Author: admin

12 Dec

Posted at 20:12h in Sarah's Journal by

This miniature fairy tale house, red with a pitched roof, (but missing the white picket fence) is a tiny library. It rests on the corner of Rushmore and Powerscroft Roads. There is room for perhaps twenty books. It regularly holds a mix of children’s picture books, adult fiction and the odd non-fiction tome for anyone to take. The Little Free Library movement sprung up in the US, and sells kits for anyone who wants to start their own. I deposited a shamanic self-help manual. As I passed later I watched young man with dog-on-a-chain take out a novel. The day after I found myself chatting with older-man-few-teeth. He was just returning two books, and a real advocate of the little library. Mis-judging them both I wouldn’t imagine either as avid readers. I was peering in to see if the Shamanic guide was journeying yet, and was happy to see it had gone to a new reader. This week I have felt dismayed by the proliferation of social media and sound bite culture at the expense of critical thinking and the longer attention spans needed to explore themes more deeply. I love the really accessible opportunities for random reading that this service provides. I couldn’t find a UK map, but there is a Facebook page as they pop up around the UK.
www.littlefreelibrary.myshopify.com

11 Dec

Posted at 23:04h in Sarah's Journal by

We set up the room before the group arrive. We work as a team to move the piles of papers, washing and shoes that have clustered in corners. Tony hoovers the stairs, sweeps the floor. I bake something healthy but sweet. Then Tony blitzes the kitchen, removing all evidence of my recent vigorous food preparations. Tony arranges chairs, makes piles of cushions and blankets. I build a small altar to support us in our work to find connection and depth. As I place crystals, eagle feather, bowl, candle and stem of whatever calls from the garden – crab apple, bay or rosemary. I speak my intention, ask for guidance. Then Tony and I meditate to connect and ground. One by one the group arrives with hats, boots and bike helmets, carrying backpacks with badges and patches on. They come full of the bustle of their day and the hassle of the journey. They may bring anticipation, anxiety, but also willingness and courage. Having created the conditions, the journey into mystery begins to unfold. A group of strangers spend the evening together each with whatever they are carrying inside, and being uniquely human together. It is always an extraordinary honour to witness and be a part of.

10 Dec

Posted at 23:02h in Sarah's Journal by

What is the story here? This is a visual landscape of decay, of impending change. There is a need for housing in the city that ordinary people can afford. There is pressure on local councils to provide more affordable housing from a depleted housing stock. Local government housing budgets are squeezed. Property developers and housing associations take over estates and mop up the profits. Developers are keen to maximize profits. There is limited space in the city. Gentrification is pricing out local people. We live in a time where austerity cuts the public services that buffer some of the worst injustices in our society. I live in a society where the rich are rewarded and the poor lose more. I know that the economic divide impacts health, education, access to services, quality of life and life expectancy. We live in times where corporate greed fuels politics. We have lost trust in politicians. Young lives are collateral in a system that does not value their creativity and gifts. Wall space is claimed for personal expression, and for competitive tagging. We live in times where power is wielded at the expense of people and planet. I have a vote.

09 Dec

Posted at 23:19h in Sarah's Journal by

Post menopause I hear phrases like ‘bone density’ with alarm. In my head I play back my mother’s mobility story, the uneven steps from orthotics to stick, then sticks, to walker and eventually wheelchair. I try to remember when it began. Over the last few months I have been experimenting with elastic stockings, ice, turmeric, magnesium, ginger, needles, massage, supplements and exercise. The word ‘arthritis’ has become a spectre. I find I am ignorant of the facts, the differences between osteo arthritis and rheumatoid. I vow to experiment with leg weights. I groan as I stand up from the comfort of the sofa. I fantasize about putting my feet up. Tonight I steal the cabbage leaves from tomorrow’s menu to prepare a compress. It is elegant in its simplicity. It does make me feel better, not least because I am taking action that increases my hope. My moods run in tandem with pain’s visits. Tonight I shall wear the delicate light green of crinkled cellulose.

08 Dec

Posted at 19:20h in Sarah's Journal by

I am watching the aging process progress at a rapid rate for Pickle. He is sixteen, an octogenarian Jack Russell. Sometimes he stands looking bewildered and we wonder what is going on in his head. He is deaf enough to ignore the postie, the slam of the front door and fireworks. His sight is obscured by terrier whiskers and cataracts. He bumps into furniture, the glass partition at the vets, and occasional lamp posts. He is on his ‘last legs’. All four are stiff. He falls up steps and is grateful to be carried up full flights of stairs. I notice with anticipation the collection of memorial thank you cards on display at the vets for the animals who have recently expired. For me the death of a pet is painful because I load them with so much love. Each pet becomes a recipient of my boundless affection. In return they are loyal, generous, reciprocate in their own way, and accept the weight of my emotional projections. It is precisely because there is only body language between us that their death is for me so hard to bear. I can’t explain the process to them, we can only feel. For now, Pickle’s shiny black nose twitches at the smellorama of our daily outings, and he lifts his muzzle with joy to take the air on bright days.

07 Dec

Posted at 16:48h in Sarah's Journal by

Now the leaves have laid the trees bare, the southern skyline pokes through. Sunrise is late enough that I catch the light spreading like honey over the towers of docklands. Walking later, the afternoon sun makes long shadows lean across the Downs. Parallel tracks are etched into the grass. Small dog with short legs stands on her long shadow limbs. Grass is enhanced with brighter green. A gold medallion appears at sunset to cast a spell on the grime of the metropolis. I scurry home to make turmeric latte. It is another yellow orb, this time held in a mug to comfort me in the early dark.

06 Dec

Posted at 21:40h in Sarah's Journal by

This particular piece of luck talked to me at the car boot. I paid £2, erring on the side of caution. I feel very lucky. I try to keep this luck in mind, and to be thankful for it. Displays of gratitude can make me feel uncomfortable, like saying ‘grace’. I love the American tradition of ‘thanksgiving’ meals, but they are bound in a complex heritage of oppression and religion. But more and more I feel the need to offer my thanks to the foods and other things that nourish me. I need to say thank you in a simple private way. Martin Prechtel encourages us to “feed the holy”, to make offerings and give thanks to nature, to the elements, to the ancestors, to all that is greater than us. I increasingly feel nurtured by the unseen, and I light a stick of incense to offer thanks and well-wishing to all who support and guide me as a personal daily ritual. In San Francisco’s Café Gratitude, each dish on the menu was served with a different earnest affirmation. “You are beautiful”, drawled the server with each coconut pie. It antagonised the cynical and made me blush. However, an authentic cultivation of gratefulness expands my sense of connection with all that is. The challenge is to walk the line between grateful and smug. “Piglet noticed that even though he had a Very Small Heart, it could hold a rather large amount of Gratitude” (A A Milne). I am following Piglet’s example and making more room to saying thank you.

05 Dec

Posted at 22:50h in Sarah's Journal by

We are sorting through the sum of a lifetime’s accumulation. There are boxes of papers, books, CD’s. Moths have beaten us to the clothes, which are relegated to bin bags. Four decades of creative output – drawings paintings, writing and recordings of songs are jumbled in piles amongst old water bills, every birthday card I ever sent to them, and scraps of paper with scribbled song lyrics. If there is a scheme or order to things it has been obscured by descending chaos and dust. Things that were acquired lightly have been weighted through being kept for years. I struggle to declutter my own things that hold most emotional importance for me; but with someone else’s collected works it’s easier to see where the bonds of lost dreams, unfinished projects, regret and significant memories have made things difficult to let go. This inevitable clearing can happen either voluntarily, or as this process is, by necessity. Lifting each cardboard box full of potential, I vow to resolve my unfinished business and label things better. One painting remains tall among the redundant furniture.  It is a prophesy, a portrayal of a guitar long before its painter became a musician. Sadly, it’s too big for their new living quarters. It is a vibrant portrait of the artist daubed with oils in 1985 when the possibilities of the future seemed infinite.

04 Dec

Posted at 17:26h in Sarah's Journal by

The Old River Lea is tidal. Beyond Stratford further downstream it joins the River Thames. Before they dammed the river as part of the London Olympic park developments, bream used to swim up here to spawn every spring. History intersects with Hackney via old pathways and water ways. Roman fragments have been found in the neighbourhood over the centuries. Hackney Marshes – land reclaimed in the 1940’s is bisected by an ancient thoroughfare – the ‘black path’. The ‘Middlesex Filter Beds’ were made to clear the water of cholera as part of the ambitious plan to pump and pipe water around the city. Despite knowing this and passing a London ‘mile stone’ at the boundary of South Millfields, it still feels incongruent to find what looks like a piece of archaeology. It is made of stoneware, a handle decorated in blue and white glaze. Is this the remaining piece of an eighteenth century picnic mug? Did it travel to what was a delightful country spot in a Hackney carriage? What will they find here in the future – micro shards of a plastic lighter worn smooth by tumbling water over grit and stones? Maybe the pair of spectacles Terry dropped here eleven years ago will be preserved in the mud for future treasure seekers.

03 Dec

Posted at 13:54h in Sarah's Journal by

I am a walking invitation to chat in my eccentric pink fluffy hat and “doggy in the buggy” (as children observe). Dogs and prams are both permissive signals. While the destination-focused-commuters, purposefully-cycling-freelancers, and earphones-in-runners move at speed, parents and people with dogs move in eddies in a different current. Loretta stops cycling to talk to me, enjoying the vision of dogs and human as we leave crows loitering behind us. Her face stretches then folds into a deep smile. We share a borderless conversation animated by spreading arms, “I love nature”. She bumps her heart and all that could separate us brings us together, “we are one”. She tells me about meditating in this green expanse, of her older husband, dogs, foxes, yoga. She feels British “inside out”, forgets her native words, tells her un-believing Lithuanian sister that she dreams in English. This spontaneous connection unfolds my heart, stretches my mouth into a wide smile. “God is talking”, she says, pointing at the sun which touches her cheek in spontaneous blessing.