Tag Archives: Baby

The Magic & Beauty of the Australian Bush

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04 Oct

Ged always says I drive around with my eyes closed!  I say that of him too.  It does seem that we all have selective vision as we traverse through our lives.  I have been in love with the Australian Bush Flower Essences as healing remedies for years – magic in a bottle that have helped me let go of my past and move through my rage and grief to become happier, calmer, wiser.

Last year at this time when I was walking in Kendall State Forest, still sobbing about the loss of my beautiful Baby, there were thousands of delicate purple flowers scattered through the bush.  Purple was baby’s colour.  Everything she owned was purple – her head collar, leg bandages etc.  So these flimsy flowers on their strong green stalks seemed like messages from her from beyond the grave and I sobbed all the harder.

Still crying one year on.  Not so much, not every day, but still sometimes at a loss to deal with the loss.  And suddenly there were those flowers again.  I stopped and looked closely at them and all the other delicate tiny flowers blooming in the bush.  Each so small and perfect.  Tea tree with their five round white petals, like perfect rounded stars which remind me of the wonder and attention to detail after 10 days vipassana meditation in the Blue Mountains.  Little purple orchids on tiny climbing vines.  The golden yellow of gorse which I thought was a uniquely English bush.  The delicate tendrils of Eucalypt flowers with their wonderful sweet smell and caressing quality.  I made a collection and once more stooped to examine that papery purple flower.  Like a lightbulb in my head I realised that it was Bush Iris.  Familiar name, but what is it for?   I picked one and stroked my face with it as I grieved for Baby and realised that death is an intrinsic part of life.  In winter all is dead and dormant.  The land sleeps, the life forces stilled, nothing grows or flowers.  Yet in the spring time all is new and fresh and vibrant.  Singing and springing of resurgence and new life.  All is reborn.  So too is Baby as my beautiful Second Chance.  Nothing really dies. All is recycled, all is reborn.

I got back to the car and opened up the computer to check on the ausflowers website what the healing properties of Bush Iris are.  ‘The realisation that death is just a state of transition.  Opening of the root chakra and trust centres.’  All the things I have been meditating on recently and realising I needed to shift.  Funny that.

And then after taking the poor ailing child to the doctor who confirmed an ear infection and prescribed antibiotics, I spotted thousands of gorgeous flannel flowers on the sandy side of the road and stopped to harvest them in the hope of replanting them where I can see and adore their velvety smiles.  They bring me great joy and awaken the childish innocence I lost so long ago.

Suddenly my eyes and heart are open to the bush flowers all around me.  I can make my own!  Instead of being dependent on others for my healing I can seek to communicate and commune with nature on my own terms, make my own remedies, allow them to speak to and heal my heart and soul.

I have been an apprentice for too long.  It is time to become the master of my own healing and soul journey.  To step up to my magnificence and soul path.  To own myself.  To embrace myself.  To be myself in all my glory.

Death is so final . . . or is it?

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The most beautiful girl in the world
23 Oct

I have struggled so much this year with heart rending grief.  I have been on my knees, literally, night after night and day after day, howling to let the physical pain out of my heart, sobbing like a small child at the loss of my friend, comforter, mother in a past life, horse.  My hands have ached to stroke her body, feel her under my hands.  I want to smell her, touch her, see her, look into her eyes  . . .

Her death and my huge, uncomprehending loss, has shattered all my beliefs, fractured my spiritual compass and left me adrift on a sea of grief so huge and deep and wide that it has felt like I could never navigate my way to calmer waters.

It’s been a year since she went so lame and we realised that we were nearing the end of our incredible and healing journey together.  A year since I began begging on my knees for her not to leave me and started trying to get my head and heart around the inevitable.  A year ago we were dosing her with herbs, performing regular bowen and reiki on her, carrying her food and water to her, and beseeching angels to heal her.  A year ago she was still here.  Big and beautiful (even though she had lost so much weight), fluffy with cushings winter hair that we were combing out daily, wise, patient, kind, always so happy to see me, always such a wrench to leave.  She was on the other side of the property and there was no way she would be coming home although I wanted her where I could see her all day, every day.  In only a few short months she would be on the other side of the veil . . . I oscillated between great hope and conviction that we could heal her and bone rattling grief and fear that we could not and a parting of the ways was inevitable . . .

I can’t begin to articulate what she means to me.  My strength, my rock, my safe harbour, my great love, my home, my friend . . . a quarter of my life has been spent loving her, learning from her, basking in the happiness of being near her . . .

We have struggled over so many things, not least being my fear of riding her and her unwillingness to let me.  Now I know that battle was so unnecessary.  My greatest happiness was in simply walking beside her on the path, lead rope in hand.  We were such good companions, had such a sacred connection, were true soul mates.

And in the end I had to betray her (or was it serve her?) by releasing her from the pain and suffering of this earth-bound life and into the world of spirit where she could run once more, and do her funny little half rear, and be free in the realms of stars and angels to move onto her next spiritual task.

And, still in shock, to watch her burn and to rake up the remains day after day to keep her burning  while the pink petals rained down where she had lain in peace at last.

And then the pain started.  Not to have her, hold her, see her, love her.  Not to have her sweet, forgiving, loving heart reaching out to mine.  To never see her again except in my imagination and the realms of spirit.  And so she has walked with me and beside me in spirit, has watched me cry and always she whispers:

‘Do not stand at my grave and weep.  I am not there.  I do not sleep.  I am a thousand winds that blow.  I am the diamond glints on snow.  I am the sunlight on ripened grain.  I am the gentle autumn rain.  When you awaken in the morning’s hush I am the swift uplifting rush of quiet birds in circled flight.  I am the soft stars that shine at night.  Do not stand at my grave and cry; I am not there.  I did not die.’

And I scream back WHY?  I want to know why she left me, abandoned me, wanted to leave me?  Why did she want to go?  Why didn’t she want to stay when everything was just about to get so good.  Ben was going to start riding Tinkerbell, and we could all have fun together – my original family and the new . . .

I lost my faith as my heart shattered.  I could see her, can see her, beside me, but I want her in this realm with me.

Noot long after she died I saw so clearly that she had been my Mother in India and I had died as a child and broken her heart which helped my mind in its travels through the wasteland of grief, but not my heart.  And then a month or so ago I saw just how amazing the universe can be – how she chose to come back to earth for another turn in order to find me, because I was lost, and suffering, and rootless and need to find my way home.  And how she chose to come as a horse because she knew my damaged childish heart longed for a horse and that a horse would bring me peace.  And how events conspired (which I railed against at the time) to bring me back ‘home’ to England where I found her and somehow knew that we belonged together.  And how fraught and tense and difficult our journey together has been as I struggled to control her as the horse she was and she strove to teach me patience, and kindness and love, knowing I would need them for when I was a parent.

But I couldn’t see what she could.  I didn’t know then what I know now.  I cursed and fought her time after time and now I miss her so much.  I didn’t realise that every day, every moment, was a gift beyond price.

I was so lost when she found me.  So confused and loveless and sad and needy.  She knew I needed a family and so she prompted me to buy Tinkerbell and Phoenix and fly my family back to Australia with me (thank you Allens – you have blessed me beyond belief).  And together we looked for home.  For somewhere I could settle and love and be loved.  Everywhere we went I found a bit more love and another family – Attunga, Kangaroo Valley.  Until at last she led me home to the banks of the Ellenborough River and my place, my country, my heartland.

And she oversaw my meeting with Ged, my marriage, Ben’s birth, my depression and its eventual lifting.  And then her work was done.  So she left me.  So much richer, so much wiser,, so much more loved . . .but alone in my pain at her passing.

Can I learn to trust the machinations of the universe, seeing that?  Can you?

One day we will meet again.  As Richard Bach says in probably the most wonderful book ever written ‘Don’t be dismayed at Goodbyes.  A farewell is necessary before you can meet again.  And meeting again, after moments or lifetimes, is certain for those who are friends.’

Farewell, my darling girl – most beautiful girl in the world – looking forward to the moment when we meet again.  I love you . . . thank you, thank you, thank you x

Ode to a Horse

by . Posted on
02 Mar

There is an emptiness at Avalon. A hole where once there was a being of great heart and love. Where once there was the most beautiful girl in the world, now there is . . . nothing.

Seeing the other horses just makes the pain worse. They are all so different. Every animal has its own distinct personality, nature, issues, body, coat, hair, eyes etc. So I will never see or feel anything like Baby again as long as I live on this earth. Never wind that forelock around my fingers, tut tut over the incredible tangles in her mane and spend the time unravelling them. Never stand behind her with her tail at heart height and lean in to her, scratching down her flanks as she leaned back against me swaying in ecstasy. No other horse will ever be exactly the same height and width and weight and soul. No other horse will ever be the perfect fit for me like she was.

Baby had the most beautiful broad back, a joy to sit astride. She had perfect feet – dainty ballerina hooves despite her tendency to run to fat. She was a big, buxom, full hearted brown mama. Full of love.

Every feeling is indelibly imprinted in my hands – the warmth and softness as I stroked her face, neck, shoulder, belly, back and bum. The thick silk ropes of her tail. The fluffy fronds inside her ears, the velvet of her muzzle . . . the unconditional love and understanding in those beautiful brown eyes.

The peace in my heart and restless mind when I was in her presence. The simple joys of carrying water and hay, shovelling sweet smelling manure and whispering sweet nothings into ever alert ears. She has taught me everything I know about horses, she helped me understand the frustration my mother felt with me, she showed me how to look beyond the traditional givens of horsemanship and to listen to the wisdom of the horse. She opened my heart, gave me something to live for in the darkest of times, gave me a purpose, gave me a reason and led me to my dream farm, home, life.

Nothing that I have and hold dear now would have happened without Baby in my life. She changed it irrevocably. She shaped it, moulded it. She gave it meaning and life. Oh, God, I miss her so much.

Big Daisy is my succour, she lets me sob into her neck while she is placidly chewing her cud. They have the same warmth, gentle love and tolerance. Someone asked me how did I feel when I was with Baby and I answered ‘peace’ but more time to think made me realise that it was more than that. I felt love, I felt loved. I felt secure in that unconditional love. I was known and seen and loved regardless by a being with more heart and love than a hundred humans put together. She and I had known and shared and grown together. For a quarter of my life here on earth she was my friend, foe, comforter, confidante and great love.

Ultimately she taught me that the greatest gift we can give each other, share together, is time . . .

Big, beautiful Baby, I love you so, darling, miss you so, thank you for everything, please come back . .

Grief – the loneliest journey

by . Posted on
01 Feb

During January it seemed that I could conjure Baby instantly in my mind at the end of the day when Ben was finally asleep, the animals fed and some peace and time to grieve. She seemed to be here in spirit, if not in body. My hands ached to stroke and scratch her, to play with her mane and feel the rich satiny thickness of her tail, but at least I could look at her and feel her presence while I howled out my pain.

Now I understand the women’s wailing in ancient cultures (did you know that the wailing woman is a banshee?) at the death of a beloved. The pain in the heart and belly is physical and literally brings me either to my knees or at least doubled over, hands on knees. And why do my teeth hurt? Is that from all the days of ‘biting back the tears’? The grief grimace seems to start at the back of my neck, travel through my teeth and out either in a traditional boo hoo or keening. Covering my mouth is instinctive even though there is no one to see or hear.

I am such a believer in Eileen Caddy’s wisdom ‘the fastest way to freedom is to feel your feelings’ but even I am scared of the intensity of my pain and procrastinating about allowing it to overtake me. If the loss of this great friend and companion of a quarter of my life hurts this much, how will I survive when, inevitably, my parents die?

How do we go on? How do we bear the sense of loss and abandonment? The finality of death? And how do we love again, knowing that loss is inevitable? Is this the human experience? Tinkerbell seems to be equally aged and wearied by our loss. As I said to her the other day, if I am in this much pain, how much more must she be feeling, she who spent every day and night with Baby for 12 years? Grief knows no boundaries, animal or human, it affects us all at some time in our lives.

And yet we don’t talk about death. We don’t seem to allow or acknowledge grief. We seem to expect people to ‘get on with it’ because ‘life goes on’. In that very British tradition of ‘stiff upper lip’. Nobody wants to hear about the pain of grief, and it is so personal that it is hard to describe. But it would be nice to think that others understood that I was in pain. I guess that’s why in the old days people wore mourning clothes or armbands for a set period. So that others understood that they were ‘maddened by grief’. If we are all supposed to just ‘carry on regardless’ aren’t we demeaning ourselves and our experience by not honouring another life ritual, the ritual of mourning?

I don’t normally wear black and if I suddenly started now, to indicate my loss, I would only, finally, be perceived as fashionable! When my lovely farmer neighbour lost her husband at Christmas a couple of years ago, we had many conversations where I empathised with her pain and loss after over 50 years of marriage. She says she still howls in pain. Somehow society expects her to have gotten over it . . . how?

Why aren’t we comfortable talking about our own and other’s emotions? And yet much of society watches TV soaps and drams which revel in human pain and suffering. What, it’s ok to share it on the screen but not in real life? Is that how removed from ourselves we have become?

Grief is a uniquely long and lonely road. No one else can feel our pain. Each of us experiences our loss in our own timeframes and stages. I guess I have been in shock because now I am beginning to realise that I will never see Baby again, never touch her, never stroke her, never put her halter on and walk beside her, never saddle her up and ride her. Never give her a bath or take her down to the river for a swim, never wrap my arms around her neck and feel the strength and love of her. Never untangle her mane or wind her forelock around my finger. Never stroke her long, elegant, nose or feel the velvety softness of her nostrils. Never try and kiss her muzzle and laugh when she wouldn’t let me.

It sounds pretty stupid that aged 47 I didn’t realise that death was final, but maybe that realisation needs to sink in slowly or we couldn’t bear the weight of the grief from the outset. While the intellect can accept the finality of death, the heart takes its time.

Hoofprints on my Heart

by . Posted on
The Most beautiful Girl in the World
02 Jan

Baby had been so peaceful and happy for the few weeks before Christmas – she has been eating – well, like a horse! Loving her lucerne and always so pleased to see me. Ears forward, eyes bright, nodding her head. We have had some truly beautiful moments and I have cried a river of tears at the prospect of a life without her after 12 magical years in which she turned my life, and its direction, on its head. One night, she lay, with her head in my lap, and we talked, I sobbed, she shed tears and we shared our love. One night I sat back to her belly and reminisced and shared our thoughts and feelings. She was, without doubt, the most beautiful girl in the world.

But 10 days ago her Horse Herbalist herbs ran out and she went downhill. She had a Bowen treatment on Thursday with the instruction ‘kill or cure’ (because I could feel the sand of time running rapidly out for us both). And then she really started to be in pain. Instead of looking happy her eyes were stressed and fearful and sending out a silent plea. On Saturday night (22nd) when I fed and washed her down, it was clear that she was in pain and so the decision was made for the following day. Life never proceeds as planned, though.

I took Ged’s swag over there, planning to spend a last night under the stars with her, talking, crying, sharing, reminiscing. But when I got there she was lying down, her breathing was so laboured and she was gritting her teeth and holding her breath at the pain. It was clear that cancer was ravaging her. Only anyone who has ever seen that in another will know what that was like. I texted Ged to bring the gun, please.

He took a while, sorting a sleeping Ben out, and then came. By that time, she was up, and eating. But I think she used food as a distraction from the pain, there was a desperation to her hoovering. I never wanted him to shoot her while she was standing. I didn’t want her to crumple. So he went back to bed and I waited and watched and talked. There were so many things I wanted to tell her, I wanted to talk though my memories of her life. I wanted to thank her for being so amazing. I wanted to beg her forgiveness for the times I had shouted and lashed out, for the times I hadn’t understood her, had forced her or made her frightened. I wanted to say how amazing it was that I had always been able to ride her in just a rope halter, how beautifully she did her Parelli circling and sidestepping, and share with her the memories of how the two of us had learned to do all that at Kangaroo Valley, spending hours and hours together. She had said to me recently that her favourite time in her life was when we were living at Kangaroo Valley. I thought that was because she, like I, loved living next to the Grippers so much. She did, but it was because she got to see me and be with me so much, all the time, we were always in each other’s vision and never far from the other’s thoughts. That was why KV was so amazing. She loved me so much, it took her death for me to realise the enormity and selflessness of her love. Typical of me and my family, I was always focussing on the things that were ‘wrong’ with her and our relationship. I failed to fully realise the depth and breadth and wonder of it. The marvel of a love and friendship, a true partnership, the miracle of a relationship with a horse.

But I couldn’t tell her any of those things, because all I could feel was her pain and I just wanted that to go away. I didn’t want her to hurt, I wanted her to be happy. My dead Grandmother had directed me, during the week, to read once more the book she gave me when I was a small child ‘Ludo and the Star Horse’ and once I read it, I knew I had to let Baby go. Granny Morton died a very slow and painful death in agony and she wanted me to put Baby out of her pain. So once she lay down again, I called Ged, and he came like a shadow in the night. The shadow of death.

I kissed her and walked away. It wasn’t peaceful, she was not peaceful, and I walked to the car and screamed out my pain. I heard the gun cocked and then the shot and my friend, my best friend, my first Baby, was gone. I waited until Ged said I could come, howling like a wild dog, into the blackness. When I went back to her she was at peace. She was so peaceful. And she was gone. She wasn’t in that body that I have loved so much, any more. I stayed for an hour just stroking her, as if trying to imprint her in my hand for ever more. As if I needed to. I told her all the things I wanted to say then, trusting she was there with me in spirit. And I realised, too late, just how much she had loved me. She had loved me enough to mask her pain for me so I could complete my own process and let her go with love. She had waited patiently for me to be able to let her go, to make the call, to allow Ged to do what he had long felt he needed to. He didn’t want to do it. He was crying too. But we both had to do the right thing.

I am ashamed to say that I have allowed her to suffer. That she has had some bad days in the past few months. But she has also had some great days, and has looked really well and healthy and happy. I can see now that I should have been braver and more prepared to ‘bite the bullet’ or let her. But I forgive myself for following my heart to try and heal her, for sharing the time that we both needed to get to know one another again after months of not seeing each other while she was in The Point Paddock. Like all of us, I have made mistakes, but I know that she forgives me and that she, more than anyone, understood my heart and my unwillingness to let this great love of my life, go.

All through my childhood I wanted a pony with every fibre of my being. Horses were my peace. My restless spirit was calmed and my heart healed in their great, gentle presence. I was in awe of them, loved them with a terrible neediness, and was sometimes frightened of them too. But my heart reached out to them and was soothed by them. I was 34 when I first saw Baby. I had to look after her for a few weeks at Glasson’s with a couple of youngsters. She was beautiful, round and solid with dainty little ballerina feet. And there was something of her in me – looking, longing, for someone to love her. We were the same, and so we found each other. And so began a great love story which has changed so many facets of my life and brought me here, to Avalon, and Ged and Ben. She is the Star Horse I wanted all my life.

Baby chose her spot to die, it was under a native tree,(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brachychiton_discolor) with star shaped pink flowers falling from on high at intervals. So she lay down on a bed of petals and was showered with petals where she lay. In the morning I went and placed flowers on her, folded up her old yellow stable rug that she had loved so much and placed it beside her with yet more flowers on it. I cut off parts of her mane and tail so I would always have something of that beautiful body and so I could have some keepsake jewellery made from it. And finally drove away. Ged went over and felled a huge old, dead, tree close by, and built the most beautiful pyre for her – truly a zen work of art. And when Ben was asleep I went over and took down the electric fence, and added all the broken branches and sticks and twigs that had been annoying us over the last few months and more flowers and then I lit a little fire at the base of the pyre, and Ged lit the rest. She burned bright and beautiful, with showers of champagne sparks high up into the air. Everything about her was so beautiful, and she loved, she loved us all, with all her huge heart.

To have loved a horse, to have earned the love of a horse – there is no greater honour in life. To walk with a horse and to know one walks with you in spirit, that is one of life’s richest blessings.

She is running once more in the fields of the blessed, dancing in the Elysian fields, happy, at peace and sparkling with light. We will never forget her. She will always be here at Avalon and at my side. It has been a privilege and a gift to have known, owned, and loved her.

The Circle of Life

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Our first live twins
09 Nov

The reality of life on the farm is a constant experience of life and death. As natural as each other – essential even, but as great is the gift of every addition to our lives, so stark is the loss of those taken away.

Stardust dropped a perfect baby girl when Pamela last came to visit so we called her Pashe (pasha) in honour of the two extraordinary women who have shared their ‘paca passion with us and provided us with most of our flock.

Then our first lamb appeared.  Another girl birthed on the river bed under the house so we could watch from the window.  Ben is our eagle eyed spotter for birds, birthing, and anything that changes the gestalt!  We were so proud but no longer had she landed than the alpacas told us that a dog was about one morning so Ged got his rifle, sighted and shot it.  But the lambie was gone.

Next we had another little girl lamb born and both Mother and us were so careful and protective and locked them up at night for several days and watched like hawks – so far, so good.

Then Tinkerbell finally unpacked a little white boy on a grey and cold day.  We wiped him down and warmed him up with the homemade rug because he was shivering so much.  We left them alone to get on with the beginnings of life until we realised that Think was off foraging and the poor little lad was still unable to stand.  And when we got him up we could see that his legs were all wonky.  Still, we managed to get him under Tink for a couple of colostrum feeds before she flatly refused to do more.  Her vulva was very stretched and she was clearly very sore so we left her to do her own thing and recover while we took over the bottle feeding.  Firefly slept by the fire inside for the first two nights of his life, then I rugged him up and rigged up the old playpen on a deep bed of straw on the verandah and he slept there for ten days or so.  During the day he was mainly just lying in the sun, healing, and getting up for his bottle.

We even had to take him to Port Macquarie one day because if you’re bottle feeding a baby you can’t leave them at home!  He got passed around from pillar to post and surprised a few beach goers.  I took him to the vet for splinting but after a few days a friend noticed that it was rubbing so we took it all off and then tried a few different configurations before finally those bendy legs started to take weight, Firefly took heart and his Mum had hope.  Then he was back on the boob, off the bottle, and standing on his own four feet (finally!)

We had our first twin lambs but the runt wouldn’t get on the boob despite our best efforts and my first ewe milking (easier than I thought!). We had them in the pen on straw but he wandered outside in the night and died. We should have brought him in the house and bottle fed him but we thought he would be ok with mum.

I have been watching the alpacas obsessively for weeks as we have so many babies due, but last weekend I took off for a couple of hours of chainsawing (the noise of the chainsaw is sweet music to my ears after weeks of 4 year old prattle!) and when I came back one of the alpacas that I didn’t even know was pregnant had birthed and the baby had died in the attempt. A lovely white girl . . . gone.

And every day when I go to feed my beautiful horse, Baby, I wonder will she still be alive? She is in so much pain and can barely walk but I just can’t give the instruction for Ged to pull the trigger until we have explored every avenue and tried everything to make her well. I just can’t picture my life without her in it. And as much as I believe in spirit, as much as I see beyond the veil to the other side, I just want to be able to touch her, feel her warmth, stroke her mane and look into her big, brown, beautiful eyes.

At the moment she resides ‘on the other side’ of the farm and she can’t come home because she can’t walk that far. I know in my heart and soul that when she is gone it will be the thus, she will be ‘on the other side’, exactly the same. She will be running in the Elysian fields, full of life. I just won’t be able to touch her except in my mind, memory and heart.

The longer I am here on the farm, the more ordinary conversational terms have great meaning – bite the bullet, stay of execution, the circle of life etc

Harry is in the freezer and on the table and even I, vegetarian for 20 something years, have enjoyed him. Hector is gone and just alive in my heart where I miss him still. Christmas will forever hold a very special place in my heart and a feeling that we failed him. They live on, these lost ones, that we have loved, however briefly. And maybe, just maybe, we are being trained to prepare for death, to cease to be scared of it, to accept its inevitability, and even, one day, embrace it.

How a horse changed my life

by . Posted on
31 Mar

My beautiful Bay mare, ‘Baby’ has cushings syndrome.  Which means that the end is in sight.  And so the process of my grieving has begun.  Trying to imagine a life without her in it.  Trying to decide where to bury her.  Grieving all the dreams I had for us which will probably never now come true.

On one of my weeps with Baby over the last few weeks I realised that for all our life together I have been lamenting how our relationship ‘should’ have been.  How we should have been able to ride off into the distance together every day, fearless, bonded, as one, just revelling in nature and each other and the pure bliss of riding safely, harmoniously, peacefully.

My heart had been breaking over the fact that the vision I had always held of our relationship was unlikely to come true.  After weeks of weeping I realised what she has given me, what she has brought me, and how she changed my life and its course completely.

Without her, I never would have bought Tinkerbell who is so completely Ben’s pony. I never would have stumbled across Parelli , I never would have started to heal the relationship with my own Mother (because I finally understood how frustration easily leads to temper loss and violence), I would never have met Peter and Judy, I would never have met my wonderful english farrier friend who gave me back so much self esteem, I never would have met the gorgeous Shane vet, I never would have learned to ride again properly, I never would have gone to Tamworth and met Kim, I never would have gone to Kangaroo valley and met the Grippers, I never would have come to Avalon and met Ged and got married and had a son etc.,

I thought I was saving her but it turns out she was saving me.  Setting my life on a completely different trajectory.  She changed the course of my life.  Everything was different after Baby.  No longer was I a beach girl, but a paddock and bush girl.  My dream of owning land in Australia had to come true, she made it so.  She has taught me so much about horses and she has been a serene, nurturing, beautiful background to my life.  And with her illness has come a return to the pure love we have for each other and the daily communication which had been abandoned in the busyness of Ben.

I know what it is for horse and human to be bonded heart to heart.  We may never have that easy riding relationship I long for.  It would be lovely to think that it was still possible and I guess if I had the time and didn’t have a 3 year old I could work to make it so.  But now I know that doesn’t matter because owning and loving a horse is not necessarily about riding.  I always felt guilty that it was ‘a waste’.  But Baby and Tinkerbell have brought me love, they have been patient with me while I learned, they are still patient with me when I am wrong, they have been my companions and friends when I had no others, they have been my children when I was sure they were the only children I would ever have, they have amused and amazed and frustrated and educated me.

Baby is one of the great loves of my life and I can’t begin to imagine life without her. For over 12 years she has been my friend and comforter.  I can only hope and pray that I have brought something beautiful to her life too and that she can forgive me for the wrongs I have done her and that she is as grateful for me as I am for her.  I wish I had been a better owner, Mother and custodian than I have been.  I wish I had more courage and persistence and patience.  I love her so much and I do know she loves me.

She changed everything.  She is a bright shining angel who healed so many parts of my life, and all the time I was looking at where she failed me and what I had missed.  No one has ever had a better friend than Baby has been to me and to all of us who have ever bathed in her beauty and radiant beingness . . . I guess this is a lesson to look not for what we have lost, or wasted or missed out on but to flip the coin and see what we have gained.

Menopause or I don’t want to die

by . Posted on
15 Oct

Just as I had really started enjoying the summer of my life, with my little boy, my farm, my lovely husband, I turned into a raging Monster with a heart and soul black and dark and thick with anger and frustration.  Then the hot flushes started.  And still I didn’t have the sense to marry the two together.  I blamed toddlerdom (even though I have an angel child), Ged and the world at large.  My marriage almost didn’t survive the onslaught.  I couldn’t believe that Menopause could happen to me aged only 45.  We wanted another child . . . every time last year my period came later and later I was convinced I was pregnant.  I didn’t see the writing on the wall … didn’t even know there WAS writing on the wall.

I thought menopause happened in your fifties, not your forties.  I thought I was in my prime, not starting the steady decline to death.  I thought anything was possible and the world was my oyster.  Instead my ovaries were shutting down, changing me forever from woman to wasteland of broken dreams, lost opportunities and babies terminated before they ever had a chance to become.

Menopause is a bitch.  The mood swings, the violent rages welling up from nowhere, no reason and no way to control them.  The hot flushes which take over and rule my life.  The feeling of being ill and at the mercy of something so far beyond my control as to make me look like King Canute trying to stop the waves . . . The constant pain in my uterus, the grief – the endless waves of grief as I farewell my child bearing years, the little girl I didn’t get to have and hold, the sense of myself as young, that glorious feeling of ripe fertility only possible in late pregnancy, the sense of limitless possibilities . . .

All of a sudden I, who have duelled and diced and danced with death so many times in my lifetime and have longed to fall into his peaceful embrace am screaming and sobbing ‘I don’t want to die’.  Clearly one has to see one’s one ultimate destiny and the steady decline towards it unblinkered in order to appreciate just how precious this life, and every moment in it, is.

After all, we don’t know what is going to happen next.  I was flirting with the idea of getting pregnant again, not taking it that seriously, thinking I had plenty of time . . .

Baby is dying too.  She has Cushings and she is going downhill fast.  So I am also screaming and sobbing ‘I don’t know how or who to be without Baby’ and ‘please don’t go’ and ‘just one last summer together please’.  I’m letting go of babies real and ethereal – those who are and those who were never meant to be . . .

You see, I was so busy being busy, so determinedly procrastinating, saving the fun and enjoyment and play til some  ‘later’ in the ever diminishing future when all the work is done that I didn’t realise that we have to have fun NOW because we just don’t know what tomorrow may bring and the greatest gift we can give anyone, can share with anyone, can spend is TIME.  Sweet, precious, limited, ever ticking time.

Like Peter Pan before me, I never wanted to grow up.  I succeeded pretty well.  I only ever thought of myself as grown up last year and now it appears I am old, dried up, used up, washed up.  Old before my time with creaking joints and sore, tired muscles and wrinkles like clothes left too long in the dryer.

I didn’t know this was around the corner.  I never imagined how debilitating, depressing and daunting this particular female rite of passage could be.  It feels like transition in labour – totally out of control, completely uncomfortable, sick making, overwhelming and I’m trying to stand on the merry go round, yelling ‘I didn’t sign up for this, let me off!’

Why the code of silence Women?  Why don’t we talk about this, map the stages and ages of our ovaries and life’s passages so we know what to expect, when and how to wear and bear it.

The addict in me is appalled at how many pills I am taking at the moment.  And how many I seem to need.  My naturopath says ‘why not?’ and ‘stop fighting it, this is beyond your control.’  But really I would rather just ride it out and get it over with.  But I can’t.  I have a little boy to look after.  A little boy of three who knows what a hot flush is, where the fan is, and hates having to have all the car windows open while I ride one out.

I have to try and manage and mitigate and massage some of my moods into something resembling normality.  For my own sanity.  For my child’s future psychological health.  For Ged’s peace of mind.  If only I could sleep how much better would all our lives be . . .

I completely understand why my Mother’s generation took HRT.  Instead I am on red clover, licorice, zizyphus, vitamin E, iron, B6, zinc, st john’s wort, the occasional kava, some sort of anti stress pill and who knows what from my acupuncturist.  The grief I can handle, the physical symptoms are driving me mad . . .

No man could handle menopause.  No woman ought to have to.  It’s too much, too soon, I’m not ready, can’t cope and don’t want to die . . . .

The Business of Birth

by . Posted on
04 Aug

I pulled my first calf this morning.  That makes me a farmer for sure.  I learned how to do it by reading James Herriott’s books – it just goes to show how useful reading is in later life!

We have been waiting and waiting for Daisy to give birth.  Every morning asking Ben ‘do you think Daisy will have had her calf this morning?’ and then going off for a drive to find her still pregnant, udder full to bursting, waddling on the pasture, unconcerned.  This morning still no calf but as I walked back from the gate where I had been chatting to the fencing man who came to do a quote, I saw that she had started labouring.  All our little herd were around her giving quiet support and protection as she engaged in every animal’s most primal act.

I watched in the sun as she pushed and rested.  Backing up as she pushed, tail held high and then snatching at grass in between times.  After a while I realised she didn’t seem to be making much progress and when she lay down walked over slowly to check.  Two feet still in the sack protruding and no sign of the nose so I grasped the forelegs, broke the bag and tried to pull.  Nothing happened so I put both hands in to feel for the head.  It seemed to be quite a way in and I could feel the tongue lolling out of the mouth and so I pulled with left hand fingers hooked in the jaw and right on one of the forelegs and urged Daisy to push.  One huge heave and the head was out but no signs of life.  Another and the baby was out and on the ground but inert and very dead looking.  I reikied it and stroked it hard and talked to it and exhorted it to live.  Paddy came over and licked it while Daisy rested for a few minutes.  Finally it breathed and the heart started.  It was probably only 2 minutes but it felt like a long time . . . I briefly considered picking it up and shaking it or whirling it around me head but it was pretty heavy so lucky it started breathing without my having to resort to such extremes!

Daisy got up and busied herself with cleaning the ground of the detritus of birth before she attended in any way to her baby.  The calf flopped and wriggled, wet and fish like on the ground, in its first attempts to ‘find its feet’.  Finally Daisy turned her attentions to her child, licking and nudging her to stand and then when she did, cleaning her up as she shivered in the sun and sneezed all the amniotic fluid out of lungs and head.  Daisy was in true primal mode.  Normally she is so placid and relaxed but this was high drama and urgency – cleaning up so as not to attract predators, getting that calf on its feet and moving so it could run away from any attack.  All the other cows were there as a shield, watching with interest, not getting involved, but lending support just by being there.

Daisy expelled the placenta and promptly ate it, scrubbing the grass clean with her tongue.  Still the baby hadn’t had a drink and it was clear that there was a time for everything.

I left them to go for my run and came back to find a girl calf with a full belly happily sucking on her Mother and Dais licking me as if to say ‘thank you’.

But then I wondered – did I need to intervene or was it all unfolding perfectly?  Was I right to get in and help or was I unable, like so many doctors, to just sit and wait and watch and allow and TRUST?

We don’t do trust, us human beings, do we?  We don’t trust nature or ourselves or our children, friends or family.  We don’t trust each other, we don’t trust that there is a force far greater and more powerful than us which rules the heavens, has natural laws and knows far more than we do.  Or is it just that we are so scared – of death, of standing by, of the rawness and urgency of life at its most primal, that we feel we have to DO something, we can’t just sit and wait and be present in the moment and conscious in the flow of life’s great mysteries.

It was a beautiful thing to watch and be part of.  It was a beautiful day.  And now I have more empathy and sympathy for those medicos who insist on pulling and grabbing and cutting and sucking babies out.  It’s fear and awe.  I need to learn to wait and watch and so do they.  I’ll never know whether Daisy needed my intervention this morning or whether she was just fine on her own.  Neither will they.  We all need to trust the Mother, trust the baby, trust the process, trust the forces far greater than us and just enjoy being witness to a miracle.

Your Baby, Your Guru

by . Posted on
01 Dec

Macca has lent us some amazing books over the course of the pregnancy and first few weeks of Motherhood.  I have been immersing myself in ‘Buddhism for mothers’ while on the loo and in the sitz bath at night and there is a wonderful article in there, written by an American first time mother and long-time Buddhist as she is challenged and tested to every limit by her newborn babe and her spiritual practice goes out of the window (bye bye spiritual discipline, routine and regimen!).  She writes that she finally realised that the baby was the teacher, the buddha, the master and this was the new path for her learnings, meditation and practice.  That singing the same soothing song over, and over (and over!) again is as much meditation as sitting in silence for hours, that setting self aside in order to fully focus on, and cater to, another soul, is the greatest spiritual self discipline.  It is presumably no coincidence then that Gandhi shaved his head and wore nappies!!