Singalong a Saturday and a Powerful Speech

 I saw this new artist at the Brit Awards on TV a few weeks ago and loved her energy. The lyrics are very interesting and insightful. 

I am adding this speech in parliament this week from a Labour MP about his battle with addiction and recovery. Very powerful too. Not music I know but very courageous indeed. 

November 2nd - New week, new month.

On Saturday I attended this event at the Good Grief Festival. I sang my heart out along with lots of others who were also attending. I shared my singing with others via our family groups on WhatsApp. 

I sang in memory of my Mum, my Dad, and all of the others that I have said goodbye to. The song reminded one of my sisters of her husband who died nearly ten years ago of Leukaemia. I was afraid I had upset people. It is a habit my family have of not mentioning sadness or loss and grief; this is why I have struggled for so many years. 

I reminded myself it is healthy to feel grief and to speak about loved ones who are no longer with us. 

It was great to see the full moon on Saturday and to think about the Celtic/Pagan Festival of Samhain and to feel the connection with all those who have gone before. Thinking of endings and beginnings, the grief of saying goodbye and the joy of new beginnings. The endless cycle of life, the universe and everything. 

Personally I am starting a new chapter in so many ways. I have spend the last two years (and more) grieving and feeling small and unworthy. The time is right to step into my own skin. There will be more grieving, but mostly there will be a stretching and a celebrating and a joyfulness. Freedom is calling me. 

The Celts saw the darkness as the beginning of the day. The Samhain festival started at sunset on the 31st October. A day goes from sunset to sunset, or so I read somewhere this weekend. 

It starts with darkness. 

There has been so much darkness in the world and I am hopeful that there is a bright new day dawning for the USA. The change that is needed now is overdue. I am not a citizen of the USA of course, but I am a human being and am watching events with the election with hope for change. 

My thoughts are with those in the USA today as I write this post. 

Also with those here in the UK struggling with another lockdown, or grieving loved ones who have died from or are currently in hospital with COVID-19. This is a frightening time. 

The love is needed so badly. Each of us going about our daily lives, we can bring love and compassion to each other. That is all we can do. Let's be joyful for all our new beginnings, let's let go and say goodbye with love and courage...."give people light and they will find a way." 

It starts with darkness. 

 

Sing a long a Saturday - it's been a long time!

 Hello. 

It has been a long time. 

To make it easy for myself today I thought as it is Saturday, why don't I do a sing-a-long-a-Saturday post. So here one is. I listened to him last night on Later with Jools Holland. Reminds me a bit of David Bowie and The Beatles, but of course unique and of his own time. Kind of like it....and he is only 21!

It feels like a music-ky kind of day. Hope you are having a good day and are safe and well wherever you are. 

Sending love and courage out there into the universe...

Wandering into March (in more ways than one) and International Women's Day 2018.

"The beauty of happenstance. Of looking for one thing and finding something else. of stumbling onto something when you were least expecting it. The book on the shelf next to the one you wanted, Overhearing an interesting conversation. Finding a special sitting spot. In just the right place. Seeing an amazing sunset. Stumbling across the perfect passage in a book. Discovering a place you want to go for tea. Taking a detour and seeing a different view.A combination of happen and circumstance. To find or come across by chance. Can only happen if we provide the opportunity for them to appear." 

- Keri Smith

Off on a wander last Saturday after taking my son to the airport. I had had a vague idea of where I was going, but on the way there I happenst upon a lovely coffee shop location, which due to the extremely cold weather(for the UK ), was quieter than it maybe usually is.

It had a great atmosphere and outlook,I loved the view of the trams and the design of the hotel opposite. I'm in the city closest to where I live. It's a great city with a great mix of modern and older architecture. I love visiting there. 

Second best location for my favourite coffee chain - 3.3.18

Below is my first  favourite city location for outlook from a coffee shop window, in case you were wondering. I drink too much coffee but I do enjoy a solitary sit in a coffee shop with an interesting interior and outloook.

I believe that JK Rowling the author wrote much of her Harry Potter stories sitting in coffee shops. How she managed this I don't know. I do love to people watch while I am sitting and wonder about their lives. Maybe I could try writing in coffee shops actually. There may be ideas all floating around.

London Trafalgar Square - September 2017

So back to my wandering. After two coffees and a warm up, I started across town towards my destination. I became distracted by the Library building however, which I had never been inside before. You can see it on the left of this photo, it is the white one with the columns.

Wandering in the city - 3.3.18

Here are some photos of the inside of the building. There is an amazing music library, where young people were gathered to play instruments and study. I love the staircases, and stained glass. I discovered this great project Talking Statues which I will need to revisit when I can work out the technology. Something for my next trip to the city. 

Apparently the girl in the statue(see below), is reading a poem called The Angel's Story, which according to the website, was printed on paper and pasted into her marble book. However by the time she was given to the library in 1938 by the family of the man who bought her in Italy, this had disappeared.

Girl Reading Statue - 3.3.18

Entrance Hall - 3.3.18

Staircase view - 3.3.18

View of the stained glass window and ceiling from the first floor balcony,

 The window was designed by the Arts & Crafts artist, Robert Anning Bell RA (1863-1933) and includes a portrait of William Shakespeare and scenes from many of his plays. The ceiling has coats of arms and crests relating to the local and surrounding areas. In the photo below there is a clue to which city I am in. Can you see it? Any ideas?

Staircase view - 3.3.18

Peeping into the Great Hall  shh! - 3.3.18

 I wandered into a couple of exhibitions at the library. One was the result of some community workshops for women in the city, where they produced creative work designed to represent a snapshot of women's lives one hundred years on from the Suffragette movement. 

There are a number of events happening to celebrate this anniversary in 2018 and also in March,  International Women's Day. This exhibition is called "Women’s Words." 

Rosettes - one of the exhibits from the "Women's Words" exhibition. 3.3.18

I bought the pamphlet that was produced to also display the creative work produced in the workshops. Here is a quote from that pamphlet, from Michelle Green an artist who led one of the workshops, which was for a refugee led advocacy group - 

"Here we are in 2018, one hundred years on from partial equality in voting laws, and now as then, the most marginalised women are still excluded from the gains. Having a female Prime Minister means little to women who are barred from working, imprisoned without charge for indefinite periods of time, left to fall through the gaps of an increasingly battered safety net. There is so much more to be done, and having seen the appetite for activism, communication and mutual support across these workshops, across this wide range of experience, identity and situation, I am brought back to something Sara said on that first day: Emancipation for women - it takes a long time."

My wandering then took me running through the city with another woman who had been late arriving for the Women's March, that had left from outside the library about 20 minutes earlier. I happened to be standing looking at a leaflet about the Women's march, when she rushed in and asked the security guard about whether the march had left and which way it had gone. I joined her and we ran to try to catch up, then following another running woman who also appeared to be trying to catch up with the march. 

We arrived just as the poetry readings and speeches were about to begin.The Muslim woman speaking in the photo below, whose name I cannot seem to find, was just amazing and so brave to be standing up to speak in this city.

Speaking about women having the right to choose how they dress and supporting each other despite difference.

Music - "You can' t keep this woman down."

Speeches and Poetry about the impact on women of gender, sexuality, disability, class and race discrimination and inequality.

Here is one of the speeches which focuses on  the intersectionality of gender, with other aspects of humanity such as race, disability, class and sexual orientation, and how that impacts on women's lives differently. 

One of the earlier speakers discussed the impact for working class or working women, of the suffragette's achievement 100 years ago, recognising that the movement was a middle class movement led by women of privilege, and at first benefiting them. On February 6th 1918, The Representation of the People Act gave the vote to women over the age of 30 who met a property qualification. The speaker asked "what was that working woman's escape hatch? and reminded us that "it's my privilege to be born in an age when escape is possible." But again reminding us that this is a work in progress, women today have the possibility of escape but still this depends on who you are, where you are born and many other factors.

 My wander then returned to it's orginal plan and I visited the city Art Gallery where I explored briefly the exhibition "Painting Light and Hope". More about that another day, but suffice to say this is an exhibition of a woman artist who was also active in the women's movement 100 years ago. Annie Swynnerton also became the first elected female member of the Royal Academy of Arts. I came home having bought two books and with plenty of wandering and exploring still to do. 

Books to explore. 3.3.18

A great day of wandering and happenstance. One my good friend who died almost a year ago, would have loved. She was an expert wanderer, poet and feminist. She loved to lift other women up and she brought light and hope to other human beings despite herself having a very difficult life at times. I felt she was close by me all day. She'd have loved this song which I post again, with gratitude for the suffragettes and the beginnings they made, and for the men and women today who are continuing to press for progress,

 

Just start where you are....and start again....and again.

When I look back I often feel that I wasn't given the "right" guidance by my elders or maybe the guidance was well intentioned but maybe not given in the kindest way. I ended up fractured, and as an adult I've spent years trying to gather up the fragments. Like the adults who raised me. 

Yesterday I was thinking about my priorities in life and trying to work out, again, how I can retain a work-life balance on my return to my busy workaday life tomorrow. Putting one foot in front of the other is all I can do and reminding myself at all points where there is a space, to choose "grace not shadow."

" Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our Freedom." 

- Viktor E.Frankl.

I wanted to post a video here, of Emma Gonzalez one of the students who survived the shooting last week, in Florida. I linked to the video instead or you can search for it yourself if you can bear to watch it. Please watch it. Emma addressed a gun control rally yesterday in Fort Lauderdal, and I happened to see the video of her speech after coming across it on Twitter. I was in awe of her courage and passion, but very sad for her grief and anger. One of the tweets said "the young people will set us free." 

Here we are in 2018. I truly hope that young people around the world will have the courage to stand up and do right. To live their lives for their highest good and the good of others. That they have been given what they need in their childhood so they do not have to repeat the mistakes of their elders. That they are able to tap into all the wisdom of those who have gone before, so that the world does not have to learn the same lessons over and over again. 

Individually we will always be learning our own lessons, and will have to start again so many times. Here I am watching the world from my safe place and learning what I can do...putting one foot in front of the other. Reflecting on my story and how it was full of love and light. Thinking about my elders and how they tried to give me what I needed. Finding my own way, becoming visible and hearing my own voice again.

"Try to be a rainbow in someone else's cloud."

 - Maya Angelou

Inspire and be inspired - Lemn Sissay

I can't stop listening to Lemn's poem. Every part is my favourite and he speaks it so beautifully and passionately. It is a beautiful and powerful poem.

Open.

Courageous.

Inspire and be inspired.

Yes.

"Open all minds, open all dreams....research, question. 

Open all doors, open all senses,

 open all defences,

ASK........what were these closed for?"

"We who have walked the world

In the name of here

and where we came from 

Stand in this great city and say

I belong here, I belong."

The Report

I wish I could have been at this....

Here is a link to Lemn's blog Gold from the Stone and  to the article in the The Guardian where he explains why he chose to have this Psychological Report read to him on stage in a "live theatre performance."

“I was in care for 18 years. The care system should be a place where 18 years is a gift because you’ve got all the resources, the best education, the best psychotherapeutic work, and actually it was 18 years of betrayal, secrets, lies, beatings, incarceration.”

"This is the genesis of the Royal Court show. To challenge the compensation offered, victims of abuse have to provide a psychologist’s report detailing what they suffered and how it affected them. “You have to justify why everything that has happened to you has happened to you – and how it has played out in your life. Somebody told me the process of doing the psychologist’s report was worse than the abuse she went through. Part of the reason I’m doing this on stage is to show what people have to go through to get redress.”

"There is another reason. Sissay has found it too painful to read all his files, let alone the psychologist’s report. He says he will find it easier in the theatre. “I feel good on stage. I feel, in a bizarre way, like I’m with family."

I find his story so incredibly unbelievable and terrible, and there are so many very similar terrible stories of children let down and harmed by the system as it was then. The horror of realising you had been lied to and that your Mother had asked for help but had never agreed to your adoption, is unimaginable. The rejection and shame of being rejected by the very people who had been identified as responsible enough to care for you for the whole of your childhood, must be unbearable. Then the mistreatment and racism within care.

Lemn's words to end with.....

“This is not about me picking the scab. It is about getting redress, navigating my way through this minefield and trying to articulate what was always meant not to be articulated. We were meant to be ashamed of our experiences and not talk about them.”

Sunday Snippets - Blogtoberfest 2013

"Have good trust in yourself - not in the one that you think you should be, but in the one that you are." 

 - Maezumi Roshi 

Monday is for Yoga - 14th October

The horizon is glowing tonight - 15th October

October Swan in the rain - 16th October

Space - 17th October

Tickets! - 18th October

Colours of food - 19th October

Reclaiming my space - 20th October

 Horoscope for Aquarius (week beginning the 17th October).

"Here's the horoscope I would like to be able to write for you by the first week of December: "Congratulations, Aquarius! Your quest for freedom has begun to bear tangible results. You have escaped a habit that had subtly undermined you for a long time. You are less enslaved to the limiting expectations that people push on you. Even your monkey mind has eased up on its chatter and your inner critic has at least partially stopped berating you. And the result of all this good work? You are as close as you have ever come to living your own life -- as opposed to the life that other people think you should live."

And further wisdom from Rob Brezsny: 

To be the best pronoiac explorer you can be, I suggest you adopt an outlook that combines the rigorous objectivity of a scientist, the "beginner's mind" of Zen Buddhism, the "beginner's heart" of pronoia, and the compassionate friendliness of the Dalai Lama. Blend a scrupulously dispassionate curiosity with a skepticism driven by expansiveness, not spleen.

To pull this off, you'll have to be willing to regularly suspend your brilliant theories about the way the world works. Accept with good humor the possibility that what you've learned in the past may not be a reliable guide to understanding the fresh phenomenon that's right in front of you. Be suspicious of your biases, even the rational and benevolent ones. Open your heart as you strip away the interpretations that your emotions might be inclined to impose.

"Before we can receive the unbiased truth about anything," wrote my teacher Ann Davies, "we have to be ready to ignore what we would like to be true."

At the same time, don't turn into a hard-ass, poker-faced robot. Keep your feelings moist and receptive. Remember your natural affection for all of creation. Enjoy the power of tender sympathy as it drives you to probe for the unimaginable revelations of every new moment. "Before we can receive the entire truth about anything," said Ann Davies, "we have to love it." 

It has been a good week. I hope that yours has been a happy and safe one too. 

Six or seven thoughts on a Saturday - Blogtoberfest Day 12

click to visit Day of the Girl Summit

 Today my six or seven thoughts are about this......

Since 2012, the United Nations marks 11 October as the ‘International Day of the Girl Child’. The day promotes girls' human rights, highlights gender inequalities that remain between girls and boys and addresses the various forms of discrimination and abuse suffered by girls around the world. 

One in three women and girls experience abuse in their lifetime. 

More than half of sexual assaults are committed against girls under 16 years of age.

Globally, more than one in three young women aged 20-24 years are married before the age of 18.

...which leads to this....

 

How I can take positive action to make everyday a Day of the Girl? 

  “Whatever you think you can do or believe you can do, begin it. Action has magic, grace and power in it.” - Goethe (via Dani Shapiro)

Looking here and here and also here for inspiration.

Thinking also today about this....

click to find out where this photo comes from

 ....which leads on to this....

How can I start start taking action on what calls to me?....so that I do not turn away in fear and resignation. I am looking for ways to help here and here.

Thinking about how I can take action in my local community? Looking here 

and here for some ideas about taking the next steps.

Wondering how my creative urges can help me take action. I watched a film about the making of this sand art on Peace Day. Just being involved in something like that could be life changing.

"Therefore what we can offer the world is unique. If we don't offer it the world won't have it." - Dani Shapiro

Chewing on this today also......

"The soul-voice is about growth, exploration, risk, adventure. The soul-voice takes you out of your comfort zone to the places where mistakes are made, you often fall on your face, and life becomes challenging and messy. The soul-voice fills you up. It expands you. It enables you to take ownership of your life, even (or especially) when it drives you to do the things that scare the crap out of you.

When we pursue perfection, we have to shut this voice down, or carve it out entirely. This leaves a ragged void that we try to fill with our attempts at perfection, and when those efforts aren’t enough we insist that our loved ones meet the same impossible standards in order to fill that void for us." 

- Justine Musk 

 ...which started with my thoughts about this...

Ending today with thinking about this: 

Full circle

Friends on Friday (Blogtoberfest 2013) Day 11 and Link Love October Mission #2

Click to visit daisyyellowsquare

 Link Love prompt for October 11: link to five bloggers that always teach you something new.
 
1. First on my list is of course Tammy's blog at daisyyellowart - her blog is a treasure trove of fabulousness. It is packed full to bursting with ideas, prompts and tutorials. Art Journaling 101 is a series of blog posts that I've promised myself I will explore for quite a few months now, if not years in fact. Thanks to Link Love October Mission today I have been reminded of this promise to myself! My art/study room will be ready for me to move into by the end of next week so I will be able to jump into art journaling 101 for the next couple of months leading up to Christmas.

2.Morningaj is another blog where I always learn something new. Usually about history or language in this case. Anne also likes to write about her travels too which I always love. She also has several other blogs, this one showed me what tiny miracles that could be created on a square-inch of card! Truly unique.

3. Marianne Elliott   always teaches me more about being human and taking a full part in this life. Marianne is a human rights advocate, a writer and yoga teacher. She says this about her blog, "We’re all capable of great things when we find our own authentic and unique place in the world. We all have a role to play in bringing about a kinder, safer world.I created this site to help you discover what great things you are capable of, to uncover your unique role as a change-maker, and to make sure you have what you need to stay well do those things."

4. Snap that is Penny's blog, where I learn about how to set goals and reach them; about interesting books to add to my reading list; about Canada it's geography and social history; about Kenya and the missions  that are so close to Penny's heart; about good food recipes and craft projects; about Penny's family and how she plays her full and joyful part in life. About the beauty of the mountains and the sky.

5. What can I say about Kat and her blog  I saw you dancing? Do I always learn something new? Well I always come away thinking differently about situations, questioning my habitual ways of coping and dealing with life, understanding myself more deeply or wondering about the fabulousness of human beings. I love the way Kat plays with language as a tool to work out and soothe difficult feelings and in particular for me(and I am sure for others) I love the way that kat seems to write in her words, just what I am feeling or struggling to articulate. I love her blog for the way it will speak to women who are also Mums of young(and growing) children and who are also creative souls. I often find new books, music and art through Kat's blog.

Sunday Snippets for Blogtoberfest - #365 days

Grace and Beauty - 28th September

Mr G has grown this enormous cabbage - it's like James and the Giant Peach around here - 29th September

Tiny new flowers on the plant I thought was dead and gone - 30th September

Flying South on the 1st of October - judging by the chill in the air this morning Autumn is really on it's way now.

Outside the hospital chapel - 2nd October

Not my photo really but it is my desk - 3rd October

It's been a very long week with lots of reflection and heart work - 4th October

My nephew is a great Dad - but just in case you don't believe me! - 5th October

Knicker Fabric -even my pants are a reminder today - 6th October

There is so much to say, I don't know where to start. #365 days

So I'll start with this week's photographs and that is enough.

I got my art/study room back - now to decorate and rip out that carpet! - 21st September

Rock and Reflections  - 22nd September

In Chinese Philosophy Autumn is associated with both courage and sadness and also with the sound of weeping
23rd September

Evening. Tuesday. Sea mist decending - 24th September

This is magic! - 25th September

This horse was rubbing it's behind on the post, whilst nibbling fleas off the other. 26th September

My long shadow. At least it is not always this long! 27th September