that post I just couldnt write.....

For some months now Ive been visiting the land of insomnia, rather than the land of nod. The regions of laying splayed in bed, tossing and turning thinking Ill just try the other side one more time. If the restlessness continues Im up, and ill just pop into the kitchen and devour whatevers handy, preferably something sweet or crunchy. Ive eyed off the cat buscuits at times of snack impoverishment. A few months ago, it would have been chainsmoking, now after a midnight snack i gnaw on my nicorette gum avidly....

Habits, it seems replace each other, filling the space vacated by the more hideous one in a gradual slide towards health. That place where all will be perfection, Ill be you know totally sorted, and beaming 'cured' from my problem free self. Only thing is each time I get closer some other 'imbalance' appears. Daytimes spent restfully lead to sleepless nights, cigarettes go and nocturnal fridge raids come on in, and I develop a rash from the stress of both. Maybe thats the flu I feel creeping in?

So whats a girl to do? If I could just get it together. But the tighter I try to control, the more I bust, the harder I wish myself to sleep the more my brain thinks its reeaaly important to worry about that thing I said to someone who doesnt know me from a bar of soap or that house I didnt get thats had someone else living there for 6 months...

Maybe theres some other way, a wiser more compassionate way of treating self that goes ok im crap at excercising Im not going to be the female version of bruce lee, damn, but I can go for the odd walk. I can think about how the crunchy stuff I chow down ons been made, aka relative deep friedness. I can choose what beverages I consume on alcohol free days to maximise my resisitance to hangovers....hey hang on Im switching habits again....
Am I back in the loop?

Im not thinking how baaad I am anymore,  Im not focused on the fabulousness of an outcome off in the distance, and therefore the shittyness of now, but engaging with the process of shifts for their own sake. Transition is a permanant fixture. Its adjusting with the flow of patterns, rather than going on an intervention of elimination. Building rather than tearing down....and before i know it that post I just couldnt write is taking form, and Im getting kind o sleepy.

Hey here's to trying being kind, but honest, with ourselves. Changing that inner talk from a swearing biggest loser trainer inanely focused on their abs to some old mate you enjoy hangin with, that makes you just exhale, or laugh. I bet i know which one cares the most long term, after the ratings have long become irrelevant. Paradoxically, when you switch modes, possabilitys seem to open up and theres an organic healing thats taking place. Lets call it the manifesting care, in its own bloody time theory. Letting control go long enough to regain it....
what soundtrack have you got playing?

goldilocks.....

lightning man.....

Cloak of the grandmothas....

Incense, some ponderings.....

Picture a flaming hearthfire, on top a pot bubbles away with a soup, or stew, curry, or stir fry flavoured with herbs and spices. Smoke from the fire is mixing and blending with the scents of cooking, slightly tinged with the particular tree who gave of their wood to this scene. Perhaps some bread is baking, to dip into the meal. This picture is taking place all over the world, the localised herbs and spices varying what hungry noses are tempted by. What we are observing is highly likely the origin of incense...

Plants, and the scents they release when burned, have inspired, blessed, healed and comforted for eons. Be their form chunks of sap, branches or leaves straight from a tree, or the more processed mixtures of dried and powdered herbs burnt on charcoal, bound to a stick or swung in censors.

A newborn baby is held over a small fire, laced with leaves, be they spinifex or eucalypt, depending on what grows nearby, there is a blessing and welcoming into her new environment by passing through the smoke. A connecting to plants, and the hearth. For who is the bridge between earth and animals, even human ones, if not plants, it’s been thus since we were pondscum feeding on algae.

On the other side of the planet sage is rolled into a stick, bound in thread and allowed to dry like this, to be later lit and used to ‘smudge’ before a ritual dance, ceremony, or soul retrieval. The smoke brushed around the body using a cluster of eagle wingtip feathers it curls into where its needed, then rises high into the sky, and upper realms of spirit.

Incenses origins often reside in resins and barks. Sandalwood is so desired, that all the trees in Mysore, the place it occurs naturally are government property wherever they occur, and harvesting is watched over. There is also an Australian sandalwood, Santalam acuminatum, a interior species thats being used similarly as an alternative. The seeds of which were traditionally made into necklaces, not unlike the ones in india that saddhu’s wear and consider holy. They look like small round brains, interestingly enough considering the sacredness of them.

With such deep ancestral memories and associations is it any wonder that incense has been adopted by nearly every kind of faith, including atheism, on the planet. A precursor and codeveloper with perfume and aromatherapy, varying scent to mood and occasion. How blessed are we to have such a tool for shifting consciousness at our fingertips? It doesn’t have to be expensive, with a charcoal block any mix of dried herbs can be sprinkled on and encouraged to share its smoke. A pack of sticks is a couple of dollars.

Home feeling a bit stagnant? Setting a romantic or meditative scene? Taking a luxurious bath, got a candle going? Bit blue? Why not light up?

desert rose.....

This woman was photographed in Iraq by Aqeel Taleb Mehde and featured in the Big Issue mag.

botanica watercolours....

wisdom sleeping....