It is now 2018 and I haven't blogged for nearly a year!!!!!!

It was my birthday last week and I suddenly found I had an overwhelming excitement about the year to come. I have to say that this was a bit of a surprise, I hadn't really been looking forward to my birthday, in terms of another year past and another year older etc, then I suddenly got this sense of joy. I suppose it was particularly beautiful because it was unexpected. The joy was for the coming year, but it was also being here and now in the present.

So seeing the date, I realise that it was a year ago tomorrow my lovely Mum died, though I had been conscious of this anniversary coming closer. I have always felt comfortable with her passing, she was old and had lived a positive and happy life.  The last couple of months involved pain and pain relief and a very short memory, but she was peaceful when she died, and I had a strong feeling that it was the right time for her to go. We had a beautiful memorial ceremony and re-united my parents in a shared plot. The ceremony had a very strong sense of completion.

Over the last year I have thought about her life and particularly my role as a daughter within her life. I have been so happy that I started writing the letters. I know that they gave her much joy and pleasure. After she died I was given a rather battered folder full of all the letters, coffee cup stained, ragged at the edges but sooooo read. I had written the letters to mitigate my own guilt at being an absent daughter, it was only when I looked at this folder of all these letters, that I thought about her sitting on her own, in Abbeyfield and then later at Acorn Hollows, with a letter in her hand and the knowledge that I loved her. It sounds strange but I haven't really thought about it from her point of view, as an old lady sitting on her own but holding in her hand a connection with a loved one.

She had always been a great reader, but as she lost her memory she was unable to read because she would have forgotten what was in the previous chapter, previous page and at the end previous sentence. So my letters were like mini novels, self-contained with characters that she knew and loved. The reason that she could read them and re-read them so often, was that she forgot that she had already read them, and so took great pleasure in reading them for the ‘first’ time. I had thought about that aspect a lot but I hadn't thought through her feeling of how she must have felt the connection with me and my family.

One of the magic things about my birthday was the connections, people reaching out, sending me love and blessings from all over the world. I was sitting here in a little village in northern Croatia and I just received all these lovely messages, some FB, some email, some WhatsApp  - it was just so heart warming. I have got birthday messages before, but I think it was because I was actually sitting here at the computer when they arrived, so I replied to many of them as they came in, and that led to wonderful conversations and all sorts of other unexpected things!

So why am I so excited about 2018? I think it is because I have definitely moved on. I had physically moved, left Liverpool etc, I had left my job at the University, but I was still doing some consultancy bits, I had felt I was ready to do more Sound Healing as I wasn't certain how I could do that in a country where I didn't speak the language. But lots of things happened in 2017, some were terribly sad, particularly the death of Boris. Others things were very happy, like having so many visitors to stay last year, that had been unexpected and very special.

I did Singing in the Wild last year, it was by invitation and restricted to those who had done it before and knew Boris. It was the most powerful thing I have ever done in my life and it changed a lot within me. I witnessed pure grief and extraordinary courage, truth and authenticity, and I felt so privileged to be there. I had felt a very strong imperative to be there, as did all the others, and as I write I revisit the beautiful power of our shared voices, the connectivity between ourselves,  the valley and the sharp daggers edge of healing. 

Going with the Universe, after I left the valley, I ended up having three-days on my own on the coast. Being on my own and swimming in the warm Adriatic Sea several times a day, I had the opportunity to reflect on where I had just been. It was in the beautiful warm waters of the sea that I made the decision that the time has come for me to step into my new role. I didn't have the words at the time to know how to describe myself but now I have a business card which says:  Spiritual Guide & Sound Healer - see below!

Having made the decision and being clear about having made the decision, the Universe then worked with me in that beautiful effortless way of just going with the flow!!!

So now many things are in place for 2018 and I have decided to blogg again,  so see you soon!!!!!

So Mum has gone...

She went peacefully and smiling. The last few weeks she had experienced quite a lot of pain and was sedated with morphine as the tumour in her liver swelled. The home she lived in was magnificent, caring and personal and in the end she turned to them rather than the family. She had told me earlier in the year that she felt like 'A little girl with a lot of Mummys',  and I really like to think of her last few days of being cared for like a little girl......

We had a perfect funeral. Very personal, everyone contributing from the great-grandchildren lighting the candles in the candlesticks that she had been given for a wedding present, to the different aspects of her life told by her daughters, grand-daughter, family and friends. The Minister was a close personal friend and made it very special. We had a service in the crematorium where we said good bye and this was followed by a celebration of her life in the Knutsford Brook Street Chapel where she had belonged for over 50 years. During this service everyone was invited to place little pots of pansies around the candles as their own way of saying goodbye. There was much talking, sharing, hugging and laughter and we did it well. She would have been happy.....

So now I am coming to terms with my Mother no longer being in this life and I turn again to my old friend my blogg! I have not blogged at all since the tenth anniversary of Chris's death  in late September.  For the last few months every day, I have been half expecting a phone call to tell me that Mum had passed away.  In the end of course it came as a shock, but I feel I was very prepared for it,  and as I knew she was living with pain, grateful for the release.

I'm still in Liverpool, my boys have gone back to Croatia and Portugal and I will return on Monday. It feels like a start of a new era, which I suppose it is. I will obviously come back to the UK to see Jimmy and Rachel, and my friends but my mother's death does make a difference.

So a new era?

Well I look forward to seeing  what my future holds.......   but wherever I go I will know  that I am the woman I am, because my mother was the woman she was.........

Very last letters.....

At end I wasn't sure if you was capable of reading the letters or knowing that they came from me - I sent three in 2017 - the very last on my birthday and 5 days before she died.

Last letters

These are the last few months of letters, during this time I travelled backwards and forwards and visited my Mum quite a lot. In  August I had taken Aidan camping in the Pennant Valley with no internet etc - and during that time I sent several postcards. Mum really enjoyed reading the letters and carried them around with her. As she grew nearer to the end she was not really able to focus on them but she could still read them - and they became briefer - but the lovely thing for me is that My Mother knew I loved her - my one constant message.

In October she was still well enough to have (somewhat parallel) conversations with her friends at Acorn Hollows - she was particularly fond of Audrey (on the right) and they often kissed and embraced each other in a beautiful affectionate way.

Jenny went to see Mum when this letter arrived and she really enjoyed the funny picture of the crazy carrots!

10th Anniversary..........

I'm wide awake in the early hours of the morning and I am very aware that it is 10 years to the day and the time that Chris died.

I was asked yesterday if I was going to do anything special to recognise the day and I replied probably not.... but then I realised that I have been so very aware that the day was coming that I have been recognising it for a long time.... maybe for ten years........

And for ten years I have lived my life with the knowledge of Chris's death and with some kind of understanding of his death, though at the moment I feel I can understand his death better than I can understand his life - or my own........

The purpose of life is a mystery.

I can sometimes see with great clarity that my soul has incarnated into this body, this lifetime.... to learn..... I can feel this, see this, witness the learning and feel great joy and certainty....... but there are other times that I struggle.......

Ten years is a long time........ and my life has totally changed during this time...... and I have changed during this time.

Five years ago today my Father was at the point of death and today my Mother is getting close to the end of her life.

But the ten years have been rich years, full of learning, happiness and of course some heartbreak....

And during these the years have grown, I have flown, I have loved, I have danced, I have laughed, I have cried, I have learnt........ and I have been ALIVE!!!!!!

Sometimes wonderfully alive, sometimes happily alive, sometimes day to day alive but most times consciously alive....... grateful, appreciative, recognising the blessing of life and being thankful.

But do I feel that I understand what it means to be alive?...... then I have to say no.

I am conscious that every breath is precious, that my body is an amazing gift, that to be alive is to be treasured and that I have a responsibility to recognise this and to cherish my life and to............ and this is the question to do what?

Beyond being grateful and appreciative..... beyond being caring and loving, and seeking to find the truth in the day to day.... what does being alive mean?

Of course the answer is to learn............

My learning over the last ten years has been beautiful, hard, challenging and sometimes crystalline in its clarity. I have learnt about myself, others and the world and I have also been able to see that my individual learning is a drop in the learning of the Universe.

I can feel this knowledge, I can write this and I can speak this knowledge.

So maybe my purpose is just to continue to learn, without needing to know the purpose of the knowledge - maybe I need to understand nothing more than my drop of knowledge is important to the Universe.

So my Lovely Chris - for ten years I have missed you,  felt your absence in my life,  learnt to live without you...... and as I recognise that this is the moment that you died ten years ago, I cry.... tears of love.... and through my tears I smile and say thank-you. I did love you very much, we had amazing children together and thirty five years of LIFE together. And I continue to live.............

letters to my Mum June 28th 2016 to ......

It turned out that the computer at the residential home had not been working and that my Mum had not received all my letters - which she had interpreted that I wan't talking to her. She sounds even more confused and getting mentally frailer. My sister Ann sent a video of my Mum taken at Shakerley Mere yesterday - when I went online this morning I was sent a Facebook Memory which was of me and my Mum walking around Shakerley Mere a year ago today! There are no such things as coincidences.

Another happy and hopefully reassuring letter!

This letter was written in response to messages that I was getting that Mum somehow thought I was unhappy - not quite sure why - but probably linked to me travelling and her maybe seeing something on the news. Though it is a truthful letter - as I am happy in Croatia!

Processing.........

I am at home in Croatia and there is a massive thunderstorm going on - dark clouds and lots of rain, rumbling thunder and flashes of lightning. The air is heavy and oppressive  and it seems to fit my mood - which is uncertain and restless. There were many aspects of the last week which were difficult, taking three days to get to Israel was not what I had planned! Equally I had expected the energy to be polarised and it was. Yesterday I was very emotional and  I reached out to friend who relayed some wise words that she had been told when travelling in Israel. These were - to relate to what I observed and felt, whilst at the same time practicing "being a witness" without letting the energy confuse my system.

I found real comfort in two aspects of this, firstly that I was able to reach out to somebody who understood completely where I was, what a blessing - and secondly to practice being a witness, to be able to have compassion without losing the ability to function - this really resonated and helped me a lot with what I was processing.

I love my life and I particularly love how the right people are always there for me -  they just appear. It is quite extraordinary how I can apparently be on my own, alone - but almost instantly - when needed the perfect person, teacher, friend, soul just appears.

Last night I saw this picture  of a lonely angel in the extraordinary  old town of Sassi, Matera  in Italy, on a friend's Facebook page, and I just loved her serene sadness. It made me think that we are all lonely angels living this life time on our own. However at the same time we are connected to so many others -  as and when we need them. It epitomised the juxtaposition between the lonely angel and my feeling of being able to reach out to find the perfect person there just waiting for me!

Other things happened last night which I also know will lead to many other things. The period of my life with the mantra of taking my time has now almost gone. I am doing things differently, and yes probably more slowly -  however the ideas and realisations are very rapid and I have to catch them and quickly make choices in order to manifest them.

So with lightening flashing and the thunder rumbling I will continue to do whatever it is I do and feel huge gratitude for just being alive........

Letters to my Mum June 11 2016 to June 25th

Having a Chris moment....

.... after nearly ten years I can still miss Chris with a huge ache in the centre of my heart - with a deep tear filled yearning....

But my life is so different now that maybe I am just missing my old life - looking back I had a lovely life - not certain I appreciated it at the time, though I was happy but maybe not consciously happy.....

I have though about Chris so much over the last few days....... maybe because Gilly is staying here in Croatia and she was so very close to me in the early months and years after Chris's death.

I also thought about him when I was in Portugal as I can see a strong resemblance to him in the features of my little grand-daughter Alba.... I also found that very emotional.

Not certain why I am having these Chris moments at this time..... maybe it's because it is going to be 10 years this year and that seems a long time and a sort of milestone.

But maybe it is because I was just so lucky to have an amazing man in my life for 35 years and he was my best friend, my lover, the father of my children and my partner through thick and thin........

..... and yes I still miss Chris and I can still feel his absence in my life.

But I would want him to be proud of the new me, she has been on her own now for ten years and that is a long time..... and she has done brilliantly!!!! Even if today she is just a bit sad - that's OK too!

Thank you Blogg I feel better for this xxxxxx

And I love the fact that Chris sat in this square in 2001 and that Gilly sat in it yesterday.....

Letters to my Mum 4 June 2016 until 9 June 2016

Not knowing and just going......

Yesterday I said good-bye to my Mum and I don't know when I will see her again, or even if I ever will see her again.......

She was as good as she could be, being positive in her world of forgetfulness. Remembering now in holistic chunks rather than in details... being able to have a conversation that one minute later she has no recollection of......

She is deliciously grateful which is special, she appreciated our presence, the sunshine and the moment but is fast losing the context.

I am a bit sad but not too sad, I want her to keep her dignity and her knowledge of her own uniqueness as she slips into the cocoon of her last physical moments. She described herself as a child surrounded by mothers, which was beautifully poignant as that is where she is......

I asked her what mothers most want for their children and she replied "For them to be happy of course." 

I feel very privileged to be living my life - I am just so blessed and I am so aware that I have a responsibility to my Mum .......... to be happy!

Finding my way.....

Dear Blogg

I am feeling so amazingly happy today - I have woken up in Dublin and there are three things that are making me smile:

1. My Mum is happy again

2. I am here in Dublin with some of my favourite people in the world

3. I am becoming clearer as to where my journey is taking me.

.... and the sun is shining and I am alive and I can feel the world changing around me....... and how magic is that!

I am staying at the home of a delightful young Italian couple - which is also making me smile - suddenly Italy is making itself present in my life - I just love the messages from the Universe - some are so obvious - though maybe not always at the time - and some are just so subtle that you can almost miss them - little wisps of messages that make you smile... and then laugh with the joy of 'knowing'.

The 'knowing' is that feeling when your heart laughs and your whole body resonates with joy and your smile is so big that you feel you are overflowing with happiness.........

I am so blessed that I am living a life with this 'knowing' ..........

Part of this 'knowing' is also the joy of not knowing - going with the flow of stepping into the darkness with the confidence that you are on the right path....

Something happened to me in Italy last weekend and I saw with clarity my future journey........

......well what I saw was a 'knowing' that I am on the right path - I could feel it stretching out in front of me into the darkness - I couldn't see it but I knew it was there.

What I did have in my hand though -  was a torch and I can use that to see the steps just in front of me and the space just around me. BUT THE JOY OF IT WAS - that is all that I needed to walk in the darkness!!!

So I now know I am on the right path - I can feel it stretching out before me - although it is a dark I know it is there - and the torch has given me the confidence to go forward without hesitation........

My friend Javier always talked about El Misterioso - the mysterious - and I thought I understood what he meant - and in a way I think I did - but I now feel that I can understand it at the next level.

I had understood it as the mystery of the unknown but the next level is  the mysteriousness of the unknown...... Woww!!! Well it makes sense to me!!!

The wonderful thing is that we are all on our own individual learning journey through life  - but this only really makes sense when we see it as part of the collective learning of the Universe - the Mystery is our own individual learning - our immediate steps in the dark -  El Misterioso is the bigger learning of the Universe.

Buff!!!


This is a poem I wrote last weekend - which is an attempt to say what my heart knows......

Our Divinity is cracking open 

As drops of innocence that together

make this sea of learning,

Divine Child of Mother Earth

individually we are the whole.

Journeying together with our Mother

and nurtured by her milk,

we have been held within her arms,

and know no other world.

We are the Divine Child,

my sister, my brother, my daughter, my son

together we are everything,

although we live as one.

We possess our separate laughter,

our suffering and our shame,

only learning of the wholeness

through the emptiness within.

Divine Child, my Love, my Being 

together we are the one,

our Mother is ready to wean us,

it’s OUR time that now has come.

The Earth, the Sky, the Universe,

the sunshine and the night

they are calling on us together

to step into the light.

Softly, slowly, gently  - we breathe in the change.

Lovingly and consciously - we breathe out our fear.

Let’s take these steps my fellow Earth Angels,

our Divine Child is waiting to ascend.

Like the chrysalis holding the transforming caterpillar

our furled and folded wings are still hidden from view.

We do not yet know what we are becoming

the potential power of that beauty within.

But listen………… our divinity is cracking open 

and from inside we know what we have to do. 

Understand it is the small things

that make the difference,

it is the seemingly insignificant

that will announce the change. 

So look no further than the mirror,

listen to the voice of the inner child,

breathe in the shared universe that connects us

and together we shall unite.

Joyously we will unfurl our wings of colour

trying them out for size 

and with the blessing of our Mother,

we collectively fly into the light. 

Alegra

Letters from 24 May 2016 until 3rd June 2016