Finding a Fullness.

My recent lack of wordful expression here has been personally noted, however, it is not because I have not had thoughts and emotions to express and my normal excitement bursting from all of my extremities, in fact that enthusiasm has not been quietly contained, it has just been needed; directed in the appropriate direction to attend at present to all of the aspects of my rather full and vibrant existence. Yet we've still contently wandered our way within the changing seasons, through Autumn and into Winter, nicely coloured with an array of new and cosy op-shop scarves and jackets.

 

We've met some fairly wild weather along the way.. tornado's, ravaging winds, house shaking thunder, flash hail storms..

But there have still been little treasures to find amongst the cold as well.

And the sky has a different freshness about it following a storm..

 There has been to mention, a... 'busy'?. somewhat consuming semester of university, although rewardingly balanced out with a handful of healthy A's scribbled upon the front pages of returned assignments, and then the unwavering calmness I've learned to maintain as I become accustomed to the otherwise unnerving exams that top off the end of each semester; also consequently adorned with that perky first letter of the alphabet. I have successfully changed my studies from a social work degree, to one majoring in social policy which will then be followed by a diploma in teaching so I can make my classroom participation a more permanent placement. Which leads me to the next notable usage of my time, a... 'busy'? school term with my no longer overly 'little' young man. It has been full of plenty of colour and character - from poetry about vegetables, to having Dad come and teach 25 extremely enthusiastic seven and eight-year-old's the process of making bread by hand over the course of a day - as the kids have explored the wonderful world of yeast and bread during this last term. Which of course isn't complete without a few bread like creations in his lunch box along the way.

Then there has been the most enthusiastic Dad wriggling his way into every Wednesday morning at school to take my now well be-friended group of little kiddly-winks (my own kiddly-wink included) to hopefully have made spelling a more thoroughly enjoyable exercise. And now, after more than a quarter of a century of life lived solely upon my little north island of New Zealand not having left once, I find myself just two very exciting weeks off hopping onto a large metal bird to accompany my 82-year-old grandmother to spend a month in the Autumny tones of the delightful English countryside.. the planning of which in itself has also made good use of my time.

So after a nice school holiday break with my little man, I pack my bags and and bundle up my new semesters books, we say goodbye to our ever growing excitingly life-filled house, I leave my boy with his mother for the longest six weeks of being apart.. and I stretch my wings... to embark on my very first explorative flight.

Although, I don't want to claim to be busy.. busy somewhat implies that you don't have enough time, or that your run off your feet - and were that the case, I'd choose my foot steps differently.. I prefer to suggest that life has become rather full. Full of the fullness of life.

However, of the greatest importance to note here right now, are the words in the poem that follow. For at only the gleaming young age of seven, a passion I have long had for vegetables has now been successfully passed along. 

Veges & Me.

Since when I was born, my Dad he has fed,
me full of good food to grow clever he said.
Like parsnips, and carrots and onions and leek,
beetroot and cabbage, cucumbers each week.
Salads of lettuce, pumpkin that’s roasted,
a diet of veges with sourdough toasted.
Peppers I like but eggplants I love,
As if they’ve been sent down from heaven above.
One time he made, just last week I’d seen,
the most glorious pie full of things that were green.
Bright red tomatoes, a handful of herbs,
with fresh hand-made pasta for dinner, superb.
No chickens, or pigs, or birds that can fly,
no sheep and no cows will pass my plate by.
For everyday when it comes to things eaten,
I promise you now, veges can-not be beaten!!

kids

Childhood for many of us is an accumulation of old memories; sights, sounds, songs, smells, feelings, words, people, places. Some of which are great, others often wished forgotten. And for others of us, say Peter Pan for instance.. childhood is a way to live life, a way to grasp tightly in your hand the joy that a light-hearted childhood brings. Regardless that we might age, find ourselves with responsibilities, our humour and taste in music, food and fashion may have changed, we can still approach everyday of life simply and honestly and enjoy every moment of it. There's so much to be learned from children, to be reminded of what life is like when simplicity is reinstated, and when you do you'll find that everything about your existence is more enjoyable... it's helpful to also let go of the old baggage and instead use the wisdom gained from experience to iron out the emotional kinks, rather than let them become you. For a child time matters only because they want so desperately to learn how to read a clock, or because if they can wait just ten more minutes then they'll be able to ride their bike down to the beach. Money is shiny, if you have more than one coin it sounds great jingling in your pocket, and adults seem to talk about it far too much. But it's also what you need to buy ice cream (or vegetables from the market - as my little man might say)... Friends are those who will join in on your game, or search for bugs with you in the grass, if you fall out give it five minutes.. or tomorrow is another day and forgiveness is almost as inevitable as eating lunch. 

I have fathered a child since I only just ceased being a child myself. On one hand that aided me to grow up and find the maturity I needed to find to enable me to take on board what it was that was right in front of me. On the other hand it meant that I still found enjoyment in simply the experience of life, which although seemed to have already been a part of my character, is now consciously my way of life. Side by side I live with this kid who is just so incredibly genuine, kind, passionate, and eager to learn. When I stopped to really take a good look I saw that children in general have these characteristics in them, but it is we as adults, the people who are responsibly for shaping and teaching our children, with all of our learned complexities, all our hurts that we won't let go of, all of our daily stresses and worries, that burden our children with our insecurities and they become the issues that define them.... 

So after the first year and half of studying toward a social work degree and feeling more and more confident in knowing my passion is to work with people, it had started becoming clear that I wanted to work particularly with children and young people. As time passed and my passion grew, as I learned more about myself, more about this world that further defines my character and ambitions, I stumbled quite purposefully upon my life changing realisation..

I'm going to be a primary school teacher.

It was an epiphany really, like every one of my childhood memories laid the path behind me that led to this point, and whats more it enlightened me with a trust in myself, in that as I live this life I will continue to find ways to live it as simply as I can. I choose to lay all of my worries out on the table, all of my past pains, my emotional vulnerabilities, my unfavourable characteristics, and I will continue to face them, break them down and let them go. And funnily enough, ever since I came to this realisation just a few weeks ago I've found myself surrounded by children...

I love school holidays, which is handy seeing as I'd still get them being a school teacher, and these latest holidays have been no exception. We have found plenty of great things to do... five enthusiastic children (myself included) spent one morning adventuring through the beautiful big Te Papa Museum in Wellington city, and then the afternoon at the Zoo with a family-pass my little man had won himself coming first place in a colouring-in-competition last spring. Despite cloudy, windy, slightly damp and rather cold weather we all had a marvelous day, the animals were all on their best behaviour, there were very few other people to contend with and we spoke to many a Zoo keeper on our journey.

We then had an additional seven year old who I've known since he was a week old come and stay for a few days, and it turned out more than excitingly.

To Happy Days - Every single one of them.
With Love,
Peter Pan.

the rising sun set

I never cease to find myself utterly amazed by this world in which we live, by its beauty, its enormity, its endlessness. We people, live upon this earth that is itself a living, breathing creature, that sustains all of human life upon its very surface and is forever moving and changing beneath our feet. We are each but merely a minute speck in this infinite universe, yet in that same infinite context so to then is the earth or the sun we perceive to be sitting in our sky, that in its partnership with our planet aids the existence of life. For more evenings than I can remember I have found a magic in watching the sun set at the end of each day. It is however, the intriguing relationship that the sun has with the clouds that most fascinates me. But recently, I decided after a marvelous early morning experience to make a permanent adjustment to my body clock so that I could also daily be witness to the first rays of morning sun; those first offerings of light to a fresh new day, with an innocence that is untouchable. 

The interesting thing about a sunrise, and a sunset too for that matter, is that the sun neither rises nor does it fall. What we are witness to is simply our point of perspective. In fact every moment that the sun and earth move in their eloquent cycles as they do, the sun is constantly 'rising' or 'setting' for somebody in some place or another on this earth. The sun provides us with the light that we need to be able to see, well, to see anything at all. What use would it be having eyes if there was nothing to see? The sun that quietly burns 150 million kilometers away and the light it shines leaves a constant steam of beauty across our planet, a trail of sunrises and sunsets that illuminate the horizon ablaze with life as the sun dances with the clouds so charmingly.

On the days when you wake to cold grey clouds, the sun still shines above them.

Even when we sleep in darkness the sun still burns away; night is but a shadow that the earth casts upon itself when it rolls over to get a little colour on its back.

The sun brings colour to our world, even if some days those colours are all just different shades of grey. I've been teaching my boy that the words good and bad are not words we should use to describe a days weather. We seem to have grown up learning how to let the whether dictate our feelings, although, we have no control over the weather, but we certainly do have the potential to control our own emotions. Just because some days the sun can't shine freely into our individual lives due to a covering of clouds doesn't mean that "its not a very nice day today". When we learn to enjoy every day simply because we get to live it, then a cold, wet, or cloudy day simply offers different opportunities to find beauty in life. The sun never stops pouring light out everywhere it goes, when days feel dark and cold, don't forget there is still always light behind the clouds.

A life full of style - and a style full of life.

The practice of resourcefulness is one of the most favourite parts of my life, one of those things that pervades through all that I do. It is most often by way of having only very little that we might first learn to be resourceful, which in turn aids in the ability to find and have everything we need - or at least this is how I have come to discover the marvelous virtue of resourcefulness. Mind you, it's also handy to have a keen eye and to eventually discover what it is you like, and importantly what it is you don't, so that you can train your eye to know what you're looking for. Using the skills of your own hands to create things that become parts of your life is also incredibly rewarding. Growing plants of all shapes, colours, sizes and qualities from seed and planting them into the earth nourishes the soil, and in turn our lives flourish. Fossicking and foraging amongst rubble left behind searching for forgotten diamonds, to later find our own lives more full of character, unknowingly helped along by those who preserved the precious items from times gone by, to me is priceless... It's as much a way of life as it is a style - and I totally love my style.

What's extra handy about living resourcefully, providing you can be patient, is that you don't have to have all that much money to live in such a way. It sort of facilitates itself, it's by the very means that you come to be resourceful that is the platform upon which resourcefulness can become highly developed. I started out with nothing much at all and by first discovering and then developing the skills that now resonate through all of my life, and excitingly my little mans too, we have the ability to fill our little lives with the beautiful things that colour our journey. We have no greater means to work with now than we have done before, yet our lives have become rich and full. This is not simply by the items that we have collected that now adorn our home, but I have begun to feel a brightly shinning light resonating from within, and I can see that same radiance beam from my now comfortably adjusted seven your old son. I know that such a way of living is not for everybody, modern convenience has become the life for some, but for every morning that I wake to find another day of life presented to me - I couldn't possibly ever live it any other way.

So when I was feeling a little skimped on the secondhand purchases front for the quarter of this year already past, I quickly found a more enthusiastic perspective when I could look about and see what we had actually discovered on our happy little journey over the past few months, and really at very little cost at all. 

It became quickly apparent that with our resourcefulness we had in fact still been colouring the rooms of our house with more of our character-filled and vintage style. It was simply that it has become so much our way of life now that I had briefly not noticed. Apart from buying nice new underpants and the occasional piece of clothing when an accumulation of jingly-coins allows, I actually can't recall the last time I bought something new. Buying items from retail stores is just not something I can bring myself to do, and of course if I don't want to - I don't have to. I think we all at times forget just how many choices we actually have, in fact in every single thing we do we have a choice. Often there are a multitude of expectations before the fact, and both real and potential consequences after - that we allow - to influence our choices. But ultimately everything that we choose to do, or buy, or be, is based upon our belief in the extent to which we are in control of our own decisions. When you discover that you can be all and anything that you wish to be, what could be more incredibly freeing, and at that point you also discover that really.. nothing else matters. Life is unpredictable, and in that we are offered an endless array of opportunities and challenges that we can neither change nor control other than in the way we choose to respond to them. You become the person you want yourself to be - as it is in our choices that we are defined.

It's never to late to start living your life for you, because just like the sun wants to shine out through the rain - you can't sink a rainbow.

Our Enchanted Woods

On a holiday my family took to the lake one year when I was just a young child, I recall I once briefly met a gnome. As I hurriedly wandered along the path that meandered for what felt endlessly around the entire waters edge, I stumbled upon this stout wee fellow slumped upon a toadstool. He wasn't very big, yet neither was I, and I'm not sure what it was he smoked form his pipe but he seemed rather a jovial chap. I was in no particular hurry, although was intent to move as fast as my little legs would carry and beyond the protective sight of my parents watchful eyes. There was however, a certainty in my somewhat limited stride that I would surely come across something magical beneath those trees, but only if I were to discover it alone. As I scurried along I could hear the water lightly lap against the lakes shore and there were the melodious tones of what faintly sounded like a mythical flute being played by fairies in the distance. My eyes were peeled to the track and at the surrounding trees, well at least at the base of the trees, as at the time my line of sight sat at only about two feet high from the ground. There was a memorable sense of whimsical adventure running through my veins that day, and it is that same sense of adventure that I remember so vividly that still thrives in the essence of who I am to this day.

 

 As I came around a slight bend in the trail there he sat, quite content with his spot in the shade and his pipe in his grasp smoldering away. I stopped, stood there silently mesmerized and we both smiled largely at one another. Intrigue lingered in his eyes, as if it were as exciting for him to see me as it was that I was seeing him. I parted my mouth slightly preparing to speak, and he removed the slender wooden tip of his pipe from his own. But before either of us had a chance to utter a word the sound of approaching footsteps and my kid sister humming as she skipped down the path broke the silence on which we had met. He quickly, though a little sleepily, got up form his stool and disappeared behind a tree. Within moments I was greeted by the other members of my family wandering the track behind me. As they approached my father took my hand and we continued along the path. I did glance back briefly, but he was nowhere to be seen.

I've never stopped searching for gnomes, and elves, and other magical beings amongst the trees of forests I visit. Although, I now have a companion to share with me my quest; to seek out the magic in the woods.

We've discovered a forest not far from our home and we regularly wander its otherwise unfrequented pathways.

 Many things have we found of beauty. Like houses built by birds,

and the delightfully disorganised forest floor,

 little stools for little elven bottoms,

the sculpted creations of the trees,

and the stage on which the morning light performs.

We've even found where forgetful little bugs have left their jackets hanging on branches.

But, although there is undoubtedly magic amongst this woods, we're as yet to have met another gnome.

Though I'm certain if we keep learning the language of the trees, how to whisper to the breeze, and build a trust up with the leaves... then every inch of our enchanted woods will come to life, and the forest will tell us her secrets.

And maybe, just maybe, two little boys will get the chance to befriend a gnome.