Breaking Point

Littletree was having a moment of overwhelm today – she lost the tiny magic key that she found in the forest, and it was just the last straw for her in an overwhelming situation.

She got really angry, and really frustrated, and said she wanted to scream and hit something. She chose to go into her bedroom and scream into a pillow and punch the mattress. I went into her room to offer her some support, and she told me she just really wants to break something.

I suggested she just feel into that, but that physically breaking something might not be productive. Then she got inspired, and asked if she could break sticks – the skewers we use for kebabs.

So I got her the packet of kebab skewers out of the kitchen and lay in bed with her while she snapped them. Half a dozen skewers later, she started talking about writing a program that would function like a to-do list, but with time stamps and check boxes, and with features like alarms and reminders.

Within five minutes we were out of the room, and talking about all sorts of stuff, happy again… and all it took was a few wooden skewers.

Artist Connection

I’ve recently come to know an amazing soul, Marc Wynter, through my best friend Bella. Since Bella has been staying at my house the past week, and she talks with Marc online most every day twice, we’ve become quite well acquainted.

Anyway, he just shared with me images of some of his amazing artworks, with the offer of gifting me a large print!

I’m absolutely in love with this first one, called Mother, which has the text “Mothering makes me feel like a pre-historic creature roaring in the dark”

Anyway, Marc is very keen to get feedback on his work, so please give your comments, insights, creative criticisms and reflections in the comments!

Beautiful Woman

Juggling

Last Night I Saw Venus

Joy of Motherhood

Frog Goddess

Rain, rain, rain; Flood!

Just to add a little déjà vu from this time last year when all the world around me went under water, it’s been raining again. Wait, raining doesn’t really describe what’s going on – we’ve been in a torrential deluge – 420mm (16.5”) in the last two days! This is coming on top of a whole load of rain over the last week or two.

Yesterday, we got flood warnings, I drove out to visit my beloved Ocean, and already some low-lying areas were under water.

But the roads were mostly clear, and the bridges passable, so we weren’t too worried… until we woke up to find over 100mm (4”) had fallen overnight, and the roof was leaking terribly, and the roads were all impassable, with rapidly rising waters.

Then the crawlspace under the house filled up with water – it got to be about knee-deep before it started seeping through the cracks in the wall and flooding the flat downstairs where Wind and Coola live.

Rushing around with towels and buckets, and in-between dealing with a sick Littletree (who fortuitously came down with a case of gastro in the night), I managed to get down into the muck of the crawlspace and set up a garden hose to siphon water out. At some point the electricity cut out, but it’s back on now. I hope that, at least lasts!

Phew!

In the afternoon, the rain eased a little, and we donned wet-weather gear and went for a walk down the hill, only to find half of the village under water, and all of the roads impassable.

Here’s some scenes from the highway and the back road out of the village – this is actually the bridge over a normally very small creek that resides about ten metres under the bridge it is now totally over the top of. The main river that runs through the village was a massive torrent, about 6 metres over its banks!

Well, at least we’re mostly dry and we have enough food to last a few days. I hope everyone out there is staying dry and has plenty of wine stocked up!

Water Dragon

Happy New Year of the Water Dragon

There has been such a constant stream of so many beautiful people flowing through my house recently, with Wind and Coola living in the flat downstairs, and our good friends Belle and Anasho have been staying, since they are temporarily homeless, as well as frequent visits from an assortment of random hippies and my beloved Ocean.

As group of us got together yesterday for a sacred ceremony to honour the new moon and the start of the Chinese New Year.

We all wrote out pages of our intentions and manifestations for the coming year, I chopped some wood,

We lit a sacred fire, ringed with the surprise rose apples we found growing in the back of our rainforest.

Then we said some prayers and set our intentions before giving the pages to the fire

Then we sat around playing music and dancing and singing before having a yummy feast.

Awesome start to the year!

Create Mystery

Life has been very interesting lately – all sorts of wonderful and amazing things happening. New lessons, opening, expanding… increasing awareness and bliss.

Some of the lessons are challenging, but all are rewarding.

One of my good friends, Wind, and her unschooled daughter Coola moved in to the flat under our house, so there’s been a massive influx of people in and out of the house, lots of friends, and lots of love. And more unschooled kids hanging around :)

One day down in the village I finally ran into Hellena Post – it was so awesome to get to meet her and her crew, and see her fresh kidlet earthside.

Littletree connected immediately with Hellena’s daughter Tiger Lily, the two of them played with all the kids for ages.

While hanging out with Hellena, I noticed a flyer up on the wall that said “Are You Creating History Today?” Luckily, I had a black marker on hand to fix it:

ARE YOU CREATING MYSTERY TODAY?

Well? Are you?

Snakes in the Night

Late the other night, I keep hearing odd clattering noises... on investigation, we discovered a smallish carpet python knocking stuff off my bathroom vanity. The shock! The horror! My bathroom vanity is cluttered, and the mirror needs cleaning! [gasp]

And what does any warrior goddess do when there's a snake upsetting order on her bathroom vanity? go for the broom, pick up the snake, and take it outside!

I was even clever enough to put on my knee-high boots, just for safety's sake... but in my hurry, I didn't shake my boots out first - I always shake out my boots, and nothing ever falls out - this time, I didn't, and lo! A great big spider crawled out and up my leg! Eeep!

No problems, all in the line of duty for a majik faerie.
(and yes, I do hang around the house late at night dressed like that – thanks to Purple for taking photos!)

The snake was released outside, hopefully the little guy is now cavorting freely with other snakes, and eating mice from around the house.

The Piano Girl; Reloaded

Remember three weeks ago Littletree said she wants an electric keyboard for Christmas and to learn to play piano?

Well, my super-awesome friend Ammonite put some time into trawling Gumtree.com.au (an Australian classifieds site similar to craigslist), and she found a local listing for a Casio LK100 electric keyboard for only $80.

It's perfect - cheap enough, and it's a "teaching piano" that has a feature where the keys light up to show you which keys to play with a corresponding LCD screen that shows which fingers to use.

Oh the awesomeness!!! She’s been playing on it several times every day since we got it (3 days ago), and making some progress already. I’m sure we’ll be having videos of amazing music before too long :)

Homemade Harvest

The past month has been such a frenzy of homemade awesomeness. Harvesting yummy veggies from our garden

Including cassava so we can make our own cassava chips (as well as so many amazing delicacies)

Amazing, delectable, organic, home made cherry liqueur, which tastes like an explosion of fluffy bliss bubbles in your brain

Hannukah Sufganiot

Homemade Bailey’s Irish Cream made from local, raw, organic cream, and served with my organic, raw macadamia and honey ice cream

Gingerbread yoni cookies made by my neighbour

And last, but not least, a local farm stall gave us a massive box of “seconds” tomatoes for only $2! What to do with such a tomatoey abundance?

Tomato Chutney!

In between the moments of madness, there’s been SO MUCH AWESOME!

I love eating locally, I love eating food that we grew ourselves, I love making from scratch all the things that even our grandmothers have forgotten how to make :)

Spoons

I have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, sprinkled with chronic depression and anxiety. Today, I really wanted to write something about that, but was struggling to find the words, and to find the courage to share something so raw.

Just when I was sitting here, starting to write, deleting, pondering, writing, deleting again, my good friend Catherine posted this article about The Spoon Theory. Perfect article, perfect timing.

A lot of times, I simply can't do things. Sometimes, I get badly triggered. Triggered can mean I get flashbacks; it can mean I'm no longer present in whatever is happening for me in the moment; it can mean I have extreme reactions to things that aren't, to the outside observer, even there. Sometimes I become violent towards myself.

I'm very aware that sometimes the multitude of steps it takes to do basic tasks - like eating breakfast - steps that most people aren't even aware of, is simply too much. A lot of days, I just don't eat at all, because I can't get myself around the number of steps required, just starting with choose what to eat.

I don't always manage. I don't always get it together. Most of my 'spoons' are reserved for taking care of Littletree. She, at least, gets food every day (some days it's just instant noodles - when I have more energy, I make up batches of stock to add to the instant noodles, so at least they have some nutritional value).

Some days, like this evening, I don't see the warning signs in time. Then it hits me, and I'm in spoon deficit. That's when I get really triggered, and it's terrible. Today, I totally lost it.

This is something totally inexplicable to most people, and even to myself. For the most part, people don’t realise I have any problem, and I often get comments along the lines of “oh, you’re one of the most together people I know”

I'm learning to get better. I'm learning to notice the triggers and avoid them, or take measures to alleviate the damage. I take some supplements, which helps a lot. I am learning to not take on too much. I tend to spend a lot of time avoiding reality when I need to (hello internet post count). And when things get really bad, I recognise the triggers and take a Valium.

Most of the time.

And sometimes, it just plain SUCKS. But it's good to know I'm not alone.

Which brings me to another post I've been meaning to write for a while... about the Matzav Kapit מצב כפית or teaspoon state.

It's an Israeli cultural thing (well, possibly exists in other places too) - the situation when one is laughing hysterically, to the point where one can't stop laughing. And then you manage to stop laughing. But if someone holds up a teaspoon, you fall to laughing again. It seems to work, even just saying "teaspoon"

A few weeks ago, at the Rainbow Gathering, one of my good friends, to whom I had introduced the concept of Matzav Kapit, noticed that I was feeling a bit down, so she spent the day hand-carving a tiny little teaspoon, because she knew it would make me laugh.

And it did! I laughed and laughed, and everyone I showed it to laughed. Only now, after reading the article about The Spoon Theory I realise just how incredibly apt it is.

Even in this moment, after I've been terribly triggered, and had an awful episode from which I am now bruised and have a massive egg swelling on my head, I can pull out my tiny teaspoon, and feel better.