This Year of Living Beautifully!

Sometimes the healing finds you.  Sometimes you must be broken if you are to be healed. Sometimes, there is no other way. Often times, that is the only path. The cure then presents itself, without you even knowing you were ill - nor looking for it. In that way, healing is very much like love. It chooses you, when you least expect it.

Yesterday, I went for the New Moon Goddess Journey. It is now almost a year since we started working consciously, actively, with the Goddess. Two years now, I suppose. 

Last night, I went to sleep early and had the gentlest, most delicate of dreams. In them I was soothed. The drumming had brought a tenderness to my soul, my spirit, which I did not think was required, sought for, wanted. There it was, like a gift. A knot, this knot, which I was not aware of, the burden I had carried, was melted, lifted. There I was left, as if I was created a new. Like the first day of creation.

We drummed in the roundhouse, its clay walls containing us, like a vessel its contents. The sounds reverberated, shimmering, dancing within and without and all those spaces in between. Weaving and threading its way between all the molecules, reaching the parts which are usually untouched. Images came and went, waves upon waves of light, at one point Kali Ma was there, in her terrifying aspect. I am here to take this all. And take this all she did. This is no longer your burden to bear. Here, I shall take it with me. 

I walked, for a bit, outside. There was a break in the rain. Everything was that wet, glossy, saturated Irish colour of rain. The greens, very green. The willow had turned copper. Between my fingers the brittleness of paper and light. I sat on the wet slats of the sea blue bench, also weathered by the incessant rain and the saw the roundhouse smoke rise behind the trees. Here I could live. A house this size, I would want nothing more. A garden which would be enough. I would spend the time I needed indoors, but otherwise, I would be without. I would be walking, picking, collecting, ordering. I would lie down, face up, feeling whatever the cosmos blesses us with - the sun, the moon, the stars. The colours, the water, the breeze. I would be filled, and then I would overflow.

After that, we enjoy scones, apple strudel, tea and conversation. It had been a long long time since I had been like this with others - perhaps I had NEVER been like this with others. Perhaps, not. No, that's not true. Untrue. I have. But it had been a long time since.

Conversation uncurls and unfurls, like ribbons about us. Wisps of laughter and smiles. They disappear into the air, gather in the rafters of the barn. There the memories of the birds who have left for sub-Saharan Africa cock their heads to listen. We conversate. Yes, it is a real word.

I return home, thinking about the following day and realise my bathroom drain is still blocked and I MUST buy drain unblocker. I go to Tescos and also buy bread - the soft, Tesco kind for 85p. Slices of ham and salad. Cheese spread. Chicken pieces. I will have a sandwich with untoasted bread. I craved this. I also got a bottle of white wine. A celebration? Of what?

I returned home, unblocked the drain, and made my sandwich, poured my glass of wine, and tried to watch the rest of Jupiter Ascending. I had seldom been more disappointed in a film. I organised the enrollment spreadsheet for forest school tomorrow. I went to bed.

Then I had those dreams.

I woke up with Gary curled beside me, a furry warm water bottle. My foot throbbed a little. It was uncomfortable but not painful. I smiled to myself. I will read. I began on the penultimate chapter of the Riyala of Ibn Battuta. Seldom have I ever wanted to read anything so urgently. When I first heard of Battuta, I longed to hear, discover his route. It seemed fantastical, and indeed it was - it has been. I have read it on MRT trains, buses, in shopping malls, by swimming pool, in bed - beds. I have followed the lines and dots of the maps, imagining these places. This man. Awful. Imaginary. Adventurous. Silly. Vain. Ambitious. Comical. Courageous. Dangerous. Survivor. The women, invisible. Cast aside when done with. Married, divorced. Dead. A kind of normalised existence of horrors.

I pulled out my journal and wrote, and then it came to me - the Year of Living Beautifully. This was it. It was my True North. It had always been my True North, but I had never understood it. The Grace with which we are blessed with. I had never understood it. The thing which I had told myself I was looking for but never quite believed it. The goddess had left it, as surely as a friend leaves gift, a dear dear friend leaves a gift, she had left me this. 

It is all beautiful. Everything. Everything you saw and did. Everything you have done. Bring the beauty and it will be there for you. Abundance is thine.

The New Moon - this New Moon of Rosh Hashana has brought the message, this is what you have been looking for: the in your bones understanding that life is beautiful and the way you shall live this year, this is The Year of Living Beautifully.

Something unblocked in my heart and I was free once more. This time the freedom was different. It wasn't one of striving, but is. I have fretted over the past few weeks, months? that I would become a churlish, bitter, resentful, ungenerous person. This is not me and yet, I an unable to deny the growing unease that there was window which was closing inside me. What was happening? This was not me and yet it was undeniable that I was sensing the passing of time and I was now outside it.

I could not put this into words because I was too frightened, so all my writing had been scatty, the words slid about, like my mind was walking on ice. I was becoming afraid of myself. I do not want to be me. And yet, it was undeniable. I could not ignore the growing monster in me. It was making me paranoid. A little paranoid.

But the Year of Living Beautifully has presented itself. And that I can do. Small things. Spiders and their webs. Seedheads and yellowing leaves. Grasses. Clouds and rain sounds. Music. 

This is who I am. I have returned home. But different. It is materially different.

The Year of Living Beautifully has landed. The soul is now seeded. It attunes to that which nurtures and nourishes it. The words now arrive. I was so so worried, especially for the words. The precision and ease. Their simplicity. I was right to worry. I need not worry any longer. Here we are. At the headland of a new journey.