The sea birthed you, its salty placenta

unburdened you to the swell,

Slick like an oil spill

she bled you into her

swirling tides

Selkies sang you home

The moon lit your path

She wept as she watched you go

On land

you carry the sea, in your veins

Seaweed trails in your wake, I find it in your hair

Samphire seasons your skin, to taste

Curled in your arms, my face sealed to the crook of your neck

I hear the roll of the waves

the howl of the deep

I wonder when she will call you

Knowing you were never mine to keep.

When I tell you that the Lighthouse called me you might jump to several conclusions. But, like the Little Tern, once native here, my reasons are elusive, even to me.

I am not looking for a beacon. I don’t need guiding home. I am not lost at sea. Shipwrecked. Hijacked by pirates. Abandoned to the sea stallion waves of Poseidon.

No.

I came to find a tiny flower.

Once here (not so long ago) amongst the sand dunes and long, sharp grasses lived a tiny delicate purple flowered plant. It thrived in the salt air, not yet beaten into obscurity by the harsh flat land and ocean winds. A plant that rooted itself into the sand, knowing its foothold would be impermanent. That subtle shifts would cause its mooring to dissolve and reform. And, to survive it would need to ride the waves of millennia ground rock to a new home, daily, hourly, whenever the wind whistled in from the sea.

Once upon a time, when I was small, and I walked knee high to your strong, stockinged legs. You sang to me about the sand fairies that lived here, how they’d hide amongst the tall grasses, braid these purple flowers in their hair. You told me how they made their clothes from seaweed, and their shoes from shells. And you collected them to show me in your cool, but rough-cut hand.

Childish folly. We are digital and techno powered, with little space for magic and whimsy. I live in a World of stinging paradoxes, of brittle conspiracies. But, scarred as I am from the passage of modern life, your words still feel delicate of touch, like the beat of a damsel fly’s wings skimming the water, on a still day.

Breathe.

After you had gone, I placed them and you in a little box. Left you both to gather dust in the attic of my brain. Too busy chasing my dreams, just as you’d taught me, no thought for home or the people there I left behind. Unlike you, I have remained unanchored, a pirate of feminism and adventure. Borderless and free. And, truthfully, sometimes lost and in pain.

I ask myself why now after so many years? Why chase the past?

Sadness.

There is something I have not told you.

The flower I seek has been endangered for over 30 years now. No one has found one here, by the lighthouse, on the island, for at least 20 years. That means you were the last to see one. When you left you took them and the sand fairies with you. Or, maybe when you left the magic of this island could not bear to be without you.

Gone.

Tonight, my room flickers with the bright, white light of the lamp in the tower. It shocks me from my restless dreams, reminds me peril is not far from me, as I lie wrapped in feather down. Out there, the sea on the horizon, is dark and cruel. Like my worst nightmares, as a child. When soft words and arms would soothe me for a while until I drifted back to sleep.

Tonight, I lie alone, rocking with the sound of the wind. In a room so close to yours but now slept in by someone else. I think of rattling windows and cold wooden floors, a soot scarred coal scuttle and candles laid out on your nightstand for when the power gave out. And, an ivory hair comb that held your long silver hair, up high on your head and that you teased was made from seal bones.

In the morning, the muted sun light brings my mind back to my quest. I suffocate myself in wool and sou’wester. Lace myself into heavy boots, bracing my body for a day in the cold. Final adornments: a flask and a walking stick. And, most importantly the small pocketbook, with an intricate original drawing of the flower. Dune gentian. A bible of your delicate design.

Since you have been gone, things have changed. No, not just the shifting sand dunes and lost flowers, fairies and birds. The landscape of people’s lives here. The patterns of nature, the rhythms of our planet. Community. Belonging.

You were no stranger to change or to challenge. But this? A planet and its people, overwhelmed and throbbing with discord?

Born in the shadow of a World War and a Medieval Castle. You were a warrior Queen to me. Pirates be feared of you. You were not gentle. The sea was riven in your skin. But you loved what you loved, with a whole heart. A fierceness of spirit and a vulnerability that always sought connection, even when cut off to land and human touch. To me, your heart was an oyster pearl formed in the black heart of the waters you watched over.

All the barriers you encountered splintered like thin ice beneath your feet, and you didn’t even notice. Because you knew who you were. A part of this land. An Islander. Guardian of both land and sea. Man, woman, sea creature: treasured in all your forms.

The wind is wild today, cutting ‘curlies’ through the dunes, as you used to say. Today, I feel you in the changing of the tides, in the call of the gull, in the softness of sea moss laid on salty stone, in the clamour of deep water, as a new storm begins stirring. More than once I’m sure I catch a glimpse of the silver tendrils of your hair, forever escaping their seal bone moorings, and the cast of an aging hand towards this point and that. Not a ghostly encounter, as such, an imprint of you the island has claimed.

I head North towards the old fort, feet brushing the bright blue Buglass as I walk. Geese cross the horizon in formation and in the distance steel windmills remind me that the passage of time is inescapable. I am head down now, watching the sand suck at my boots, eyes darting left to right, in hypnotic sweeps. No sign of fairies or dune gentian.

Not yet.

Maybe never again.

I think about grief and letting go. And wonder if this is why I have traversed the globe? To avoid coming home to the emptiness of missing you? Distracted, my foot clips a stone and I lurch forward, wind my unwitnessed pride.

I feel cold and dispirited, as I struggle to right myself. Sand stuck to my cheek; my hair unmoored; my clothes irreverent. I have pulled away from love and contentment. Never really feeling it was meant for me. This World demands so much of women. We always have to choose or sacrifice. I’m not confident that that will ever change.

Grief.

For the first time in a long time tears fall. Gush. Unfettered. A gull takes flight, startled by my howls. The sea wind cradles me, the sand contours the shape of me. The Lighthouse guards me, centurion like. In the distance the ruins of Piel whisper of blood feuds, greed and infamy. And remind me of the story of the girl born there, amongst tales of Princes and pirates.

I don’t believe you ever thought your life a sacrifice. I think you made it what your soul needed it to be. At peace. I have chased that all my life. Through war zones and battlefields. Shifting shape and losing more hope, with each new birth year.

I will take myself back to the warmth of the Lighthouse, now. Empty handed. Bruised. Tonight, I will call my friends. My sisters. I will laugh and maybe cry a little. Say sorry for always being on the run. For missing birthdays and births. For allowing the still chains of womanhood and loss, to terrify me, isolate me. I’ll ask them softly, to let me back in.

Home.

I am not looking for a beacon. I don’t need guiding home. I am not lost at sea. Shipwrecked. Hijacked by pirates. Abandoned to the sea stallion waves of Poseidon.

I fool myself. I see that more clearly now.

I am chasing the shape of you in the shifting sand and the wanton waves.

Here, finally, I am reminded, you are not a place.

You are a feeling. A freedom. An energetic force.

In 1975 Peggy Braithwaite became the first female principle light housekeeper, ‘Lady of the Lamp’. She followed in the tradition of her father who worked the lighthouse from the 1930’s relocating his family across the bay from Piel island. As a teenager she assisted her father in his duties, and developed a love of the Lighthouse, that was to span more than half a century, climbing those 91 steps everyday, until she was no longer able.

Her husband, Ken, supported her in her Lighthouse passion. Despite living a life of solitude, she was not a loner and travelled into Barrow once a week for shopping and a chat, often by boat. She was described by Walney locals as gruff but kind.

She was a rare flower in her day.

She was Dune Gentian.

Peggy’s Light house photo by me

camomile, nettle.

Place china cups

on a delicate tray,

breaking leaves

with reverent fingers

with a prayer,

with love

Pour water as a libation

Watch the steam rise

inhale

Brew slowly, with intention

Let devotion guide you

every step, a slow release

tradition,

comfort

honouring

repeat.

Image Didi Paul at Unsplash

I would be up there in your branches,

gently swaying in the arms

of your ancient canopy

🌿

Don’t worry,

I would be as innocuous in my presence

as the tree hopping frog

a tiptoeing lichen, a sleeping moss

🌿

I would hang on your every breath,

exchanging my carbon

for an intimate blowback.

A phytoncide infusion

🌿

There I would translate,

narrate, the biography of your bark

trace rough tales and fables

from our evolutionary arc

🌿

There I’d shed my humanness, in shame.

Let your woundwood soothe our scars,

map the contours of our earthly pain,

under the knowing eyes of dying stars.

🌿

or weep, or wail

You can sink to your knees,

in the long grass, and pray

for yourself and the world

and the cosmos will hear you

🌿

You do not have to wage war

You can offer yourself up to

the rain and the wind

and the rage and the pain

and not break or bruise,

the gentleness of you

🌿

You can love and be loved

with your whole, tender heart

even though it is

clenched with pain and

parched from the desert of affection,

the innocence long stolen from you

🌿

The world burns,

It always has

Power plays us like pawns

Old men trade in pounds of flesh

Show us were disposable

🌿

Meanwhile the heron

waits in the shallows,

as small fry edge upstream

Meanwhile the damselfly

skims the water’s edge,

fragile but defiant

Meanwhile women stitch

lives back together,

stich their own wounds

to hold the trauma in

Meanwhile,

I wish I could salve the pain

of the world

and stain it with wonder

🌿

Whoever you are, wherever you are

This pain is not new pain

It is the uncovering of old scars

Remember, when the night falls,

you are not alone

The Ancestors hold you

After Mary Oliver

Not quite in step,

but almost

Even with our eyes closed

we keep rhythm,

of sorts

Just the song of the sea

and the gulls

to guide us

✨

By the beach we brush arms

under ghostly stars

Barely touching

our heartbeats

a pulse of longing

Cells and atoms

entangled,

breathless, they

bind us

✨

Somewhere in space and time

Somewhere in spacetime

we are a law of attraction

to ourselves

There are no quantum rules to guide us

You are

We are

Energy

✨Firefly ✨

Meet me in the forest,

where

tree roots have scripted

ancient tomes beneath the earth

and the wind carries messages

in breathless cipher

……be held, my love

Be held

Meet me in the forest,

where

danger and joy are encrypted

mycelial morse code

mother tree sings

an aria in rustling leaves

…… be joy, my love

Be joy

Meet me in the forest,

where

all secrets of the earth

are coded in birdsong

And salmon leap skyward

where the river falls

……be free, my love

Be free

~ Firefly ~

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It’s a grey day today. A flat mist has descended on the town, it coats the windscreen and makes everything on the horizon blurry, out of focus.

Fergal is driving. Annie is tucked in her car seat, singing to Taylor Swift on repeat. Ralph our red setter, is gently panting in the boot.

Just as we turn the corner to Giles Street something glances our windscreen. Fergal brakes hard and we are thrust forward, like rag dolls. Everyone ok? he asks us. He pats Annie’s leg for reassurance. The car has slowed almost to a stop and the dad in him has kicked in.

As he pulls away, I feel him side-gaze me.

Under my breath I am mouthing the Fuck, Fuck, Fuck, like a mantra.

It’s just a bird he whispers. It flew off. We’re ok.

Now I have been safely deposited, they will head off to the park.

Fergal will chase Annie into the play area, where he will push her swing until she squeals with delight. Then they will untie Ralph and head down the hill towards the lake. Our favourite walk.

Fergal will worry all the way. He will think about me, even when Annie is chattering ten to the dozen, even when Ralph barks at another dog and yanks at the lead in attempt to pursuit. I don’t think there is a second of the day he doesn’t worry about me.

This is what he has become.

The chair underneath me reminds me where I am and why I’m here, halts the drift to safer places.

It is wooden framed with arm rests and a thin cushioned seat worn so much the grooves are fixed no matter the shape or weight of your rear. My feet rest lightly on the grey tiles.

The kind young me would have played hopscotch on.

The kind, I think, Annie skips on at pre-school as she navigates the long halls. I wonder if she will count them for comfort, like I do still.

When I was a child, we would play in the local quarry turned nature reserve. A hop and a skip away from home, but far enough to make us feel rebellious in our tender skin. The quarried bit was filled with water to form a serene looking lake. The banks were wooded and perfect for making camps. And picnic tables punctuated grassy glades. There were ‘danger’ ‘no swimming’ signs everywhere. But we didn’t care.

We would spend most summers there, wading through the muddy banks with fishing nets and jam jars. Scoffing jam sandwiches and those sickly marshmallow wafer confections from the local corner shop, washed down with a Tizer, top wiped with a sleeve as it was passed round and shared. Our fingers and faces would be a glorious, glutenous mess of marshmallow and mud, by the time we got home.

Most times my mother would hose me off in the garden pre bath.

‘You’re no better than a scabby hound’ she’d say. And we’d giggle as if that was the best compliment.

My friends were misfits like me, intense and odd looking, too big for our bones and familial hand me downs. We were the ones that excelled at school but had no clue about social mores. We hid our shame in fantasy worlds, limerence and obsessive collections of random curiosities. The meaning of which was always lost in translation. But our shared nerdiness held space for that. At least in private.

Somewhere in the room I am talking. as I sit. I sound cool, if not a little detached and I’m rambling from one subject to another. Hoping not to be pinned in one place too long.

I met Fergal in my 20’s. I had blossomed out of nerdiness into feminine conformity. He was the most ‘normal’ man I had ever met. I mean by normal, someone who played the game of life with ease. He didn’t seem to question or worry too much. He understood love. And even tried to understand me. No one had ever really tried to do that.

I hurt him early just to see if he would notice.

Not for pleasure but out of curiosity.

Something tightens in my body and my fingers feel sweaty.

Forget that confession, I don’t even know what that means.

Remember the chair, the weight of your body. Breathe.

Summers at the Quarry were slow and when I remember them it’s like they are playing on an old cine reel. Black and white and a bit grubby round the edges with wear.

In life, they were Technicolor. Rambunctious and heady.

It’s funny I haven’t thought about those days in a while. The summer we broke up to go to high school was our last. 12 years old and resistant as we were to the should and should nots of teen hood, they were drawing us apart bit by bit, regardless.

Some of us had Saturday jobs. Mine was serving tea to old ladies at the café. Paid in a few shiny coins and chocolate chip bun, which I squirreled away for out Sunday campouts.

We were usually up and off before our parents could question us. Leaving behind a cacophony of squeaky bike brakes and wafts of muted laughter.

We were creatures of habit, parking our bikes at the farthest corner. Rucksacks slung carelessly over shoulders. Cans of pop slurped as we travelled over rough ground to our den. Someone had brought a space invader game. And we were jostling to see it. Crunching each other’s toes and elbowing ribs.

Our camp wasn’t far, but well hidden. There was shelter made from a grubby tarpaulin, a rope swing and a place to light a small campfire. A boundary of sticks surrounded the perimeter to alert us to snooping parents and the local bullies. We’d had some battles there but always held our ground. All within, protected from the outside world.

Breathe.

The woods are quiet at this time of day, we are the only noise: crunching twigs underfoot, chattering.

The first thing we see is the birds. A whole gang of them settled on the branches circling our camp. At the sound of our arrival, they swoop up into the air like a black cape of demons. Squawking. Caw, caw, caw, caw. Startling us so much we shriek out. Loose footing, loose our bearings.

Loose our innocence, as we see the precious scene they are guarding there.

The hairs on my neck and arms lift, my heart is racing. Breath held. I am gripping the chair.

Today we end here. We ground. We breathe. We gather our thoughts before we return to the world. Memories loosened.

Fergal and Annie will be outside in the car now. Annie will have an ice cream in hand despite the weather. It will run down her sleeve and drip into a pool at the front of her rain mac. And when we get home, she’ll laugh and say, ‘look mum I’m a scabby old hound’.

Are somethings best left lost to the beating of wings?

Or, broken open in a room where someone holds space for the darkness, with the 12 year old you tightly holding your hand.

~ Firefly ~

My laptop is propped open on my knee, but the signal is getting patchy. I am supposed to be working, but the screen is blurring, and my mind is wandering. Your name flashed into my inbox, over an hour ago and now I cannot focus on returing calls and writing reports. I flick the nearest light switch on. It gets dark in this little room; the walls close in when the weather does.

My legs, tucked up underneath me for too long, cramp as I move back into place. Age side swipes me so often now. Not with cruelty, just with unwavering ambivalence to flesh and bone. I sip the last cooling mouthfuls of camomile tea. And watch as the sky breaks open, knowing that with it, the heaviness will lift, outside at least.

Dark skies pass so quickly in the valley, like a fleeting frown or scowl. And already, I see a flicker of clear blue sky to the west, hovering over the tops of Sitka Spruce, like a promise. There’s a rainbow somewhere, but I hesitate to go and check. I don’t feel like chasing rainbows today. For once it’s enough to imagine one’s there.

He knocks timidly, but it jolts me. I’m just going out to close the gates, he says. He doesn’t wait for a reply, and I hear his footsteps retreat and a door shut behind him. He does pick his times, in the middle of a cloud burst. But, he has his routines and I could set a clock by the comfort in them.

He’ll come back soaked through, of course, and drape his waterproofs on the aga rail so it drips, slowly, onto the old pine floor. The dog will lap at the puddle and as he tries to wipe the growing stain away, she’ll steal his cloth and run. The same old game they always play.

The rain has cleansed forest and the birds swoop down in gangs again. Still your email sits untouched. I roll a name around in my mind. Gently, as if you could sense the intimacy from a far. The quantum entanglement of it.

The last email I opened from you was 10 years ago, or maybe even longer. I was close to throwing it all away back then. Gambling on 500 words, that arrived 18 months too late. Too fucking late, my love. I’ve watched your life in pictures ever since. Not bitter. Not broken. Just sad, that we couldn’t write our story together like we planned.

Later that day, he runs me a bath. Places a warm a towel on the rail and simmers some soup. He never used to do this. I worked and then cooked; he worked and then rested on the sofa and waited to be called. I always thought this doesn’t belong to my generation. But, I became complacent and avoidant. Sunk into a pattern that made me resentful. When I look back, I sometimes wonder whether I courted that resentment, because he wasn’t you. He wasn’t poetry and opera and wild mountain hikes. I was never quite the song on his lips that I was on yours.

Another bowl? He gestures to the simmering pot with a blackened ladle. Tastes good, I say, but no I’m done for now. He smiles. There’s warmth in the smile but distance too. For a moment, I wonder if he can sense your presence between us. If he does, he doesn’t show it. His calm steady gait remains unmoved.

In a minute he’ll take the dog for an evening stroll along the muddied, woodland path. And I’ll retreat to my chair by the fire. From the outside looking in I have no doubt we look perfect. Sliding with ease into pre-retirement. Goals met, family grown. But where does the heart reach, but regrets, when it realises its time is finite. Sometimes in the small hours, I wonder about his and ritually wrap myself in mine.

In the light of the fire, I hover by the bookshelf. Complicit, as my eyes fall on a novel with a broken spine and yellowing edges. We read each other here. Solved every code of each other within its pages. It still vibrates with that soul sorcery. Bewitchment. We both began where the other’s words finished.

I am not the same person, of course. But I still have the same ache. It took me a long time to realise that the ache wasn’t to be solved or filled or conquered. That it was just a reminder of the enormity of love and life and loss and what it means to the heart to be abandoned or held.

At one time, but not at the same time, you and he were both my unicorns. How common is it for one unicorn to follow on from another? I wondered at one point if I attracted mythical creatures. Lured you in with a paradox of insecurities and unwaveringly convictions. The passionate unpredictability of me a harbour for you own rejected whimsy. Or maybe you just saw in me that unchecked pain and loneliness and stayed anyway.

These days my longing is for the rambunctious noise of nature, the gentle and rough rhythm of the seasons, the choice to read or walk, small gestures of kindness and love. Peace.

In the morning, I delete your email.

I don’t hesitate. I don’t regret. And with a press of a key, I breathe again – step out into my life, kick my boots against the sodden grass. The birds’ fuss and trill above my head and the dog barks, as the postman arrives at the far gate, waving.

And there he is in his wellies. No longer unicorn, just man.

Enough. Home.

And you?

Always for Eternity.

Just not now, in this life, my love.

It is at once available to all of us, and inaccessible to most.

Discuss….

Not to scare you, but for me it was like drifting purposely into your worst nightmare, the one that drags you out of comforting sheets and into terror.

A free dive into the abyss of the Mariana trench, with the weight of nitrogen narcosis tugging on your feet.

Then the slow, horrifying realisation that no-one is coming to save you.

The world is contrived to watch you drown.

With a little less hyperbole, it is learning to unpick the stories you tell yourself as self-protection and escape. The stories that others wove into your memory, to lift or to crush you. It’s the stories that the world has ready made for you, the templates that define your gender roles, racial identity, socio-economic status. We are all interwoven stories: fables, thrillers, love stories, tragedies. Quantum entanglements with life, land and space.

Deconstruction is having the courage to find the end of the thread and pull – unravelling everything you ever know or thought you understood.

For a time, my story was that I was broken, although I pretended not to be, especially to myself.

Every part of my story: abandoned at birth, adoptee, traumatised neurodivergent child of colour, chronically ill teen, chronically ill adult, cancer survivor, abuse survivor, told me I was broken. I mean where do you even start to put even a fraction of that right.

I’m not sure I embraced that story. I was never willing to be a victim of circumstance. I was always a rebel. I floundered but never sunk, just fought harder and longer, addicted to the chaos and always chasing ‘the dream’. Successful, but empty and slowly dying at times. (Let’s discuss chronic illness and cancer, another time!)

But then burnout met menopause, met recognised neurodivergence, met blind-siding C-PTSD and it all imploded. The perfect storm.

There was no escaping it. There was no pretending when physical and mental collapse had me fighting to even brush my teeth and string two words together.

Did I tell you I moved into self-imposed exile. Relocating across borders, finding the remotest place I could find to close out the noise of the world.

I didn’t know it then, but I was searching for safety. I was an animal looking for that quiet safe corner to curl up in and hibernate in.

On the outside, I had told myself that I was fulfilling a promise to 5-year-old me. That we would find a place far, far away from any humans and their cruelty and we would write.

But, in hindsight it was darker and more instinctual that that.

It was soul survival.

This wasn’t the only time I made this promise of escape to solitude; it was repeated every time my family packed our caravan and loaded us into the boot of our estate car to travel out of town and into the countryside. The Lakes, Yorkshire, and my soul land Scotland. Moors and mountains, forest and loch.

And later still as an adult every time I cried, bereft at leaving a log cabin in the woods, or a mountain trail.

The call to wild was never convenient, was always a few years away.

But I never gave up on the belief that one day the forest would envelope me, fold me up safe in its pine scented arms.

And, it did.

Lean in my friends and let me tell you a little more tomorrow.

With love from the heart of the forest,

Firefly x

I’ve not set any intentions this January, (see my earlier post!) except to be true to my creative self.

I’m not really sure what that means to me yet.

But I’m riding with, ‘express without censure’.

I’m not trying to prove anything to myself or to anyone else.

Rather, I’m following a calling to be authentic and visible

So, it begins here.

The truth and the creation.

A gentle breath of self, expelled into the unknown.

An inner call to courage, to be seen and to be witnessed, despite the fear.

*My pulse is quickening as I type*

My writing over the past few years has been for my own consumption.

Sometimes fevered nighttime ramblings, sometimes brutal autopsies of character and the LOVE poems (we’ll talk about that another time!)

Most of it, self-analysis to distract and deflect from feeling in real time.

I know you know what I mean when I say I have been overwhelmed, at times, by the bleakness of socio-political landscapes and eco-cide – human genocide.

Trauma upon trauma live screened and felt vicariously.

I have been fuelled for the past few years, mainly by pain and fear. Haunted by a loss of hope in humanity.

Unhealed wounds smarting under deep knotted scaring.

Grief etched into every cell.

In the long term there is no escape from a reckoning with trauma, yours and others, your shadow self, or the ruptures within yourself and the world.

The healing begins and ends with you.

But what I realise now is that I don’t have to do it alone, in fact I need others to help me heal. I need community. We need community.

I’d be honoured if you’d meet me here, in my healing journey.

Listen for a while. Witness me.

And, likewise, I’d be honoured to witness you. x

With love from the heart of the forest,

Firefly x

* I am labelling it as ‘societal’ but it feels both external and internal. Many successful decades of conditioning. And that little voice in my mind that often returns to say ‘could have done better’ ‘Didn’t quite get there last year, did you’.

For the past few years, maybe since the global pandemic shook humanity to its core, I have not felt the excitement of a new start, to a new year. Maybe it will be forever linked to the trauma of rising death tolls Christmas 2020/21. Covid definitely put an end to the illusion I felt of being safe, of being able to materialise ‘good luck, health and happiness’, at will, or at the turn of a diary page.

My joy of opening a new diary with its clean clear pages, entering birthdays and holiday dates – with hope and expectation of life being easier and more fulfilling and joyous, feels like it belongs to a past life. A life prior to lockdowns and mass awakenings. A life prior to attunement with nature.

So, I am sitting here at me desk looking out of the window at the little birds feeding with frenzy, blue tits, great tits, bullfinch and pheasant, oblivious that an ending has passed and a beginning has sprung forth, heralded by fireworks and song across the globe. And I realise that I don’t feel ready to let go and that because of this a small part of me is already feeling a failure, already bracing for the disaster of life to catch my coat tails as soon as the festive period is over.

I wonder if it has always been this way. Not feeling ready to let go. Abruptly cutting loose half-baked healing processes. Not allowing myself the grace of wintering in peace and contemplation. Forcing a start when the skies are dark and the ground is hard and my heart is still mourning the loss of the leaves and the flight of my swallow families.

There is a constriction in my throat at the thought of missing the chance to renew. I walk away from last year, as I have in the past all its lessons tucked neatly in my pocket, I vow that I will carry them with me wherever I go, but you know what it’s like, next day they turn up crumbled in the wash. So why rinse and repeat, year after year expecting the outcome to be new. What if all this renewal stuff is bunkum and the end must come organically – flow with the nature around me, not an advert on SM for losing weight, reaching peak fitness and manifesting greatness.

Outside nature is conserving its energy, not burning it wildly in the pursuit of success. It is feeding and storing and resting. It is underground, blanketed by the earth, its heartbeat has slowed, its breath is shallow. It is readying for the cold and for potential scarcity – frost thick, snow fall, icy wind blasts. It always finds a way to survive.

December has been frenetic, even though I live a quiet life I have family and friends and humanity is around me and calls on me to be present and involved. And I love Christmas (the sparkle of it and having family close), so it never feels a chore, but come the start of the new year I am always in energy deficit. Either recovering or succumbing to a virus. My immune system is begging me not to overload it more with unrealistic demands.

So, this year, I am going to still for a few days. Listen deeply to my body. Nourish and nurture it, not deprive it or judge it. I am going to thank it for its resilience and service and its ongoing patience with me. For its unconditional love, even though I reject it and abandon it so often – not consciously, but habitually.

I am going to try and do better. I am going to be kinder and more reverent. I am going to consciously honour and love, all of my parts. I can start that at any time, it doesn’t have to be at the turn of a year, a specific Monday or pre-event event. It’s not a goal or a challenge. It doesn’t require perfection. It requires a deep soul level dialogue with myself, as a whole being. Whispered tenderness. Slow soul nurturing. Creativity. Friendships and community. The continuation of a path I’ve been wedded to for the past 2.5years. Discovery and delight meet acceptance and compassion.

So, I carry forward this ending into the new. I will decide when it need release, if it needs release. Maybe in the Spring it will catch on a thermal and spiral through the valley with the buzzards. Free and limitless.

With love from the heart of the Forest,

Firefly x