a year gone by...

It's been a year since I have populated this blog and it feels good to be here. I have been musing of late to begin a new blog because of the life event in the way of a significant birthday, but now it seems quite alright to continue on here. There needs not be anything 'new', so I will simply carry on ..... as does my life.

Yes, one week ago today (and it seems much longer), I had my 60th birthday. It has been so interesting the lead up to this day. I have reflected on this number much over the past months. It seemed to me that this birthday in particular had a feeling wrapped around it that I found sometimes difficult to understand. And by no mean was this a bad or ominous feeling, but just something of a nature that I for a while could not describe. It wasn't that I was trying to deny my age, which I have never done. And then it occurred to me that the word I kept hearing in my mind was the word 'urgent'. This word in itself does not at least for me conjure up a positive reflection, but this was the word that kept resonating with me. So I pondered just what this meant for me.

I have come into my "third third" in life. In other words I have reached the score of years that will take me from 60 to 80. The number 60 was a tough one for me to accept for a while.  I thought it  reflected 'oldness'. I remember other milestone birthdays in various ways. When I reached 30 I thought I was finally really a 'big girl' and when 40 came about I thought I knew most everything about life there was to know.... (ha). Then when I turned 50 I realized just how wrong I was about 30 and 40 yrs of age. Now at age 60 life is so different and of course so much of that is due to different responsibilities that my life has compared to previous years. I continue to have the pressures of work, but view them in a different light than before. Retirement is on the horizon and within reach (although I would like it to be sooner than later). I am no longer active in raising my family so those responsibilities are not in the forefront although being a parent never ceases.

The urgent part of my life now extends to what my priorities will be in my life from this time on. How will I live my days and what will I make decisions based on. There is no time to waste in each day that I am given. Each day is precious. I am by no means feeling morose about this sense of urgency, but instead it allows me to realize how important things in life are whether they are of large or small importance. I feel that I can finally give myself 'permission' to live a simpler way of life than in years past. Permission was often difficult for me because of pressures I placed on myself and now I have let a lot of those strings go and this feels quite ok. All of this has evolved over the past many years and now arriving at age 60 it seems to clarify it perfectly. My path is laid out in front of me and how I navigate along that path is of my own choosing to embrace. My wise mind resides closer to the surface these days and this is like a wellspring of knowledge that affords me comfort. I will never purport to know everything and make perfect decisions but I have the wisdom to understand what is best for me and how that might look in my life.

These next 20 years will involve the possibility of many changes in my life. I look forward to them and will embrace them as my life unfolds. My life won't be perfect I'm sure, but it will be the best life that I choose to live based on my history. It's time to live well. It's time to live simply. It's just simply time for so much to embrace in life.

Namaste,
Maggie

Turn down the volume on life…...

Life has required a lot of smudging lately. Much more than what is our usual. It's a ritual that we share here at home as a part of our spiritual practice and it brings us balance and clarity and grounds us in our life. But lately it seems that we have been drawn to the meditation room more frequently to smudge and find that balance. Things just seem 'off' in a bigger way than normal causing us to look deeper for that balance. I know we have just finished a time of retrograde and this is often an unsettled and interesting time to work through. But having said that, it still seems that there is an energy present that is not settled. And I have felt it for a while now.

Weeks ago I kept hearing a phrase in my head that talked about life being too loud.  It seems as though there is a 'loudness' that prevails in so many ways from the macro to the micro and it is deafening us from what we really need to hear. And what we really need to hear should be soft and loving and not loud and harsh. It feels as though my mind and soul is assaulted with all of this loudness and it is so unsettling. 

Just watch the tv news or listen to the radio and you will hear it. Listen to conversations in line at your local grocery mart and you will hear it. It's at work in the lunchroom and its even in traffic when you head home from work. There is this 'loudness' everywhere. Everyone wants desperately to be heard. Everyone wants to be noticed. Everyone is desperate for acknowledgement. Yes, that's exactly it….. desperation. The world has become this desperate place that seems to exist in a chaotic fashion much of the time. And lately it just seems to be louder. Sigh……

It saddens me that we feel we need to live this way. I look around me at the world at large and am not convinced that this chosen path is working. There is strife everywhere. There is unrest everywhere. There is war that has gone on for far too long. We as a human race struggle and it seems to be getting louder. And as I said previously the microcosm is just a smaller version of the macrocosm. It's what we have been exposed to and let creep into our own lives. Once again I sigh……

So I strive to find and most importantly keep that balance and clarity. It is difficult though. It needs nurturing all the time. It needs a reminder often. So we smudge, we meditate, we takes walks in the forest and maybe sometimes when we need to we just close our eyes and travel in our minds to a peaceful place. Even just being 'present' allows us to better realize what might be going on around us and then not allowing ourselves to be drawn in. But if we continue to allow the loudness to prevail then we will become deaf to what real life should and was intended to be. Loving, peaceful and with less loudness. Let's try to live a softer life. Let's turn down the volume. We don't need to scream to be heard. We can speak softly and still share our message. 

Blessings to all,

Maggie

hello from here…...

I look at my last post being from June and I realize that I have once again been away from the blog for a long time.

A lot has happened since June. We had a wonderful holiday in B.C. and made many memories and we also got married! Had a wonderful garden party and shared our happiness with our family and friends! Maybe I could share a blog post about our special day soon. And the rest of what kept me away from here I guess is just life in general. The daily grind, which I will touch on later. So I'm back sort of and know that not anyone at all is depending on me to write an blog post, but I guess for myself it's a place to write down a few words and share something of how I feel about life and other things. I go through periods of time where words in my head just want out and this is my 'out' place it seems. Some things shared are not at all important (in the true reality of life)  and other things I might be a bit more passionate about. Yet I try to be careful in sharing passion because you can walk a fine line there in terms of sharing vs. preaching and I am not at all passionate about preaching. I feel like preaching is an 'in your face' kind of activity and that is usually uncomfortable. It just seems 'loud'.  I find lately that life being 'loud' is something I would rather steer away from. There is so much 'loud' around us and  I have been craving the opposite lately. It may be the change of the season from the active feeling of summer to the settling of autumn and the nearing of the ultimate cocooning in winter. Maybe I'm experiencing that shift. This suits me quite fine. Give me a snowy afternoon with the fireplace burning, a movie and my partner close and I'm a happy girl. Quiet is good.

Reading is quiet. I feel empty if my bookmark does not have a pair of pages to lie between. My reading passion lately has again been about Julia C, having gone through this phase once before and yet I needed to pick up another of her bio's and touch on her life once more. There is something about her 'passion' that makes me smile for her, knowing that she was so desperately longing for something to round out her life or at least become involved in and then found it in Paris no less!! What fun! As I read her bio's she just seems to have had a love for life that I think maybe we find hard to experience in these times that we live in now. That 'joie de vivre' that we all want so much! Yes, we secretly want this for ourselves and I am no different in wanting it also. I'm no fool! It's out there and an arms length away but there is so much else out there too and we often grasp for something that is not as satisfying. It's all about choices. Don't get me wrong my life is not an unsatisfying one by any means but we all have moments where the drudgery sometimes takes over……yes, admit it, it does happen, and we can tend to get our mindset stuck there and that is not a good thing. I know that life is not all fun and fabulous ….. lol…..as much as we want it to be but a balance just tipped a little over to the side of fun and fabulous would be perfect right? We would all take it in a heartbeat. The perfect life aside, I can truly say that while reading of Julia's life I had many, many moments where I would outwardly smile at her experiences. I loved those moments because I am truly then taken out of my own world and can feel joy for another. I think this is so important so that we can step out of this self centred world that we live in for even a moment and enjoy happiness for someone else. Julia seemed to have a balance of good proportions in her life. Wonderfully tipped to the side of fun and fabulous I must say! I've learned much from reading of her life. I only need to see a picture of her and I smile for so many reasons.

Well I've landed here again and I'm thinking that I want to be back blogging more but I write that hesitantly because it's always the time factor that needs attention to it in the end. So, we will see how it goes and I will end this post feeling no pressure.

Keep smiling and find your 'joie de vivre' even if just for today!! Oh, and I'm off to the library soon to pick up my next book to slip my bookmark into!

Maggie

my tea party…...

I've done it for years. It is my normal routine to get up for work early enough that I can do it, and even if I am not working I take the time for it ……. a tea party that is. A tea party for myself to begin my day. I love the quiet solitude of early morning and for me it lends itself to beginning my day in balance
which then in turn sets me up to have a good day. Now, it doesn't always follow through that way but I at least begin each day the same. I'm never rushed since I get myself up early enough to allow for it and all the other things that need to happen on a work day especially. Some people would rather sleep, while I would rather have this time to myself. I know some of my friends or co-workers think I am a bit crazy to do that but it's important for me to have this time and it starts my day off perfectly. As much as I am physically alone I most often will be reading so in fact there is usually someone invited to my tea party. Any number of authors have sat in on my tea parties and over the years I have learned much and shared in many stories. I love to read but my days leave little time to share in that so early morning is my 'reading time'. Books are a passion for me and to have a book in my hands is a wonderful thing. I don't think that I would ever own a Kindle or reading apparatus such as that because the tactile experience of having a book in my hands is not something that I would want to give up. Ok, I admit I have a kindle app on my phone which I thought might be a distraction while waiting for an appointment or such, but I usually forget that it's there and end up reading something interesting in a magazine instead. Maybe I was a writer in a former life as I love the ability to put words to paper and create something that someone else would enjoy. Words can be such a powerful thing. I read a lot of non-fiction and this feeds my constant desire to learn but I try to squeeze in a bit of fiction from time to time to allow myself to escape and be entertained also.

I remember in my younger years as a mom that I would get  up early and have my then coffee party (I don't drink coffee anymore) before any of the children awoke so that I could have some time to myself before the busy days of motherhood took over. I also treasure the memories I have of the tea parties that I had when I owned my bookshop and I would sit in my cosy chair in the shop and be amongst all those books! It was heaven for me! I could walk up to any shelf and pull a book and open up to any page and read. Sometimes I would take my tea party on the road and find a coffee shop where the atmosphere was of good energy and I would take my book there and sip on my tea. Most of my tea parties are now in my home which is my special place on Mother Earth.

Invited to my tea parties lately has been author Carolyn Myss as I am re-reading her book The Creation of Health that is also co-authored with Norman Shealy. Two amazing people that bring so much knowledge to the world of health and wellness. But I may have to share in my morning authors as I have a book waiting at the library for me by Jenna Woginrich called One Woman Farm which chronicles her transition from city cubicle to rural homesteading. Should be a great read!

My tea parties always have a special mug or tea pot which have changed over the years. I recently acquired a special set, on sale of course, and I'm sure it will be with me for years to come. It's tea party perfect!

 I think I will always make time for a tea party in my life. It's just that special to me. I hope you find the time to spend a few quiet moments for yourself before you begin your day. Namaste…….. Maggie 

glad to be home.......

I've been away pretty much since last Tuesday and that means I've been living out of a suitcase during that time. That part of being away is not the fun part. I just never feel grounded when I'm living out of a suitcase. But I was able to get away with my girls to Niagara-on-the-Lake and also to Wasaga Beach with my partner. It was a nice getaway for me but I have to admit there is something really nice about arriving back home and getting back into my routine of life. Well, maybe not being up this early to go to work in a bit, but certainly the comforts to home are nice. Both times away afforded a lot of laughter and fun times though that were much needed to relax and recharge. So it was time away that was meaningful and had purpose. It was time away one on one with my daughters and time away with my partner and our friends. Memories were made that will be long remembered. So the suitcase is part of the equation as much as it is the downside, but without that part we would never get away and make memories. Alas, it is a trade off for sure.

Back to routine blessings :)

Maggie

my garden Buddha

I just really like him being in my garden...... a quiet presence

I do believe........

Every time I go for my massage appointment this is what I am greeted with........ 

lavender time........

My lavender.....so pretty!

There is an area of my garden that stands alone in its beauty. It ranks above all other in colour and scent and it was recently in full bloom. It is my border of lavender that I have cultivated over the last several years. I began with only a couple of plants and it has now expanded to a full border along the back of the deck. Each year as spring begins I await its recovery from winter  as it can look rather bereft from the wind and cold temperatures of the season. It was with some concern this year that I kept a watchful eye on my precious border of lavender. It seemed to have a bit of winter kill from the cold, but alas as the temperatures warmed and as the sun began to shine it came alive and grew to fill in where the winter cold had left barren places. Tender young shoots of delicate pale green sprang forth and soon filled in those empty places. I was able to enjoy it as the border was filled with the palest of lavender buds and then the flowers began to bloom! The pale lavender turned to bright purple yet it still had a softness to it. I loved being able to show off the blooms in a small vase and even the buds were beautiful in a small crystal dish.

I found a recipe for a Lemon Lavender Shortbread and decided that we needed to give them a try. The recipe was not only gluten-free, but dairy free also. They were a great treat and I have saved a small mason jar full of buds so that I can make them again. Here is a photo of how they turned out!

Lemon Lavender Shortbread Cookies

I had planned on making a lavender & lemon verbena tincture but the rains came and the blooms were not looking the greatest so I will wait until next year to try again.

I had a small garden statue of St.Francis that I decided this year to move to another location. There was a perfect spot in the middle of the lavender border and I think he looks perfect there! Somehow it just seems like home for him......and when the sun shines early in the morning he looks quite heavenly.

St. Francis in the garden

The time has come when the border now needs to be trimmed back. I managed to keep some lavender buds and will use them for the cookie recipe in winter and recall the beauty of the flowers that sprang from the buds and bloomed beautifully while surrounding St. Francis.

I hope you enjoyed my lavender journey as much as I did. I already can't wait to see it begin to bud again next spring.

Blessings to you,

Maggie

Two things......

Two things...... "life is short" and "am I making a difference?". The first quote came up for me yesterday after hearing from a friend that a life had been unexpectedly lost in a car accident. A partner of 18 yrs now sadly gone. It conjures up this all too familiar statement of 'life is short' and yet I wonder if we ever really hear ourselves when we say it. It rolls off our tongue so easy and then more than likely minutes later we have forgotten the real meaning of those three words and we are back to living life outside of the moment. Yes, outside of the moment because if we are living in the moment then we are aware of just how precious life is. Life needs to be lived fully and in the present moment. The next time you hear someone say those 3 words listen to them carefully and reflect on how you are choosing to live your life. I pray that it is a life that enjoys each and every moment as best possible.

The second quote was noted today in a conversation on FB and a friend wrote and said  "am I making a difference?. In our world today we applaud so much that is on a grand scale. Everything is about 'big' and 'global' and in the world of accomplishments. These accomplishments are not to be disregarded but  neither are those that are any less. We can all make a difference whether it is big or small. I believe that every time you make an effort you are making a difference. Your energy goes out to the universe and it's vibration is felt globally. So never underestimate the power of your small efforts because they all contribute to the differences that are happening in the world today. Yes, you do make a difference!.....and I am grateful for your effort.

Those are just a few words for today.......

Blessings to all,

Maggie