finding-my-bliss

I spoke about the excitement and exhilaration I'd experienced as an 'art student' I haven't had this feeling in a long time but something is happening right now I don't know what it is but the clues are there! I'm feeling a little skittish even, like the synapses in my brain are making new connections, or at least re-establishing old ones that give me the feeling of being alive again after what seems like and eternity of dark days... Whilst my love was on this planet, he wasted very few moments. The days were spent mostly making or repairing things, he was a very down to earth man but said he loved me because, quoting Dylan's words, "of the two sisters I was the 'creative one'".  He always encouraged me to express myself here in Finding my Bliss.  He said he was not creative but I knew differently for music and words were a big part of his life loving to search the internet for lost tunes and lyrics. I would often find him ...

I had a hard time of it as an 'art student'! The course was what they termed 'self-led'. I was thrown in at the deep end, technique instruction was a no no, finding one's own way through research and experimentation was the path to self expression.. This was at the time when Tracey Emin was making her conceptual  Bed Art ! For me there wasn't much in the way of positive encouragement, my work being worthy! The relationship with my tutor Mr Salt was a 'love ~ hate' one, I loved the passion intrigue and excitement he evoked for the 'modern way', but I hated the lack of feedback about my work, the only comment I remember was "this looks awkward".  A number of the students dropped out of the course expecting a more 'traditional' approach, copying the 'masters' etc! I made it my goal to finish the course through sweat, blood and tears, I remember my final comments to the tutors which I can tell you did not go down w...

Sending love & light speeding over vast oceans lifting heavy hearts  Go to ~~> Haiku my Heart Recuerda mi Corazon

You may have noticed a little swirling going on in my latest posts! I had forgotten about the spiraling tool in fotoflexer ~ distort! But yes if fits my mood a kind of swirling.. Most days I am given over to the grief BUT TODAY I notice a little lightness, nay JOY when tapping the keys! I am not sure where all of this is leading me but I am TAKING HEART KNOWING the journey continues with MY LOVE,  he is INTERWOVEN throughout my very BEING AND I am grateful for this ONE BEAUTIFUL but sometimes brutally bewildering LIFE! and yes, I make no apologies for using capitals ! This is  Huge! Break a few  Rules!

My heart's in a spin hurtling towards the unknown tumbling with red leaves... For Haiku my Heart and my beloved Rebecca, springboard to joy, catalyst for courage... Recuerda mi Corazon

Safeguarding my Heart in this Choppy Ocean of Grief . . There are open and raw wounds around my heart, they need attention, I am paying heed to a well know scripture ~ " for all that is to be guarded, safeguard the heart"! Not allowing bitterness to take hold is the work at hand. I have to thank you my sisters in large part for allowing my grief story here in this space, for offering comfort and encouragement through these days, for just being there through this journey gifting me connection in my hours of need. This indeed helps keep the heart open and soft, your words of wisdom and care. This week I start a course of psychotherapy offered to me through the hospice who cared for my love. I have mixed feelings, I went along to one of the group sessions but felt overwhelmed by the tears and sadness of the other grievers, I will try to remain open to what might arise through one to one therapy. Having said that I already know the limitations of what psychothera...

Simply Hanging In ~ . foxy bides her time hanging in there on the rail dreaming of Mr fox A friend asked about self-care, how was I caring for myself? The answer is simple, I look through the lens,  I line up some lusciousness, I click and create a story, I edit, and then sometimes I haiku my story  ~ simply,  syllables,  five seven five! I Haiku my Heart ~ Recuerda mi Corazon

The Robin & Coming Undone ~ Apparently one of the many emotional states one may go through in grieving is the feeling you are going Mad , this is a very frightening feeling that I identify with.  This may arise as being confused about your own beliefs, strong beliefs that may now start to melt in the light of your experience.  One of the hardest things about this whole episode is that I now have to look myself squarely in the eye and ask if all of my grandiose words about connection to the Divine still hold water! There is much talk of 'authenticity' and now I find I'm asking myself questions about my core beliefs, what has now surfaced under extreme pressure? How do I truly feel about my connection to the Divine?  I must admit lately this yoking has seemed tenuous and there have been times when my own words have come unstuck and looked like they may have been dissolved down the universal plug-hole!  The day a robin flew into the house window is an e...

A Simple Message ~ ♥ draw anew each day . intention to play softly in the light of love ♥ Over here in the UK a brand new series of Grand Designs is being aired on TV.  Last night I was immersed into a world of serenity when a new build featured an authentic Japanese room, created to transport the occupants back home.  The simple and minimal layout with soft traditional elements immediately conveyed peace.  It wasn't just the beautiful design features that impacted my senses but I felt such a longing to be in that space, environment, to experience a life for a time free of clutter both physical and mental.  I have been trying to clear my love's garage and my home of anything that is not useful or necessary for I need to move away. I have been working non-stop to keep the place presentable so that when the time is right I will be ready to go, I'm waiting for a buyer.  I have a garden the size of a small park which needs lots of attention so I...

Abstract ~ Slipping Away . I just realized it is ten days since I posted, I don't like this thought of life galloping away from me whilst feeling time-warped! I was counting the days since my love passed, it came to a hundred and nineteen but seems like only yesterday compared to the few score days he was ill, this felt like an eternity of suffering. I have this photo of him taken not long before he passed, you can see he is really sick but he has the most beautiful expression on his face. I talk to it often and kiss it, or should I say 'I talk to him often' for I swear he is still breathing, I can feel him... This is what scares me the most, the slipping away of him, some days I try to visualize him, each of his body parts, they are clear, right down to the little brown spot under his foot. The hardest thing is remembering his voice, the tone, if only I had recorded it. He would always sing first thing of a morning when his voice was more gravelly I do re...

 

I am taking a little detour off of the 'Grief Path' story for the time being, for I am feeling entrenched and bogged down by the detail and not lifted! I will be back chipping in now and again with my progress on this difficult road but, my aspirations for telling the whole story might have to be weaved into the everyday, for I do not want to drown in my own grief story...

Orb Hunting  a Lovely Distraction ... Grieving is the hardest day's work I have ever done, and for sure grief is work for it has a purpose an outworking! I am learning all the time, like you cannot move on from grief it is something you have to go through! You might have already detected my feeling a need to move on from the previous post, but I have realised there is no sidestepping grief, this is not an option.  Grief is attached to the thing or person loved and lost, the bigger the attachment the deeper the grief! Like the saying "grief is the price you pay for loving".  I said at the beginning I wanted to document my experience here in the darkest place I've been so far and to be honest with myself and readers. So this is no place for flowery speech or for setting grief in the middle of a rose garden, much of this is raw stuff! Having said that hope does orbit around me and sitting in a rose garden would certainly help too!  I am no stranger to dep...

Grief Processing I have a brand new camera, I got it before my love took ill.  I have only used it twice, it was easier to get my old beloved camera out whilst studying technicalities for the switch over.  Then life got in the way and here I am still using my old familiar trusted friend even though the battery casing is broke and held together with an elastic band! My daughter said I "just have to plough through the days" and this is exactly how it is each day, same, same, I seem stuck in the repeated pattern of grief, I so want to move on from this experience for I feel bogged down.  My house is on the open market without a stir, I keep mowing the grass, keeping up appearances, hoping someone will fall in love with the place as we both did 15 years ago... But then I don't really know where it is I want to go, except for the calling ocean but I just know I need to be away from this, these days, this life.... I want to start again a new life, a new camera, new exp...

Of Friends & Angels Well here I am trying to relate my grief story! Grief is such a difficult animal to get a hold on, only a few weeks back I was thinking "I'm doing okay, no need for any counselling" then bam I was knocked to the ground, could not stop crying and the wave of confusion hit me like never before!  I felt as I had read somewhere that I was going crazy, this was really frightening. I had to visit the doctor.  I also had to eat my own words, the ones I had even written about here, so this is a hard lesson to learn ~ I am not of a superhuman species despite my endeavors in personal growth but just like nearly everyone I need help!  I have reached out and will be getting professional support shortly. In the meantime I am giving a shout of cheer to all the lovely people who have helped me so far, starting with my friend Christine of  Mystic Meandering who has been there for me all along, through all of the painful days supportin...

I'm in the process of investigating grief.   Prior to my love's departure from this life I believed I had come far with my personal growth and spiritual journey. Along the way I have encountered a number of "dark nights of the soul", surviving these experiences has fueled the desire to keep my head above water now at this the darkest night so far! I want to test if the former lessons hold true for this period and what adjustments can be made. Up until a few weeks ago and all through the painful experience of finding out the dreadful news that my love had only weeks to live and subsequently witnessing his decline in the most harrowing manner I stayed amazingly strong! I put this down to just two things I prayed for 'strength & wisdom', strength to see me through and wisdom to know how to deal with the days and what to do. I feel I had both, although each day was a challenge my spirit didn't dip that low to bowl me over. I knew I had to keep g...

When grief hits hard, those moments when you dip and sink,     the best thing is to just Be, wait until something calls to you   from somewhere between shadow and light just one little shaft playing somewhere may induce you to grab hold of its tail and cling real tight   for there you might just find a glimmer of hope your heart's delight..

I prayed, yes I still pray this is what I do, part of who I am, my connecting with source. I prayed for just two things when my love became seriously ill, I prayed for strength to see me through and wisdom to know how to tread along the 'Dark Passage'. My father worked in dark passages for most of his adult life as a coal miner, religion was not high on Dad's agenda but the simple and humble acknowledgement of his maker was what I learned from him, coupled with my own inherent leanings towards spirituality through a love of creation I was destined from an early age to be a seeker... I think I would have been about eight or nine at the time when Dad came home from the mine unsettled by having lost his watch somewhere that day, I heard him tell Mum whilst she was preparing dinner. I remember turning to prayer and asking for God's help on the matter in my childish way then leaving it with him for food was about to be served.  Later on that evening I overheard...

Sunday ~ I could hear the drum beats once again from over the field in my back garden.  I got the same nostalgic feel haunting me that I'd gotten previously.   This time more so with the passing of my love.  The passing of time shot through my consciousness like an arrow speeding in one fell swoop to it's target, all happening in one day, maybe it did! Tuesday ~ They are packing away now, though I can occasionally hear the drums, and as usual I feel regret not having taken hold of those sticks in the circle, or the true spirit of Stainsby Festival come to that! Every year it seems like alternative nomads are transported to my village to play out a magical scene among our summer fields, they come to tempt me with some other kind of freedom, then before I can get my bearings as the wind blows through dandelion seed-heads it all drifts off away into the ether for one more orbit around the sun. I'm still a babe on the grief path, totally inexperienced and untaug...

So now I'm further along the 'continuum' ~ sequence of elemental change, what next? I have been taking my time along the grief path and in so doing have been wondering if there might be some advantage in relating my experience? Is this a possible worthwhile endeavor? Telling my story of grief as it unfolds for the mutual benefit of myself and others?  For writing has become an integral part of my creative life and I have realized it's importance particularly at this time as the days can seem long and without purpose, or at least not being able to share that purpose with 'my love' after his parting. I have been plunged into a new landscape of confusion, not knowing which direction to turn, this is new territory for me, I will be telling my story on the hoof! I've been visiting a couple of support websites not having experienced this type of intense grief before in my life and yes support is what I need!  I have lots of care from family, frie...

A Continuum ~> continual sequence of ~> elemental change ~> By far this is the most difficult post written by myself, ever. I have not visited this place for sometime... I have been 'lying low' as an old friend used to put it, not low through depression or anything like that but since my love passed away parts of my known world have passed too. I have difficulty recognizing the landscape around me, I'm lying low so that I can absorb some of the new terrain. I am still quite dizzy, it's going to take some time... Much of what I wrote about here in this space would involve a brief glimpse of 'my love' and our life together. I had thought of closing 'Finding my Bliss', for a pivotal part of everything this blog has stood for seemed on the surface of things to be missing! But as the days have come and gone I am beginning to look at things in a different light and although I am grieving for my love I find I am l feeling his prese...

As humans we want to put rhyme and reason into our experience of existence for we are made thinking and feeling beings, and to think there is no reason, well this is absurd and unreasonable... But when pain enters the scenario and particularly your own dear one's excruciating pain that will not go away day after day week after week then all  wise words of connection to the Divine are challenged, you are left with an emptiness, confusion and overwhelm... You may find yourself despising your words of wisdom, even the words of poets and mystics which once soothed now may take on a hollow tone. I keep clutching at my thoughts in desperation for the reason, they tell me it is all part of the universal unfolding, for lesson learning, my edification.  I tell you I haven't got it yet! And, I must carry on along the path for I have no choice... But still I cannot deny the 'awesome' in everyday, the million facets of beauty sparkling out from all di...

Today I wanted to say something profound to catch your attention, but on second thoughts decided that better be left to the mystics, poets and sages, for words worthy of their weight and restorative to the soul do not come easy... Instead, I will tell you what 'my love' said as he lay in the hospital bed... He said "don't worry about me". You don't know how precious those few words were, are... Today like most of the other days in hospital he has been either writhing in pain or medicated into slumber. Yesterday he was hallucinating most of the day and I imagined I would never be able to speak with him in a meaningful way again. The day before he managed an embrace but no words... But today he opened his eyes for just one minute, just long enough to say "don't worry about me", the tears flowed... That's 'my love' selfless to the end, my big, brave, strong, unsung hero... My greatest teacher. He embodies naturally ...

I'm sat at the ~ edge of a rainbow, if you look closely you can just make out the colours in the left corner above... I'm seeing kind hearts everywhere... hugs to you all...

My candle burns bright amid swirling blacks and greys. faith is my strong flame... I'm taking quiet days by candlelight whilst my love is ill, I can't see a light at the end of the tunnel but the passage is well lit we are living in Love & Light...

I have yet to master the art of feeling all is okay whilst suffering pain! However I feel sheer pleasure, 'my cup runneth over' feeling in the absence of pain. Perhaps I haven't traveled far enough down the road to enlightenment, or sat long enough on my meditation cushion, or said my thousandth hail Mary to be okay with pain. But What pain has taught me is to Be with pain, to Be with those who suffer pain too, to feel their pain like it's my own, to let my heart soften towards their painful moments not to take it away, but to say there there, I'm here for you, I'm here for you in your moments of 'not okay', we can feel the pain together, it's okay!

Yearning clear blue skies to brighten the road for ease, to step light of heart... Detour intersect is warrior woman's path she must tread alone, her only companion Om lifts a weighted heart... feeling vibrational warmth, she lights momentum... My heart is weighed down at the moment, we are waiting for scan results, my love has been in constant debilitating pain since before Christmas, I'm having a nasty IBS flare-up, I'm doing warrior woman work! I am grateful for this Friday morning ritual ~ Haiku my Heart, it is a wonderful distraction from the everyday, focusing on and fitting feelings into 575 syllables... Thanks to our Rebecca for hosting ~> Haiku my Heart Recuerda mi Corazon

The sun shone brightly today, I took advantage of her brilliant gift, I tended my garden, I tended my spirit, I played in paradise... Postcards from Paradise Recuerda mi Corazon

The reflective image below is one taken of my south facing window,  which is more like an altar to me because of the ever changing light that allows for embracing the moments of silent connection and praise. I take many photographs from this window as I marvel at the sun's energy  to illuminate or in this case reveal through shadows and reflections. This image has been sitting in my file for sometime, it has a hidden message for me that  I knew would one day surface...    Heart broken open by the mystery of you... love stitches together.  Gentle love rides pain like silken thread slips through jute spring balm for raw edge. Stitch with silken love the polarities of life  embrace the mystery... Sending to Rebecca for healing... Haiku my Heart Recuerda mi Corazon

At the moment I'm feeling a bit stuck, groping about in the dark, can't wait for daylight to see. I'm on a journey but can't quite make out where the next stop off is... I want my view to be clear and colourful, with lots of beauty and inspiration so I can see clearly where I am going, which turn off to take, but the truth of the matter is things are a little obscure and monochrome... But, I have learned by now to look for beauty here too in the flat monochrome, to rest awhile with what is. I've come to realize and appreciate we need these quite times, it's like the scripture says ~ "there is a season for everything under the sun". Perhaps that is why I am so in-tune with trees in their winter state, their season for repose. I know their sap will begin to rise soon, if not already, and then whoosh! Away we will all go, bursting forth with the colours of life!

My mind has been with the trees lately. For now, they remain stripped back to their essential winter state. Something deep within me clings to these bare open arms, these silhouettes... I had a dream about the trees ~ I was stationed all alone and before my eyes a huge tree appeared, surrounded by smaller trees, the trees formed a copse with the huge tree transmitting light. Lighting the ground where I stood, I marveled at the tree emitting the light and felt an affinity with it... All of a sudden the tree copse and the light lifted and transported itself to a distant place. I was alarmed for I wanted to be in the company of the trees and remain within the beautiful light. I called to the huge tree from a distance and asked that they return to me.  Immediately the tree copse uprooted again and came back, but they didn't come so close, a little way away but within reach with a little effort! After recalling my dream I thought about the science fiction film Av...

All day long we'd be nursing baby and bunny, dress on, dress off, wrapping baby up, washing baby, changing nappies, swaddling her in a blanket, laying her in bed.... I mean the whole day! Then when it was bedtime for granddaughter Connie, of course baby and bunny had to go too... No one has taught her this deep nurturing behavior, it is as natural as breathing... I think this might be why these female doll-like creative expressions keep popping up, why I so enjoy playing with my images, expanding them in the digital playground. As a child I remember the books that had the perforated pull out paper dolls with interchangeable mix and match wardrobes, where the dresses hooked onto the dolls by tabs at the back, this fascinated me. I have the natural desire to nurture, this seems to be deeply seated within the feminine. When looking around 'blogsphere' a profusion of nurturing sister circles have appeared, nourishing and flourishing!  I have come to the real...

I had such a lovely, if not exhausting time looking after Connie whilst Mummy & Daddy swanned off to the Big City Beer Festival... The day  before I had noticed a lovely reflection on my widow in the blazing sun, an unusual occurrence ~ the sun that is! Of course I don't need much encouragement to linger, dream and imagine all kinds of otherworldly goings on in my window reflections, I'm soon seeing into the realms of otherworldly possibilities... So I snapped merrily away to see what as my friend Patricia would say is 'gifted to me'.... I intuited the need for more clarity on my subject, so off to the land of 'Picasa' where I highlighted and darkened, then as if by magic, the dots were connected to my little Connie, I had bought her a ceramic money box in the form of an Asian lady and there she was arising in my image, born from my inner intuiting ... I just had to plump her out with fine 'line' details in Windows 'Pain...