Hi all, I have not written anything since my last chapter of Sally-Anne. I kind of burnt myself out, and blogging went out the window, as teaching has consumed large swathes of my time, my main new strength being in ‘verb-training’ children and adults in French, on the board, with swirling multi-coloured pens. I love doing this, and seriously love my verbs, but….it is taking me away from my writing. I find, if you don’t write, even for a few days, the ability starts to shrink, and it feels weird, alien, lost, as though it’s not going to be read, by anyone, ever.
Update on the last few months: well, despite Fred tripping over his own laces going down Bell’s Hill, and breaking his arm, in an apparent kack-handed attempt to get out of going, we went on a yoga retreat in Morocco. Fred mainly avoided the yoga and drank wine instead. He then grudgingly allowed himself a couple of gentle twists of the spine…. which instantly sorted out his long-term neck injury. Ha. It does help, see. I have been trying for many years to get him to do a bit of yoga.
I came back and joined about a million cat, greyhound, working donkey, soi dog, vegan, SPANA charity things on facebook and spend quite a lot of time ‘liking’ these and sending them money. There is even the wonderful Primrose mouse sanctuary, which you must ‘like’ immediately. The kids in the village of Tigmi had kept asking us for ‘un stylo, un stylo,’ so I sent them 200 bic biros as bic always last for ages. (Well, not in our house they don’t, as the parrots like destroying them. How can I allow that? See, I am not controlling my environment to the best of my abilities right now.)
I went to Jac’s chakra-opening yoga workshop, designed to open up the lower three chakras. It was a lot of twisting and folding forward. It felt good. In the relaxation at the end I got a lot of rich purple waves going up my field of vision, slow, soft, delicious. It was like being stroked by angels. I know what that feels like, blissful, as I have experienced it, but this time it was in colour. It was great but I now feel strange and am a bit wuzzed that I opened those three and am now not in balance. Are my upper ones still shut? Am I wonky like a plane with one wing pouring smoke?
Luckily, in a couple of weeks I am going to the follow-up workshop to open up the top three, or is it four? I feel like this is the only thing which can now sort me out. But by then will the bottom three have closed up again? Will I then start spewing dark toxins from the other wing? Shit, shit, my chakras….
I have been re-reading ‘the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.’ It’s actually much better than you think it’s going to be. I thought, ‘Oh, it’ll be like, ‘get up early,’ and ‘tidy your house’, ‘don’t eat beans and egg on toast’ and stuff like that, but it’s not. It’s more ‘be proactive,’ ‘think win-win,’ ‘seek first to understand, then to be understood,’ etc. With the fabulous ‘Sharpen the Saw’ encircling all at number 7, which means, look after yourself, do yoga, eat well, so that you are a maintained instrument for progress, change, evolution.
I have thus determined to spend more time in my planning and prevention quadrant, rather than in the crisis quadrant or the losers’ tea-making and thumb-twiddling quadrants. So I have moved all my books for teaching French upstairs to the drawers of my desk, marked by days of the week on which I will need them. I stole this technique off my neighbour Sue who is very organised.
I have got up to the chapter on where we centre ourselves. Some people are money-centred, or family-centred, work-centred etc. The book seems to be arguing that all these are flawed. It claims it’s best to centre oneself on principles, like honesty, I suppose, which do not ever change so we would not be at the mercy of changing family/work/relationship/financial circumstances. Would it be OK to be centred around Nature? It’s not a principle, but…it’s a massive help. When I am wandering through the woods with the dogs and a friend if I am lucky, I feel truly me and truly happy.
I did a Hale Dwoskin exercise which made you condense what you want to do with your life into four words. I ended up with ‘Walk, Yoga, Write, Inspire.’ The ‘inspire’ is meant to contain within it all my teaching. It is hard though to get it down to four. Janet spotted that I had no mention of friends or family in there, which gave me a bit of a panic. I considered changing the big four, but couldn’t see which one I could possibly take out. Then I thought, friends and family can join me on a walk or in the yoga if they want to, even in the writing. Maybe not in the teaching, unless they want to learn French, or a bit of flute.
We have a new clan member called Dara Fearghus, (what a groovy name!), my cuz Roland and Anna’s new baby. We are all so excited. He is gorgeous. I am trying to finish a children’s story for him, Pearly, narrated by….a flute, haha. It’s like a mixture between Black Beauty, the Little Fir Tree and Toy Story. Always best to acknowledge your sources! I will start posting chapters in the New Year. Gosh, maybe tomorrow? Ooh, 2015! Wow. It sounds futuristic. That means I must be old.
We are having a ‘Loners and Losers‘ New Year’s Eve thing tonight. Only about two people have said they will come. Maybe no one wants to admit to being a Loner and a Loser, or maybe they are all genuinely Out Tonight so therefore not Loners nor Losers. To be fair, we only created the event a couple of days ago. Anyway, they are missing out on Fred’s curry, a pool tournament, a roaring fire, lots of wine left over from Christmas, a bottle of Champagne from one of my students, and the company of us Lovely Loners and Losers.
Happy New Year to all my readers! Thank you for reading, from the bottom of my heart chakra. Please also read the several installments of Pearly, which will follow soon.
My New Year’s Rezzos: Enter lots of writing competitions, for a laugh, and for serious, starting now. Also Fucking do Loads of Fucking YOGA! Don’t forget! It helps everything: mind, body, the world. Get off your Arse and off your Stupid Computer and Awaken them Chakras! That’s just a note to myself. I am not being horribly bossy to the world. However, if you also wish to adopt as your New Year’s Rezzo ‘Fucking Do loads of Fucking YOGA’ then, please do, feel free.
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