Wednesday, October 23, 2013

standing still, being...


There are moments in time that are for doing.
There are times that are for moving, creating, learning, growing...
And there are times that are for standing still and welcoming the simple unfolding of life.

There is a phrase that has been echoing through my life for many months now.  It has guided me forward in the tough times, the times in the past year when life felt draining and cloudy, when the learning was hard earned.  Over the last year the phrase danced through my mind tantalisingly and I knew that it was not for the current time, it was my promised reward for future...
And then when I got off the plane in Australia I sniffed the air and I knew that it had become my now.

The phrase is :
"Confident of being in just the right place, at the right time... I knew that all I had to do was to stand still and my future would find me."

My time away from home was limbo time, learning time, giving time.  It was the right thing to do at that time and the right place to be to do it...but it was not a place and time for "me".  What I needed was to get through that time, achieve what I achieved, learn what I learned, and move forward to now, to here.

This is how I have been feeling since we touched down in Australia... I am here, I am home.  I am in my place.  And so I have been confident.  I have known that the time of my phrase was here and all I needed to do was to stand still.  So I stood.  I smiled.  I grew flowers and I tended my friendships.  I smiled some more and I breathed in the fresh air of the beauty of each moment.  I was content, patient, happy.

And then as I stood still a change happened in the air around me.  I was calm and I breathed and I smiled a little more.  A new sweet, gentle, warm, rainbow-tinted breeze entered my life.  And as I stood still I felt an unfolding of the future happening in my life.  Tendrils and tickles and hints of days to come.  As the colours danced I said to them "Hello!  Are you my future come to find me?" And the colours breathed "yes please, I think we might be".  And where the coloured breezes touched the earth a single fresh new shoot emerged, a curling spiral unfolding, a path on which to travel...

Let it go,
Let it out,
Let it all unravel,
Let it free
And it will be
A path on which to travel.

Thursday, October 10, 2013

Kindy Girl...

My baby started Kindy today....
Another threshold leapt over with her steady determination to move forward in life.
She proudly carried her new lunchbox and put it in the lunchbox tub.  She remembered where her locker was, and put her bag away... Then she turned and smiled at me, two long plaits swinging as she waved... "Bye mum!"...and I was dismissed.
Thankfully her face lit up when I asked if she would like me to stay for a little while...she was happy to share this transitional moment with me....but once inside it was clear that I was welcome but unnnecessary.  She was happy exploring, meeting new friends, discovering new toys, making her place in this new world.
As I watched her I realised that once upon a time, when I looked in her face, I marvelled at seeing my baby growing up. Now when I look at her I no longer see a growing up baby...I see a little person full of the rich potential of who she is becoming. She is no longer defined by who she was, but who she will be.  And I am so crazy proud of the person she is becoming.  She is smart, funny, kind, brave, open, inquisitive, independent and confident. She is strong willed and knows exactly what she wants. The fact that she is confident enough to believe that she can do what she sets her mind to fills me with pride. The fact that she argues her point but accepts, without tears or tantrums, the times when she cannot do what she wants makes me even more proud.
Yes my little angel is growing into herself and she is beautiful.