Awen

Awen (noun): poetic inspiration. From the Indo-European root *-uel, meaning 'to blow'.

I love the concept of awen. A wind blowing through your soul, bringing inspiration in its wake. I've only recently discovered the term, in reading about modern Druidic tradition amongst many other explorations of pagan paths. It immediately spoke to me, like few other concepts in any tradition have ever done. I know that feeling intimately, and seeking it forms a big part of my own search for a spiritual identity. For me, without spirituality there is no awen, and without awen there is no spirituality. The sense of connectedness and transcendence is something I have sought since I was young.

Music has always been one of my sources of awen. When listening I find it in music of all genres, from classical to new age to Enya to ordinary pop/rock ("Solsbury Hill" by Peter Gabriel and "Steer" by Missy Higgins are perfect examples). I also find moments of it when singing or playing an instrument in a group - those moments of transcendence when the ensemble combines perfectly and the music itself seems to come to life. It's one of the major reasons why I still love Anglican church services - there is a magic in massed voices that defies artificial boundaries between faiths.

The natural world, and its weather and the turning of its seasons, has always been my biggest source of awen, and it is what led me to paganism. Red berries against a blue sky, sunlight across the plains, a crayfish scuttling under a riverbank, the wind in my hair, mist rolling up a valley, thunder on a hot night, the first frost of autumn... when I am out there in the natural world, awen is everywhere.

Of course, the man-made world is not without awen either. Buildings that are old or odd or quirky. Artworks I like for no better reason than that they speak to my soul. (Here is one - I have seen the original in the Tate and was captivated). Crafts that are nifty or cute. An uplifting book scene or a really clever joke. When I open myself to it, awen is everywhere.

My desire to write fiction has been driven by childhood experiences of awen. It was lacking in my real life - we were not a religious family - and my main sources of it, then as now, were music, nature and stories. My formative years were shaped by books and stories told in electronic media that blew into my soul, inspiring me to act them out, extemporise, adapt and retell over and over again out in the half-acre scrap of garden and bushland that was my childhood temple. All of the books I've tried to write and the stories I've tried to tell have contained elements of this raw need to channel, create, inspire and share the sensation of awen.

Age 9, glowing with inspiration

 I've been thinking about this a lot lately, as I try yet again to put words on paper, or on screen as it is these days (and perhaps that's part of the problem). The wind of inspiration blows into me, and I come alive with the thought of the story I have to tell. I envisage it whole in my head, see it, feel it, live it out in little scenes in my mind, but when the words reach the page they seem to lose their sparkle. How do I maintain that sense of wonder, and the fierce spirit of inspiration? How do I keep the fire of awen burning for the weeks, months and years it takes to craft a novel? How do you keep your spirit glowing with purpose when you're burdened with money worries, or the toddler is being irrational, or when the housework never seems to be finished? How do you teach your heart to be open to awen every moment of every day? Not just for novel writing, but for teaching, and cooking, and keeping house, and nurturing my loved ones, and hoping and believing and growing?


What are your sources for awen (or whatever you would choose to call it)? What reminds you that it's good to be alive, or feeds your creative fires? Where do you get your inspiration?

Harvest

While I've been on school holidays I've been taking Munchkin-D to or from nursery four days a week (Granny does morning drop-offs or evening pick-ups, I do lunchtimes for both). On the way we talk about what we can see. Munchkin-D is fascinated by anything you can tell him about the world around him. Lately, with the season changing, we've been discussing berries, nuts and the changing leaves. He has been asking about fireworks for months and can reliably tell you that after the leaves change and the apples are ripe we will see a sign saying "fireworks sold here" and then it will be time for the fireworks. He has also informed me that one day he will be a birdy and eat the seeds out of the berries. The things that come out of that mind... he amazes and delights us every day!

Today we found some conkers by the footpath and gathered up three of them. Being an antipodean I never collected conkers as a child, and I've never looked closely at them before. Munchkin-D and I spent some time looking at their marvellous colours and shiny smooth skin. Then we took them home and put them in a bowl with some of our other autumn finds - a dried rose and a beech nut that was closed when we picked it up, but which sprung open overnight.

We have a little apple-tree in our backyard. We haven't tried the apples, but something will have to be done with them soon as they are falling off all over. We didn't take care of them this year, but we're planning to grow veggies next year and will try to manage our apples too. By then I should be able to eat apples fairly regularly without messing up my diet.

Today really feels like autumn - it's windy with passing rain. I can't help feeling a bit thrilled.

I got chatting to our upstairs neighbour last week. He is semi-retired and does a lot of gardening - his little backyard patch is perfect next to our scruffy plot! We talked about plants and our life histories and that sort of thing. He knew Mary, the elderly lady who lived our flat before us, and told me that one of the roses on the fence-line, which I had assumed was his, was actually on our side and had been brought there by Mary from her former house. It's a big, scraggly thing needing a good trim-back, but as we chatted I saw a few late buds on it and decided to leave pruning until after they were done. I was glad I did, as this week three or four stunning, fragrant pink-red roses sprung into bloom.

You can see how big and thorny that bush is - it will get a good trimming after the roses are done!

Growing up in Australia we constantly hear that our wildlife is bigger and scarier than everyone else's. This is mostly true, but back home I have never, ever seen a slug the size of this one...

It was about 8cm long! After taking its picture I ran in to grab my wildlife book and identified it as Arion ater, a Large Red Slug (... appropriately enough). 

I have been coming up with a plan for our garden. There's a very overgrown Hebe that I want to take out, a holly and a fuchsia to move elsewhere and a dead tree to remove, which will open up the garden bed down one side for veggies. I want climbing cherry tomatoes up the fence, and our staples in the rest of it: broccoli, cauliflower, courgette, aubergine and peppers, and a few other things, perhaps peas, spinach, chard, and some herbs. I'm really looking forward to the challenge.

Lastly, this afternoon we were walking back from the shops, all three of us together. Ellie and I were pointing out various berries and plants. I pointed to one and said "this one is hawthorn!". Munchkin-D's interpretation, shouted: "this one is AWFUL!". Ellie and I nearly died laughing. He is a joy!

New look, proposal and more ...

As you can see, I have spent the past two hours giving the blog an overhaul. The old template had gone a bit wonky thanks to blogger updates, and it was time for something new. As well as installing the new template, I've refreshed my links list and added 'About' and 'Contact' pages at the top. I also now have my very own 'favicon' - if you un-favourite and re-favourite the blog you should see a teeny-tiny pink rose on the tab in your browser instead of the orange blogger symbol. I hope to eventually come up with a better favicon using my graphic art skills, but a miniature of my favourite photograph is good enough for now!

I had a request on facebook to blog about "the proposal". To be perfectly honest, it wasn't a big flashy moment, but a very quiet and private one. In true Christine-and-Ellie style it was quite pragmatic and ended with a shared laugh. We both know how special what we have is, and this was a logical step. We're in love, we're getting married... pretty much all there is to it!

We've now got a few things booked, and I have lots of paper samples on order. I've been busy designing our own wedding stationery, which we will either print ourselves (depending on printer prices) or get printed at a local print-shop using paper ordered from a supplier. I'm learning a lot about the paper types available in A5! Laid and wove and silk art and hammer effect... fascinating. Can't wait to see the samples.

School goes back next week, so I might be supplying again as early as Wednesday. I feel unready to go back, as I always do. I've been lucky enough to have a proper holiday this year, with only house reorganisation and cleaning to get done, and getting back into the swing of working is going to be hard. Having an income again will be nice, though!

Autumn is gathering pace here. We went for a ramble the other day, the three of us, to see what we could see. The first fallen leaves are gathering on the ground. Conkers and beechnuts are ripening and coming down. We spotted the berries of holly, yew, elder, bramble and numerous others as yet unidentified. We even ate some blackberries - D's first, and he was rather impressed (especially as I've been drumming the "wild berries are good for birdies not for people" lesson into him on our daily walk to nursery hehe). I had a few too, my first fruit since starting the low-carbohydrate diet in February. They were amazingly sweet (except the couple of not-quite-ripe ones I accidentally chose, which were delightfully tart). We had  a lovely time and D is becoming amazingly confident in his knowledge of plants. Hearing him describe how to treat a nettle sting with dock leaves is too precious!

I've now lost two stone (28lb/12.7kg), bringing my weight down to 143lb (65kg/10.2st). I have 14lb/6kg to go until my weight is back in the healthy BMI range. It's now time to start reintroducing a few of the restricted foods and seeing how my body copes with them. I have found low-carb eating so beneficial that I never want to go back to eating sugar and grains on a regular basis, but I will be glad to have fruit, plain yoghurt, carrots, sweet potato, legumes and dark chocolate back. They'll be reintroduced slowly and carefully with lots of monitoring, and in conjunction with an increase in exercise, specifically cross-fit style body-weight training. Prepare for a lot of moaning about sore muscles! But it will be worth it.

I think that's all the news for now. I am making it a goal to update once a week from now on!

I will admit . . .

. . . that it is beautiful outside. There's a full moon, it's cool but not cold. The sky is clear and the stars are crisp. It's lovely.

BUT . . . the roaring easterly gales we usually get at this time of night, while spoiling the feel of the evening, would blast all the hot air out of my house - something the soft gentle breeze out there isn't doing.

Just sayin'.

PS: There have been many evenings this year when I've stood on my verandah and listened to the bats swooping around in the sky above me. Yes, you can hear bats. No, I didn't know that either before I thought I heard them and looked it up. But I've never managed to see one until this evening, when I've caught the odd flicker of movement while watching the stars. They're awfully hard to see, even with a full moon. But I can hear them!

What an evening!

I think I mentioned a while back that the choir I joined was performing today. The event was the finale of a nature festival - a combined churches thanksgiving service up on top of a hill in a nature reserve outside of town. As soon as they found out that I play the flute they asked me to do some flute solos - quite undeterred by the fact that I hadn't played in public for four years!

I was really nervous beforehand, but it went fine. I played "Younger than Springtime" from 'South Pacific', "Hello Young Lovers" from 'The King and I' and "Morning Has Broken" while people were settling into their seats, and then "Colours of the Wind" from 'Pocahontas' as the beginning and end of the service. It was a really beautiful service and I'm really proud to have contributed to it. I made a couple of mistakes because there were flies attacking me the whole time - I had one lady from the choir on each side of me, holding the music stand so it wouldn't blow away with one hand and flapping flies off my face their other hand, but the flies still distracted me enough to cause a problem a couple of times, and I flubbed a couple of notes when there was a fly on my lips! But overall it went really well and everyone was really appreciative of me having turned up and played as well as singing. I was shaking afterwards, but so glad that I did it.

On the way home, driving between towns in the dark, I said a little prayer of gratitude for the opportunity to play my flute again, and then something rather strange happened. First I saw some sort of small marsupial run across the road - I think it was a chuditch. I've never seen a chuditch in the wild before, only in the zoo! Then, while I was still thrilling over that sighting, I went past an owl sitting in the middle of the road, watching some sort of scurrying thing that was just out of my sight. Probably a mouse.

I feel almost like those sightings were a reward, for having the courage to stand up and play at the service and for believing in myself. I simply love seeing animals in the wild and it's a huge thrill whenever I do, even when it's something a bit creepy (like the BIG snake I saw crossing the road on the way to the performance lol). So many in one evening makes me feel like it was laid on just for me :-)

I'm performing twice around Christmas - once at Carols by Candlelight and once at a Christmas Eve church service. I can't wait!