Motherhood

When I was a very new mother I left Harry in his pram outside the newsagent as I bought my daily paper.  I left Fred, our family dog on guard.  Lost in my chat to the sales lady who had just lost her husband to a sudden heart attack I left the shop, took Fred’s lead in hand and set off home.  200 yards later I felt something was missing!

As I sat by the lake yesterday evening two birds passed overhead.  A mother bird enjoying the sunlit evening flew smoothly across to the trees on the far shore.  Her baby supposedly following in her wake fluttered frantically behind, ran out of ‘lift’ and crash landed amidst the Canada geese family.  Even at a distance I could see his red faced embarrassment as he struggled into the air again.  Totally disorientated he flew back towards me and landed on the deck railing just two metres away.  This fluffy, bedraggled little kingfisher then bemoaned his mother’s negligence.  So I told him my story of forgetting my son.  After he had recovered his composure and dried out he thanked me and managed to fly to a higher branch some yards away where he called forgivingly for his mum who then arrived to hug her offspring after first giving him a feathered clip round the earhole.

And now this morning as I fed the fish, a cobalt blue dragonfly joined me on my hand and together we watched the other dragonflies dance over the water.  I so so love this Nature business.

Dead Squirrel …

I am feeling a little hoarse as I have spent half the morning in Jack Russell mode yapping at the grey squirrel.  Just as garlic is the bully of the food world, overwhelming all other flavours, so these aggressive furry pests are the bullies in our forest garden.  The blue jays sit in the tree two metres from our deck greeting us with their ‘please and thank you’ calls.  In reply we toss them peanuts carefully cracked open to make it easier for them to excise the nuts. Chipmunk husbands toil up and down the deck collecting and then storing their families’ food supplies.  They happily take the nuts from our fingers now, precisely storing each nut in their pouches.  They all have fitting names; One Nut (BF says I will give him a complex), NotchBack, FourEyes, Snatchy and our champion Olympian who can carry five nuts at a time.  As I feed these adorable little people with one hand the nuthatch perches on my other outstretched palm and gently takes his nut.   The titmouse prefers to take his nuts from BF’s slippered toes.  This morning one particularly pesky squirrel kept pinching the blue jays’ breakfasts, chasing our chipmunks and generally upsetting everyone.  Charged and found guilty of disturbing our peace, I launched my inner Amazonian, hurling spears at him.  Little grey bastard totally ignored me.   After trying out various different barks and growls I discovered the Jack Russell was the most effective.   Amazingly as I was mid yap the nuthatch still felt safe on my hand and continued to take his time selecting the most tasty of the nuts on offer.  It is such as honour that even at our most fierce these precious creatures are still able to trust.  Now I am off to squish that effing squirrel ….

Karma-Slapped (Again!)

I got well and truly karma-slapped yesterday.  I shopped in my local super superior supermarket, Booths, and then went downstairs to their cafe to claim my free cup of tea (with my loyalty card).  As usual I offered my card but was told I had to buy a cake or a biscuit to qualify for the free drink.  I never ever eat either.  In great high dudgeon I said as much to the member of staff.  I then paid over my £2.15 feeling extremely virtuous.  That feeling didn’t last long.  As I sat down I realised I could have bought a biscuit for 80p which I could then have given to the hungry pigeons I had been chatting with in the Market Square half an hour before.  Doh!  So, a lapse in mindfulness (it happens often) and my out of control ego cost me £1.35, the pigeons went hungry and hot water would have had more flavour than my cup of tea. Lynden 0, Karma Lost Count

Butt Kicks

I caught myself being judgemental today, yet again, and remembered one morning the Summer before last when I was firmly kicked up the butt by the He, She, It, They that is/are the So Much More.  As I walked towards the Coffee Shop I saw my Big Issue seller, David, sitting outside with a coffee and a very flash mobile phone on the table.  He had been homeless since he was 12, living mainly in the woods and making a few pounds selling these magazines.  I had become very fond of him over the few months since I had met him.  We shared a love of Loreena McKennit and had had a few good talks about spooky stuff.  But despite all that the thought was already in my mind, ‘Where did he get the phone from?’  I had sat down with my coffee and a refill for him into which he put eight sugars as he had to get his energy when he could.  He told me he had found the phone the previous night on his way ‘home’ from the pub ;  he had been celebrating a better than usual day.  He was also sporting a bruised cheek where one of the pub drinkers had taken a swing at him.  He was now waiting for the phone’s owner to come and collect it. ‘Oh Yeah!!’ I thought.

Just then Grant Mitchell’s double pulled up a chair and sat down. ‘Thanks mate.  I can’t tell you what a relief it is to get my phone back’ – Butt Kick Number One.  ‘Grant’ had two black eyes, the whites were verging on the vampirish, and he had clearly taken a very bad beating.  He stank of alcohol.  His marriage had broken up the day before and he had gone out and got totally wasted – ‘an alcoholic scrapper then’, I thought,  ‘Bet the other guy came off worse’ and as usual when someone says they are having marriage problems I waded in with advice about how there is always hope.  ‘Nah,’ said Grant, ‘I have been taking this from her for 5 years – she first knocked me senseless on our wedding night’ – Butt Kick Number Two.

I then saw a friend walking up to our table – Jane – a staunch Conservative  and usually outspoken church goer, looking decidedly perplexed at the company I was keeping.  ‘Please, please Jane, don’t say anything about proper jobs or alcoholics’ I thought.   I introduced her to David who held out the filthiest hand ever and Jane beamed at him and shook it warmly.  They then chatted about Venice!  Butt Kick Number Three.

After ‘Grant’ and Jane had gone David told me he was leaving that day to move south.  He had decided to go to Belgium to try again with an old flame he had been writing to.  There were many obstacles in his way (fixed abode needed to get a passport being the biggest) but he had been offered a lift that would take him one step nearer and he was leaving later that day.  His lift was with a police officer – Butt Kick Number Four.

As we said goodbye I gave him a huge hug, kissed his cheek and told him ‘lots of love’ and we both cried.  I just wonder what all those folks watching from inside the coffee shop thought of that scene and did they even begin to see the truth.  I itched for the next few days – just to drive the point home!  I have a feeling David was and is ‘So Much More’….

David then reappeared in Kendal last Summer and told me how he had reached Bristol, found a place to stay and had been gradually making progress towards getting to Belgium.  Then he had gone to a party and had awakened to find the flat deserted except for an unconscious young girl.  He had phoned for an ambulance and stayed with her fearing the worst.  The paramedics confirmed that she was dead, probably from a drug overdose, and the police arrived who then ran a check on David, discovered his active arrest warrant for an airgun offence in Scotland years before, and promptly put him in a police van and sent him back to Scotland!  The Scottish police gave him a caution and put him out onto the streets of Aberdeen.  David had then managed to get back to Kendal and had hooked up with another ex, Lainey, and after giving him a black eye for abandoning her two years earlier, they settled down in her council flat.

Lainey then appeared with their pitbullish dog, Bonnie, and joined us for coffee. Her face was a mass of piercings, her arms scarred from, as David later told me, self harm; outwardly a very scary lady but with a broad friendly grin.  I liked her and she clearly adored David.  He told me later that the night before she had knuckle dustered a Russian lap dancer who had shown too much interest in David.  I still liked her but I was careful not to smile too much at David!  At the age of thirty she had only ever known an unstable family life at which I can only guess, and I assume this had lead to her anger management, alcohol and mental health problems.  She was well known to the police.

I met them a few times after that and they seemed to be getting on well. David had shaved and was clearly enjoying baths, Lainey’s scars were fading and a lot of the facial ironmongery had disappeared. In August they joyfully told me they were planning their wedding and would let me know the date when it was set.  I watched them wander off down the road entwined and in love.

And then David disappeared again.  His friend, John, told me they had split up and David had gone back to the Scottish hills where he likes to live rough.  Years earlier he had suffered a stroke whilst on these fells which had left him with a paralysed left arm.

I have led a charmed life never knowing insecurity or abuse of any kind and when Denis, my husband passed away I was able to concentrate on bringing up Harry, my son, without having to rely on a career to fund my lifestyle.  Since Harry has been independent and happily living with his adorable Kate I dabble with a smattering of charitable work but am predominantly a layabout.  After years of freedom from the tyranny of the workplace I doubt very much I could commit to a conventional job again.  And so I do identify to a teeny weeny extent with those who have been both homeless and jobless for years (David has been mainly living rough for 20 years now) ‘Get them off the streets into sheltered housing, get them into work – this is what they need’, say well meaning do gooders.  Yes, a home and security are the end goals for many but getting there is so much more complicated and there are so many issues to be addressed along the way.  Gentleness, patience, compassion, understanding, respect and love will engender the trust needed to take that helping hand and start to heal.

We in our cosy lives cannot imagine that the life of a homeless person is a conscious choice.  We see their lives from our viewpoint and at best pity them or at worst curse them.  Sometimes as David told me freedom is too high a price to pay for security or a conventional home.  I feel his home is probably in the wilds of the Highlands and I so hope he stays safe there and comes to visit soon.

 

Quiet Love

Just back from a wonderful , snowy morning tramp, dodging the sledgers and excited dogs and one very excited sledging dog.  I met one of those truly beautiful ladies in the coffee shop who chatted as she waited for her husband to bring their drinks.  She had first met him at school and had paid him scant attention but when he came back from the War, aged 20 after 3 years in the Navy, he was reading the Lesson in her church and her fancy was immediately tickled!  She asked him to her 17th birthday party and as they played ‘Sardines’ she pursued him and joined him under the bed.  (How times have changed!)  (At this point we were both shrieking with helpless laughter and yes, damnit, I was crying!).  He had continued to show little interest in her so she asked him out.  ‘Oh, alright then!’ he said.  Three years of courting later she decided she needed to ‘move things on’ so she proposed.  ‘Yes, seems a reasonable idea,’ he replied and they got married.   Fifty years on as he sat on her hospital bed, his head bowed, unable to speak, she realised for the first time that not only did he love her but she felt the depth of that love.  She had just had a mastectomy to remove her cancer and her husband was in shock.  She was already in a wheelchair because of her arthritic hips.  CancerCare stepped in and helped them both with counselling, massage and meditation.  A year later with 2 new hips she got rid of the chair and now, after 9 years they walk 5 miles each day and if I had not done the Maths I would have sworn she was no more than 70.  Her story made me think of my son and his words about his lovely Kate ‘she’ll do for me Mum’ – it isn’t the soppy, over the top protestations of undying Love that are the most memorable or indeed meaningful – it is just the quiet, acceptance and trust that you love and are loved.

February 5th, 2012

FREEBIES AT THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY

ellisnelson

Blavatsky.009

Some years ago while reading about early explorers into Tibet, I came upon a biography about Helena Blavatsky. Madame Blavatsky was involved in early investigations of spiritualism and eventually went on to found the Theosophical Society with others in 1875. The original organization splintered, and Theosophy does not have the following it once enjoyed, but it continues to foster spiritual growth.

The Theosophical Society in America’s website (www.theosophical.org) outlines their vision, mission, and ethic.

The Theosophical Society in America:

“Has a Vision of wholeness that inspires a fellowship united in study, meditation, and service.

Its Mission is to encourage open-minded inquiry into world religions, philosophy, science, and the arts in order to understand the wisdom of the ages, respect the unity of all life, and help people explore spiritual self-transformation.

Its Ethic holds that our every action, feeling, and thought affects all other beings and that each of us is capable…

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Inconsistent Biblical God

Bob Edward Fahey

I couldn’t resist questioning encrusted old beliefs, though questioning was the worst of all sins. Adam and Eve had been fine wandering around nude among tigers and snakes until they’d eaten that apple and started thinking things through. We had to bet our souls on stuff that didn’t make sense; on wandering stars, wives turning to salt, and God stopping the sun so his own children, made in his image, could kill each other. Samson hadn’t cut his own hair, someone else had, but rules must be followed, so the hell with him, God said. Then our principal kicked a kid out of school for refusing to cut his. Adults kept changing “eternal truths,” and I couldn’t keep up. Everybody kept hammering away at the world like blacksmiths, each trying to beat it into something different.

– From “Entertaining Naked People” by Edward Fahey.

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What are the benefits of Mediterranean diets?

Really interesting informative article

lizziewhiteheadnutritionknowhow21

A diet high in fat, carbohydrates and wine has been shown to lengthen life expectancy and lower rates of cardiovascular disease. Want to know more? Numerous studies have found the Mediterranean diet to be the healthiest, but what do they do differently?

People have been programmed to fear fat, brainwashed with fat free products and the latest diet trends (As shown in the blog linked below). However, here is a little secret, which is not so secret. Fat is good, if tips are taken from the Mediterranean’s. It shows a diet high in ‘good’ fat, is more beneficial in reducing cardiovascular diseases, than a fat restricting diet. (Edelstein, 2014).

Their diet consists of fresh plant based produce, grains and good fats, with more than half of their daily fat consumption coming from olive oil (See food pyramid). This is rich in Oleic acid, a monounsaturated fatty acid which promotes antioxidant…

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