Today spring has arrived, a time of renewal, the freshing up after the earths winter sleep. Its also time for us to refresh our lives, our dreams and goals. This seems like a daunting task as we start to slowly come out of the pandemic, and war is raging. There is so much anger everywhere, fear grips many. We have lived life for a few generations now for the most part without ever having to endure truly hard times, or go without, or do without, we have been living in a time of the throw away society, and just go get whatever you want whenever you want society, the wine and dine society, the grab and go society, grab breakfast and coffee in the way to work, don’t pack your lunch, just go grab lunch out, too tired to cook, pick something up or better yet have it delivered. Then we ended up with disasters, creating supply issues, we often look to blame someone, usually governments at all levels, but the fact is we are all collectively responsible, we have contributed to global warming, we have polluted our waterways and oceans, with all our throwaways. We quit gardening, we quit a lot of things that helped make healthy families, and communities. our young people have lost hope, mental health issues abound, addiction issues abound, we have failed as humans. We decided it was more important to have more, do more, it fractured families in unexpected ways because we believed and chose to believe that climbing the corporate ladder, bigger homes, fancier cars, measured our standing, instead of it being about our strength of family. The pandemic brought more people back to family, baking, canning, spending real time together, the coming time will likely increase that, as we see further supply shortages, increased prices for everything. So as we spring forward things will continue to change, it wont all be easy but perhaps the silver lining will be that it will bring us back to a more balanced way of being. I am not without a huge amount of hope going forward. I love this time of year a time of renewal, and I wish you all a joyful and peaceful spring.
Next:
Sometimes, ok well often times, I forget things I have done, projects I have worked on etc. But I have discovered, instead of being upset by it, or stressed by it, to just now that maybe someday in some way, something will trigger a reminder. By just settling into the fact that I won’t remember much of what I do, created space for some unexpected surprises, when someone lets you know something you’ve worked on or contributed to is complete, its like such an amazing moment. First its like, you’re like really I did, then the fits of laughter, then its the anticipation to have a peak into it. It truly makes you almost giddy. This happened to me again last week when Gincy Heins,, messaged me, to tell me the book I contributed a piece for was going to be released the following day, and that my piece was the opening piece for the book. oh what a surprise, not only had I forgotten about the book being put together, I had no idea what I had written for the book. I have now read what I have contributed, I am really happy with what I had written, and the book is a lovely piece of work, with great collection of inspiring, heartwarming pieces. Gincy did a great job gathering and getting people to contribute. Below is a picture of the book cover, it is available on Amazon. I am truly grateful for the gift I received first by being asked to contribute and secondly with the wonderful surprise of its launch. Here is the cover:
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My latest project has been working on my new vision board, I like them for a few reasons, firstly the are fun to do, they are artistic in themselves, we learn about ourselves as we do them, I have created them over the years, I actually first learnt about them as a tool to help people going through difficulties. It helps them ” find themselves” in a sense, for someone on the outside there is much you can learn about a person in the vision boards. I will post pictures below although it is not complete yet. Its a fun project to do with young and old alike. Ive done them in the past where we have done evening get togethers where we all worked on ours and shared a lot of tears and laughter, and had many very deep meaningful conversations brought out by working them this way. This one I am working on presently is weeks in the making, its a positive outlet for my mind. I am doing all I can as I have been through the pandemic trying to ensure I do things to keep my mental health in check. Which whether we have dementia or not is so important, it should always be important but having been through the last two years of the pandemic and so much uncertainty surrounding us, on top of living alone, it is vital for me. Soon it will be warm enough for my bike to be out, I am looking forward to that as well.
Whever you are I hope this first day of spring allows you time to look forward with hope.
Here is my vision board:
Chrissy's Journey 