Christmas is over....

..... and it was very lovely and enjoyable - my Mum came over to stay at mine - there was 6 of us staying in this little flat - but it was really, really good - 2 of my boys, Rachel and Lara - attentively looking after Mum - doing crosswords, making lots of cups of tea etc and cherishing her. She was brilliant - loving every second, being appreciative of everything and everybody - my eyes have suddenly welled up with tears as I write this - she is such an amazing, indomitable woman - I don't know how many more Christmas's she will have - but it was a joy to share this one with her - she described it as ' beautiful' - which felt very special to me.

We all went out for a meal on Christmas Eve - Fiona's family, Gilly and the 6 of us - then we all went to Fiona's for Christmas dinner - Ian prepared a feast for us - and Aidan delighted and charmed his big cousins and great grandmother. He is such a special little boy. Then yesterday another family party with Gilly, Evey and Michael and Michael's daughter - lots of laughter, love and as Evey wrote in a text to me this morning - 'What a lovely day we had yesterday - what more could we ask for than spending time with your Mum, family and friends - priceless.' I'm feeling very emotional again - just full of gratitude...... mantra brewing - how lucky am I? It is also so wonderful to be with others who are also so grateful - Mum, Evey, Michael - special, special!!!!

So I am now in my flat - Jimmy and Rachel cooking prawn salad - the two of them cooking companionably together - Jimmy's music playing - just about covering the noise of the washing machine, sorting myself out before tomorrow. Alex and Lara hopefully on a bus somewhere between Madrid and Gijon and Mum back in Abbeyfield - it was lovely when I took her home this morning - she said 'this feels like coming home' as she was greeted on her arrival, un-packing her presents - with only a fairly sketchy idea of which come from who - but holding them all dear.

I go dancing tomorrow in Spain - am really looking forward to switching off and just dancing - I want to use the opportunity to process the last few roller-coaster months and to be clearer what my intentions are for the future year. I will be dancing on a mountain top in the south of Spain - I danced in the new year of 2010 there - and that was the big/all change year for me!  Tomorrow I will be off again on another adventure - with my heart open,  fearless and with no idea what is awaiting me - wonderful!!!!

feelings of change...

.....am at home - Jimmy, Alex, Lara and I flew home from Croatia via Budapest yesterday and got home to tea cooked by Rachel who was waiting for us - she couldn't join us at Robbie's as she still hasn't got her passport back. Funny to be part of a family that needs passports to visit each other!

They've all gone out tonight and I have been knitting - we managed to leave my suitcase at Rob's house - with several of both mine and his Christmas presents in it - bit bonkers - but I think we were all a bit hung-over after his birthday party - well it happened - it was quite funny - got to Budapest airport - about 3 hours from Rob's - opened the boot of the car - and realised!  I had knitted my Mum a sort of shawl/scarf of beautiful soft wool and Rachel a waistcoat of 3 pieces - and one piece of the waistcoat and all of the shawl/scarf are still in a suitcase at Rob's!!! But Lara and I went to the wool shop today and I have made my Mum a cushion for her back and tonight knitted a very quick scarf for Rachel from fancy wool - so I am happy!

Tomorrow I go and pick my Mum up and bring her here for Christmas - 6 of us in a tiny flat - it will be squashed but wonderful - tomorrow night dinner in a restaurant - Christmas day at Fiona's and Boxing day here with Evie, Michael and Gilly. Precious, precious, precious times. I sound like my Mother -  am just so lucky - she says lucky - I say blessed - but I think we mean the same - grateful to be alive and recognising the wonderfulness of that.

Realised that I had titled this blogg - feelings of change - then wrote about knitting...... but I do have a huge feeling of change..... it sort of feels like everything is different - but strangely when we were in Croatia - it just felt so normal to be at Rob's - which on reflection is a bit wierd - but in a few days time Alex and Lara will go to Spain to spend New Year with Lara's family - and none of this feels strange. So much change yet all sort of deliciously normal - people/family - so of course normal - people are people and family is family - love it!

So the change must be in me! Maybe - I do feel like I am living in some accelerated whirlwind - though also knitting - there's a paradox! Feeling in a vortex of change whilst focusing on the minutiae - but the small things are the most important and even though everything is so rapid - we are living in this - the present moment!!!!

OK - so I will continue knitting - then go to bed very grateful in having 2 sons and their amazing partners staying in my flat - having just been visiting my third son - to be picking my Mum up tomorrow and then to be having a family Christmas - then dancing in Spain - lucky/blessed - just grateful............

back home and changed....

I wrote the title of this blog a couple of days ago but never wrote anything after that - I think I probably fell asleep!   I got back Monday evening and it is now Friday, the days just go by so quickly and I have been very tired!

It’s been a strange week and yes I do feel changed after the last weekend of my course.  I have become more public about being a Sound Healer, telling some people at work, doing a treatment with my mother – that was lovely, she became very blissful. I have noticed that people are becoming more open to discuss consciousness, energy, spirituality – or maybe it is just me and my journey.  I don’t think so though - as when I have talked about it with others - they too have said that people are becoming more open with them as well.  I am being more open about the spiritual side of my life, to my family and friends and now some colleagues!

I am excited about doing sound healing treatments for individuals and sound journeys for groups, I just love it, but it’s also something that I am actually very good at - as it is something that enables my natural gifts to come out.  This sounds a strange thing to write and I don’t mean it arrogantly - it is just that the sound healing is my vehicle, it is the way for me to do what I am very good at. It was certainly something that I hadn’t planned, and actually could not have foreseen occurring. I have never thought that healing was my gift, and I never thought that sound and my voice would be something I would use as a practice/type of work.

I have been thinking about my future and I can see that this part of my life will run parallel with the other part of my life for a while, and then I can see the two joining in some way.  Not quite certain how this will happen or even when it will happen but it just feels very right to me that it will happen.

I was talking to someone last night on Skype, and we haven’t seen each other for a while although we have talked on the phone and she commented that I looked different.  I think I might look a bit different, and I certainly feel a bit different, in some ways more self assured, more at peace.

Exciting things are happening in my life, and I am being open to them when they occur which is such good fun.  Living without fear is really the most important thing to do, being fearless – love it!

Go away again on Sunday to meet my boys -  Alex, Lara and Jimmy in Budapest – and then we will all drive to Varazdin to stay with Robbie.  It feels like the family home has now moved to Croatia – how exciting is that. Cheltenham Avenue is having solar panels put on the roof this week - it just seemed the right thing to do and I’m glad that I’ve done it, although it did end up to be a very complicated process. So the family home has moved to Croatia although it temporarily abides in Travellers Court – we come back on the 22^nd and then my mum will join us for Christmas.  It will be a bit of a squash - six of us in that tiny flat – but it will be cosy - I am looking forward to it.

So the end of 2012 is approaching, changes are occurring across the globe.  I am ready for 2013, a different person to the one that started 2012 – a Sound Healer – how did that happen!!! I feel very blessed and I feel very happy and I know the two are totally connected.

feeling expectant.......

Early morning tomorrow I will be on way to Belgium again - for the last weekend of my course.

Have felt very 'strange' all week - not certain why - and I don't know if it is physical, mental, emotional or  spiritual - but I suppose it is a mixture   - the physical has involved me being tired - not unexpected after last week - but I have also had this sort of physical expectancy feeling - a sort of undetermined excitement - with the heart racing etc - not certain why - but a real feeling of restlessness.

The mental has involved a lot of processing of last week - ideas still buzzing around - great thinking - but again 'expectant' rather than concretely identified - but really feeling that I am so close to a big bang in my thinking - buzzing rather than landing! Wrote stuff today which was a really good step,

Emotionally feel pretty cool at that the moment!

I know the spiritual aspect of my life is beautifully enriched by the Sound Healing course and I think much of my expectancy is a feeling of excitement of where I will go during the next few days. Funnily I also feel this physically - tonight my hands and feet are just burning up.

Bufff - consciousness - mentally, emotionally, physically and spiritually - the keys lie in our heart - time to reconnect them!!! Anything is becoming possible - way to go!

Things the same - yet things so different!

Well I'm back home - after another marathon - Sweden, Netherlands, Portugal.......

Feels like I am still landing - which is not surprising as I went directly from two very early flights, after about one hour's sleep, driving straight from the airport to my sister Jenny's for lunch with the family - which was lovely.... then home via the supermarket - and then somewhat ambitiously I made a Christmas Pudding!

Doing my blogg now - which I love to do - finding the space to start to reflect on what I feel tonight..... Well - I can clearly see that I am still as high as a kite from the experiences of the last two weeks!!!! And understandably!!!! But that in itself is good to know - recognising that I need to spend time focusing on landing.

OK - levels - work was great - very hard at times, very focused, lots of demands on my time, energy and abilities - and pretty constant, full on - days and evenings - breakfast conversation merging in full days of meetings which merged into dinners and very late nights - all interspersed with walks through the beautiful city of Porto - lots of good work being done whilst going up and down those steep hills between our hotel and the University rectorate building where we were based - special conversations.......

Wonderful work, and I can see so much more clearly after this last week - really starting to see what the SiS Catalyst legacy will look like, specifically, globally and also for me - this was a huge development in my thinking.

But there are other levels - deep, deep connections with others who understand - what a joy - what a joy - what a joy!!!!! As a consequence I did three sound healing sessions - which were all so different and yet each one was very well received - and they also gave me an amazing feeling of 'rightness' - I love doing them and it was a big jump between my worlds. The three sessions came naturally out of conversations - and it was good to have the chance to talk deep with others - not with everyone but with a growing number of people. Bufffffffffff!

The word which has been dancing around my thoughts all this week – and it is a word that has been around in my head for quite a while - certainly several months now – anyway the word is 'consciously'.

It was my intention when in the valley this summer - to be able to see more consciously - and suddenly I can see that really beginning to appear not just for me - but also for others.

OK what do I mean by 'seeing more consciously' – for example I had a beautiful conversation with my Mum at Jenny's today - we were talking about war/peace. She was born in 1920 - a peace baby 'Irene' - after the first world war – and was then the generation of young people caught up in the second world war - and my Mum said - the young people of today - they are more conscious - they travel, they use computers - they are more connected - this enables them to be more 'conscious of each other'.

I personally feel 'more conscious' of how I am living my life – consciously being happy for example. The shift I saw in myself this last week or so - has been to 'see' this change in consciousness - both within myself and crucially also within my work - for example working with global partners and witnessing their shared recognition of their similarities in their very different cultural, geographical etc etc localities.

Mmmmmm – lots and lots to think about, to reflect on – but now the call of a hot bath, a mug of camomile tea and bed with a hot water bottle in it – has just become too strong for me to resist!!!!!

Thank you blogg reader – my mind is just buzzing and it's lovely to get some of it down!