Author: admin

02 Dec

Posted at 21:57h in Sarah's Journal by

When I feed the crows, a magpie sometimes comes to grab a seed or two. This magpie has pluck to stealth dive the feeding ground of a murder of crows. Crow and magpie are different species, but share the genus corvidae. Perhaps this is why the crows turn a blind beady eye. Magpie is an opportunist.  I hear cackling as magpies throw their weight around in the garden pecking order. Bullying apart, I enjoy magpie’s brash attitude. I recognise the magpie in myself – eager for the shiny, gathering resources. I pluck my spiritual teachings from diverse traditions. I experiment with practices from different sources, use what works for me. My shrines are scattered with small things made, found, bought, given or inherited that inspire me. An image of Mother Meera sits under a Buddhist prayer box. The breasted woman made of shells I made as a child, gave to my mother then inherited back is there with a small stone from Mount Kailash. Feathers found, connect to significant shamanic creatures. A one-eyed ‘Incredible’ found on the beach celebrates the ‘seer’ in me, playful plastic fox is a reminder too. There is a stone gilded with ‘love’ and affirmations to feather my nest with positive intentions.

01 Dec

Posted at 12:12h in Sarah's Journal by

According to the optician my sight is becoming more myopic. It seems to be a normal part of aging. My eye balls are becoming more ovoid. To write this I am wearing spectacles. I also wear other glasses to see longer distances. I start the day putting drops in my eyes. Changes in the eyes are markers of increasing years. I have faced an acute life threatening illness, but this gradual spectrum of chronic change is part of the daily reminder that my life is finite. My mind does its best to sideline this information. I enjoy my visit to the friendly opticians. I admire the cyber-punk contents of the optometrist’s case. I submit to the cleverness of science in the face of my own fallibility. The house is scattered with previous generations of glasses to be worn because the most recent appear to elude me. While this process of deterioration is going on, there is a parallel process of learning to see more. I notice things, I spot details of body language, I witness, I observe patterns. This seeing is growing in me. I am receiving more information in sensory ways, allowing my vision to become more than the pictures projected on the back of my eyes.
www.eyelondonopticians.co.uk

30 Nov

Posted at 14:54h in Culture Reviews by

‘Tell Me Who I Am’ is a fascinating documentary film made about an extraordinary set of circumstances. Alex and Marcus are twins, now in their 50’s. We see them beautifully illuminated in the studio as they tell their stories. “I don’t know who I am”, begins Alex. Like psychologists observing through a two-way mirror, we are invited into their worlds, their twin perspectives. Despite being identical twins, their experiences are not mirrored. We learn more about their responses through their body language – as they each return to glasses of water, sit forward or back on their chairs, and spread fingers across their faces when overcome with dismay. “The major thing about being a twin; you’re never alone,” says Marcus. The narrative is driven by compelling interviews, but flushed out with haunting images and atmospheric details through reconstruction.“ Alex lost his memory by accident, and I lost my memory voluntarily,” says Marcus. We observe as they open Pandora’s box and out pour secrets, truths, guilt, grief and shame. The whole tale spins on an axis of “blinding trust.” We become voyeurs in the deconstruction of an internalised history. As memory, relationships, family dynamics and identity disintegrate, what remains?  It asks whether our memory and history forms the bones of who we are? The connection between the brothers is under scrutiny. Through them this is a compelling examination of responses to trauma, and the expression of emotion.
www.imdb.com/title/tt10915286/

29 Nov

Posted at 10:31h in Sarah's Journal by

In the winter, under pressure, feelig the undertow of the future it’s easy to forget to play. I swap my fun for serious, suppress the silly. Rubbing my feet brings me back. Playing a tune, letting my hips move, opening my jaw to let a laugh spring out gives me back the present. “What’s in the veg box this week?” I ask. “One organic cat,” I reply. She knows how to play. She loves to stretch out, to follow her pleasure. Shelly plays mouse. Box plays house. I follow Ginger Girl’s trigger happy paws. I marvel at the simple fun to be had with cat in pursuit of pretend mouse.

28 Nov

Posted at 21:47h in Sarah's Journal by

Today this maple tree is putting on a show, amid the brick, concrete and scaffolding. In the city, more people don’t say ‘hello’ than do; but while I stop to take a photograph, two of the tree’s neighbours stop to comment on their local spectacle. A man on a bicycle joins the conversation. Then someone else points their phone to take a picture. I am heartened that nature can cause a stir and still be a talking point. The leaves have turned a loud shade of vermillion. The edges of the leaves are stained plum. This autumn in London I am watching the changes in colour with the enthusiasm of a cherry blossom admirer in Tokyo.

27 Nov

Posted at 22:24h in Sarah's Journal by

I have fallen in love with a rose quartz crystal bowl. It is the colour of strawberry lolly sucked to the thinnest diameter just before it splinters. Within its structure are bubbles and markings, part of the unique qualities that create its resonant sound. It is played with a suede striker once to initiate the sound. Then by winding the striker around its edge it brings a note forth. This particular bowl plays its very individual note just below F Sharp. I feel the sound knock against my chest. I catch my breath. It makes me want to cry. It costs far more than I can afford, but I am drawn in, captivated. I had not expected the different notes to be so particular. I had not expected each bowl to feel so individual. I had hoped to bring this element of expanding vibrations into the work we offer. Other bowls sit on the shelves with more flamboyant polychromatic sheens. I remain entranced by the deep rose bowl. I leave without it. Again I want to cry.
www.sounduniverselondon.com

25 Nov

Posted at 18:46h in Sarah's Journal by

I’m trying to find my way back to the ‘functional zone’. I sit in the sauna. I try the steam room with eucalyptus and mint to soothe my sinuses. I exchange massages. My head is foggy. The weather is clammy cold. I sound husky, my legs move more slowly than usual. Each night I sweat and cough, wake feeling bed-ship-wrecked – drenched and exhausted with bruises on the insides. I have lost patience with the common cold. It feels as though days keep escaping from me. The habitual sense of being overloaded with communication increases as my output decreases. I notice how an underlying anxiety rises as my inbox grows. Messages wait unanswered and my to-do list eludes me, mocks me. I realise how little leeway there is between the functional zone and feeling out of control.

24 Nov

Posted at 17:57h in Sarah's Journal by

My life changed when I learned how to regulate the pattern of my energy. The key for me was rhythm. I now try to follow a daily schedule of waking, walking, working, eating and sleeping. When I’m tired, I need to sleep. The energy drink has become a necessary boost for many who work too hard, too long, in irregular patterns then play hard too. I feel sad that the loss of self-regulation has become so normalised. Our circadian rhythms dictate brain waves, cell regeneration and other autonomic body functions. A life with a good balance of diurnal activity and nocturnal rest creates a foundation for healthy body and mind. I see the havoc played in those close to me who juggle shift work. The lift and subsequent blood sugar post Taurine drop of energy drinks are symptoms of a disregulated cycle, a different kind of disconnect from nature. I wonder who drank these – the workmen on the near-by building site, or self-medicating occupants of the church gardens?

23 Nov

Posted at 17:02h in Book Reviews by

Kathryn Mannix – palliative care consultant – meets those who are referred to her ‘where they are’. With the aid of “tea-with-sympathy” she listens, she sits with them, and she puts her immense experience and wisdom at their disposal. As a reader, she guides us to “accompany dying strangers across the pages”. She lets us into the relationship between those approaching end of life and their care-givers. The stories within this book often made me shed a tear, as they poignantly describe “what a privilege, to be able to observe families as they are forged in a furnace of love and belonging, so often with its fiercest heat at the ebbing of a life.” Mannix describes working within the medical profession, yet with the shift moving from being “focused not on saving life at any cost, but on enabling goodbye.” This book is also a practical read. “Reclaiming the language of illness and dying enables us to have simple, unambiguous conversations about death.” Just as Mannix with her patients hears and has needed conversations to demystify the process of dying, and helps them to identify what is important, she encourages us to do the same. “We should all have those conversations with our dear ones, and sooner rather than later.”

22 Nov

Posted at 17:04h in Sarah's Journal by

Always too busy, with self-imposed deadlines and unreasonable expectations of myself, today I have come to a standstill. My energy is low and concentration poor. I fitfully sleep then read. I am marooned on the sofa with the animals for comfort and company. Gigi uses my immobility as a chance to cuddle up and share warmth. I have slipped into a state of exhausted helplessness. A cold has delivered me briefly to ‘the kingdom of the sick’*. This is a temporary visit, but it’s a familiar place that I have spent long bouts of time in…I fall away from my engaged active life. My vision shrinks as though I am looking through a macro lens at my surroundings in close up. My eyes swim with the magenta of my shawl, my hands drink in the soft velvet of the cushions. A trip to the kettle seems an epic voyage. From moment to moment I track the aches and pains that circulate round my body – sore throat, swollen glands, headache, blocked nose, sneezing. I notice the heat ebb from my feet, squeeze knots of tension around my neck. I let myself off the hook, give myself to rest.
*from ‘Illness as Metaphor’ by Susan Sontag.