Astrologically speaking, she’s retrograde – going nowhere fast!

Normally I’d “pah!” or “humbug” such news, but I’m starting to think there might be something in it. My life’s going nowhere fast, and as a Libran – ruled by Venus –  I could well have fallen under her invisible, directionless sway.

To add “pish” to that “humbug” I’m wondering if disappearing or withdrawing isn’t totally appropriate right now, that is  for someone who had a ‘fall’ and who needed to regroup and recover. 

The only problem is that sooner or later you have to re-emerge or re-appear and the environment more often than not – has changed in the meantime.

I’m in the process of re-entering my atmosphere – parts of which have significantly changed whilst I was away. The most notable change is the nature and extent of my social network, and to a lesser degree my own preference for maintaining such a network.

This last fortnight, I wanted to fill a table at a charity ball. Everyone I asked was either too busy, or away or just unwilling. I felt a social failure and took it personally. My sister reminded me, rightly, that one can’t expect “to pick a bunch of flowers if you haven’t been tending the garden”.

One of the greatest losses in my garden though, was a dear friend who is just unattainable to me. Not just for the ball – but on a regular basis. She’s always too busy or moving too fast for me. She has nowhere to put me and those talks that I want to have with her. And as I don’t want to move at that frantic pace she undertakes, I think the friendship – as we know it- is doomed to fail. I hope she will always be in my life, as we have shared many stories, but I’ve changed as much as she, as our flight plans and preferences are different.

So thrown back on my own resources and lack of social network – I did what I normally do, I painted.  I completed a painting that has been a focus for several weeks. The painting is of a Monarch butterfly emerging from a cocoon as a metaphor for my own process. The Monarch the only butterfly to make the Transatlantic crossing and resides in USA and Australia.  It sits on my bedroom wall and I keep one eye on it as I fall asleep into my flights of fancy, and dreamscapes. The other eye I keep firmly fixed on Venus – awaiting her return each morning.

Like the painting and the loss of friends, things appear to happen from the outside-in, rather than from inside-out. The butterfly reminds me to take responsibility for my own changes – to friendships, directions, and choices.

I’m out of the cocoon now and I can’t return to it, no matter how much I wish I could, or how cold it gets out there on my own. I have to decide whether I’ll make a transatlantic crossing of my own – into the future or back to the memories from my  past. Either way, I’ve got to fly – and life has to be lived. 

In Esoteric writings, Venus is also the name given to Lucifer Morningstar – the brightest most beautiful, most loved angel before “the fall”. Now the name is associated with darkness, shadows, fear and the devil– which is “lived” spelt backwards. A sort of retrograde all its own.

The point of these ruminations is that each life has a myriad of splendid, brilliant moments and colours – from our past and surely into our future. With each breath we’ll unfurl just a little bit more of the colour, brilliance and splendour of our nature. With each retrograde we take stock and try to  see things back-to- front for that new perspective.

For all of this – some of those moments, insights, gardens, and landscapes  have to be left behind and to be let go of.  We can leave them wrapped up in the cocoon of our history of what led us here. They’ve served us well. It is enough.

And in doing so – we accept that we’ve changed, as Yeats wrote so succinctly,“ changed utterly – a terrible beauty is born.”

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As the last stage in my home transformation process I’m surprised at the level of disquiet and unease the change has caused. I’ve replaced the tired dusty 25 year old carpet with cleaner lighter tiles - marked out with cream white grout lines.

For the first day in this new environment I found myself gingerly stepping around and over the grout lines like a child or an OCD sufferer avoiding cracks in the foothpath. I couldn’t get away quick enough, away from the potential dissonance that comes with a big purchase or job. Was it the right choice of colour? Is the job a good job? Why do I miss the carpet?

I escaped to my sister’s house 2 hours away for Christmas and New Year. Normally a haven where the brain slips into neutral, the body goes into idle and the heart gently opens. Calming, loving, no disquieting elements at all. A fabulous end of the year. As the weather proved to be a delight, we swam each day in warm Christmas water, retired early and slept in late. And during each day, the most energetic thing we found ourselves doing was making a pot tea for whoever was laying around nearby. 

Only this year was different. There was a discontent, a restlessness, and the ever present grief. Old feelings in a reliable setting, not unlike my now defunct carpet. Comments in passing, spiralling thoughts on the eve of a new year: Why was I alone? Was I driving people away? Would my life always be like this? Why was I such a worrier? Why didn’t I have more friends? Any friends? Why did I have to invade my sister’s life.

On New Year’s Eve it peaked. Friends, new and old, were invited around. There was predictable conversation and brand new people. The house was squeaky clean, the windows glistened, the table was over flowing with our signature dishes, the garden awash with sand-bagged candles, glowing as the sun descended.   My wish for the event was that it heralded a new year full of wonderfully creative loving people, as well as  an open hearted attitude in myself to new adventures and experiences. 

There were 2 conversations that evening that proved to be testament to the wish. The first was with a long-standing friend of my sister’s – who is opiniated, funny, wounded and guarded. Having just broken up with her boyfriend, and undergoing profound family dramas, she was transmitting nervously most of the night, old scripts, old lines, sure laughs, side-swipes and commentary.  In truth it was exhausting to watch and interact with. But then again, I had a head full of grout lines and sustainable fear of the future.

The 2nd conversation was with the new gay girlfriend of  a (previously assumed straight)  family friend. She was affirming, interested, gentle, alive, abundant, happy and in love. When you’re in love – is there a sweeter place? I found her delightful.

I got what I wished for. It was time to let the old way go, the old friends or friends of friends; the old way of worrying about everything; the old way of standing on my turf. And it was time to embrace the new. But how?

To transform yourself is hard. It’s hard enough changing the external environment, but now I have to face the disintegration of my old self.  Luckily my best teacher of all (my sister Cate) rang me with the answer – Imaginal Cells.

When a Caterpillar turns into a Butterfly it has to disintergrate and disolve first. Then almost by magic, imaginal cells appear to help the move into a Butterfly. All of this is done, unseen within a chrysalis. There’s a period of waiting and a total surrender to the process. When the Butterfly emerges it’s hard to link the two creatures so tranformed is the shape, look, feel, weight and scope.

If that means I have to walk on the grout lines, I will!  Just Imagine then, what I’ll be able to do.

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As an agnostic, she doesn’t believe in anything after death. Life here and now is all we know for sure. There is a force within us that drives us and pushes us - an irreversible momentum – regardless of what happens to us (except murder or suicide). 

She marvelled at her own ability or willingness to go on living her life after the devastating death of her only daughter several years ago.  She would have been less surprised if her body failed to take another breath and she too expired with her daughter. To her way of thinking thiswas a more understandable consequence of such a devastating death – it would have made more sense. Her eggs and her DNA helped with the birth of her daughter, therefore her daughter’s death could just as easily linked  them again. The hopeless irreovocable force of it could have, should have swept them both away – but it didn’t.  She was left. And she chose to do something.

A life force is the only answer. A force through us, outside us, parallel to us, in us and perhaps as a result of us, that causes the self – this miriad of cells and blood and skin and breath – to get up out of bed, put some food in our mouth and go on with the next day and the day after that and the day after that.

I asked L how she moved forward after the death of her daughter, and she told me that after a certain time, she compartmentalised or “put aside” the feelings so that they didn’t imobolise her. She still had the feelings, but they were put in a special place, out of the way, and as such she was able to go on with life. Her raison d’etre is – I guess – is that life is for living. 

L is more driven than I am. So, although only a few years older than me, she owns more, works at a job she is passionate about, has a happy marriage, lots of friends,  she earns more money and believes in herself more than I do, and of course, she therefore contributes more to the world.

I’ve ground to a complete standstill, I’m contributing nothing. I can’t move on past Bloke I guess. I think I might have peaked already – and now it’s just a matter of waiting until I die as well. Because I believe Bloke’s gone somewhere, I can still talk to him. Is this somewhere Heaven? “the other side”, in my head? in my mythic imagination? Whatever the location, it is a location that is still accessible to me. This dialogue, my friend L might call “inner dialogue”. The trouble is – I can’t stop yakking!

Today it’s 3 years since he died.  And as the day before my birthday – I read through the correspondence he’d written to me during our marriage. I’d already stored or “compartmentalised” the missives in a booklet, so I pulled it off the shelf and read each one. Some cards were for birthdays, some were coaching notes when I’d be facing challenges at work, some were consoling, when I was feeling worried, and some were love letters – missing me when either I was travelling or he was.  I began to cry at card No 1.

At the time he wrote the notes, I needed the coaching, the calming, the cajoling and the laughs. I still do. He was one of the funniest men I’d ever met, and amidst the tears I had a few good belly laughs. He was the best medicine for me when he was alive, and now 3 years later – he still hits the mark with his wisdom and consistently good advice.

If L is right, and the dead live in our memories, then it would work the same way as if he was in some “heavenly realm”, it’s just a matter of geography or nomenclature. For instance, I didn’t hear his voice read the notes out to me, but his strong cursive handwriting cut through me like a knife. Not yet cutting me free, just fragmenting me.

What’s life for? It’s for living as close as possible to the centre of love in your life. That’s the force that goes on after death. That’s the force that gets us out and up after devastation. The trick is, to eventually, slice by slice, cut free from the past, but take the love along with you. 

Lub! big!

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I’m relieved that I made the “cut” and am one of six who have to sell themselves one over another to persuade a panel of three that they are the best for the job.

At the same time I’m preparing for the interview I’m preparing to undergo a radical elimination diet to find out what is making me feel so ”blurrrr” and “blahmk”; to fnd out what is possibly triggering an allergic reaction (to everything!)

Both are eliminations. Both are necessary and both are appropriately simultaneously occuring at the same time. mmmm but why?

Will I be chucked out at the end of the job interview as an “also-ran”, beaten to within a hair’s breadth by a charming younger woman, adept at this and that and even then some?

Will I be retained and identified as a safe food group – easy to digest, no trigger reaction, no cause for sneezes or rashes or hives. I’ll let you know in a later blog.

Today I tried to find out what the panel wanted (I mean really wanted and expected from the person filling the role). I figured that in a 30 minute interview – and I’ve had my fair share of them  – the panel are hard pressed to get through all the questions – let alone give quality time to cogitate on the answers. Of course the answers were not forthcoming.

If my memory serves me correctly, interviews like this are more an endurance under pressure test; and a test of memory, matching your verbal recall to each of the stunning successes you presented in your pulitzer prize winning application for the job.

And then at the end, when everyone wants to just run away, and you feel sure that the reason the older panelist didn’t look at you is because there’s something physically wrong with your face and hair, will there be time to pin the panel down to answering questions I want to ask; will there be time to interview them?

I think so many work choice mistakes are made by the pace of the one-sided interview, invariably with the script driven by the decision making employers.  And we, the interviewees, are often so desperate to sell ourselves, to be liked, to be chosen, we overlook the critical thinking questions that would determine whether the workplace is going to match our personal style, values and for that matter our diet.

My own elimination diet, no matter how much I withdraw from and add in to the mix, will inevitably come to the conclusion I made some time ago, that I throw back far too much wine that can be justified in a healthy life style. This gay practice of swilling and imbibing has got to do with our generation and in my case catholic background. Like my mates,  I’m practically a fermented experience all on my own.

My younger workmate told me this morning of her evening out with 2 older sisters. They,  like me, do a fair share of imbibing, and have a miriad of internal complaints to show for it. It’s sort of like a secret club, that has run out of credit in the healthy bank and have to make increasing withdrawls in the face of a wilting, drooping, decaying landscape. Yikes! I’m depressed writing about it, and I have no panacea, because – yes, you guessed it – wine is one of the first things to be eliminated!

So I’ll throw myself into both experiences with gusto. Relatively clear headed (give or take a sneeze here and there) but keen to explore and interview them about what I want from such a job, and what I can expect from a renovated internal system.  

Do you think I can have fries with that?

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I agreed to talk at a conference about organisational change communications. As last speaker of day one, I became increasingly more nervous as the day wore on. I compared myself (unfavourably of course) to every speaker who went before me. These were General Managers, Goverment CEOs, Directors and Managers. These were national and international organisations of thousands of staff, with publics in the tens of thousands.  Way out of my league.

What had the organisers been thinking when they asked me to tell our simple story?  All day, I tweaked my narrative, adding bits, taking bits off, giving it a different angle, only to change it again once another speaker finished their glamorous and interesting story. I had nothing! And I was about to be humiliated with mass walk-outs and dismissive smirks,  I could see it happening right before my eyes.

With no alternative but to push ahead, I settled on a simple story from the heart, a few humorous annecdotes and some well-timed self-deprecating insights. I got through the talk, dry-mouth and all. Why I even made them laugh. So I guess it worked. People told me (as they always do when queuing up behind you at the drinks counter) that they enjoyed it. And that it was the sort of story people like to hear at these conferences. But even that didn’t make it better.

That night, in my room, I cried myself to sleep. Partly from stress relief, partly  because I missed Bloke as he wasn’t there to comfort me, and partly because I’d drifted so far away from my own core beliefs and values that I felt a fraud.  But what message  would have helped me sleep soundly that night; and what would make me proud of using my gifts and talents to reach out to people again.

The Saturday before this conference I was getting my hair cut and coloured. And in the seat beside me was a woman whose 5 year old daughter was playing at her feet. For over an hour, this child amused herself with curlers and whetever other salon paraphenalia appealed. I watched with delight this creative, engaging, resilient, funny, affectionate, never-clingy, never-demanding, great kid.

I commented to the mother how impressed I was. The child’s “in your face” style reminded me of someone, and as I watched her it took sometime for me to realise that she reminded me of myself at that age. Like this child, I was always going up to strangers, talking to them, even sitting on their lap on the bus. It was a family joke, that I had no fear barometer and was too friendly for my own good.

As the similarities occured to me, in my mind’s eye, I fast-tracked this child’s life and informed the mother that she had “an actress on her hands.”, the mother laughingly agreed, and as if, on cue, the strangest thing then happened.

This child of 5 looked at me and asked if the baby in my tummy was ready to be born. I laughed and told her that there was no baby there – just fat. I looked down expecting to see the tell-tale roll of fat on show, but realised I was wrapped up in a salon tent-like sheath, covering me from neck to mid-calf. Without a pause, the child climbed under my hairdresser’s shroud, to curl up on my lap where she began to loudly whimper like a baby. With no other alternative - and in shock I guess- I patted this tiny form and coaxed a psychodramatic birthing. And with the precision timing that comes with a short term memory, a minute later this baby-child slid out from under the sheath, to land right at my feet. 

I laughed at the time, and assured the nervous mother that it was all good fun, as it had been. But it’s only now, a week later, and following the insights I’d gleaned from the conference presentations, I realise this little guru had come with a message.

What landscape had I traversed since being 5 years old and how much had I forgotten of my true nature? Was it time to give birth to some reincarnated creativity? Re-kindle the first principles of my courageous nature. Could I remember the fun and drama of being 5? Would that be my message – to grab at those precious moments when they come and say yes! Now I’m not suggesting we sit on strangers’ laps to be born again in front of them, but for me, I needed just that.

I needed to remember the world is a comforting place not a frightening one.  And the baby inside of me, that child who survived the most awful event of all, a mother’s death, can survive all sorts of mini-deaths and changes life produces. In front of an audience or not. It’s actually not about me, but about the messages I’ve learnt on the way.

‘So if we find our feet on firm or shaky ground, we just need to get out of the way . Only then will stuff start to happen. And despite us, people will hear the message they’re meant to hear and meet the teachers they’re meant to meet.

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I always thought so. I expect because my mother, favoured aunt and grandpa all died in July. Perhaps it’s because the cold chills me to the bone. It just feels like a dead month.

Magnolia

But during this month, the most magnificent blooms come into their own. The Magnolia – with their sensuous broad white petals somehow emerging from tightly wrapped spiral shells. Some remain bud-like on the gnarled branches, tightly enlosed and secretive for as long as they can.  But invariably, as the month grows older, they  too start to change, they can’t resist.

They open bit  by bit. Some more eager than others appear almost wanton. Opening wider and wider, leaning backwards in complete surrender, curling back of themselves.  It’s a daring move. So daring, the cold couldn’t get to them even if it wanted to. for they’re beyond caring. They’ve gone to that stage just before death with such abandon I am ashamed to watch. Ashamed, that is, because I can’t be that open.

Gabby told me a story once about the birth of her third child, who was born in the month of July. When she was born there was no bed in the hospital other than one that lay at the end of the ward for mothers of still-born babies. And so, on that morning when the nurses brought her clean, healthy, fair, beautiful and serene baby for her first feeding, they did so through a valley of death.

She was born on our grandfather’s anniversary. And christened Phoebe. Gabby chose the name for a number of personal reasons, only to find out some time later, that same name had been used by our grandfather, as a term of endearment our mother when she was a child. They might have been dead   but I’m starting to think they were there in spirit- endorsing the name and celebrating new life.

My mother loved magnolias. We had one blooming in the garden of our family home. I’ve painted the magnolia for years, trying to recapture the memory associated with it, marvelling at its seductive beauty and calm strength. It blooms for such a short time, the study and execution is intense. I have yet to really capture one the way I would wish.  Perhaps because it represents so much of what is transient.

I painted them when Bloke was sick, using gold-leaf and paint on paper I tried to capture that fragile passing, trying to vainly lock it safely in beaten metal. I’ve painted them on 6 panels – human height, as if in a garden with branches that spanned the width of a wall. But they don’t come close to the beauty of the tree in our front garden and the one I passed this morning.

So in a month or so, when they’re gone, I’ll still look for them. I’ll yearn for them in wonder at that fleeting splendour and its power to bring me undone. Every July when the cold chills me to the bone I’ll miss them. Just like I miss all that have died. And I’ll remember how splendidly open they were in the moment before their passing. Fragile in a world of beating metal and  winter winds.

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She was particularly enamoured of one where a boat is pointing outwards to the horizon, not yet launched, still in harbour waiting and safe. She thought I should use it on my blog – so here it is.

My aunt is in her seventies and is a fiercely loyal woman, loyal to family and to her faith and to her memories. Loyalty is a fabulous quality to have and if you don’t “get” it at birth it’s hard to acquire along the way.

These days, there’s always something to push our buttons, convince us to change brands and form new attachments. I envy her that gift of the spirit, to stick with what she knows and to love it in all its “ordinariness” and to hang on, sometimes in the face of fierce persuasion, to the direction she set and the choices she’s made. She’s a nun – so she knows all about that.

One of the hardest things in coming home after an expansive trip is to accept that your “ordinary” life, the one you left behind, is still there waiting for you. On first impressions, it doesn’t seem to have changed at all.

Maybe the date, maybe the temperature, maybe even the hair colour of your gal pals changes, but as for deep and sustainable change (to the way people think, behave, live, and choose) not a change at all.  Same playing field – just a different ball game.

But what if you want to change? How to do it? I thought the world would do it first. Isn’t that the way things work? Isn’t that why I went away.  I know from experience there’s no shortage of bad change that happens ‘out there’. Let’s face it, shit happens and your world goes arse up more often than not. So why can’t it change when you want it to (as opposed to when you didn’t want it to)?

Clearly for things to change in my life- it’s up to me. It’s up to me to re-enter the stratosphere with the firm commitment to move away from the things I didn’t miss, and move towards the things I did miss when I was away. Move towards good friends, and away from boring work. Move towards healthy lifestyle and away from too much booze. Move towards creative expansion and away from fear and small mindedness. 

Of course I should expand into new arenas, after all that’s what growth is all about. And of course I should embrace the dying-off of the old. Let it go. Don’t try to put on the top you’ve outgrown, or sit in the chair that’s broken, renovate! move up and out. But I’m afraid.

Despite the fear,  I’m changing from the outside in. I’ve started with the way I work and live. I want less contact hours with a traditional way of working and more hours of a creative pursuit. I want to write more and paint more. I want to carve out work that matters to me, create messages that resonate with me. I want to meet more people and talk to them to make sense of my own journey and the world we live in, and what it means to be human, and loyal.

But now that it’s just up to me – I’m stuffed!  I’m not afraid to admit I need help. I need mentors. Hell I need to re-enter the world with a midwife!

Two very good friends of mine, who have midwifed my last big life change (ie meeting blokey all those years ago) are about to relocate to Canada for 5 months. And I’ll miss them. I was going to stay with them whilst I renovated at home, and I was going to lean on them, learn from them all about living well and living boldly. But they were so bold they went off on another adventure.  

So I have to learn all about being bold for myself here in home harbours. So there you have it – alone again. Admittedly I have an expanded view of the horizon and admittedly my personal world did change from outside after all – the perennial question is, as it always will be, am I up to dealing with the consequences?

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Can you see it, taste it? Where were you when you ate that fabulous rosetta desert? What did you learn about the town when you ate their famous fish stew?

 I think it’s a great idea. What better way to embrace and anchor yourself in a place than via the digestive tract? or the taste-buds?

For people like my sister, they have the ability to recall towns and places through their visceral memory bank. Her trip through eastern Europe will sound and taste much finer when seasoned with memories of chorbe-de-fasola (bean soup!) than it would by her traumatised memory of being fined by an abrasive Bulgarian guard on a Brashov bus, because she didnt have a ticket.

A fair deal of our Travels are all in the mind. My own approach to travel isnt as broad minded nor as cruisy as my sister or my neices. I have a default position, when out of my comfort zone – when confronted by something out of the ordinary or off the plan I have formulated – I invariably  panic about what will happen, when it will happen if it will happen etc.

For instance, 3 days ago, we were on a ferry from Dubrovnik to Hvar, and the ferry sailed right past the town of Hvar. What!! It was calmly chugging up the coast of an island that looked completely deserted, thick with pine trees and no sign of life. I started to pray. Will we get off the boat? Have we now missed it? Should I have done something to remind them we were on the boat? Have we wasted the accommodation money? Are we instead going to Split further up the Dalmation Coast? What will we do there?

Gab was no good to me, she was off somewhere on the boat, looking at the scenery, photographing, as excited as a child on an adventure. Cruising with the cruisy.

Meanwhile, I am below, praying a mantra,  in a hot head of panic. None of the reasonable facts made their way through the shroud of anxiety.  I forgot how we had checked earlier the ferry was going to arrive at Hvar at 4.00. How the ticket said it was going to Stari Grad (which on the map was on the island of Hvar); how there were a  lot of other people on the boat going to Hvar. None of those facts could stop the panic.  I was left alone with a repetive prayer. Praying for what though? The ferry to turn around? an announcement (in English please)? Anything really.

Gab arrived back down at Deck 4. Come upstairs and see us arrive! smell the pine trees! Feel the breeze! Leave the bags! come on!!! Dont miss it!

So there we were up on Deck 5 watching the coast chug past, redolent with smells of rich green pine. She was none the wiser about where we were going, but she wasnt worried. A woman came up to stand beside us. She was alone, and we three were the only ones on our part of the deck. She smiled watching the island slide past even further.

Are you going to Hvar ? she asked, and then proceeded to explain how the ferry would pull into the old port, and as they had been in the tourist business for over 100 years would ensure we would be safely deposited at our hotel and would we like a photo?   And as we returned to get our bags, Gabby said there is your angel - the answer to your prayers.

Well the island is spectacular, and our taste buds and bodies have been embalmed and delighted with warm waters, delightful flavours, sun rain, sweet wine and good sleeps. Everything the island (which does indeed boast over 100 years as a holiday-health spa destination) promised and much more.

Looking back, as always, I am ashamed of my panic, and disappointed with myself to think my age or experience hasnt changed any of those default reactions I have. But thats me, I guess, and I have to digest that along with everything else this trip is teaching me about.

Hvala Hvar.

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It’s strange that I’ve become so dependent on the feelings I register after a post. It helps make sense of stuff. And that’s just what I need right now.

This morning I’ve been at sixes and sevens. I missed an appointment – even though I was on time! Caught the wrong bus which went on a wierd route to finally drop me off at my childhood neighbourhood of all places, after which I then had to walk 2 kms to get to where I wanted. And I haven’t even left the country!

It’s as if I’m walking in a parallel place, where everything is upside down or back the front and time seems to accelerate and stop at once. So in this state, I’m increasingly confused and unsure of just about everything. There’s an astrological concept called “Mercury Retrograde”, where things get mixed up and go wrong. It feels like that, but I expect it has more to do with the anticipation of and distractions about my impending journey to the other side of the world.

Yesterday I was lunching with a good friend who is also preparing for an exciting new opportunity to do with work, and we were talking about baggage, shadows and expansive mind-sets. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a woman who seemed so familiar it stopped me in my tracks. I realised it was my cousin Cath who I haven’t seen for years. She was walking past the building that now houses Dairy Farmers, my late father’s employer.

It was a lovely conjunction of the past and future, and I took it as an omen and message from Dad that he was watching out for me, and would watch out for me on the journey ahead. As we spoke, I noticed how my cousin has the features that mark our family: the sort of nose or forehead or eyes or smile, voice, earthy nature and shared memories that connect us in a single blood line. And once in that space, you immediately re-connect to that time of childhood and family gatherings. It’s a very comforting feeling because it is so familiar.

So, this morning, as I found myself accidentally deposited in the streets I used to walk as a child, I said a silent prayer to all those in that familial bloodline who have always watched over me. In particular my granny, my aunts and my 2 mothers. One blood mother and one step-mother. As it is mother’s day tomorrow I have decided to  place a flower on their graves in thanks for the time we spent together.

Time is so fleeting that we often have to run to keep up with commitments, appointments and tasks. Have I done all I should do? Will there be time to fit in another…? Perhaps I should pack an extra….? What if I get caught out without a ….? The list is endless, and the anxiety intense especially when travel is involved.

Time get’s all out of kilter on a trip. Time differences, cultural differences, language differences heighten the experience, and much of what we achieve on the travels are relished more after we return than when we’re in the middle of them.

Right now my darling sister Gab is in Romania and emails us her fabulous impressions spelt out in a paragraph: so few words but packed with remarkable vistas and visuals. A sort of 10 second grab. I know, though that behind those grabs are the normal anxieties that come with not understanding the language, missing the hotel because of the signage, hoping that the train will arrive in time to make the connection you need in order to arrive on time somewhre new.

So it goes and this time next week I’ll be in a completely different place and space. Walking down neighbourhood roads a light year away from those I walked down today. And I’ll see and smell and hear a miriad of new impressions. But before all of that, this yellow post is one of prayer and thanks to my ancestral and familial line, and in particular to my darling parents for their generosity in affording this remarkable next journey.

Bring it on.  

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It is this process of repeating things that creates the pattern of our life.  Some of those patterns are unique, but most are reminiscent of other, collective or universal patterns. In these we share histories, geographies, myths and dreams. They may have a different personal colours and shades but many of our life patterns are similar to other people’s. I find this immensely reassuring.

As individuals we repeat certain lessons, behaviours, or thoughts for as long as they serve us.  Even negative patterns. After that, we try new ones.  Now this is nothing very earth shattering, but it always surprises me, in those unguarded moments to actually see the patterns – like wind washed sand,  circles within circles of filigree lace.

We repeat patterns because they are reassuring and sustain the image we have of ourselves: as successful, caring, creative, provocative, entertaining, funny, serious whatever.  They’ve worked before and will work again – for this is the concept of self-efficacy. 

One such useful technique I have is to write my way into new life situations. I have done this a couple of times in the past, and I believe I’m doing that now, with this blog. The result of the writing will be known much later.  18 ago I was in a bit of a mess. I was depressed, alone and retrenched from a job I had enjoyed immensely. My brother had just been married and following the wedding I decided to go home to the USA with my sister Cate, her husband and their twins who were 3 at the time. I stayed there for 6 months. Blissful and joyous.

Over that time, I wrote. I wrote 2 stories. One was called “How to make a career out of choosing a career to make” and the other was a stream of consciousness, regarding my own fecundity and depression. In that second story, I played the central character who thought she was a turtle, who deposited hundreds and hundreds of egs, and the second character was a psychologist called Stephen who tried to address this psychosis.  This story I kept private and no-one knew of it at all.

It repeated itself, however in the following way. 5 years later I married a psychologist called Stephen. Like the theme in my story, we had trouble conceiving. As one of many treatments we visited a chinese herbalist who prescribed – you guessed it, crushed turtle shells. Of course I discontinued treatment and alas remained childless.  At the same time Cate sent me a postcard out of the blue, with a picture of a turtle. This turtle was part of a polynesian myth in which she gave birth to all the peoples of the south pacific, hundreds and hundreds of eggs.  Neither Stephen nor Cate knew of my story. Nor had I read the polynesian myth before. 

I love that sort of synchronicity. It doesn’t change the outcome, but it does change the energy around it – marking it as moment of significance.

Several years ago, a psychic I have seen several times, told me my life was an open book. The first half was written but the second was completely blank. I asked if this meant I was going to die.  She told me that it was blank because that half had yet to be written.

So let’s see where the Blue and Yellow Post ends up. Perhaps a year or two from now, there will be a pattern, like another pattern, reminiscent of a further pattern. And I’ll know it had served the right purpose.

See you in the next chapter

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