An Island That Shines

  I went away to one of the places that I love the most ~ an island where I spent some formative years. I went with my family. We were there for two days but we packed every minute full of goodness. We went to one of our favourite stores that is full of treasures. It was pouring rain but that didn't stop us. One super precious moment was a gentleman coming outside and giving a carrot to a little black bunny that was roaming around. It was quite tame and proceeded to munch away while the little girls patted it and the big kids enjoyed the sweetness. On this trip we got to see many cousins and three aunties and I spent time with very dear friends. We played by the ocean and stayed on a mountain top. I experienced going in a sauna for the first time and found it amazing. I also went to a funeral and met people that I had not seen for years but who had been so incredibly dear to my heart when I was younger. To see their faces, to recognize looks in their eyes, to hug them; it brought me back to a different era of life where I was softer and innocent and overflowing with so much empathy and sincerity! 

 Sometimes it's hard to face who I am now. I have empathy for what I have gone through and hold kindness but it was lovely to get to remember how I felt about these people and how I gave to them through the years. 

 I stayed with a friend I have known since I was eight and just before this trip I was able to spend time with a friend I had known since birth. Most of my friends live far away and seeing them is rare. My friends are such gems. They have carried me, sustained me, helped me, seen me, cared for me and it has meant so much. When I get to physically be with them it is such a gift.

 I also find that when I am on the island I feel so much more myself. Like things are right. I wish I could bring that feeling along with me. I have not quite figured out why I can't. So when I am there I am so thankful for the feeling.

 It was a nourishing two days and it will carry me for a long time

 I think there is value in recognizing what will carry you, what fills you, what sustains you, and what you yourself needs. Some people never take the time to ask themselves what this is. They numb and lull and trudge and never really thrill and adore. Their soul does not shine through their eyes very often. 

Shine soul shine

Do the work to find what that means

Thrive spirit

Live this hard, heart breaking, beautiful, bright, breathtaking life.

xo

Tansy

Spring ~ Praise Be

 The sun shone today

There was still a chill in the air

But the Snowdrops were thick in the grass

My mother asked if I had seen any Robins yet

She always reminds me how important Spring is

I am thankful

I see a tiny deeply purple Violet and

the Pansies I thought had frozen

Have raised their heads in praise

The grass is turning

A brilliant green

Can you feel the singing 

Nature is raising its voice in praise

As winter and death

Transform into newness and life

Praise be!

Praise be.

When You Consider The Time You Have Left

  In the past few weeks there has been death that has crossed my path. Two ladies who impacted me at different points in my life passed away. One had no warning and one had a small window of time to say goodbye.  When these things happen there is opportunity that is presented to you. You can look at your own life and ask yourself what you are truly doing with your life right now? Is it something worth while? Are you choosing to live a life that is kind, helpful, authentic and beautiful? Both woman who passed away were mothers, grandmothers, sisters, daughters, aunties, and pastors. Each funeral was attended by hundreds of people and one lady was, what I would consider, a modern day saint. Their impact was vast and their kindness changed people. Their loss leaves such huge holes in their families and devastation for their husbands. 

And this is life and this is death. We just don't know how much time we have. Humans are so delicate and distracted and also humans are so needy. People are looking for attachment, for a way to feel home, safe, to have permission to be themselves, and these woman extended that to others in totally different ways. 

 Today my son's friend walked in to my home and I was able to offer him warm cookies and milk and chat with him about his day and some other small things. I hope he felt cared for and heard. Today I took my children to the library and there were so many small moments of joy and smiles. Today the sun shone and the baby fell asleep on my back. My life is not grand, I don't have the chance to get out there and impact hundreds of people. However I can make choices to give to the people that are here and today I could. If tomorrow I was to pass away I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that there would be people that would say that they knew they were loved and a small part of that feeling would be because of me.

 Something that one of the ladies who passed away really loved was decorating the spaces she had and opening her home to others. Her funeral was such a reflection of that. Beauty and unique touches were everywhere and it felt bright and warm, there was food and fellowship and laughter. The other lady really valued people being allowed to grieve and she valued authenticity. Her family was allowed to show their grief, she hoped they would feel it, express it, walk through it, and continue to truly live. Her funeral was thick with spiritual beauty. You could feel parts of the love that she imparted to everyone collectively IN everyone. It was a powerful thing to be a part of. 

  I am thankful that I got to meet and be cared for by Tomana and Anne. I was not close to Tomana but I have this vivid memory of being a part of a valentine celebration that she had with her children and husband. I was the only guest and it was last minute. She whole heartedly welcomed me and I was amazed with my first fondue experience at a beautifully set table. I was also impacted by the church she led and the woman's nights that she would host at the church.

 Anne impacted my life very deeply. She showed up for me at times in my life when I felt truly alone and vulnerable. She listened to the Holy Spirit and she valued people being allowed to grieve and be imperfect. She suffered deep loss during her life time over and over again. She did not give up. She had to persevere through such hard hard times and show up for herself and her family when possibly no one was really showing up for her. Her kindness was astounding. I know she wished for more time. I don't understand why she had to go....I never will. And I am thankful that I was blessed to know her.

 So thankyou Tomana and thank you Anne,

and I will miss you both and I will see you again,

Love you lots,

Tansy

Being So Sensitive

  Do you ever stop and really think about who you are exactly? For example why you hate avocados with such a passion or find hiking abhorrent or why you have to have so much toilet paper stored in your house? 

  You are born with a temperament and your personality is formed over time. Your likes and dislikes emerge as you grown and learn about the world and as you experience it. I don't often feel like I understand myself. I feel like there is this wall that if I could just climb over and get to the other side I would see myself and then I would understand! I know that who we are starts in the womb and how our mother experiences herself and her environment when she is pregnant. I know that what we go through as a baby and little one forms many things in our brains that directly affect our forming personality. We are so unique and then we are also somewhat predictable. 

  Something that is hard for me to handle about myself is my sensitivity. I am sensitive to the weather, to peoples moods, and really to many things. I am often gauging how people are doing based on many things and too aware. I am a highly sensitive person with extreme post traumatic stress disorder. It's a challenge to exist in my body. 

  Being sensitive has helped me on many levels because it helped me form empathy and care deeply for other people and animals but it has also been so hard to feel so many little things and try to work through the feelings. 

  I also find it hard to be a creature of habit. I notice that in the grocery store I shop in a certain order and write my lists in that order. I don't like technology and don't adapt to it. I find a full calendar exhausting to look at. My hobbies have not really changed all my days. I am getting smaller and smaller in my life in regards to social gatherings and knowing others. So much of this has to do with my childhood and my nervous system and my mirror neurons but also with my personality! I see my husband and friends who are opposites and marvel at their capacity and their vivaciousness and how many people they know and can talk to! 

  I love that I find travel an absolute delight and that people everywhere fill me with understanding. The world is a marvellous place full of artistry and brilliance and I love to be apart of it.

  I wish I had greater capacity for disorganization and mess. I find having six children and most of them being creative and disorganized leaves me with a life of constant cleaning so that I am not knee deep in what they throw from their hands as they zoom from project to project. Right now it is 9:14pm, no one is asleep and two children are deep into projects. I have tried to catch up all day to no avail. If I was washing dishes the baby had her hands deep in wall paint. If I was trying to fold laundry the children wanted to use it as a cave and if I was scrubbing the shower the baby was taking apart and scattering the contents of my purse. All I want to do is have a day to have everyone gone, and to rip apart every closet and clean out my home! My yard is an atrocity and an eyesore but I can't find the time to deal with it either. 

  I find that I wish for a few dear friends that have the time to give to me and I to them in really practical ways in the day to day. I have had chapters of that in my life that I will always remember with such fondness and thankfulness.

  Anyway, all these things I have realized through the years but the sensitivity amps up life in all ways. My brain is whirring with the needs around me and my body is tense from the caring.

  Whoever and however you shine as your self through your skin I hope you can understand the why's. I feel like that has brought such relief ~ to understand why! 

  

Welcome to My Adult Self

 As I sit to write I can see the sunrise out my living room window. The field across the way has frost on the grass and the puddle is frozen. The sunrise is deep pink and the mountains have some snow on them and look dark blue. It is such a peace filled moment. I have been looking for the moments of wonder everywhere faithfully. This is one of them. I have been getting up at 7:30  each morning for a while now because that feels like a good idea. I don't exercise (yet) or eat breakfast or really do all that much but try to sit without people needing me. I hope to make this an earlier time soon and then add in exercise and devotion and other healthy rituals that I can extend into my later years. But I feel joy at the fact that I can pull my aching bones out of bed at 7:30. Self discipline is a gift that I have often cast aside. 

  Another friend send me a podcast about neuroplasticity and our brains and some ways to take control of anxiety and other negative patterns our brains may be wired into racing to and to reprogram into gratitude and positivity. I have not been following all the steps but looking for wonder and focussing on those moments is one of the steps to take. As I write it's been just a few moments and the sunrise is gone. There is just the palest pink left in the sky. The sky is quite white really and the day may be grey but that sunrise was such a stunning start for my eyes to begin with this morning. 

  I am so grateful for people in my life that encourage me and want me to be able to move forward. Lately I have had a few people that have been consistent in teaching me and sharing with me what they are learning and how it is transforming them. It inspires me so much. 

  Another friend had this life altering encounter with her adult self. She felt like she often viewed and lived life in an older teenager or young adult state and that was a hard place to operate out of. When she was able to welcome her adult self in everything felt so clear, so right, and good! It was such incredible to hear about this experience and I wish I could be brave enough to welcome my adult self in more often.

 There is so much to learn isn't there? So much to work through and to process in this life. God bless you as you go through it all. It's not easy but when you go through life looking at everything like a capable mature adult there is so much more you can do! It's a beautiful thing and I hope I can get there.

xo

  

Throwing the Apple Away

  Today I fished an apple core out from under my bed and threw it away.  My baby can run around now and there are apples all over the house. The apple had been there for days and was dried out. It was such a little thing ~ throwing the apple away ~ but no one else was going to do that. 

 Today I went out into the field as the sun was rising. The field was covered in a thick frost. Each individual blade of grass and clover had its own frosty dress. It was beautiful, and as the sun rose and slowly filled the field it was both cold and warm. The ground frozen but quickly softening. My son came out with me but then was distracted by a neighbour friend coming out to say hi as well. It was glorious to take a moment and hard to take a moment. My body always has pain now. I stretched and prayed.

  Today I took clothes from all over my daughter's house and put them in her washer then her dryer. I folded clothes, I washed floors and her toilet and mirror. I washed dishes and organized things. I made an apple crisp from her ageing apples. I put away the cloth diapers and hoped to bless her heart.

  Today I baked two chickens and made mashed potatoes, I nursed the baby each time she asked for 'nanas' and I read some new books to my five year old. I listened to my ten year old explain his made up video game that he has derived from a series of books he wrote. I listened to my eighteen year old explain about his fingerboards and techdecks. I put stamps on my daughter's Christmas cards and got them mailed. I picked up my daughter from basketball and saw her run laughing to the van her face alight with joy. I listened as my daughter told me about her baby's lip and tongue tie revision. 

 Today I felt and thought of the suffering of dear ones who are going through sickness, death and loss. I thought of the mourning and the motions and the aching of their souls. I wished the world was not such a dark hard place. I wondered what heaven would be like. My five year old and I talked about heaven. My notions of heaven are vague and hopeful. I want it to be a place where I feel like myself, and like I am so deeply loved, and where I am whole and worthy. I think that it will be so. 

 Today I ate chocolate ice cream and apple crisp and whipped cream and I ate rice cakes and soup with my children. I washed so many dishes, and kept people hydrated, and drank hot chocolate and thought about the inflammation that the sugar would bring to my body. I revelled in the golden light of the sunset that spread such filmy warmth over everything for just a small time.

 Today is now becoming tonight and my hands are dry and cracked. I spread moisturizer over the baby and she tried to steal a quick lick of it. She has such blue eyes right now.

 Life has so many stages ~ and they are all precious in their own way. I am so thankful for this time and for this day. My days are filled with picking up the apples and throwing them in the garbage. Of looking out the window or running out to the frost and sun, of giving the cats more food and water, of changing another dirty diaper, of reading aloud all the stories, of giving smiles when I can and making a cabbage poultice for a chest infection. My days are filled with service and love. Thankyou for it all.

xo

Wonder

  A friend mentioned to me that she wanted to see wonder more in her life and that got me thinking about it. Today it was everywhere. 

 Right now I have a one year old that is becoming her own person. She can't talk in sentences and just knows a few words and right now so much of her world has to do with me. It is such an honor I can't fully express the beauty of it. She just wants 'up' 'up' and she sees me in pictures on the walls and points me out. She wants me to snuggle her and put her new boots on her and take her everywhere and the absolute wonder of this love. I am so thankful to have gotten to experience it. 

 My five year old today told me that she was sorry she had said I was as horrible as Satan :) We were on a walk in the cold and dark. It had just stopped raining and I was carrying the baby and we were walking the dog. My five year old feels things so deeply and is able to express things articulately and recognize what she is going through. So we were talking about all sorts of sad happenings. She has celiac disease and that causes her so much sadness, we are rehoming our dog and that is breaking her heart ,and there are other things she needed to talk about. I was trying to tell her how beautifully she was expressing everything and working through it and she just welled up with tears saying that she felt so bad about some horrible things she had said about me in anger. We were just walking along in the dark and just had our wonder moment and it was the most precious.

 Myself and my oldest daughter and my two youngest daughters went to a store today and my oldest had her new born baby. My one year old was running away over and over as fast as she could :) So my oldest let her run while I kept the sleeping new born and picked out some clothes for my baby. My oldest was expressing thankfulness that she had not had to have a c section and felt so strong and able to manage the heavy one year old at just two weeks postpartum....that whole scenario? Wonder

 The rest of my family is away right now at a property that is so beautiful and full of snow. Where we live there is grey rainy days on repeat and no snow. Their joy at being there and being in the snow....You got it ~ Wonder

It's always there even in the darkest hours ~ the wonder. Yesterday I was having panic attacks and crying on repeat and wishing that I could pull it together ~ feel less~ be more etc etc and it was hard to be in that. Today I cleaned for hours and wished I was with my family and yet there was wonder all around me.

May there be wonder all around you and may you see it

xo