Obaitori

return to simple

c

Apologies for the image sizes. I'm transitioning from a PC to a Mac after 20 years and I don't know how these things work.

The winter here is cold at the moment. Each year we get this tease of warm spring weather, every year we fall for it and every year it gets colder, way colder before it gets warmer. We had our little Landcare group yesterday. A gathering of neighbours and family to restore the bushland alongside our homes. It was a quiet session of hand weeding. I love this opportunity to just gently focus on the Earth, sit on the ground, pull out what the weeds and that's all. It's a real opportunity to practice being in the moment. It's not a hard meditation practice like some techniques. With the sun on my back I was separated from other people but could still hear there distant chatter. Heaven on Earth.

I'm pretty sure I've developed an allergy based reaction to red wine. Sad. I'm not convinced however, I'll keep experimenting. I've been to doctor's - 2 of them - Australia has a big drinking culture so in alliance with this they suggest I pop in a solution that has a knock over affect of the preservatives. They think this is what I'm allergic to, the sulphides. I kinda leave the medical establishment shaking my head. Aren't they meant to discourage people from drinking? I was invited to a friend's house for an oil demonstration. I had no idea what it was about but I forced myself to go, partly because I felt obliged and partly because of some incredible 'force' that I go. I heard some words uttered from a magical woman. She said that there should be a healer in every home. Those words really struck me like a big Buddhist bell hanging from the ceiling hit with one of those huge poles. I sat up straighter and listened more. I ordered a whole lot of oils and I've started to heal myself, everyone in the house and anyone who accepts a rollerball of oil I make for them. I'm going through this whole lifestyle change - stop reading here incase I accidentally kill you of boredom. It's really quite simply. Nothing new of course. Just adjustments really to recalibrate and put my life back onto a smoother path. More about all that later. 

gently down the stream

 

 

 

Good morning. A lovely quiet morning here before the house wakes up to another full day of life. We had an organics delivery last night which the fridge welcomed with open door. Bodhi made his first batch of kombucha and I made my first batch of Peppermint Bliss Balls. The dog is wearing his woollen pyjamas and I covered and settled the rabbits late last night, past midnight. The day brings, a new haircut for me, school for the children and a shared dinner this evening. I'm hoping to get down to the beach to soak up this beautiful wintery blue skied sun and make some exfoliating cream. I'll have to do a yoga nidra later to get me through on some five hour sleep from last night. Mercury is in retrograde now so I'm aiming to reduce my frustration by going a little slower.

Metaphorically, I'm changing where I sit on the bus. I'm going to try sitting in the middle from now on. Through habit and maybe some dna, I'm a back seat girl. Living on the edge, a soul rebel. Now, like the Buddha I'm choosing the Middle Path for my life. You see last night I awoke to this dream. I was on a bus looking at all the people around me. I chose that seat up the back but it meant that only one other could sit next to me. The middle part of the bus was vacant. I take this dream or lesson from my sub-conscious as, 'sit in the middle - be comfortable, surround yourself with friends who aren't constantly pushing the boundaries'. Don't get me wrong, I do like pushing those boundaries - I'm an Aries. But I think, maybe, just maybe, I'm going to be really me. Authentic, not trying to impress, not trying to write for a niche, just me. I'm going to try and slow down, not react but respond, get up early, walk twice as slow and see twice as much, stop and listen to my children when I feel like racing around like an idiot. Swap anger for gentleness, leniency, love, patience, peace, peacefulness, self-control and self-restraint. Fear with love.

"An important thing that you concentrate on developing yourself. Whatever others may say or do, those who have established their own solid sense of identity will triumph in the end. The great Japanese author Fiji Yoshikawa wrote in his novel Minamoto Musashi (an account of the seventeenth-century swordsman of the same name) "Rather than worrying about your future, thinking 'Perhaps I should become this or perhaps I should become that,' first be still and build a self that is as solid and unmoving as Mount Fuji.""

~ Daisaku Ikeda