What I Found In The Land Of Cinnamon Light.

Once upon a time, I found myself on the other side of the world, in a place of immeasurable beauty, a place that I went to in innocence, and that took hold of me with tender fierceness and made me look into the eyes of humanity with more clarity than I had ever before. A place that got right in under my skin, and swore to never leave my being, and at times I wonder had I carried it with me all along, from some other lifetime? A deep, untold mystery.

Lately, India has been in my ether again.

You know how it is. Something, a memory, seeps into your days unnoticed, like saltwater in the ground beneath your feet that slowly, slowly soaks, unnoticed. At first just the tender soles of your feet, unnoticed, then quietly inching, unnoticed, until one day you awake to find yourself adrift in it.

And then you see them, signs of it everywhere, somehow, inextricably everywhere.
A conversation, a meal, a reminder, a photo album, a meeting, a film, all unconnected and innocent in themselves, but the awakening reveals a bright, shiny, continuous thread that is now spread around me and I am adrift in it.

India.

Why is this coming back to me now, I wonder? After almost two decades of quiet living, most of which was in a dreamy Mother~Land, it has come back to find me. Maybe I am ready to greet it again?

And while that trip is a story to tell, I am arrested with wondering about where these memories fit into my life today, and it has me thinking.
As our older two seem to be racing towards flying the nest and the time to let them go is just beginning to peer over the horizon, I think about how my parents did this, The Letting Go, and how something that seems impossibly huge in the distance surprises you when it arrives all small and humble and perfectly reasonable.
For each of those steps our children take are exquisitely formed, and timed to perfection, if only we have the courage to see it, but often our own fear blinds us and we clutch, without even knowing it.

As our Eldest faces his first serious exams in a couple of months, I find myself in new territory as a mother, and in a way I find myself at a loss. Here now, is something we cannot do for him, or even hold his hand for, (indeed he doesn't want us to), and yet he really is not finding it easy. It brings back shuddering memories of my own school experience, and the reminder is, I have to say, rather uncomfortable.
This child of mine is standing alone, for the first time, and all the silences and deep thinking do not go misunderstood by me and his father. It is frightening. He hasn't got to the exciting bit yet, and it is overwhelming, but he will. And I remind myself of that. How fleeting this time just is!

We get through it anyway, don't we? All of it. And our feet take us onwards, no matter what. And we find ourselves in places that we could never have imagined, hearing stories we can hardly believe, and our young eyes are opened and we begin to truly see the world and understand what we want to both take from it, and give to it.
But only because it is our feet and our eyes. The advice and experience of our parents and teachers have hopefully been stored away as a map, a guide, for when we need it, but ultimately it only comes through our own experience.

So this is a little Note To Self: They'll be okay!

I look at these pictures, almost twenty years old, and faded, some of them, and I think of what this experience meant to me at the time. It meant something very different than what it means to me now.
For now I am on the other side of it and I understand that the true value of these experiences is the fact that we are figuring it out for ourselves. And I will do the Letting Go when the time comes, and it will be easier than I think now. Because it will be the Beginning for him.

The first line I wrote at the beginning of this, now I read back over it, may indeed be read as a corny cliché:

'I found myself'.

At least, I found the beginning of myself, of who I would eventually become. And don't we continue Becoming, for the rest of our lives? I hope so anyway.

Where did you find yourself? That Beginning Of You? Was it somewhere far away, or somewhere unexpectedly familiar, something intense or something surprisingly soft? Did you know at the time, or is it only hindsight and time that allow you to see it?

I truly would love to know.

And now I know my own answer I think I may be ready to go back.

I Want To Stop The World From Spinning....

...from carrying me away,

from the tumble of waves that will not hold me,

that shake and toss and throw me.

I want to take hold of things again,

my grip sure and strong,

a steadfast hold on things that matter,

and bring me into calm....

Last week, for a few days out there, it was as though someone opened up the sky, a sudden explosion of fine moisture that seemed to hang, all day, suspended in the air, catching the sun where it hid on the other side of this gossamer veil.

Every day I drive my familiar route, eyes longingly on the trees, and everything is shades of greys and browns, the trees silent in a rain that blends into milkiness. Gentle, pale, nacreous. A bloom of white on everything. And it is as though my mind expands out to merge with the damp diaphanous air, and in my minds eye I no longer see my car, it melts into moisture, drifts away into the misty rain, and I am flying, leaving the road, into and up over the trees, oh!

The cold air on my face is a welcome slap, as though a trusted friend shaking me out of my stupor, and I am here again, in the world, I lift my head and look around me, suspended now.

Here.

And then I see it. This place, this road that I travel every single day, that has become a chore, a blind drudgery, is revealed to me again.

And so, one day becomes the next, and the next, and then the first day of February dawns with a crisp, coldness of azure blue, a bright, perfect day, on this same road all becomes revealed in rust and browns and frosted sage. The blue sky is not a hard, bright blue, rather an opalescent wash, jet trails bleeding gently into it.

There, look, a sloping field, crisscrossed with hedges, and the occasional tree, everything smokey silver and brown in it's winter palette, the heavy frost giving the grass a milky sheen.

I know now, the lie of the land, each line and curve and slope and drop, hills and mountain crisscrossing one another, the long descent to the open sea, this road that snakes through, all of it, has become like a path in my brain, a mirror of my spirit skin. One that is part of me now.

In all that I am in an endless blur of Doing, these days, I see now, my constants are good things. Things that nourish, there, like a backbone, a perfect skeleton to lay my days on.

And I am grateful for this.

Come Sit By My Chair Awhile.

Look, there, through the westward window the mountains are adrift in a haze of white rain, like ghostly ships, sails at full mast, sailing on a sea of golden reeds that bend and blow and shiver in their bed. Seven swans glide past, a moment and they are gone, the sound of their beating wings lingering as they melt and drift into the white sky.

On the eastern side of the house, the sea is in a temper, heaving itself up at the shingle, and I open the windows all along the front of the house, the better to hear it grumbling and groan in it's ill~humour, and I sit, hands wrapped around a mug of hot tea, scarf wrapped around my head, savouring the chill wind that fills the house like a purge.

The Smallest, a-bed, has a visitor.

You see, we have had a winter dose of unwell~ness here, of coughs and colds and flu that laid to waste even the hardiest of us, though thankfully not me, and yes, now that everyone is well again, or at least back out in the world, I am savouring the quiet and aloneness and the not having to minister to the needs of many, at last.

Day 5: Longing to get out into the air, but like a little flag he droops every now and then.

Is it the time of year? My mind is a slippery thing, unless I pin them down like moths, thoughts escape me, fly away never to be seen again. I rack my brains for that shiny nugget that flittered through earlier, a promise, like a door to a wondrous place but alas I cannot find it. Yet again.

I am surrounded by teetering piles of notebooks filled with scatterings and lines and words, reminders, fragments, whisperings from other days, of weather and wonderings and clouds, of names and songs, conversations, visions, people. All day I drive through the grey and the green, rushing here and there, feeding, tending, nagging, cleaning, sorting, driving, shopping, organising, conversing, picking up, dropping off, putting away, moving, ranting, cuddling, listening, loving, loving, loving, and all the while a bright stream of ideas and desires and creative longings that I simply cannot stifle
j u s t   k e e p   c o m i n g.
And no longer contained they stream out of my head like bright ribbons that flutter and gasp in the air, unable to go anywhere, but desperate to be out there, in the wide world.
I sometimes wonder do people notice? A faint distraction, a blur in the air around me, there out of the corner of their eye?
There one goes right there! In my head, quick as lightening, I did a little drawing of a Distracted Girl With Exploding Head, complete with ribbons.....sigh. Only that I wrote that down, she would have been gone by morning.

But I am shivering now, I think it's time to close the windows and get the fire going.  Will we make some more tea? (yes, The Art of Procrastination)

The wayward sun behind that door is beckoning. Perhaps I will draw her after all....

Something Lovely.

It's many moons since I posted a Something Lovely post, and my desire to share this with everyone I know has prompted me to post it here. Something lovely, something different, something new, for Milkmoon. The beginnings of a shake up? I'm excited!

This here is my video of 2011. It is from one of my albums of the year called Diamond Mine by King Creosote and Jon Hopkins. Don't be put off by the still you see here, it is beyond gorgeous.
I hope you enjoy it.

Where To Now? The Post I Could Not Post....

Last night I lay awake in the dark as a storm raged outside, shaking the walls of our little house, and as so often the dark, like an insidious creature, creeps in beside you, and it is hard not to imagine great foaming walls of water towering up out of their sea bed, straining at the leash just beyond the railway tracks. And as sleep tussles with the dark, and the contents of my days tumble about my head, half-thoughts, glimpses, resolutions, notions, conversations, something settles in my heart.

In the morning I sit in the cold kitchen, watch the blue night turn into day, and as the room finally begins to warm up, and a rainbow falls out of the gloomy grey onto the shadowy, rain-clad hills, I know in the end I will post this, simply because I am annoyed at myself, (and reading Martin's similar themed post over on Square Sunshine gave me the final prod).

I would like to acknowledge something that has been nagging me for some time: it has been a rather slow decline here, a ponderous denial for many months now. After four years, and many, many readers, more than I could ever have hoped, this Milkmoonish place of mine has been neglected of late, (not just Milkmoon, but A Year At My Back Door too, and Scenes From The Moth House, two projects that are dear to my heart) and I now find myself at the beginning of a new year, and considerably unsure of the path ahead of me.

Do I want to continue? Have I paused and realised I am a bit lost, a bit unfocused, and a lot uninspired?
I have no idea. And surely that in itself is not a good sign? Ever since this tiny seed of uncertainty burrowed into my blithe and untroubled mind, it has grown and taken hold, and I cannot shake it. Yet I am reluctant to stop. So reluctant to close the door on Milkmoon and walk away. I really do not think I can.

And yet.

And yet I find my mind has wandered away, to some other place where images spin by but have no substance, where words flit about somewhere in the ether above me, too diaphanous to grasp, and I do not have the impetus to try. And so I post lazy, lackadaisical posts like the previous one. And I am ashamed of it. I can do better than that! I can. So why am I not?

It is laziness that prevents me from taking proper pictures with a proper camera, which is what I started out doing, which is why I started blogging in the first place. The dratted iPhone just makes it so easy, because it is so clever, and so pretty, but the pictures are, ultimately vastly inferior, as anyone viewing them on anything other than a smartphone can see....sigh.

So, I resolve to limit my iphone shots to this other place here, and to my Flickr, for those who cannot access Instagram, and we will see if I can manage to get back to basics here.

The past year has seen quite a number of changes, and the coming one sees even more to come, and I have no idea what they will bring. All I can say is time will tell.

I feel it could go either way~a quiet slipping away into silence, or something of a shake-up of things. I honestly cannot say right now.

So for today, I will update my blogs as heartily as I can, and then, I will leave the door ajar, and the light on, and hopefully Milkmoon will take matters into it's own hands and find inspiration for me, and time, to separate the magic from the mundane, and continue posting.

I do hope so.

After The Long Hiatus, Unplanned, A Recap.

First things first, dear readers, a Happy New Year to you one and all. I do hope the holiday brought good cheer and festive shenanigans, with lots of jovial folk around you!

Ours was lovely, with lots of walks and baking and visiting and do-nothing days. We've sadly had no snow so far this year, although last years white Christmas was a spectacular anomaly, and we do hope we get some yet.

And so, a quick recap of the season's festivities in the Milkmoon household:

Walking the Solstice Spiral in school.

Christmas Eve in our kitchen.

St. Stephen's Day walk.

Out Walking.

My MIL's Christmas tree.

Visiting Family, Friends, Neighbours.

Every good wish to you all, dear friends, for bountiful blessings,

both big and small, for the coming year.

May you be surrounded by lots and lots of love and happiness.

Follow Me....

...come into the woods, 

for I'm afraid we are not ready to leave yet, no,

but give me your hand and we will take you with us and you will see why.

Into the cool green we go, the seeping damp, the air surprisingly warm on our skin. We follow the path, a slow meander, voices murmuring through the trees, quiet footsteps ahead, the rustle of leaves, the distant chirp and chatter of birds.

Hurry now, and hush, for there is One who must not hear us. Quick! Light feet and haste!

 Here we are now, look, everyone is here, I don't think we are last. There is a little work to be done, for we are here for a very special reason.

There is a birthday, here in the woods. A Very Significant 8th Birthday, and we have been invited along to celebrate.

There is a flurry of activity as little wood nymphs and rabbits dash and scamper and scuttle, pulling streamers out of the trees, balloons out of burrows.

A mad dash to prepare, arrange and assemble, for the Birthday Girl has not arrived yet. And she does not even know we are here!

So, as she is 'out for a walk' in the woods with her Nan, the bustle of activity continues, until all is ready, all is set.

And so we wait.

Until it is time to gather together the scattered dearlings, the wayward rabbits and knights, the Tweedledums and Tweedledees, and hustle them all out of the clearing, for a little bird has told us She is on her way!

And for a moment this little dell rings with excited shrieks and squeals and hoarse whispered shouts,

'She is coming!! Quick! Hide! Everyone hide!'

And then a giggling hush descends, and everyone takes their place, the excitement quivering in the air, a tremor in the leaves.

'Here she is!'

Oh the little face as she is surrounded by her family and friends as they spill out of the trees around her, the round eyes and astonished countenance, and we all cheer and clap and our voices echo up into the treetops above:

Happy Birthday to you ♪♫•*¨*•.¸¸♥ ¸¸.•*¨*•♫♪ ♪♫•*¨*•.¸¸♥ ¸¸.•*¨*•♫♪ Happy Birthday to you ♪♫•*¨*•.¸¸♥ ¸¸.•*¨*•♫♪Happy Birthday Dear Darling♪♫•*¨*•.¸¸♥ ¸¸.•*¨*•♫♪ ♪♫•*¨*•♫ Happy Birthday to you!♪♫•*¨*•.¸¸♥ ¸¸.•*¨*•♫♪♪♫•*¨*•.¸¸♥ ¸¸.•*¨*•♫♪ ♪♫•*¨*•♫.........

And then the games begin in ernest, the cakes magically disappear, and the Birthday Girl, aka The White Queen, holds court and regales us with fantastical Tales of Great Adventures.

And the day draws in, the sunlight finds us and persuades us to stay, the forest echoes with the glad little voices. A joyful sound that will linger long after we are gone.

And happiness gathers.

Oh! Are you leaving? Must you?

No, we are staying, for just a while longer. 

The weather is mild and surprisingly dry for November, we have sandwiches and tea, and birthday cake to come. 

We love it here. We are not ready to go. 

Just yet.