Oh, if only I was a wild horse galloping free over desolate moors,
If only I could shake free the fetters of this knowledge of Life.
How I would run, dancing on the wind.
The moon could eclipse the sun a million times and shake me out completely,
With these hooves galloping on and on.
This is Life, this is the throng of it, as still as it is, as wild and free as it is.
This is life; planets, horse, woman, wind, moon, sky.
What binds us into these set of rules?
How did I get to be like this?

There is something moving there under the surface – something only just perceptible in the water, in the air. Travelling, breathing out and taking in. When the doubts come, when I turn inwards and ask myself – Who Am I? – the water flows and I catch the waves of a thousand voices echoing mine; a thousand horses tripping over wavelets on inshore lakes; a thousand doubts turning into acceptances; a thousand hooves beating out the song of life and I catch one stray smile.

photos from here

photographer unknown
Michael Light, photographer

Inspiration from Abigail Doan’s site.

“Made from the sticklike midribs of coconut palm fronds, these objects were memory aids, created for personal use or to instruct novices, and the significance of each was known only to its maker. The charts were exclusively used on land, prior to a voyage. To carry one at sea would put a navigator’s skill in question.” – Met Museum site

Then I lay in bed with the window open watching Venus rise above the mountains and wondered what exactly it was that was witnessing all this. I woke up again this morning and here this thing is, still here, this awareness. How incredible to be this awareness that I believe never leaves this body (or gotten used to never leaving it) – but one day, of course, will have to leave it. Well then, where will I go? As far as Titan, will I dance at last on her brackish shores? How incredible it is to know that rivers of methane run on Titan right now and also know that I am intricately linked to every droplet of gas and every molecule all the way out there, all the way in here, one way or another.

Filed under: closer to the earth, joie de vivre, Life, spirituality ]]> http://constantstateofflux.com/2010/04/28/wednesday/feed/ 0 45.833611 6.865000 45.833611 6.865000 Louisa http://constantstateofflux.com/2010/04/28/tuesday-2/ http://constantstateofflux.com/2010/04/28/tuesday-2/#comments Wed, 28 Apr 2010 08:07:40 +0000 Louisa http://constantstateofflux.com/?p=4593 ]]>

Another D.I.Y. day; working hard to finish off the rabbit run. This has given us a taste of working together as a family – could we possibly build our own house one day? Perhaps. I am amazed out how much work is involved. We have spent two days discussing and making this thing, like a palace fit for king and queen of the rabbits, two days. Faffing about with nails and screws and triangular sections, discussing how to fix the door on, how to tack on the chicken wire, how to do all manner of straightforward things. Build our own house? I could not even imagine how we would start. Oh, I know, we would first have to learn to argue a little less with each other, I think.

The girls have got into a sporty mood recently, we bought them new tennis racquets yesterday and Bubble has found solace in standing at the end of the garden hitting her tennis ball to the next door neighbour’s dog and waiting for it to bring the ball back to her. I remember playing tennis against the garage door for hours when I was young. Jules is taking Bubble to her first football session tonight – soccer that is. He went through a phase of wanting his girls to be professional footballers. Does every father go through this? I think he has accepted fate, knowing that Bubble is too much into animals to want to kick a ball around a field all day. There’s always Squeak to pin his hopes upon, however.

All around me Lily of the valley plants were pushing their way up through the earth – the flowers have not bloomed yet, but they will be out by May 1st. Here in France muguet de bois – lily of the valley is the symbol of May Day and a porte-bonheur – a good luck symbol for spring. We were given lily of the valley sprigs last year by our landlady, wrapped carefully in tissue paper and left on our doorstep to greet the first day of spring. This year, I will walk up into the woods and pick some for my neighbours, to leave on their doorsteps in the same fashion…….

The post lady looked sheepishly at the children this morning as we went out to collect the mail – it is the first day of school for children all over France after two weeks of holidays. Why aren’t my two girls in school? “Maman est La Maitresse ici, Madame” was all I could come up with for today…..

Our dishwasher has broken down and we have a blockage in the pipes. Jules managed to get the dishwasher working again after some tinkering, but the kitchen flooded last night, all because a local builder decided to fill in the fosse septique with soil – our septic tank underground in the garden. Even though the dishwasher now works, the water has nowhere to drain to, gets backed up and floods out of the overflow onto the kitchen floor. We have come to a compromise, knowing that the fosse septique is not going to be cleared out anytime soon – I now wash the dishes by hand and use the dishwasher as a drying rack (its neat and tidy, after all). The sink gets drained directly into a bucket which gets tipped out into the garden. It is amazing how much water we use every day, amazing. Physically tipping the water out bucket by bucketful makes you really appreciate how much water we really do use. I recommend everyone try it for a while. One consolation I have from all this is that I can do the dishes watching a robin from the window picking over the scraps of food which get tipped onto the grass with the bucket of water…..

Jules and the girls spent a sunny afternoon making a rabbit run for our bunnies Sasha and Teddy. It is a triangular affair, which kept the girls amused for hours, in seventh heaven using their scaled-down tool set, (complete with child’s hammer, screwdrivers, saw and pliers) which I found last year for €6 at a garage sale.

We decided to take a holiday through Brittany and  on to Ireland this June, it will be an educational trip for the girls and a well-earned rest for Jules after the winter’s slog. Because we live in the mountains, the girls want to see some coastline (me too) – not necessarily hot summer beaches, more like windswept, rocky, tumbling-down-to-the-sea kind of coast, where seals bob their heads out of the water some way out to sea and whales skirt around the bays. I visited Ireland when I was a teenager and loved the place, so I cannot wait to go back there. I love the friendly people and the myths and legends that are entwined with the land and the music and mystery of the fog-enclosed Atlantic coast. We will sale from Roscoff to Cobh and then back through Wales and England to France.

This is something to look forward to. For now, spring is definitely here; the lambs are about two weeks old and are out in the fields for the first time today, the cows have returned from their winter sojourn and everything has burst into life. Cowslips and snowdrops are everywhere and only the peaks of the mountains remain frosted with snow. Here in the mountains, the growing and blooming season is so short, things really get going as soon as the snow has retreated. The air is fresh and we are getting on with our ‘work’. The girls have been left alone; our schooling days are now unschooled, every day is a learning day; some days they play Lego continuously, some days we search the internet for things they are interested in (at the moment husky dogs) or I sit a sew with them, talk with them, paint and go walking with them. Life is good.

I have been on the internet myself too, researching educational products to buy for the girls, which I will ‘strew’ around the house hoping they will come across them serendipitously and explore them by themselves – Meccano, Geoboards, Cuisenaire rods and Altair colouring books, I am also just about to put a bid in for a Casio keyboard for Bubble, as she is really getting into piano lessons and wants to start practising at home.

Exciting times.