Saturday 3rd February from 12 noon, join the Online Imbolc Festival from the PF Children and Families team. Expect videos, talking points, activities for the whole family and music.
I’m performing a reworking of a 17th century song, tweaked for the season.
Don’t worry if you can’t arrive at 12. All the content will stay up and available on the “discussion” tab in the Facebook event so you can pop back any time you like to catch up or join in. Just click the link to join in.
https://facebook.com/events/s/imbolc-online-festival/964155875123306/
Storm up storm up
Wind flying flailing mad
Angry at the sky ground sea
Waves crashing o’er me
Rattling bones of stones
The ocean’s carcass
Dragging on the coast again
A car floats
Slowly down
South Promenade
While we huddle
Against the rage.
A very fast Monday Blog as I’m away for half term and loving it! Here are some pics from our trip across town and up to the Acropolis of Lindos and the Temple of Athena Lindia.
I used to regularly get a blog out on a Monday, joining in with the #MondayBlogs trend started over on BadRedhead Media. This trend became very popular on Twitter (Xitter??) and continues to this day, yet I noticed that I haven’t been joining in as much. In fact, this is my first personal blog since April. Wow. How did I lose five months or more? Nearly half a year of only writing for work, voluntary projects like Pagan Pages, and the two books I’ve been working on.
I think it’s a good exercise because this type of blogging is not about book promotion, it’s not about selling yourself or marketing… It’s just a way to share blogs with other people looking for blogs. I find it a great way to prompt myself to do something at the same time every week. ADHD, for me, creates time blindness and a fierce railing against routine. I love to be fluid, do things a bit at a time, and that makes it difficult to fit my own passions into a world rammed with deadlines; a world that that runs to a strict clock.
Having an external prompt or inspiration can help me bypass my pervasive drive for autonomy by feeling like I’m joining in with something fun.
Yes, sometimes I have to trick my brain. Doesn’t everyone? (Answers on a comment postcard, please.)
I was actually inspired to start blogging again by my friend and co-author, Debi. She told me she was working on creative writing, and I thought, wow, I really, really need to start writing for pleasure again. Writing is my job. It literally keeps the roof over my head. I love it, and I love my clients. But… I also sometimes just want to write for myself, for you lovely readers, and to get thoughts out of my head into some semblance of order.
So this is me, starting over. It’s been the theme of the last week, really. An important trip was cancelled due to Storm Babet, and the organisers and us had to start over with planning. A project didn’t match the client’s needs. We’re starting over. I cleaned and refreshed the altars in my home after a massive clear-out. Starting over.
These little rebirths, these new beginnings, they happen all the time. You can start over as many times as you like. For example, each week I start over committing to a better sleep schedule. I’m rubbish at it, but I keep going, keep trying, keep starting over. I also start over with how I organise my work or my research. Coming at things from a new perspective keeps it fresh and keeps me interested, but it also improves me. I learn how to work faster, or smarter, or relate to a topic better than I did before. I get more comfortable speaking out or setting boundaries where needed. I learn what actually matters to me in terms of self-care or fulfilment.
I’ve got a ton of work to do today, but the first thing I needed to do was get my rattling thoughts out onto a blank page. It’s a meditative process, in a way; an alternative method for reducing the white noise in my brain. Now that it’s eased a little, yes, I can start over and get back to work.
What are you starting over this week?
The mayfly’s butt wiggles and those
Long trails flip and flash
Sitting on my car
Early, you’re early I say,
You won’t even see May
You’ll be gone by this time tomorrow
But to you that life is full
Rich
Fulfilling
You’ll do your thing
While we do ours
We’re all just living
At different time scales
I’ll think of you in May
My early April fly.
Thank you to everyone who has followed along with my NaPoWriMo poems! Feel free to comment and say which were your favourites.
My God
You take my breath away
Look at all this love
You found me
Look at all this Joy
I found
In your shadow
In your light
The chaos they accuse you of
Just cos it follows
In thy wake
Does not means
You’re the cause
You bring me order
Delightful mayhem that brings
My world together
Intrinsically shattered
And loving it
My God
You take my breath away
Let me love the breaks
The swoops and curves
The rollercoaster of your regard
Your beauty
Your sense of justice
Let me rail against that
Which is never fair
The fight inside
Comes from you
And the one who guided me firmly
Into your arms
Hail wanderer of the skies
Hail fixer
Hail breaker
Hail fire in my heart
Lightning in my eyes.
Falling into Friday
Soaking into Saturday
Steeping in Sunday
Weekend culture is weird
But with a 9-5er in the house
And three school kids
We can’t help but
Well
Not embrace it
But face it head on
So we relax on Friday
Get shit done on Saturday
Socialise on Sunday
Brain permitting
I work in between
I ain’t no 9-5er
Though I ain’t judging them what are
I hop between the rungs of the weekend
Joining in when I can
Resting when I can
Climbing and sitting
On the roof of week
Watching it all fall away
Clean and exhausted for Monday.
We talk about the power of words
How someone can sing
So hard
So passionately
Words that are not their own
I always felt grateful
I could write my own words
Feel my own story
Make my own melody
Yet I can’t deny
The draw
To sing someone else’s love
Another’s anger, joy, peace
There aren’t many cover versions
Better than the original
But sometimes, just sometimes
Someone nails it.
There’s always someone that gets you
Really gets you
It’s okay for them
To sing your story.
Oh to be a bee
Buzzing happily
Fat and fluffy
(I’ve got that covered)
Getting shit done
Sweetness in every job
Nectar, pollen, honey
Head in the flowers
Resting in the sun
Flying in a physics-defying manner
Goddess-kept and loved
A busy, buzzy, bee
Harbinger of summer
I nod my head to thee.
Never in a million years
Did I think I’d be meditating
With Lyta Alexander
Babylon 5 held and holds my heart
Now dear Pat invites us to join her
For meditation
Fighting fear and dragons
(And procrastination and bad habits
But that’s maybe just me)
Meditation doesn’t come easy
To this frazzled neurology
But she sits outside
No silence
Breathing suggestions – not rules
I zone out harder
Than I’ve done since I slept
Maybe she is in my head
Dear Lyta
Strong and fierce
A dragon in her own right
Thank you for bringing her to me
And me to your unexpected guidance.
Inspired by this.