the more I patched, the more holes appeared. The wound kept oozing and I think I gave up. But I also realized that I was homesick

[fast forward to September 2015..]
and the trickle of a thought about moving again began to make itself known to me.

I tried to ignore the inner prompting but was finding that not a day was going past that I did cry. Sometimes silent tears, other times, heart wrenching sobs. I began to wonder if I needed medicating. I was in a state of panic, like a frightened deer, wanting to run but not knowing where. At times, I questioned my sanity. I was [and still am, at times] in a dark place. 
I find it hard to admit that maybe we did make a mistake in moving, although really, in life there are no mistakes. It was an adventure, a long holiday, a learning. A time of transition.

I didn't know that I would fret for the mountains so much. I just knew that I had to get out, escape almost. From the past [but you cannot escape the past. You must stop running, turn around, face it and let go]
And now I know why I had to move.  Because in leaving the mountains, I discovered where my soul home is, in this life. It is back in the mountains.
This grief that I am experiencing, is exactly the same as the grief that I felt when I was in Cornwall, [homesickness]. As much as I loved being in Cornwall, as much as I have deep soul connections to the place, I missed home. And that is how I am here by the ocean, its beautiful, but it isn't home.

Today, I had some Bach Flower remedies made up for homesickness, to help me in the time of transition. The practitioner tuned into me and saw the mountains - which was very strange because she doesn't know me at all and I hadn't told her a thing. She told me not to move back to the old area [I believe she meant Katoomba], but that there is another place for me there, its coming. I knew the house is coming, because I have seen whisps of it in my vision.

I have always wished I was able to live in Cornwall. And I manifested that - in the weather, [the constant rain].. the lush green fields, narrow roads hedged with brambles and trees, homes close to the edge of the road, having to drive miles to get to any major towns.. yes, in more ways than one, I have manifested Cornwall.

And the last thing I want to do, is go back to the mountains, thinking we've made a mistake, because we haven't. This year, has given me a chance to stand back, looking in. To see what we did have and to see what we didn't. I was dreadfully lonely in the mountains. But I had the all important cafes and restaurants. Joe had his bike friends that he rode with every Wednesday and his golf mates. I had the candle shop and the co-op.

And I can be proud of myself in leaving. It takes courage to walk away from the familiar, staying safe. Some people never take a chance and jump. But jump we did. Yes, we jumped, we experienced a different life and now, we are choosing to jump again.

 and, we stand at the beginning of new journey..... I plan on taking this time of waiting, to rid my life of stuff and to get myself healthier and fitter and to enjoy the ocean. that's the plan.

"there are no wrong turns, only unexpected paths." - Mark Nepo 

going into the spiral

coming up to Hallows, I am really beginning to feel the ancestors around me. Clamouring to be heard, to heal the line - this is my work, my purpose.

I woke this morning with the familiar melancholy that waxes and wanes and once again, the pull of the catholic faith - it makes me weep at times. I know that its not the modern church that I yearn for, but one of past times, past lives - where I see an old Abbey standing surrounded by herbs and gardens; when life was simple for me. I tend the herbs as a young novice and accompanied by bees and crows, I live out my days, full of love, full of gratitude, at peace. But, in this life, the church does not fulfil the deep longing that I carry within, oh gee, I know that from experience of many visits to the church. I cannot find what it is I am searching for, there.  I go back, time and time again, only to feel stifled almost, dead inside.

Not many understand this yearning, only one friend understands this, which makes it all the more difficult to bear. Even counselling has not helped because counsellors really don't get it.

The path of a mystic can be a difficult one, at times the melancholy of yearning is difficult to live with. I know that this is part of who I am; part of my Celtic soul, this yearning and I am very slowly, learning to live with it.

so I ponder what it is that I am taking with me into the spiral of the waning season. One thing that stands out for me is the alienation that I feel in this country. Being told so many times by media and others that white people are invaders and that we do not belong to this land, I feel not welcome, not part of this land, alienated. And I don't know how to heal this. [ a deeply controversial subject this land that is Australia and who belongs here] ...  I ask out loud, 'where do I belong?', if not here in this country of my birth, a land that for 7 generations my family have lived, just where is it that I belong? no one answers, because no one has that kind of answer.

I walk the land with a deep desire to belong but always feel separated from it - like a giant chasm, separates me from the land. It's a bizarre situation and I wonder if I can every settle or even heal this deep wounding. Because, it is not just mine. I carry this from many, many of my ancestors; some were convicts who were sent against their will, convicted of petty crime and banished to the other side of the earth it seems, others who came willingly but held grief for their home land. I know this, I've felt it for a long time.

I walk on the beach this morning, rocks have disappeared under sand, nature at her best, changing, hiding the landscape. I fantasize about winning the lottery and moving to a cottage on the moors or on the Atlantic coast. I wonder to myself if that happened, would I pack up and move and I found myself saying  'yes!' I would leave this birth country and travel to live over there if funds allowed - but it is all a romantic notion because I don't buy lottery tickets.

so I take a lot into the spiral, into the dark of winter, to sit with it and hopefully come to some kind of peace.