Have you ever felt you’ve bitten off more than you can chew? I’d like my life to have the serenity and simplicity of this photograph, but at the moment it feels more like a super-sized Big Mac eaten at speed! Over Easter I took a Peace Break. It was wonderful, and it brought home to me a…
Category Archives: Growing and learning
Scoring a 10
Wishing you all an amazing 2013, and thanks for being part of Pilgrim’s Moon. I start the year with a sordid confession: I LOVE the TV show Strictly Come Dancing. The latest series has just ended here in the UK (US version is Dancing with the Stars). In this show, celebrities pair up with professional dancers to…
Don’t look forward
I have an old friend, Nancy*, with whom I’ve kept in touch over the years, although not so much recently. Nancy spent the last ten years of her working life in a job she disliked. She had a calendar upon which she quite literally ticked off each day taking her closer to retirement at 60. Then…
Review you!
It’s wise to understand that the best of our plans can and will get scuppered by the unforeseen. But making plans is still a good idea. This is an excellent time of year to look both backwards and forwards. Blogger Chris Guillebeau crystallised some of my ideas around reviews and resolutions with his excellent article…
The key to self-respect
Warmth, intimacy, peace That’s my mantra for the way I want to live in my home. I yearn to live simply and richly. Not owned by my possessions and owning only what I need or what gives me joy. And you know what? For years I’ve felt like a fraud! I talk a good talk about simplicity,…
How does freedom feel?
The results of my prize draw are at the end of this post! I have a clear memory from when I was five or six years old. I was galloping down the street pretending to be a horse. Only I wasn’t pretending: I could feel the wind in my mane, smell the sea air in…
How to bring your life into focus
I’ve been working recently on a short-term contract as account manager in a large photographic studio. I’d never worked in an environment like this before and it’s taught me some very interesting things. When I first walked round the studio floor and watched models wearing jewellery being photographed next to a dining furniture set, next…
Climbing the staircase
Not my words today, but those of Jane Fonda. I think you’ll enjoy this 11-minute TED talk from her entitled Life’s Third Act, especially her image of age not as a downward arc, but a staircase: the ascension of the human spirit. Ms Fonda speaks with as much passion and conviction as she ever did,…
Once upon a time…
The way in which old fairy tales can be re-imagined makes them very powerful. Dr Clarissa Pinkola Estes is a mistress of this, and Sara Maitland’s short stories often follow similar themes. They help us explore the power of aging, and how we are sometimes afraid of it. One old tale really taps into this fear of…
Lessons from Katy Carr
While I was being all weak and feeble and ill last weekend, I re-read an old childhood favourite: What Katy Did. Ah, Katy: what memories you brought back to me! That brood of noisy brothers and sisters, bossy Aunt Izzie with her heart of gold, saintly Cousin Helen, dear hard-working Papa. Katy is an old-fashioned…
