live like someone left the gate open

Last night I had the strangest dream.  No it was not about a row boat to China in fact I cannot remember much of the detail but I remember the feeling of pure joy as I awoke.  I woke up without an ounce of tension in my body all cosy and happy.  I released so much stuff this week and I learnt the importance of rest and relaxation.  

The house is a total mess (which will be useful  in the January photo scavenger hunt, should be some really messy pics for that) but what of it, houses can be cleaned, but mental health cannot be repaired quite as easily as just doing the hoovering cleans up the house.  Sometimes its a matter of judgement what is the most important thing right now.  Is it the mound of washing? the kitchen full of dirty dishes? the garden full of crap? or is it my mental well being.??

I need order to feel well but I need wellness to bring order.  My latest realisation is that all other things follow from our mental and physical well being.  When I am well house work is effortless, life is comparatively effortless.  Being in the flow of wellness leads to happiness and productivity.  I suppose it is such an obvious thing.  We know many things in our logical minds but do we practice theses thing? Do we really practice these things?  I think it is only when we are consciously aware of the importance of staying well and minding ourselves that we exhibit our understanding of that fact and live in a way that shows we do.

This week I learnt to re-frame my past by looking at old pictures of myself, wow I had some great fun and quite an interesting time really.  

This week I learnt to re-frame failure by listening to other peoples stories of failure.  I love the word non-success and plan to use it instead of the other word for non-success.  I found out that I can learn more form my recovery and acceptance of failure than I do from my success.  

This week I learnt that I use the word Why alot and that asking people Why makes many people uncomfortable.  They feel it as a criticism.  So it might be better to ask , for what reason did you do that instead of Why , sometimes the answers you get are a little more informative!

And so the hibernation finally yielded up the necessary realisations for me to move forward and keep going on.  Its time to move on past defining myself by my actions and by my psychological fragility.   I no longer belong in heaven,  now I realise I am firmly back on earth, fully grounded and myself, I no longer feel the need to look for paradise.  I have it here with me.  

So today let go, ground yourself, and live like someone let the gate open.

Granny squares and graves

Today's mad urge which I indulged was to visit my Great Aunts grave.  When the family debate where they want to be buried, I always chose this place.  The great debate was due mainly to the fact that my grandmother is buried in one of the loveliest graveyards in Ireland, well it has one of the best views and my fathers people are buried in a very old cemetery with one of the worst view.  The wonderful Irish marriage proposal -would you like to be buried with my people, would have got a resounding no if my father had asked my mother that question.  She always said that she would be going west to be buried and my dad could go to St Joseph's, but she would no way go there.  It was a bit odd that this was a topic of conversation but I later found out that my mother's father had been in charge of the grave book for that graveyard and it had been a great source of fascination for my mother.  We spent many a happy hour traipsing around graveyards as children with my mother looking for fancy gravestones admiring how well or miskept the graves were and I liked to collect the shiny pebbles off the graves, I know - weird child.  Today I got a mad notion to visit my intended final resting place as the street performance things I wanted to attend was cancelled due to rain.  So off we traipsed; three generations off in search of the grave.  I recalled its pleasing location, near the chapel not far from the road and pretty much in a nice location.  But when I got there I realised that Uncle Ned was buried there too.  Uncle Ned was famed in the family as the family adviser and a bit pompous.  I had always loved my great aunt but no way was I going in there with Uncle Ned, he would nag me endlessly about everything, as this is what I had heard.  He was born in 1814 so I imagine he would not entirely approve of modern living. 

An eternity with Ned

So we went off to check out other family graves, my grandparents, I never met either of them but my grand mother was supposed to be a very lovely woman.  OMG when I saw the view from that I wondered could I rest happily there for all eternity and decided most defiantly not.  

resting place without a view

So there the option  of going west to my granny's grave but my older brother has bagsed that spot.  My granny never liked to have us both visit at once so I suppose she would not want us in the same grave for all eternity with her either, just in case we started fighting, not sure we could exactly take turns.  So there it is, being divorced I have no family plot of my husband and so where is left, in with my parents, my mother is still alive so she has suggested I could go in with them but perhaps it is time to think of getting a plot here.  The local graveyard is extending.  It is absolutely beautiful, next to the sea and a very ancient monastic settlement.    Yet another certainty of life was shattered today, my childhood expectation of being buried with my great aunt. I realised that I need to have a place where the rest of my decedents can join me.  Not sure if we all want to crowd in with Uncle Ned.  

My granny from the west was of course a tough old lady in her own way, she lived to be almost one hundred and taught me many of the lessons of life.  Amazingly I found out that that dreaded phrase from my childhood, there's no such word as can't,  stemmed from her.  It got me thinking of all the influences that descend to us through our family beliefs.  Now I wish I had paid more attention to the endless and seemingly boring stories about the family from the older members while I was young.  I enjoyed my trip down memory lane yet again as my mother found even more scraps of wool from our lives as she continued to clear out her house.  Preparing for the next 30 years I think.  This year she is turning 70 and as longevity is in the family (apart from those who died suddenly and young) I think she is preparing for the next stage of her life.  The wool has been a great way for me to reconnect with memories and I am crocheting it into a very thick warm blanket by mixing many strands together- my daughter calls it the St Bridget blanket as it grows at such an alarming rate.  The effect is a bit weird but it binds together many memories.  Generally I only crochet in moments of stress and I crochet my bad feelings away.  I can remember the feelings I had with each stitch and hope that one day I can return to the pleasures of following a pattern and make some nice and unemotional pieces.  I had a lovely jacket crocheted for me when I was around 7 and my mother rooted it out today.  

at least its not blue

My grandmothers granny squares were crocheted much as she lived, using what ever resources she had, I had a matinee coat with blue as she had the wool left over fro my older brother, I laughed and wondered if my younger brother had any pink jumpers made with wool left over from me.  

So now I am without a final resting place, I could end up anywhere yet, but I know I dont want to spend eternity looking at a wall.  So now as I finally look forward to the rest of my life, a life filled with joy, no longer a totally dreary exercise in drudgery and duty, I wonder what the view from my final resting place will be.  I think it will be beautiful, almost paradise.