The ultimate luxury (except for the sea)

Everything has its season. There are now fuchsia clumps of rosebay willowherb* lining the hedgerows, in this still-grey July. After a lesson, my mare and I walked down the road. I whistled and she galumphed on the buckle of the reins, swinging her neck from side to side like she was a horse in Don Quixote and half-heartedly swishing her tail at the lacklustre flies. There are wild cherries nearby, the pale yellow and pink kind, the ones no-one thinks are ripe, on the mile-long driveway to Ewelme Park and we went to investigate (which is code for eat greedily) but were thwarted. Birds -- squirrels too probably -- know a good thing when they see it. I am sad not to be able to stuff my face with cherries, but they too have their season, which came just before fat squirrel season. The willowherb followed the foxgloves, which followed the ox-eye daisies, which followed the bluebells. Next we have pale pink mallow which grows with mustard-yellow ragwort or tansy. 

*I first learned about rosebay willowherb at pony club camp at Rossway near Berhamsted, from Mary Rose (MR) Haden Paton. I am eternally grateful and to this day they remain some of my favorite wild flowers.

Astrology has never held me in her thrall, but lately that seems to be shifting. After being shaken up by the new moon on Friday I am aware that I need to pay more attention.  (I'm delighted and relieved to see I'm not alone in this. Thank you to the MissW readers who told me that they too had borderline out of body experiences due to the planetary shifts). I can't express it better than by saying it felt like tripping. I was doing the things I normally do, going through the motions, but felt outside of myself, watching myself, and porous as a a sponge, pulling everything in, connected to everything, and being drawn outside, to the trees. My friend S said that maybe because I don't drink I'm feeling everything more. If this is more, I can't imagine what most feels like. That might be a full-blown shift in consciousness. But, just in case there was a wee chance I was losing my mind, I booked in for acupuncture, and did a bunch of kundalini kriyas and breathing; Lots of long exhales to help the parasympathetic nervous system, and lots of walks with the dog to recalibrate with nature. I also baked a fruit cake, a plum torte, and other things that made me feel useful and busy and flour-covered. I'm not making this seem smaller than it is, although that is my tendency. 

I’m not screwing around. All of this pretending and performing—these coping mechanisms that you’ve developed to protect yourself from feeling inadequate and getting hurt—has to go. Your armor is preventing you from growing into your gifts. I understand that you needed these protections when you were small. I understand that you believed your armor could help you secure all of the things you needed to feel worthy and lovable, but you’re still searching and you’re more lost than ever. Time is growing short. There are unexplored adventures ahead of you. You can’t live the rest of your life worried about what other people think. You were born worthy of love and belonging. Courage and daring are coursing through your veins. You were made to live and love with your whole heart. It’s time to show up and be seen. -- Brene Brown

Brene Brown is all about the "what would you do if no-one was watching" and I've had a version of this thrown at me three or four times over the last couple of days. I'm so tired at having to excuse myself. I'm not ashamed of being out there and embracing alternative healing. I'm really not! So I'll just say this: My Chi was off. I knew it and although I had to kinda keep it to myself, I found a great acupuncturist called Anna in Henley. I loved her face so much in her photo (and she's an ex-Olympic hockey player) that I thought, she's my woman. I just sort of knew she'd get it, and she did. I walked in to her light, bright office and I'd hardly sat down before we'd mentioned all the things we have in common. And "what brings you here" she said, "this might sound a bit woo woo but I think my Chi is off," I said. "Hallooo...I'm an acupuncturist, I live in woo-woo" she said. (I had a similar experience with a friend/client to whom I suggested a book. You have to be careful. People can be very conservative and unwilling to shift the views that they've inherited from their parents. "I loved James Doty's 'Into the Magic Shop' I said, "but I'll warn you, it's a bit woo woo." "I grew up in Northern California. I have woo woo in my dna" she said. Oh God, it's such a relief not to have to apologize for who you are anymore. It's such a massive weight lifted.) So, forty minutes later, with a needle in my third eye point, two needles in the fleshy bit between my thumb and forefinger, another two at my knee and ankle, laying on her comfortable table and staring at rays of sunshine playing on the ceiling of her treatment room, we were gabbing away about Esther Hicks and James Doty and Rupert Spira. But she asked me this question, what would you do if no-one was watching, and also, what would you want if you could have anything. I said "safe." This of course was a slightly provocative thing to say without context. "Oh I'm not giving you secret code or anything. I don't live with an abusive partner. He is the kindest man on the planet!" But then I thought about it. What does safe mean? Safe is curled up in a warm duvet with a dog for comfort. Safe is lying on the grass, covered with a horse blanket, staring at the clouds and watching them change into animals. Safe is homemade cake and tea next to your person. Safe is being present to the now. Safe is no surprises. Safe is not putting anything off, not hiding anything. Safe is being allowed to be yourself. Safe is, actually for me, not having to sparkle, and knowing I will be loved nonetheless. This is a very hard thing.

Part of the reason I miss living in Laurel Canyon so much is the liberating lack of judgement. "It's all good" isn't code for "you haven't passed the salt, you ill-bred cur." People are just open.  And kind.

So if this is the time to cast off all the things that aren't serving you, what would you choose to lose? What have you carried with you all your life that you've inherited and have chosen to adopt because it served you as a child or as a young adult, but really doesn't help you one bit now. Let me give you an example: A popular notion when I lived in Los Angeles was potluck. It was something you'd accept from your child's school for a get-together picnic, but it would creep into other social gatherings - you'd find "pot luck" written on an invite in jaunty comic sans and your heart would sink. At least my heart would sink. Why? Why exactly did this bother me so much? It's a conundrum. And why is a pot luck so much worse than a picnic, a thing I adore? Fear of a bad dish? Fear of something you don't like? A lack of control? Ridiculous, isn't it? Potluck is joyous. What an opportunity to try a food from another culture, or something you've never had before! No-one brings something they don't love to potluck. It's delightful. 

Also, I'm not saying that potluck is a major curse I need to drop. I think I'm being overly dramatic. ;)

But I'm doing a Ronnie Corbett. I digress.

(I met an artist at a dinner the other night who was most definitely the Ronnie Corbett of women painters and I told her so. She wore it as a badge of honor. I love people who talk too much, particularly when their stories are fascinating. Actually, only when their stories are fascinating. Sometimes people who are anxious speak too much, about nothing, and it tends to bring out the worst in me. She made painting incorporating blood and bones and hair and even her mother's ashes. Which I suppose is a great way to be memorialized.)

I think what I'd like to say is that everything has its season. Nothing blooms all year. And neither do we. Slowing down is what we can do for ourselves. It's okay not to sparkle all the time...because when you do, it will be that little bit sparklier. We are so powerful. But, as I told my lovely acupuncturist yesterday, we need to charge our batteries.

And to the question, "What would you do if no-one was watching?" - what would you do? It's such a lovely question to think about. That wonderful idea that you could revert back to the stuff you loved as a child, and throw yourself completely in it, naked, and abandon yourself to it, not worrying not even once whether anyone was going to judge you. WE ALL DO THE BEST WE CAN, people! Give us a break! Do you remember that feeling of being on the beach and building a sandcastle, totally focused, salty-skinned and probably sunburned and totally drooling with childish focus? Or building a fort in the bracken? Do you remember how it feels to be so enveloped in your own creativity that nothing can stop you? We had a version of this. My brother and I were always out playing in the woods or the fields, or on our bikes, or exploring, and so my father installed a bell, a huge bell on the side of the house, the size of a church bell, and it would be rung at supper time by a long rope, because we would become so engrossed in our projects that we would easily forget to eat, our legs like jelly from running around in the dusky summer evenings. I'd like that again. Wouldn't you? We're so tribal, so tightly knitted together, so intent on being part of the groupthink surrounding our consumer culture - these shoes but not those, this dress, but definitely not that color (that's so 2023) - we're all pulled in to it. Imagine the bliss of a world outside of space and time where you can just be who you love and do what you love, and nothing stands in your way. In fact, the whole universe is collaborating with you, meeting you where you are, so that you can birth your creativity, whether it's a sandcastle, a flower arrangement, a cake, or watercolor. Just imagine how blissful that would be. That, I think, is the ultimate luxury.

That, and the turquoise blue sea to swim in.

PS. I gave my mother a pile of flowers from the garden this afternoon and she made these. How very beautiful.