Tag Archives: love

Learning to live with Change

by . Posted on
02 May

It’s been a long, long time since I have written here.  I couldn’t bear to replace Phee’s gorgeous pic.  It meant admitting that he was gone.  It meant moving on.  And how do you do that?  How do you accept that your best friend is no more?  How do you face the world when someone you love so deeply and wholeheartedly isn’t there any more?

Phee had been my partner in all things for 12 years.  He went almost everywhere with me.  He slept on my bed, curled at my back or feet.  He snuggled under the duvet every morning when I drank my tea.  He ruined countless sheets and duvet covers with muddy paw prints.  He welcomed me at the gate every night when I came home from work or town.  He loved me.  Unconditionally.  No matter what.

And when he died it seemed like a part of me died too.  Because only he had shared all those years before Ged with me.  Moving to Australia, Tamworth, Kangaroo Valley.  He was not just a part of my life, but a part of me.  The better part.  With animals we can truly be ourselves – raw, unfiltered and vulnerable.  He saw my insecurities, grief and loneliness and comforted me.  He shared my soul story and healing.  He was a pivot around who my life turned.  He tethered me to the planet when the darkness threatened to consume me.

He, Baby, Tom, Tinkerbell and I were family.  Now only Tinkerbell is left (and she is cranky, not cuddly!) and I am alone.

Not really.  But the fabric of my family as was has been ripped apart and there is a deep loneliness in that.  Daisy gone too.  When I go for walks now I don’t have the joy of looking for her and seeing her head raise at my call.  I miss laying myself against her flank and smoothing and stroking the short silky nape of her skin.  She brought me so much comfort,  joy and peace.  I miss her so much.

No one who has gone can ever be replaced.  We are all unique.  But over time I have begun to understand that we can love another, love again.  Time is truly the great healer.  That and the tears that have to be shed so the heart can open once more.

Grief is such a long and lonely journey.  It seems incredible that the world can keep turning, that the sun gets up in the morning and goes to bed at night when the one we love is gone.  And yet, the world is still a beautiful place – birds sing, flowers bloom, life goes on.

And one day, we will be gone too.  I think a lot about that now.  Where to be buried or burnt.  How I want my body touched and prepared and by who.  And now, after 50 years of intermittently not wanting to be here, now I don’t want to die (there’s irony for you!)  I don’t want to say goodbye to the people and land I love, as well as this amazing planet.

But I’m applying to have a burial ground where Baby died and was burnt, where Phee used to sit and wait as I sobbed for her.  Where Daisy often hung out with Baby.  I will go there when my body is spent.

In the meantime, I have things to do, books to write, a legacy to leave.  Something that lasts so my life’s experiences have some meaning.

And others to love.  It has taken me a long time to truly open my heart to Goldie and Mudji.  To realise that loving them is not a betrayal of Phoenix.  On the contrary, it is a celebration that his legacy goes on.  And that all that he taught me about love has been embodied.  That will make him happy.

Life Lesson

by . Posted on
08 Nov

It’s been almost two years since my beloved horse, Baby, was released from her pain by Ged and his gun.  Almost two years of grieving.  Brought to my knees by the physical pain of loss, feeling like my heart has been torn in two, flung to the ground by tsunamis of tears and aching, shaking misery at never touching or holding or seeing her again.

I have knelt on my yoga mat with her halter clutched to my chest and wept oceans of tears for my friend, my mother, my comforter, my saviour, my rock.  She was all those things to me.  Just to walk alongside her with her lead rope in my hand, chatting or silent, brought me incalculable happiness.  I didn’t spend enough time with her.  I didn’t make time to spend with her.  I was too busy with renovating the house, falling in love, all the work involved in getting married on the farm, improving the farm, looking after all the other animals, having a baby, being tied to the house and Ben . . .

Poor Baby didn’t get a look in.  And yet when I did make time to take her swimming or stand in the river and wash her down, or give her a bath with shampoo and conditioner, I was filled with a simple happiness and joy.  Feelings that were so rare in all my post natal and menopausal depression.  Why didn’t I realise that I could create feelings of peace, contentment and light-heartedness simply by being with her, feeling her immense solidity and roundedness.  She was an anchor for me for 12 years, tethering me to the planet when my depression and despair urged me to leave it.

Whenever I drove or walked past her I would whistle and she would lift her head and whiffle at me.  So much said in that sound.  ‘Hi. I miss you.  I love you.  I see you.’ So much connection in that simple exchange of love.  Yet she wasn’t a great cuddler.  Normally walked away from me and was hard to catch.  Loved to turn her ass on me and have her put scratched while she swayed against my hands and body, loving the satisfaction of a human scratching post.  She would never let me kiss her soft sweet muzzle.  I would kiss her eyelids and stand forehead to forehead with her.  And I loved to fondle her hairy tipped ears.  I knew every inch of her so well, I can still visualise her beautiful hooves, knees, legs (she had great legs!) soft, warm, rounded coat and body.  The strands of silver in her mane at the wither, the thick tangles in her tail to be combed out with patience and great love.  The wild little plaits in her mane that she and nature created that I would tease out, loving standing with her – another opportunity to just BE with her, forgetting all the ‘to do’ lists for once.

I have been a slave to those lists for so long.  As if achievement brings happiness, when all it does is bring the next ‘to do’ closer.  I haven’t stopped to smell the roses or take time to rest or play for years.  Those are things she has taught me in her passing.  I guess she had to leave to teach me that.  Now I take time for Second Chance who really is Baby come back to me.  She loves to stand and smooch with me and loves me to kiss her muzzle and stand nose to nose, breath to breath, just being, breathing, communing.  As with Baby we stand third eye to third eye, sharing spiritual space.  Chancy lets me drip tears and snot on her as I still weep for Baby and in gratitude that she came back to me in this new form.  This new bay with her pretty, dainty, feet and floating movement.

I have learned so much from Baby and her passing and I have changed.  I have slowed down, become much less impatient, more willing to stop and spend time, more understanding that the lists are endless and always will be and we can only do one thing at a time, and do it well.  And that taking time to play and be with the ones we love is not wasted time, but the most precious time of all.  That is not DOING but BEING that we will be remembered for.

Yes, I want to make my mark on the world, but I have realised that if I can love and be loved, if I can shape and grow a healthy, happy, engaged and engaging child with a conscience.  If I can act with integrity, follow my heart and dreams as well as crossing things off the list, I will be happier and mentally healthier, as well as improving the lives around me.  In fact, by slowing down, breathing and be more present, I and everyone around me are happier.

I am so much happier recently.  I have never known such peace, happiness and contentment.  I have rediscovered music, singing and dancing. I have had time to be outside engaging in hard physical labour and am loving the peace of mind and stillness that brings.  I am more relaxed, less tense, and more aware of what makes me tense and beginning to love myself enough to avoid those things and situations (self sabotage is still pretty strong in me though!).  I am growing older and growing up.

And as I pondered my new-found happiness the other day as I talked to Baby, sitting on the beautiful cedar block Ged carved to mark her resting place, I realised that maybe the ultimate gift she gave me was in her passing.

She gave me the gift of grief.  An opportunity to clear out a lifetime’s pain and sorrow by howling out my pain and heartbreak.  Grief brings all loss to the surface.  It allows us the opportunity to spring clean our damaged souls.  All the heartache and heartbreak I have sobbed for has cleaned me out, cleared out the backlog, detritus and junk creating that eternal melancholy in my mind.  Now I can be happy.

The ultimate gift, the ultimate sacrifice, by she who knew me better than anyone, who came to save and ground me, without whom I never would have found this farm and land which soothes and heals me as well as provides the home I have looked for all my life.  She, who I have known in so many lifetimes, left me in order to heal me.  Thank you, Baby, I will never forget you, will always miss you and will always be grateful for the many and myriad lessons you have taught me – both in life and in death.

Death is so final . . . or is it?

by . Posted on
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 . .

Mother Love

by . Posted on
26 Nov

My parents have been visiting from the UK.  It’s the first time they’ve been to Avalon since our wedding here on the farm so you can imagine what a huge effort we put into trying to get all the outstanding jobs finished before they arrived (the thing is, there are always a million jobs still to do on a farm . . . )

We have always fought like cat and dog.  I was so angry and felt so rejected when I was sent away to boarding school aged 8 and I hated school and didn’t try, so I didn’t get good grades and I was an endless disappointment to my parents who knew how intelligent I really was.  I was an angry and troubled soul who rebelled as a teenager.  I hurt myself as much as I hurt them – smoking, drinking, sex games etc  Of course I failed miserably in my ‘O’ and ‘A’ levels and the family myth is that I got expelled for smoking.  At least with a change of schools and a headmistress who saw past the bluff and bluster to the pure heart beyond (thank and bless you Miss Hibbert you turned my life around and were the first person who gave me reason to believe in myself) I finally made good friends and began to belong.

My lesbian liaison didn’t help relationships with my parents and my subsequent heterosexual hedonism was more cause for concern and criticism.  Then I had an abortion and ran away to Hong Kong and pastures new.

Relationships were always strained and full of censure although we always had our honeymoon periods before I crashed and burned in some way in my selfish acts of self sabotage.  Needless to say I have been the black sheep and true to form have dabbled in all the addictions and explored far and dark horizons of the soul, psyche and society.

Not surprising them that they have viewed my spiritual journey with mistrust, that they have had to pick up the pieces financial and otherwise more times than any of us care to count or mention.  If their story has been one of disappointment, frustration and despair, mine has been that of rejection, lack of love and never being seen or heard for who I truly am rather than measured up to who they want me to be.

Needless to say its a relationship of tears and sorrow, rage and rejection and failure from all sides to forgive, let go, start afresh or see the other’s point of view.  Part of the problem is that we are all so alike.  Not only did I inherit my father’s nose, varicose veins, dodgy hip and temper, but I inherited my Mother’s constant criticism, aspirational nature and love of nice things, wealth and money.

Somewhere in there though is a pure and innocent, trusting and perfect heart.

This year as you know I have travelled deeply into my story and my self hatred, I am learning to forgive and nurture and be kinder to myself.  I have been opening my heart space with my ‘Heart of Yoga’ and have released a million tears and some long held heartache.  Instead of being a cold hard stone in my chest my heart is a living breathing thing.   I have had a huge shift.

None of us are getting any younger and who knows when or if  we will see each other again or whether they will visit Australia one more time so we were all determined not to fight or fall out.  We all decided not to spend too much time together and to bite our tongues and we succeeded.  By the second week when we had hardly spent any time together we all realised how much we loved each other and even had some beautiful times and some precious memories I will treasure in my heart forever.

Showing my parents the pristine rainforest of Angle Creek I held my Mother’s hand many times as she clambered over rocks – I don’t remember ever holding my Mother’s hand before.  Papery, warm, small and gentle, it was beautiful and somehow in those moments in the healing cathedral of green that is Angle Creek, where Mother Nature comes to rest, heal, nourish and nurture, something between us that has been broken for 40 something years was finally mended.  A miracle happened and I realised that contrary to my life ‘s lament that I hate my Mother and that we don’t get on, I realised that I love her.  Always have, always will.

She isn’t perfect, she is sometimes very unkind, she sometimes says things that are cruel or hurtful or thoughtless.  So do I. But like me she has a golden heart.  Like me, she had a far from perfect childhood and was abused and damaged.  Like me she longs to be loved and shows her love with the giving of gifts.  Like me she has a doughy belly and snake like skin on her shins.

Maybe the reason we have butted heads so often and for so long is because we have looked in our mirror reflections of each other and not liked what we have seen . . .

But finally, aged 45, in the middle of my life, I am able to proudly say ‘I love my Mother’, I am part of her, she is part of me, she made me, grew me, nurtured me, shaped me.  I chose her for a reason – so I could learn what love is and what love isn’t and finally learn to forgive and love unconditionally.  I love you Mummy, I really do x