The Mother Mama

Just a reminder to all past readers that I'm continuing to post articles on

The Mother Mama

'For any woman who has found motherhood to be a sad, disappointing or painful experience. Short articles of a supportive, uplifting and hopefully inspiring nature.'

Please come over and say hello!

New Direction

I'm quite sorry to say that A Little Blog of Courage has come to a necessary full stop, though it'll still be here for any interested readers. Thank you for all your great comment interaction over the past few years! However I'm pleased to announce that my new site is now up and running... well tentatively walking maybe, but it's out there.

The Mother Mama is a supportive website for any woman who has found mothering to be a difficult or painful experience. Come over and take a look at the blog if you're interested. Alternatively you can go directly to the site homepage www.themothermama.com

Meanwhile,

Love, Love Love....

Briefly...

I'm not updating my blog at the moment because I'm currently working on a website which I hope will take me in a slightly different direction. I'll post details when I'm up and running - not sure when, as it's a slow process involving many breaks for naps!

Just thought I'd let everyone know I'm sill alive and kicking.

The Gap

All my life I realise I've hated being in 'the gap' - that space between one state of being and another. The place where you know that something has come to an end, yet what comes next has yet to be revealed. You could say that we're always in the gap because past is irretrievable, and future is as yet unmanifest and therefore the only place we can truly live is now. Brilliant souls such as Eckhart Tolle,for instance, have written extensively on this subject, and I know through my sporadic and undisciplined practice of meditation that those fleeting moments of presence are pure peace encapsulated. But how, I struggle to answer for myself, do I successfully live that every day, when I feel as though I'm caught in a time warp that's gone on long enough?

I'm no longer ill enough to need to lie down all day, but not yet well enough to be on my feet and working regularly again, and so I fend off the questions and judgements of others who assume that I'm procrastinating. But I have determined that I will never return to a job that's likely to put me right back at the beginning of another long period of ill health, and so I wait. I struggle to find a way of bringing life and meaning to creative ideas that are like nuts. I know there's something worth getting at inside of me, but it's surrounded by an outer shell that no amount of hammering, chiseling, bashing or any other kind of pressure will crack open.

The train will come when it's due - not when I clamber down on to the track and holler into the tunnel.

Perhaps it's time for some lateral thinking... put the nut on the train track...?

Or just be quiet.

See what I mean?

Seasoned to Perfection?

The garden sunflowers have been stunning this summer. Multi-headed and tall enough to peer majestically over the garden wall where I like to imagine them sharing their extrovert, yellow joy with the somewhat unsociable and introvert neighbours. How can anyone look into the face of a sunflower and not smile? However, summer is fading fast and with it the gorgeous, golden glory of those regal heads. I was saddened for a brief moment when I walked outside and saw the dried and withered husks of what days before, had been indeed - according to Uncle Monty in the film Withnail & I, "....prostitutes for the bees!"

Beauty is so transient, I thought, cutting down a massive, papery head. I thought about my daughters with their perfect, supple bodies and shining hair - their innocent lack of appreciation of their incredible physical beauty; Not understanding - and why should they? - that this is the summer of their lives when beauty erupts into full flower, passing unheralded into an autumn of nostalgia for petals now faded and strewn. Yet as I looked at the apparently dead sunflower - I got it: I observed the seeds that had formed in perfect, overlapping and mathematical spirals, radiating out from the centre. Seeds that despite their insignificant colour, were amazing in their natural manifestation of an ordered Universe. Each seed, also a tiny powerhouse of nutrients for other lifeforms. What I held in my hands was one of nature's miracles and a reminder that the Autumn of my own life is a time for a very different kind of beauty. Now I can see the patterns forming, the wisdom and acceptance that has quietly developed over time and may hopefully become nourishment for others.

Like a spiral, when viewed from the centre my life pattern has sometimes appeared circular, and I've berated myself for seemingly needing to repeat the same lessons over and over. Yet when I step away from myself and look from a different angle, I see that unlike a circle, the spiral moves ever upwards and with each apparent cycle I'm on a higher plane.

Love Comes Around

Such a long time has elapsed since my last post, and such a lot has happened. I've just been resting and pottering about in a contemplative sort of way, while I both absorb and recover from an incredible August.

I can hardly believe it, but Xena The Warrior Princess got married and as her proud Mama I can truly say that I've never seen her look happier or more radiant. I was reminded of the time not so long ago, when all I could do was hold her while her world fell apart, and tell her on faith alone that one day she would see the reason for her heartbreak and know that everything had worked out for the best. Her new husband certainly knows it, as do his three young sons who's previously shattered lives are now being slowly transformed through her love, wisdom and determination.

I've also experienced my own long awaited miracle as the wedding brought my children together for the first time in years and for some - the first time ever! My small home erupted with love, laughter, piles of laundry and kitchen mayhem and I'm still not sure how I survived on so little sleep.

I'm reminded yet again that when it appears that our cries have gone unheard for too long to remember, and that chaos and senselessness abound in a universe of broken hearts, there is an unseen presence, quietly knitting together the rent threads of our experience into something not necessarily as it was before, but possibly of greater beauty for a bigger world.

Observing the Absurdity

This week I'm experiencing a strange roller coaster with my health. Having recently seen what I hoped was the light at the end of the tunnel, I was most dismayed to find myself feeling really unwell again on Tuesday. Yesterday I was better again and now today I'm having another bad day where I feel unable to do the things I'd hoped.

What's interesting here, is observing myself and my reactions to whether I'm physically having a good day or a bad day. During my recent period of health, initially I was watching myself almost in disbelief waiting for the crash, which when it didn't happen probably lulled me into denial that I could ever feel that unwell again. For a brief period I became ME again. I found that vibrant part of myself that had become buried under the weight of M.E.

On Tuesday I was most dismayed to awaken and find my body once more taken over by the 'flu like crash of a relapse. Immediately I became anxious and worried that I wasn't getting better after all and had a miserable day lying down and wondering what had gone wrong. Yesterday, I felt okay again and noticed that I went straight into an attitude of denial again, kind of,

'Phew! That's a relief.. now where was I?'

Today? Yep, you guessed it, I'm feeling crap again. Only now I can see my thought pattern more clearly and realise that I have to get off the merry -go-round. I can't have my attitude pushed around by the playground bully that is this illness. I need to let go of expectations, forget about plans that make me anxious as to whether or not I can fulfill them, and once more find that place of stillness where I know that each day will bring whatever it brings and my surrender to the stream of my life as it is, matters more than creating judgements about what is or is not floating by on the surface.