Anniversaries of the heart....

One of my favourite books is by Sarah Ban Breathnach, called Simple abundance. It focuses on how to create a life of joy, not through grand notions but through an awareness and appreciation of day to day life. Whilst reading it, i was struck by what she calls "anniversaries of the heart". All of us have our days of rememberance. The days we mark by death, new life, marriage etc. But what are your secret anniversaries. What evokes your private days of marking. When spring dances through the month of November, i always remember being pregnant, strongly recalling the emotions and experiences of a time passed. This time of the year i remember my mother strongly, with Mother's day and the date of her death intertwining in my mind. July is tied up with winter memories and its own rituals. I like to think of my life as a tapestry or a sampler that i am working on. When i embroider i start with a blank canvas and by the time i have ended i have worked hundreds, thousands of tiny stitches that come together magically to make an image. Life is similiar, every day you are having experiences, stitches are being painted into the image that is you. So in that way i have no crisis about getting older. I feel my life is richer, warmer, more colourful then it was at 21.

I awoke to the howling of the wind and crashing of thunder and lightening this morning. Which is all good and well when you are lying three in a bed under warm blankets but not so great when you have to venture out into the cold. But the one thing that i like about this time of the year is the symbolic closing of your home each night. I like closing the doors and windows, drawing the curtains as night falls, i like filling the house with warm cooking smells, i like hot bathed children and random blanket nests. Its cold out there, but its warm in here.

Keep warm, heart and body!