Write on!

Well what good morning's work.  My children's books manuscripts are in an envelope ready for the post office and onward journey to a publisher.  Wish me luck!  Then I have made a sticker board and put on post-it notes regarding the planning, writing, typing of my novel.  I read the first few chapters to reacquaint myself with the storyline and feel I now have motivation to continue this work.

Sounds all well and good but this is 'silly season' as I call it.  Strange things happen to prevent me functioning as well as the spring and summer months. The months of October and November are all about ghosts, witches, gunpowder and fires.  I believe the negative energies of these are in the shops selling the commercial goods that grow each year to entice us to have fun in the dark days of autumn.  I have never understood where the fun in spiders webs, black cats, capes and hats, spells, warts etc is?  I can oooh and ahhh at a firework display but get upset about all that money going up in smoke when people need food and shelter in our country and abroad.

That scary energy is brought into our homes via the media and ultimately, I think is channelled through our bodies into some, if not all, electrical appliances, in particular computers.  It really can't be coincidence that autumn each year brings new trials.  It would make interesting research to see which months people call out electricians, TV mechanics, etc and when they purchase new white goods.

So far the dishwasher has broken down and been fixed, the fridge thermostat has gone freezing cucumbers in seconds, and my new laptop has refused to successfully load a virus detector.  Having spent over 3 hours both with on-line and telephone help the problem is unresolved.  My computer-fixer man tells me Windows 10 is not compatible with this well know protector.  So I have wasted money and none the wiser about what to do next.

Weather forecasters predict a hard winter to come.  Well bring it on early I say.  Freeze the unseen evil spirits travelling our atmospheres.  Let's hibernate until spring.  Eat and drink what we have without the excess of celebrations that cause a lot of people to forget the original thoughts behind Halloween, Bonfire night and Christmas.  They are dark months, let's just sleep more as nature intends.  I wish!

A month on.....

Skyros is everyday in my mind.  I can't forget the place, the people, the experience.  It was so special: the people were special, the experience was special - how so?  Let me tell you.

Living in community for two weeks brings a bond as great as, or even greater, than family.  Here we are miles away from our roots, our jobs, our loved ones, our homes.  Because of the personal development element of the experience we get to know each other very well, very quickly.  Our hearts bond from compassion of each other's lives.  We identify with ages and stages of life, the ups and downs that everyone enjoys and endures.  We wash up each others dinner plates, we look for who is missing and who is fun to be around.  We form little groups, perhaps each day acquainting with someone different.  We write, listen, draw, meditate, visualise, learn, dance, sing, eat, drink, be sociable or seek out solitude, we swim in the sea together, phone home, Skype, text or email in snatched moments between gatherings.  It's full on busy-ness.  It was, at times, hard work.  It was physical, mindful, spiritual.  We laughed together and cried together.

Now though, this 'family' are scattered to all corners of the world.  Contact is by email, Facebook, Skype etc.  A sense of great loss, grief even, is ever present.  It was a holiday like no other before it, and for me probably never again to be repeated.  A one off experience.  Photographs evoke the memories but they lack the warmth of sun and souls. 

'Life changing' was advertised as one of its attributes.  I have certainly returned fired up with motivation for getting on with the business of writing and publication.  I have taken to a glass of red wine far more than I used to too.  I feel as though I have stepped into another phase of life and it is fitting that autumn is now all around me.  I am shedding parts of my life that are over, throwing out, giving away, boxing up things that were so important during my working life.  Retirement is here. 

Like the sun rising over the Aegean sea as we departed the Island on our homeward bound journey, a new day is dawning. 

When I connect with those I met we all wish we were 'back there', perhaps we are missing the love and light that engulfed us, perhaps change is uncomfortable, unpredictable, scary.  Trying to get back to normal isn't our normal any more, a new normal is emerging only we have to wait to find out what that is.  This winter and next spring will be very interesting I'm sure!