Dare to Blossom Blog
August 2021: A Pause
Reflections: A Pause
September six week programme: "Being Powerfully Yourself"
Reflections: A Pause
Here in Cornwall, August is always a very busy month with people enjoying their holidays, and even more so this year. For me, preferring as I do the quiet places, and given that my business is quieter, August is an opportunity for a pause, a rest. A chance to sit in a shady spot in my garden and dip into some of my summer reading. (I suspect some of this selection will not be finished until well into autumn however....)
The top book in the pile above, 'Braiding Sweetgrass' by Robin Wall Kimmerer, has some exquisite descriptions of the author's observations of nature. For example, in the chapter I have just read, 'Witness to the Rain', she is in the temperate rainforest of the west coast, in Oregon, exploring how the rain makes different noises as it lands on all the leaves of the various plants.
As I sit here, at my desk, with the door open, I can hear a crow cawing loudly, and now another answering, and another, as if in conversation, or maybe argument. I can hear the wind in the trees around my garden. I feel that the temperature has dropped as the sun went behind a cloud. Oh! As I write, a very large dragonfly has just flown in the door......
A few minutes later.... having picked up my phone just in case it settled and I was able to take a photo, it has gone - I am assuming either back out of the door, or through the window I opened quickly to give it another option. How interesting. We see them fleetingly in the garden at this time of year. Occasionally I do notice where one settles and tiptoe closer to take a picture, but I don't recall one ever visiting me indoors before. As a friend said later, it was probably good to simply enjoy the unusual moment, rather than trying to 'capture' it in a photograph.
Here is one who visited us last year and settled for several minutes on the vegetation. I think my visitor today had a yellow and green body, but it was about this size or larger. A quick piece of research suggests they are both one of the Hawker family of dragonflies.
July 2021 Summertime Thoughts
Reflections: Summertime Thoughts
July and August openings for 1:1 conversations
Summer Circle "Time for you"
Dare to Blossom Monthly Circle on Zoom: Thursday 1st July and Saturday 10th July
"Be Powerfully Yourself" one to one coaching programme
Summertime Reading recommendation: "The Hut" by Zeeba Ansari
Reflections: Summertime Thoughts
Music sparks so many memories - "Summertime, and the livin' is easy" is one of those songs for me. It comes from "Porgy and Bess", and so many singers have made it their own - Aretha Franklin, Nina Simone, many more.
(An apology to those of you who are in parts of the world where it is mid winter for you - maybe these reflections will bring some summertime memories back for you?)
I have chosen a version by Billy Holiday to share here as it has the brass instruments that fit with the version I remember. The quality is not perfect but very evocative. Here is another jazz version by Andrea Motis with The Joan Chamorro Quintet and Scott Hamilton. The music takes me back to one year at the Royal Cornwall Agricultural Show, held near where I live, at the dedicated showground at Wadebridge. On this year I was wandering around enjoying the atmosphere. There was a jazz band playing on an open-topped double-decker bus. As usual, there was a wind blowing, flags and banners were fluttering in the breeze, the weather was a mixture of sunshine and cloud. The tune drifted across the hillside. Entrancing.
This takes me now to all the times I spent at the show every year, in early June. For many years, probably beginning in the late 1970s or early 1980s, I exhibited my copper enamel jewellery and tie-dyed silk scarves in the local craft tent there. I cannot remember now for how many years I did that, but at some stage I decided to stop after finding it simply too exhausting. Even with much-appreciated help from my mother and my husband, it took so much energy. Hot, cold, wet, strong winds, thunder storms - we experienced everything. That last year it was very dry and dusty and on the evening of the last day after the hard work of packing everything away, queuing to get my car into the showground, then queuing some more to get out again and on the road home - after all that I found myself struggling to breathe, almost like an asthma attack, although I have never experienced one before, or since. I decided then and there that would be my last year.
This photo may have been taken at the Royal Cornwall Show. More likely at one of the smaller events held in a marquee each year as the bigger show had canvas sides between each stall, and so the clothes next door wouldn't have been visible. Apologies for the photo quality, a rather fuzzy photo dating back to the 1980s.
June 2021: Questions
Reflections: Questions
For the last time, from my archives: June titles poem
Last opportunity to book your place for "Weaving Shadow and Light"
Dare to Blossom Monthly Circle on Zoom: Thursday 3rd June (Special) and Saturday 12th June
"Be Powerfully Yourself" one to one coaching programme
Reflections: Questions
As always, I find myself wondering what to write about this month. Usually it becomes clear quickly, not so just now.... very interesting.
I began yesterday, as I often do, by writing in my journal, here are those musings: my critical inner voice says it would be more 'efficient' to sit at my desk and type straight into the newsletter. Maybe so, if I am measuring the time it takes to write a certain number of words. And yet, I never count the words in these reflections for you, why would I?
The measure of 'value' for me here is not the quantity, nor even the 'quality', if that subjective thought could be defined. Rather, I feel that when I read a newsletter or a blog, my response is based on whether there is a nugget of gold within the words. Is that true for you?
A little piece of wisdom that makes me stop, read again, maybe make a note, or highlight the words if I am reading on paper. That little spark of recognition is magical for me. It doesn't appear every time I read something even by a favourite writer, yet often enough for me to know it is worth opening the emails and reading. Sometimes the spark is more like a warm glow, a feeling of companionship.
Many of you are writers as well as readers - how would you describe this? The spark, the warm glow, something else?
May 2021: Contrary Winds
Reflections: Contrary Winds
New programme in June, tasters in May: "Weaving Shadow and Light"
Dare to Blossom Monthly Circle on Zoom Saturday 8th May
From my archives: May titles poem
Reflections: Contrary WInds
April, here in England, has been a month of contrary winds, and little rain. One day recently I wrote this in my little travelling notebook:
Near ‘Crab Ledges’ on the west side of Trevose Head. There is a very strong easterly wind and it has been hard to find any shelter, but now I am tucked down on the rocks, under the low cliff here.
‘Wind waves’ are blowing outwards from the shore, very bizarre. Tomorrow and Saturday real gales are forecast.
(for some reason MailChimp is not allowing me to upload the photos of those waves I wanted to include here. So this is a random image for no other reason than that I love it, and so do many others as I receive comments every time I share it.)
April 2021: Vision + Sanctuary
Reflections: Vision + Sanctuary
New programmes April (Early Bird discount ends 31st March), and June
Dare to Blossom Monthly Circle on Zoom Saturday 10th April
From my archives: April titles poem
Dare to Blossom Art: a chance to browse before a price increase
Re the taster circles: If you see this in time, you are warmly invited to join us at a taster circle for "Vision + Sanctuary: Be Powerfully Yourself": They are on Monday 29th March at 7.15 pm UK time, or on Tuesday 30th March at 9.30 am UK time. Again, contact me to receive the Zoom link to join us. You can read more below.
Reflections: Vision + Sanctuary
When I came to look back at the last newsletter, I couldn't believe how much has happened since I wrote at the end of February. Then I wrote about 'Be Powerfully Yourself', and that was also to be the title of my April offering.
During March, I have hosted the short four week Circle, 'Space to Be: Space to Breathe', with a delightfully supportive small group. That experience has given me that space, to be, and to breathe, and to let the ideas for the April programme to grow and expand.
As that happened I connected my two words of the year for 2021 'Vision' and 'Sanctuary' with the Compass Rose, and with being powerfully myself. I now see Sanctuary as a similar place as Peace, the centre point of the Compass Rose. When I am myself feeling grounded and centred, then I also have a strong sense of peace, and of sanctuary. From that doubly powerful place, I can step out, I can connect with any point, any part of the Compass Rose, whilst staying grounded.
Looking west from Morte Point, North Devon
March 2021 Be Powerfully Yourself
2021 programmes, starting with 'Space to Be, Space to Breathe' on 1st March
Dare to Blossom Monthly Circle on Zoom Saturday 6th March
From my archives: March titles poem
Reflections: Be Powerfully Yourself
Just now, as I sit to write for you this month, I notice how I feel. Not particularly powerful. And, - now I am noticing - not really 'myself' either. And, what does that mean, 'be yourself'? People often say that, maybe when I am anxious, perhaps in the past before an interview for a job. Or, more likely in the recent past, before standing up in front of a group of people to speak. How can I, can any of us, not be ourselves?
I know that often I may have felt that wasn't good enough: I didn't want to be the uncertain, wobbly, Mary who couldn't get her words out. The one who was (still is sometimes) told to 'speak up', 'stop mumbling'. The one who would rather have run away and hidden somewhere quiet.
And yet, in the years since I named my business 'Dare to Blossom' (and way before that actually), I have been doing just that, responding to my own challenge. Daring to blossom, to speak, to press 'send' when I have written a personal piece here that feels so sensitive that it might wither in the glare of other people reading my words.
If you have been here for a while you may have seen some of that blossoming, that daring. You may have read The Powerful Voice of the Quiet Ones; you may have been to some of my workshops, or more recently, Zoom gatherings; you may have taken part in daring to blossom yourself during one of my longer programmes. Over the last year, 2020, during that strangest of times, I have been privileged with the company of many of you in all the different Circles I have hosted. My last in-person workshop at the Blue Lotus Therapy Centre was on 25th January, since then everything has been on Zoom.
I feel so fortunate that I was already familiar with the technology, with the challenges, and with the huge gifts of being able to share real time conversations with people from all over the world. Following the first group programme this year, 'Your Powerful Voice', which has just ended, and the about to start 'Space to Be: Space to Breathe' four week circle (which I wrote about last week - still time to join us, see more below) - the new six week trip around the Compass Rose will be on the theme of 'Be Powerfully Yourself'.
I will be using the space of the month of March to write the detailed programme, which will begin on 12th April. As I sit now to write to you in the end days of February, with a good Cornish gale blowing outside, I can see the flow. I can see how another process I explored with a group last year (and still do in the open Facebook group), weaving shadow and light, how that is now helping me in stepping forward to be powerfully myself.
(I chose this photo of the power of the ocean. It was taken on my first walk for a while after what seems like weeks of wind and rain. The wind had dropped, the sun was shining, and as you see a huge swell was running. It was even warm enough to sit on a bench for a while and just enjoy. Just being there, being with the power of nature all around me.)
Constantine Bay February 2021
And, yet, sitting here now, again I bump up against that fear, that reticence, about claiming 'power'.