Sarah’s Journal

08 Oct

Posted at 21:35h in Sarah's Journal by

After a delicious lunch – sushi dipped in salty with pickled and sweet – we walk to the beach. I am usually averse to cold, to wet, to mud. Today I slip off my trainers to walk skin on grass. My feet enjoy the experience. I take them to the shore where foam rolls towards them unpredictably. It feels good to stand in the shallows. Salt water laps up my calves. Salty liquids – great healers for so many ills. Later I lie and feel small pools of tears gather in my ears. No tragedy, just the trickling moisture of my humanity.

07 Oct

Posted at 21:08h in Sarah's Journal by

‘Nelson’ stands in the corner. His lower teeth push forward with an under bite. His jaw is anchored with two metal pins. We map painful places in our bodies in our workbooks. Tapping and massaging with fingertips, I find bands of tension around my skull. I open my mouth wide to allow more oxygen in. I feel the pattern of holding in the small connective muscles all around my jaw. These are the tendons, which pay for insincere smiles and nervous ‘like me’ grins. This is the spot that holds back my reluctant truths. This is the place where my nocturnal fear bites down. I breathe, stretch, massage and sound into these tight places of resistance. All around my skeleton I feel painful nodes, hungry for the attention of my persistent hands.

Home

06 Oct

Posted at 20:50h in Sarah's Journal by

Life feels complex, and I feel as though we are facing increasing uncertainty. I have my tool bag of inner resources – breath, mantras, meditations, buzzing hands. I am holding a piece of shungite. I find it reassuring in my palm, an ally, a talisman. Uuduu (a Mongolian Shaman) describes holding a stone from somewhere sacred as “having the telephone number to connect with the place”. The simple beauty and resonant feeling of small pieces of crystal or stone are calling to me. An initiation into their mystery has woken something up inside me that responds to their dense energetic signature.

05 Oct

Posted at 20:00h in Sarah's Journal by

Every day I meet rough sleepers. I try to give them the dignity of personhood – to say hello, to acknowledge them with a nod, to meet their eye. The most regular locals know me, and we exchange greetings and discuss the weather. Sometimes I will buy someone something to eat, more often I don’t. I often feel overwhelmed in response to the desperation in the voices of those who ask for help. This summer a kind and friendly man stationed himself near our front door step. Over the months his requests for our help dwindled. At first he wore white vests, ate only ‘plant-based foods’, bore his misfortunes with optimism. As the weeks passed I watched his skin become weathered, his hair dread, his appearance darken – both clothes and mood. We witnessed how a series of seemingly small events created a chain of increasingly difficult circumstances. He left our doorstep. Occasionally I glimpse his grizzled form shuffling in ill-fitting shoes, head bowed.

04 Oct

Posted at 17:40h in Sarah's Journal by

I have been wondering when it begins – the shutting down of grief in community? On trains recently I have been aware of parents shushing babies and toddlers. Is it because we have become intolerant of other people’s children crying? Parents feel embarrassment and shame at their child’s public bawling. Have we become judges of parental failings and tired babies (either real or projected)? Are we just so uncomfortable with our own sorrows that we want to banish others’ into private spaces? We are programmed to respond to these cries, but when does soothing and calming become silencing? Can we hold baby’s screaming and wailing more compassionately as a collective?

02 Oct

Posted at 21:53h in Sarah's Journal by

I love ‘Who Do You Think You Are’. Celebrities who I don’t always know delve into their family history. I relish the way that global themes narrow down to singular personal histories, which inevitably involve rags, riches and short life spans. The threads to forgotten tragedies are found or lost and tears come for those Blessed forbears who trod the earth before. Brian Blessed’s thundering voice trembles as he addresses his great great great grandfather, “I wanted to find guts and courage and imagination. This is what life’s about”. Some of our ancestors watch from the walls.

30 Sep

Posted at 17:20h in Sarah's Journal by

I catch some of the conversation without meaning to on the train. “Didn’t feel good today…yesterday was better…will you come and meet me?…I’m four stops away.” I’ve had this conversation frequently myself on this train line, especially in the long days when I returned from a Mum care visit. Emerging from the rush hour crowd I see them – the returner and the welcomer. I find myself captivated by the tenderness in their held hands, recognise the reassurance brought by the welcome. Walking in silence their togetherness speaks of love.

28 Sep

Posted at 18:14h in Sarah's Journal by

My wellbeing is balanced by putting myself first; and then taking care of others with any surplus energy. This practice is foundational, having experienced what happens when I don’t. Today it means describing my biomechanical symptoms and inner state of mind, sticking out my tongue, offering up my wrists. The acupuncturist’s reassuringly capable hands feel my pulse, tap in needles, heat me with burning mugwort on ginger and vibrate me with tuning forks. I absorb it all, feeling the shape of my need.

27 Sep

Posted at 18:33h in Sarah's Journal by

Herbal blends are neatly sealed in printed packets containing one-mug bags. The long-gone choice of peppermint, chamomile or rosehip has been replaced with branded states of mind like ‘Feel New’ and ‘Love’. Taking a snapshot from my memory of childhood and comparing it to now, I find gaping holes in my culinary and herbal know-how. We split and sprinkled the seeds from rose hips into unsuspecting boys’ collars as itching powder. I don’t know how to make tangy, vitamin-rich tea, so I check. Pluck hips after the first frost (for sweetness) from a rose bush uncontaminated by pesticide. Top and tail each hip. Steep 4-8 hips in boiling water for 10-15 minutes for high potency tea.

26 Sep

Posted at 20:31h in Sarah's Journal by

On opening the door, an unfamiliar dog bolts through my legs and dashes across the road into the park. I follow, adrenalin pumping. A high speed chase ensues through the park and out at the other end. “What’s the dog’s name?” I pant into my phone, the rush of traffic drowning out the reply. “What?” Dog crosses main road, down the pedestrian ‘Narroway’ and out into another road where cars stop their manoeuvres to let us pass. We are approaching another large busy road. I have run out of sprint. Then a young man appears on the opposite pavement on a scooter. He out-rides the dog-in-a-panic whose name sounds like ‘Daz’, catches him for me to grab. This is not a tale of a lost, injured or dead dog, but one about gratitude. After the briefest of thanks, the young man scooted off. Today, out walking a mile and a half in the other direction I meet my rescuer. We swap names, shake hands and I am able to thank him properly, my street angel. On the ground I find a very small saint.