I love the weather. I love snow and can't wait for it to fall again so I can make snow angels. Fairy lights; my friends and my family; wild flowers (especially the rebels that grow between paving slabs); birds, bats, mice and toads; making nature mandalas; reference books illustrated with beautiful photographs and drawings; native hedgerows; Imbolc (Brigid/Brigit's Day) - and the fact that my mother named me 'Brigit' when I was born. And the Moomins…..oh how I love the Moomins.... Snufkin and Moominmamma and the Hattifatteners. And the Hemulen. It's impossible not to love the Hemulin.
I love mosses and lichens; music; speaking to folk about the beautiful world of wild bees; seaweed and sand; Hairy Footed Flower Bees (yes, such creatures exist) walking barefoot on the beach; rainbows, corkscrew hazel and unicorns. Raging rivers as they crash across rocks and boulders; streams so small that they are almost hidden by the undergrowth... and puddles. I especially love jumping in puddles. I love juicing apples and the fact that the juice changes colour when it meets the air. Dorset, Cornwall, Norfolk, Northumberland, The Western Isles and all the other breathtakingly beautiful places that I have lived in or connected with; I especially love The Malvern Hills. Coastal paths; being a mother and being a grandmother; old man's beard; candlelight; moths, caterpillars and spider's webs; hazel nuts and fungi; the beautiful hand crafted things that people have gifted me; ginger flavoured dark chocolate truffles and adding chopped lemon to pretty much everything I cook. I love Puffins and Pufflings; the amazing noises that Eider ducks make and the shape of Curlews' beaks. And being kept awake at night on the Isle of Barra by Corncrakes. And feathers and crystals and everything that sparkles. And I LOVE rough haired lurchers.
I love long-tailed tits and wrens; discovering bumblebee nests in unexpected places; the aliveness of water; the silence of stillness and clouds that look like dragons for a moment or two before they shift shape seamlessly into hippopotami; knowing that you are never too old to fall in love; loving and being loved back. Grass snakes and John Lewis-Stemple's Meadowland - a book so delightful I still haven't read the last chapter because I can't bear for it to end. I love Meadow Pippits, even though I have yet to meet one; sitting by the wood burner with a bowl of porridge on a cold winter morning; winter squashes; summer squashes; sowing seeds, saving seeds and swapping seeds; dandelion clocks; carving wooden spoons; greater stitchwort; nice surprises; meeting friends in cafes for a cup of tea; yoga; collecting sea glass and driftwood from the beach; bees; swimming in the sea; curly kale; sutherland kale; russian kale; black kale…….and SO much more!
And I love my children and my grandchildren, and my husband Rob, to the moon and back.
It feels good to make lists of the things you love and appreciate, every now and then, especially during these challenging times when it is all too easy to feel overwhelmed by all the doom and gloom. It reminds you how wonderful it is (and how lucky we are) to be alive. It fills you with the positive energy and inspiration to DO something to preserve all that is sacred to you.
Wishing everyone who has read this post a beautiful day, evening, week and life…. and hoping you all enjoy making your own lists of things you love as much as I enjoy making mine! x
I read through saying "yes" to every one ! What a glorious list of blessings it is and the perfect reminder of what matters.
ReplyDeleteReading that has made me smile muchly because so many of your muchly loved things are mine too. X
ReplyDeleteAs usual, uplifting words Brigit... always good to remember and cherish those things we hold dearest, especially, as you note, currently...when so many of them are threatened. Important to remember we can act, individually and together, to nurture nature, for future generations of life on the planet, human and otherwise. Thank you! xx
ReplyDeleteI love this post. I love that your name is Brigit and that you love Imbolc. (And that you love insects and plants, whether bold and impressive or scruffy and "undesired". That is a blessing.)
ReplyDeleteI will be brief--uncomfortable table for typing.
I love sitting at my laptop in a silent house talking online to women about Brigit. I love thinking of her and her many stories and how they can help me, if I draw on them, to face the challenges in my life.
I love the memory of the supermoon last night, which honestly did not look all that huge but was draped with ever shifting clouds, so that it was now obscured, now tantalizingly visible, now showily bright. I love that I am visiting a quiet coastal community and that my friends are happy to see and be with me, and I them (including Dharma, the missed and beloved three legged cat). I love the joy they have in their new community, after leaving our crowded and frightened city. I love the gentleness here.
I love my home, with its back garden and its core of long-stayers, people I have known thirty years, some of them, and the skunks and raccoons and birds and bugs that live there. I love that poetry lives in me, even when it comes out clunkily--that I can feel the synthesis of seeing and appreciating and telling as a movement of colour and emotion and light.
Blessings on your path, and on our world.
Having just come across a book called The Secret and now your blog Brigit just had to say how important it is to be grateful for everything! Natute gives us untold blessings and shows us that we can overcome any challenges with the right mindset.
ReplyDeleteJust read this, it's lovely Brigit. You have a good soul. Nature is wonderful. We really do need little else to sustain us- family, art books and music
ReplyDeleteThis post is beautiful.
ReplyDeleteHow lovely..somewhere between a celebration, a love letter, a walk in the country, a hug, a poem and a prayer. Made me smile and reminded me work will soon be done and the garden and my inks and paints await.
ReplyDeleteAnd I loved reading this post! My mother in law taught me about lemon verbena. And I remember walking in concrete-clad London Bridge when my friend from Cornwall stopped to look at a seemingly dull wall. 'What?' I eventually said, keen to get to the pub. 'Up there, that plant broke through the concrete!' She replied, like it was something that meant a lot. I humoured her by pretending I was impressed, but years later I got it for real. I'm looking forward to reading more. Fiona
ReplyDeleteWhat a lovely story Fiona! Thank you so much for sharing it...
DeleteI love that I’ve discovered you have a blog!
ReplyDeleteI love that you've found it Tracey!
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