'If you remain generous, Time will come good; And you will find your feet Again on fresh pastures of promise, Where the air will be kind And blushed with beginning.' John O'Donahue
I have woken up feeling pregnant with possibility. It is a new moon today and I knew it beforehand, so I don’t know if I have given myself the cue to feel this way, or whether I am in synch with things beyond myself. I have felt a certain connectivity for weeks now, mainly for the worse, so I am erring on the side of synchronicity, now that it has come good, as John O’Donahue said it would.
It is satisfying to feel when there is a fit in our cycling through things. Even - I hesitantly concede- when we are wedded to a trough. But especially so when the trajectory turns upwards, when you can get wholly caught up in the relief of it all, in the wave of the inhalation. In turn, feeling out of kilter can feel especially difficult. Feeling down when the world seems to suggest we should feel otherwise- sadness on a sunny day for example- can make you feel especially tender. If that is you now, I hear you. I have been there many times too. But for now, for just this moment, the world and I feel in rare tandem.
I am awake unnaturally early. Or maybe it is naturally so. It is only 5.30am but the sun is streaming in to my room and hitting my face, which I feel sure has broken into smile before I was even awake enough to know it. Curtains in my bedroom are only ever just decorative. I insist on their being open all year around, much to the dismay of my husband who often takes to wearing an eye mask in bed in the summer months. It feels like sleeping next to Zorro. But I am too hungry for the light to miss even a moment of it.
I drink tea in bed but more quickly than usual. Both the day and I feel impatient to begin. I ignore my diary that suggested a yoga practice this morning and put my walking boots on over the top of my pyjamas. It is too early to cross paths with anyone other than the farmer, and even then I don’t mind because pull of the outside, stretching its arms through open windows and doors, is impossible to resist. Today is arguing for whimsy, for spontanaiety, for following rather than leading. Despite the early hour the air has the density that only warmth affords. Everything is glistening in its mixture of dew and light. Three fields along, the cows and their calves are already clamouring for shade, perfectly paired as they are, mother and child, mother and child. It is not hot yet but its as though they know what is to come, as though they have their own internal meteorologists. But really they just follow what they feel, which is maybe what we should do.
I circumvent them at a slightly quickened pace. I have heard too many stories over the years about people flattened by a protective heifer. About the ridiculous but still headline statistics that say it is more likely than a shark attack. I make for the brow of the nearest hill and already I am feeling overdressed. So I take off my unnecessary jacket and use it to sit on.
There is part of me that almost wants to sing of the sheer unadulterated beauty of it all. But this isn’t the Sound of Music and I have no singing voice, so instead I just drink it all in. Pause just to stop and stare. And stop and stare. I feel as though we wait all year for May but nothing ever prepares you for its immensity. Its sheer wanton abundance. I would love to think we might never become immune to it. What I know is that we don’t have to be. That staying open to the possibility of awe can be a choice. One that we make whenever we stay curious. And when we allow ourselves enough time to be aware.
When my children were young, I used to take them on a lot of picnics. As soon as the weather was kind enough, and oftentimes even when it wasn’t, I would pack them up in the car, sandwiches in tupperwares and snacks at the ready, and find a new garden or patch of countryside to wile some time away. And we would often spend the day there, me reading and them free range. It wasn’t especially inspired on my part. More lazy parenting, as I knew that the more natural the environment I took them too, the less I had to do to entertain them. Give them a woodland with sticks for make believe, a river to paddle in, clusters of flowers to play hide and seek behind, or gnarled trees to imagine up fairy lands, and I could lie down with a book, a singular eye keeping them just in sight, whilst they made their own fun.
One day in May - probably right about now- we found ourselves in one such garden deep in the Cotswolds, which is especially beautiful at this time of year. And as I scanned the garden to find a spot to set up camp for the morning, we passed by two old ladies. They must have shared 160 springs between them. Perhaps more. Enough for it to have lost- you would have thought- some of its novelty. But on the gentle day that it was, of pale blue skies and not a breath of wind, they stood with their noses up to an abundant wisteria, all resplendent with its purple chandeliers, smiles consuming their faces, beautifully creased by life.
‘Smell this Dot,’ one said to the other.
‘I am’, Dot replied, nose already aloft. ‘Isn’t it just wonderful?’
Their delight was childlike. Their enthusiasm undiminished despite the fact that Spring was circling back again in the way that it had for their whole lifetime. And it struck me that they were no less enamoured at the ends of their lives than my children were at the start of their own, as they raced through cow parsley already taller than they were, and lay on the ground staring up at the sky, challenging each other to find the animal shapes in the blissfully rare passing clouds.
It is a beautiful thing, to retain the curiosity for life that renders awe not just possible but probable. It is all too easy- and I am as guilty as the next person- to get caught up in a life so busy that what is happening beyond the limits of our minds is rendered near obsolete through sheer lack of attention. It is not always easy to infiltrate the busy moments or to carve out time for less. But we are always better for the trying. And every day now has much bigger edges, more morning and evening that we can down tools and drop into. Which in this very moment- as I look out onto a landscape coloured a still electric green- I have promised myself is the very least that I will do.
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The new moon is said to be a good day to set intentions, or to make promises to ourselves. It might be that you want to harness this upward energy and begin a project that has been nagging at you for some time. It might be that you want to make a little room for less. It can be anything at all. But if you have a moment today to set a small intention, the energy of the moon and the spring will be on your side.
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Absolutely the most wonderful words - nourishing, uplifting and lyrical - that I feel so connected with. How good are these May mornings! XX
“That staying open to the possibility of awe can be a choice. One that we make whenever we stay curious.” Beautiful newsletter as always, and a timely reminder. Every second of May is precious, and if you’re not alive to the noticing it can pass as if it were never there. Love always! x