October - is all about the escape

The book nook - oh the perfect reading spot!
Set up in a little corner of a quiet room.
Good light, a comfy chair and a blanket to curl up in.
Our very own reading heaven.
I really LOVE to read and sometimes
I really NEED to read.
Those are the times when my head is churning,
mumbling on and on.
My inner voice has nothing kind to say
and my mind is frazzled from the weight.
Icky thoughts on scratched record repeat
and no amount of breathing or calming can shift them forwards.
This is the time I need to override my thoughts,
press the reset button.
I turn to my “go to” book list.
Special books set aside in their own special drawer.
These books give me an inner exhale
just as my hands touch the cover.
Some of these books I love for their words, their story.
Others for their imagery and colours.
They all create a calm in me,
as they take me gently by the hand.
Leading me away from the stress & nonsense of the day,
into their safe world of wisdom and pleasure.
Ahhh my book nook.
And the books that calm me.

Do you have your own stash of “go to” books or authors?
Because this is your month to snuggle up with a good one.

September - is all about the belonging

My little blue house is the place I call home right now with my noisy family.
It is the place I am bringing up my babies, my pets
and working to keep and maintain with my husband.
It is the place that I scrawled, “I love it” on the details
when we first came to view it and the place we sigh,
“I love it” when we come back from a trip.
But my little house is also the place that nags me
into chores and bills and debts and rats and drips and clutter,
on and on to the point that I cry out, "this place is driving me nuts".

Our sense of home is so personal, diverse, and complicated.
We all experience different visions of what home means
and are in different stages of our life’s journey home.
Home encompasses so much more than just the structure of where you live and the details you would find from a realtor’s notes.
It is the where, the who, the how and more.
I wonder if any of us are living our whole definition of home
at any one moment in our lives?
If pressed there is usually something missing
or out of whack whether it is in the bricks and mortar,
a disconnect with surroundings, missing people or missing place.
What I have found, when I take a step back,
is that the sense of home is in the little things
and that finding your place can look like anything.

Home is the place you can walk through the door and shed your outside self.
It is where you feel yourself sinking into complete comfort, wherever that may be.
The place you can talk, and be heard, without uttering a sound.
It is the hug when you definitely needed it.
It is a colour, a view, a warm memory stirred.
A fresh cup of tea poured from your very own pot.
Home is a laugh when your funny friend visits,
or a wave of “hello” when you’re out in your day.
Home can be anything, anything at all.
When you feel truly connected to something you are home.

The fun for this month is finding where this happens for you.

August - is all about the anchoring

I am beyond fortunate to live on Vancouver Island
in a beautiful place called the Cowichan Valley.
We are spoilt in the summer for places to swim
and they are definitely my happy places.
Free entertainment for the kids is parenting gold in my world.
When I lie on my back and dip my ears just under the water level
I can hear only the sounds of my own breath
while I swirl round and round looking at the clouds,
the blue of the sky, the strength of the trees
and the ever stabilizing lines of the mountains that surround us here.

This is my meditation, my blocking of the world’s crazy sounds.
I am the only person in the now just for this very split second.
It anchors me to me for a moment and interrupts the numbness that life can start to instill.
I feel only the light chill of the water on my skin,
I see only the light blue of the sky and the green of the trees.
I hear only my slow, but strong rhythmic breathing.
I am alive, I am here in the right now and it feels good.

I raise my head.
I hear the chatter of the world once more,
but I still have the chill on my skin
and the memories of the sound of my breath
and the light in my eyes.
It is lasting inside me that feeling of being absolutely alive.

I urge you this month to check in with yourself however that happens for you.
What is your quiet, your anchor to you this month of August?