Come away with the raggle taggle gypsy-o
My first small stone of 2013. I went to the Otter estuary today, to celebrate the New Year sunshine that Mother Nature generously provided. Can you imagine how excited I was to see a magical rainbow?
What a wonderful message full of meaning, we are being sent the light that we need, the seven colours of the Chakras, bringing balance and harmony to the world.
Jakes theme for the Sunday post this week is solid. I’m posting a picture of a granite boulder in the North Teign river, called a Tolmen stone. Legend says that fertility is guaranteed, if the rock is climbed through nine times, at the right time of the Lunar cycle.
So my ‘solid’ rock has a metre wide hole in it!
Visit Jake’s Printer, check out his animated graphics and the other entries this week.
http://jakesprinters.wordpress.com/2012/07/14/sunday-post-solid/
I don’t usually say this but for once if anyone has any feedback I would really appreciate it 😉
Confusion is the child of assumption
Stalk me and question
Ask if I have no shame
Is there nothing sacred
Nothing to be withheld
In this virtual world
Ask if I have no shame
When I share and bare my spirit
I have none I am raw
I have no need to conceal
I am more than half way healed
Ask if I have no shame
And then project your own
Ignore the tribute made
Do I have to shout it loud
To save the virtual stalk
No shame in fact I’m proud
For navigating a wonky journey
So often on my own
Fulfilling a role too early
But now well prepared and grown
Save your stalking energy
For shame unbinding threads
That never served you honestly
Just blanked it from your head
Where still it festers now
I’ve always hated endings. Way back in time when I left school, I hated saying goodbye to teachers, other girls, even the building. If I see people in films parting, I cry, if I have to leave even a job that I hate, I still get upset. When I have to say goodbye to friends I make on holiday around the world, I cry.
As a therapist, I build intense, often long, relationships where my clients share their deepest untold secrets; hopefully they heal and are strong enough to continue their paths without me. This is a wonderful milestone that is tinged with sadness for them, to leave their ‘mummy’ and go it alone, but they are surprised that I should have a tear as well.
So here I am at stone 31 feeling sad because it’s finished. I’m very pleased with myself, I didn’t think I would make every day and several times thought I would just skip a day, no-one would know – except me of course. So I held on and found something to say or a photo to take. I haven’t taken it as seriously as some, I’ve mucked about and had a laugh, maybe not been as ‘mindful’ as intended and reprimanded myself for that, now that I am good at!
I’ve met some lovely people, received warm loving comments and read some superb writing this month and I really will take part again. Meanwhile, thank you to all involved with January Small Stones, Writing Our Way Home, and a big fat brave, GOODBYE until next time.
The penultimate stone
Now what shall it be?
I thought about mademoiselle  pussy cat
but she’s evading me
I twice walked past the hedge today
or where it used to be
it’s now a deep and flooded ditch
that makes my chest go tight
my very first stone of January
was the seed of old mans beard
now blown and vanished in the night
for you I snapped daffodowndillies
and graceful silver birch trees
I wrote of my own red nose
beckoning wide blue estuaries
baked Camembert for tea
I’ve dropped you down in India
shown you a rainbow with two ends
and I’ve swept away bad spirits
to make you smile my friends
so now there’s just tomorrow
and then what shall I do
maybe stick around for February
casting nuggets for you!
Nesting
Canopies of trees have burst their buds.
testing, is it time to blossom?
to herald the coming green?
listen . . . no barren avenues today
the air orchestrated with birdsong.
blackbirds call from the horse chestnut roof
wives chime replies from birch spires.
a lilting debate about whether it’s time.
whether it’s the weather yet
or the risk of a frozen February mist.
begin early, there may be three nest-full’s
hatching this year. three full nests?
that’s an awful lot of work
 but a full of bounty of worm, who can resist?
My lovely friend Isadora, a talented poet http://insidethemindofisadora.wordpress.com/
suggested that I submit this poem here http://gooseberrygoespoetic.blogspot.com/
I went to walk in Danes wood today hoping to see snowdrops. There were a few along the lane from Poltimore to Killerton but none in the woods. Disappointing, but never mind, I’ve found a photo from a couple of years ago.
Determined not to get too snowdrop depressed, this is what I took home instead.
I know. But I didn’t promise to be rational did I???
Today the news is full of outrage because the boss of a major bank, owned by UK taxpayers is to receive a huge bonus payout, a little short of a million pounds. I was also financially outraged today, on a slightly smaller scale ;-), when I went to make a purchase. I’ve had a cold for a few days, quite unusual for me, and this morning I’d dripped my way through all the tissues I had with me. So in my lunch break I popped into the small branch of a certain major news retailer, set up as a convenience store in the hospital, during my lunch break.  I saw three choices and asked the price of each, expecting to pay through the nose (PTP!) a little. My first option was the equivalent of the quality you would find in a pound shop, the next the basic version of the brand name and the last the man sized brand name. The prices, can you guess? £2.49, £2.99 and £3.79, I kid you not, this is for a single box of tissues, and I nearly fell through the floor. ‘What? I only want one box, I would expect twin or triple packs for that.’ They looked at me as if I was crazy and offered a handbag ten pack for 99p. As it was that or my sleeve I had to fork out. Is it that I am a complete raging crone? Or do you agree that it’s totally nasty to charge prices that high, when most of the customers are patients or their visitors? Being in hospital is stressful enough without being ripped off and taken advantage of by a large national company. Grrrh.
For a while I’ve been writing short pieces about my travel in Rajasthan, and at present I’m writing about the time I spent in the Jaisalmer area. It’s taking me ages for some reason so for today’s stone I thought I’d give you a sneak preview!
Sunset was a bit hazy, not the really glorious reds I had hoped for, but like at Khuldera there was this strange . . .
And that’s all for now, perhaps you will come back when I post the rest!
Watching the comings and goings in the main concourse of a very busy hospital today I am reminded of how lucky I am to be blessed with good health. I have spoken to many people in various stages of unwellness, from elderly ladies who couldn’t see where I asked them to sign, because they had had drops in their eyes, to teenagers having cancer treatment. Many people arrive for pre-op assessment for next weeks hip replacements, cardiology and out patients clinics for undiagnosed ailments, most are smiling, but a few just look lost or confused. What touched me most today though was seeing a young girl sitting alone in a corner, her eyes full of tears, as if she carried the whole world on her tender shoulders. I wonder what could be wrong and who is helping?
Lucid Gypsy 