100 Day Project - Day Thirty Seven

100 Day Project - Day Thirty Six

There’s something especially delicious about a Sunday on a Bank Holiday weekend. I’m working and trying to figure out a mega packing schedule for the next few weeks (which is really challenging my organising skills!) and, even so, it feels like a more commodious day because there is still tomorrow to come… we’re right in the middle of the three-day weekend sandwich. Delicious.

Really, I think we should be having three-day weekends every week! What benefit do we enjoy from all this increased productivity because of amazing technologies if we’re not getting back this time? I’m lucky because I’m not as tied into the five-working-days rhythm as some, but my clients are and there’s a limit to the extent I can opt out of it. So I, along with working stiffs everywhere, love, love, love an officially sanctioned long weekend. Especially when the sun shines.

We might even squeeze in a matinee movie, or some art-play, or a random nap in the garden swing. Fancy that.

“Sunday, the day for the language of leisure.” ~ Elfriede Jelinek

100 Day Project - Day Thirty Five

Have patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart... live in the question.

Rainer Maria Rilke

You can't lie to your soul.

Irvine Welsh

100 Day Project - Day Thirty Four

We are our choices.

Jean-Paul Sartre

I really love having options. Lots of paths to explore, a variety of things to do, choices to make from lots of possibilities. It’s one of the things that makes life juicy for me. I’m definitely a “variety is the spice of life” sorta girl.

This week I’ve been wondering if, even for me, there’s such a thing as too many choices, too much variety? I don’t know definitively. I’m mulling on it.

It’s not just about the freedom to choose but that it seems to me, being properly able to exercise that freedom requires options to choose from. No options, or only two, doesn’t seem right to me. I don’t want to live in a binary world. It would arguably be far easier to live in a simpler situation. Many alternatives bring challenges, for sure. But what would I lose without them? Diversity & complexity equate to richness for me.

So, I guess when I consider the alternative, less is not more for me.

Back into the messy, too-many-options fray I go then…

100 Day Project - Day Thirty Three

Trust your heart if the seas catch fire,

live by love though the stars walk backward.

e. e. cummings

The only calibration that counts is how much heart people invest, how much they ignore their fears of being hurt or caught out or humiliated. And the only thing people regret is that they didn't live boldly enough, that they didn't invest enough heart, didn't love enough. Nothing else really counts at all.

Ted Hughes

Your heart is not wrong. Your heart is your strength. You don't have to be ashamed.

Laini Taylor, Days of Blood & Starlight

Her heart is smashed glass. Peer into her jagged edges to see what refracts from the light of her past. Kaleidoscopic beauty.

Curtis Tyrone Jones

I have matters of the heart on my mind today. Reminding myself that being heart-driven, even when heart-weary or even-heart-broken, is really the only way for me and that’s okay. I find I am not alone in this:

100 Day Project - Day Thirty Two

True for the very introverted. True for me.

100 Day Project - Day Thirty One

"Butterflies are not insects," Captain John Sterling said soberly. "They are self-propelled flowers."

Robert A. Heinlein

Remember to look up. Even in a stairwell. You never know when you might find yourself swept up in a cloud of giant moths and butterflies.

100 Day Project - Day Thirty

…and everything burned in blue, everything a star

Pablo Neruda

Fire; element of creation, transformation and destruction. I'm a redhead (with trademark fiery temperament), a Sagittarian (a fire sign, described as spontaneous, intuitive and passionate) and, in Chinese astrology, a Fire Horse (apparently the most unconventional, freedom-loving and adventurous of the Horse types).

Whether one sets store by these things or not, I feel that I embody something of all those things so it’s hardly surprising that I have an affinity for this element. Hardly surprising that I have to be careful not to consume myself or others with it. Hardly surprising that I have to pay attention to what my fire needs to keep burning. If it dies, I die.

When I was younger, my fire raged often un-controlled and the line between impulse and recklessness was not always well-managed. It could be wild and damaging. These days, I experience it less as wildfire and more as deeply flowing molten lava. Sometimes it erupts (and that can still be scary) but mostly it’s well contained below the surface.

I like to think that over time I’ve learnt some of the wisdom of the other elements and I also benefit from being surrounded by lovely people who bring balance to my world with their different elemental mojo. Earth grounds me in the tangible, here and now; Air brings breath to inspire thinking and perception; Water cools and enhances the emotional ebb and flow. But at the core, fire is my thing.

At the risk of suggesting I have leanings towards pyromania (I don’t) I do love a fire related ritual. They’re great for both letting go and setting intentions, releasing and igniting, in equal measure… Also great for just staring into. This photograph was taken sitting around the firepit at a friend’s house on the first warmish evening of the season and I love that, with the addition of some magic pinecones, we were able to transform the flames into this beautiful colour. Turquoise flame. Magical & meaningful for me.

100 Day Project - Day Twenty Nine

Human freedom involves our capacity to pause between the stimulus and response and, in that pause, to choose the one response toward which we wish to throw our weight. The capacity to create ourselves, based upon this freedom, is inseparable from consciousness or self-awareness.

Rollo May, The Courage to Create

So, I'm now eleventytwo days behind. The schedule shot to smithereens. But here I am, today. Here we are. The world keeps turning. Days come and go. Sometimes in a blur of busyness and sometimes in a drag of ennui. They come and go regardless.

I’m torn between finding that reassuring and desperately wanting to hit the universal pause button so that I can catch up with myself. Of course, that’s not an option and most of the maelstrom I experience is internal. My life is no more this than anyone else’s, despite what it sometimes feels like, so it’s about finding the space to pause neck-deep in the river of my life and take a deep breath. Catch my breath. When I remember to look up and out, or wade out to the bank, even for a moment, I’m better able to do that. Even better if I take a moment to snap where I am in that moment. Ground myself, literally. Now if I could just remember to do that more often.

Anyway, here I am, today. Here we are.

100 Day Project - Day Twenty Eight

The voice of the sea speaks to the soul.

Kate Chopin

I love seahorses. Always have. This little guy was enjoying the sunshine through the window today. It made him sparkle.

Their symbolic meaning is apparently quite intricate, and several cultures consider them extremely magical and lucky.

The Ancient Greeks believed that the seahorse was connected to Poseidon, the god of the sea, earthquakes and horses. For them, they represented strength and power. European alchemists thought the seahorse was the carrier of souls into the underworld and in this worldview, they ensured safe passage, especially for sailors. The Chinese believed them to be sea-dragons, so they were revered for their power and thought to be symbols of good luck. In some Celtic circles, the seahorse represents fatherhood, as it is the male seahorse that gives birth.

Associated with the water element, they have been connected to perception, awareness, the subconscious, intuition, mysteries of the self, compassion and family. They’ve come to represent patience, contentment, and protection.
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They can also be associated with the notion of staying true to one's self, as they are strange but graceful swimmers that do not need to change who they are to adapt to their environment.

I love seahorses. Always have. This little guy reminds me of that.