By my bed, I keep a little bag of happiness, tied up with a faded, frayed ribbon of palest blue.
Happiness in a Bag
It was given to me, many years back, by a special member of our extended family. Her name was Barbara. I am not sure if she made it or if she bought it, in aid of one of the many good causes she supported. It matters not; it is a lovely hand-made gift of home-spun wisdom, which always makes me smile and remember the giver.
So of what does Happiness consist?
Happiness Kit
Very little, it seems; an eraser, some cents, a marble, a rubber band, a piece of string,
Makers of Happiness
and a kiss,
A Happiness Kiss
to remind us that someone always cares about us.
The kiss in the kit bag was originally a Hershey’s Kiss but it disintegrated long ago. ( I didn’t eat it, truly I didn’t.) The little kissing rabbits belonged to my mother, and, before that, to her three maiden great-aunts. They have been loved for generations but not yet been loved quite as much as the Velveteen Rabbit, it would seem.
And that is all there is to it; my little bag of happiness. Simple, isn’t it?
I am thinking about love…..and our expression of it. I am thinking about Bishop Valentine before he became Saint; about Saint Valentine before he became Valentine. I am thinking about who he was, or who they were , and what they may have become….the dream sales team for the business of Valentine’s Day? 🙂 But, mostly, I am thinking of love.
“The love which from our birth over and around us lies“….the “human love of brother, sister, parent, child”….the love from “friends on earth and friends, above“, the love that comes from “gentle thoughts and mild”.
And I am thinking of how that love finds its form in the most unexpected places,
Unexpected loving thoughts
where, for the most part, it sits in quiet, patient, unobtrusive abundance,
Heart on paper
Heart container
Heart rug
Heart of my laundry
Foundation Heart
Hearts on a mug
Heart of the mat
Heart of the house
waiting to support us, when called upon,
Proverbs
Corinthians
My great grandmother’s New Testament enduring since 1866
and ever willing to send us gentle, trans-formative love letters ~
“You do not need to know precisely what is happening, or exactly where it is all going. What you need is to recognize the possibilities and challenges offered by the present moment, and to embrace them with courage, faith and hope.” Thomas Merton
love letters that help us to see that the loving heart, contained within,
Madder Red or plain ochre heart
Blue hearts
Royal Heart
Heart on Fabric
Seeing with Heart and Eye
can be released and applied, like nature’s salve, to heal the woe of the broken landscape.
Bindweed holding it all together; making the most of the possibilities
In my previous post, on Joy and Woe, your loving, supportive, compassionate comments brought me tears, laughter and a huge amount of joy. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. This post is my Valentine’s love letter to you all.
The Blessings of Saint Valentine (whoever he may be!), chocolate, flowers , gentle thoughts and mild, and love, be with you all.
For a number of reasons, my Christmas has been unfurling more slowly than ever this year. I am still writing Christmas cards both for myself and on behalf of my mother, who remains unwell. Once upon a time this slowness would have stressed me greatly but, in recent years, I have acknowledged that Christmas is as much about a journey/s as it is about an event or destination. That understanding of Christmas means I feel free to adopt a pace that is suitable for the purpose of the journeying.
And, in Christmas, there are several journeys. There is the obvious spiritual one which takes a lifetime…I am guessing…and usually cannot be rushed. There is the journey home, to the stable to be counted, to be accounted for and, sometimes, to account for. Then, there are the Magi travels of discovery and inquiry and seeking ( the perfect light 😉 ) and these can be life-long too. Another journey which, perhaps, contains the essential truth of every voyage we undertake is ‘the flight into Egypt’; the journey where we leave behind the familiar and the known and step in to the new, the unknown, the unseen, where we may find safety and we may not. Sometimes, we take this journey by choice, sometimes, it is by chance but, by chance or by choice, it is rarely a journey embarked upon lightly.
This Christmas, our home was blessed by the presence of voyagers; my brother and his wife and their two sons who came from Sydney to be with us. With both our families we counted for 7 at the s table. We rediscovered the pleasure of familial ties, and we parted, unsure of what the year ahead holds for each of us, yet certain that we have one another for the road as yet uncharted.
The Emigrant’s Daughter Graham, Thomas Alexander Ferguson, 1840-1906. Graham, Thomas Alexander Ferguson, 1840-1906 :The emigrant’s daughter. 1861. Ref: MNZ-0084-1/4. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand. http://natlib.govt.nz/records/22843811
With my brother’s tribe came a foreign traveller, far, far from his birthplace; a small soapstone ( Kisii stone) hippo; come from the fields of Kenya to settle with us on the plains of Canterbury.
I am where?
Oh here! Where’s that?
Welcome, little one, what a journey you and your makers are on. What a journey we are on.
The daffodils in this post are for Lizzie Rose Jewellery and Teamgloria , and my mother, because they all love daffodils but daffodils don’t, and won’t, grow in their delightfully warm garden spaces.
“The curve of the earth lies fissured, its mantle cracked like a poorly cast bell, yet with the warmth of spring’s caress, a vibration shimmers, swells, seeps, riverine, through the hollows and cracks of the slumped soil.
Fissure
In the movement of the spring, the bulbs, buried fast, sense the tender loosening, the sweet lightening of their winter bedding. They awaken. Stretch upward. Outward. Yawn, and smile a happy-sunshine smile.
Stretching
To the Sun
And , then, precisely then, we know, deeply, that even a broken bell has its own essential resonance; its own beautiful chime to ring. Listen.”
Essential Resonance
Chime of its own
For those of you who like to know about location and history; we spotted the daffodils on a sun-drenched river bank on the Avon Loop. We were near the place on the river side which was once, very long ago, home to the Canterbury Rowing Club. The Loop is a heritage area of Christchurch which was badly damaged in the earthquakes of 2010 and 2011. Most of the land on that small bend in the Avon River is no longer suitable for housing, so the broken homes currently there will be removed/demolished. Eventually, the land will form part of a natural recreational park system along the river. It promises to be lovely and, strangely, in its new life it will almost be a reincarnation of its old life, which, beginning in the 1860s, was a wonderful, open space where thousands of Cantabrians enjoyed picnics and the sport of rowing. http://lostchristchurch.org.nz/opening-of-the-boating-season-avon-river
