September Has Been...

A real strange one. Full of ups and downs. Jam packed even. This time last year I was on the Navajo reservation in Arizona and what an amazing time that was. If I could wind the clock back for just a moment so I could feel what I was feeling then, I'd be recharged with zest and wonder. I can't believe it's been a year since I took off around the world; the sheer excitement and freedom I experienced will always remain a top memory. It'll be nearly a year since I found Lo in Bali and a year later, I'm wondering where I'm at now.

Writing has been tough and I feel masses amounts of guilt for not setting aside time to do it. I know why I have these blocks now and the Universe is waiting for me to get on with it. I've been comforted by the confirmation that it is innate in me, it is in my core, so deep to a cellular level that my life's work will revolve around writing. Smaller projects have been put on pause (especially Write Club) but when I don't manage to write, I read a lot. And as long as I'm doing one or the other, I'm still involved with my world. This month I've been reading:

  

100 Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia-Marquez (still chugging through it; it's my literary Everest for the moment)

The Story of O - Pauline Reage (not pictured, but there's no real need, it's a plain black cover; bit of a "meh" sort of book. Glad to have read it though)

Waiting for Autumn - Scott Blum (a Spiritual Quest must read)

The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald (a classic I should have read a very long time ago - I loved it)

The Night Circus - Erin Morgenstern (a quarter in and I'm dazzled, it's so beautifully imaginative)

Waiting in the queue I've got The Snow Child- Eowyn Ivey and 1Q84 - Haruki Marukami.

And so I've have been constantly inspired and I'm narrating mentally all the time (as per usual)  but to get things shifted, I am planning to run a few workshops where I will go on this journey with other people. Let's write, inspire each other, figure out what our own blocks and hang-ups are and progress together!

I'm working on some class ideas, excercises and tools to bring into my 'no rules, no boundaries' writing sessions. When I'm ready to go, with a venue in place, I will post up a blog/meetup/facebook page etc

It's also about bloody time that I started offering therapy services. Again, once a venue is in place (i.e a home) I will be setting up a practice so if anyone is interested in Angelic Reiki, Colour Therapy or Aromatherapy Massage then please let me know...

...no point me having all these skills and qualifications if I can't use them, eh?

As a sidebar, I've attended a couple of classes/workshops and still have a few more to go. I went to my ballet taster class and I bloomin' well loved it. It was everything I hoped it would be and what's more, the pain in my feet gave way to the joy of dancing. I was totally fine, even when I was made to skip and trot across the studio. My legs felt alive and it almost felt like they thanked me for waking them up. I got the blood pumping through them and I was incredibly energised. Unfortunately though, the pain in them has been terrible ever since, resulting in me wearing herbal medicine bandages that I was recommended at a Chinese herbal shop. I'm now on the lookout for a foot specialist and shall continue my ongoing saga of healing the nerve damage in my soles. It's certainly not going to stop me from signing up to the full 8 week ballet course beginning in October though.

I've got a Tree Wisdom distance course set up for this weekend and a Healing Art class on Wednesday to keep me going...it's themed around the Root Chakra which is precisely the Chakra I'm working on right now. Starting with some crystal healing, I bought a beautiful piece of Garnet and Fire Agate to keep in my pocket.

I've also been reflecting and drawing cards to make some sense of everything that's been happening. The most resonant cards I drew this week are:

The Shark card from Messages from your Animal Spirit Guides deck

And from the Ascended Masters Oracle deck:

Key points being: Take action, take leadership, harness your power, now's the time to make a move, target your heart's desire, shake off your fear, stop waiting around, write, teach, take charge.

I think that certainly makes it all clear...

Bucket List

It's been a stressful few weeks out here in Bali and as you may have noticed from the delayed update of this blog, our internet has been off. Much to our frustration, sorting things out like this in Indonesia isn't as simple as making a quick phonecall to your provider. Nothing is. To me, it feels like the equivalent of searching for The Holy Grail. And so, I stress that this maddening situation that we've been in has not just been about the bloody internet of course. A whole multitude of things (and much more serious, may I add) have gone, shall we say, tits up.

To conlude, our plans have now changed and we are forced to switch the tracks. We are coming home to Europe in June. There are plenty of positives in this decision, believe me. And the most exciting thing about it is that we have so much more to be getting on with. So many other places we want to see, so many things we want to do.

So, during a dinner with a friend, we got onto the subject of a bucket list - a list of things you want to do before you die. After having discussed what we all had done so far, I felt quite proud of my achievments at the age of 27...leaving Bali is just a minor change of plan in the grand scheme of things. Not staying here for a year as previously intended isn't a failure at all but a realisation that this isn't the way it's meant to be. Listening to calls when you get them are more important. That's what it was to me when I decided to go travelling last year, it was a calling. And in following its path, I crossed off a bunch of things from my bucket list in one hit.

Our friend chalked up what she'd love to do before she dies and posted it on Facebook...in response to that, I'm going to tell all of you mine on this blog. It is then archived for me to look back on in time to come when I'm feeling a little stuck or blue. Sometimes we just need to tell ourselves that we've been bouncing along a rainbow of experiences all our lives and when we hit that grey cloud, we need to look back on the bountiful path we've been following. And on the otherside of that cloud, sunlight will eventually break.

So here are the highlights of what I've done so far:

*See the Himalayas
*Bond with an Elephant (I spent a lovely morning making and feeding rice parcels to the beautiful elephant Jampar Kali in Nepal)
*Visit Jim Morrison's grave in Paris
*Spend time on a Native American Reservation
*Do a sweatlodge ceremony
*See the Grand Canyon
*Go dolphin watching
*Sit on the dock of the bay (A tribute to Otis Redding in San Francisco)
*Stroll down "The Walk of Fame"
*See the "Christ the Redeemer" statue in Rio, Brazil
*Be on TV (The 6 o'clock news with my mum, in the audience of MTV's TRL, in the background of a news report in Nepal and featuring in a main story on a French reality show about loved ones reuniting at airports - with Loic in Lyon)
*Stroke a lion cub
*Learn guitar
*Learn a craft (there are several I still want to learn, but one of them I actually did was learn how to make candles)
*See the Mona Lisa, Venus di Milo and all that jazz at the Louvre
*Visit Stonehenge
*Go to a Buddhist temple (been to a couple now)
*Have a Past Life Regression

The Himalayas, photo of Jim Morrison's grave by Cyrilplace on Etsy, The Christ in Rio and The Louvre Museum

Ok...so running out of things I've done...a little shorter than I wanted it to be, but not bad a list. I'm sure I'm forgetting a few!

And now for my up to date Bucket List:

*See Machu Picchu
*Hug a panda
*Ride an elephant (nearly did but had to cut the trip to Nepal short)
*Master a Jimi Hendrix song on electric guitar (I know, I know)
*Bathe in the hotsprings in Iceland
*Visit Graceland
*Go to Japan
*Publish a book (this has always been number one, actually)
*Visit Delphi, the ancient oracle temple in Greece
*Learn more crafts, like: bookmaking, printmaking, sculpture, making stained glass windows, mozaics, dressmaking, soapmaking, woodcarving etc
*Own a Victorian house (this comes very closely behind publishing a book - a lifelong dream)
*Spend a week in a cosy log cabin
*Road trip across Europe

Japan, Mozaic making, hotsprings in Iceland and Machu Picchu

And I'm sure there are many more, but we'll leave it there...achievable? I'd like to think so.

After reading a few articles on Bucket Lists, there are some rather pessimistic people out there who seem to think that these lists are supposed to include things that are out of one's grasp...unrealistic dreams that would never happen. There was one particularly negative article that gave a 'most likely' type of list that is, according to this writer, the blueprint of most of our lives. The list featured things like: 'get a mortgage then fall behind on payments', 'do a degree and then spend life working in an irrelevant field'...I mean really, if this is the case, it's only because you choose it to be. And what sort of hope is there for people who settle for humdrum and never think they can achieve anything exciting? Go and do it, even if it's the smallest of things like 'write a song' or 'ride a horse' - do it!

I'm intrigued by other people's dreams, desires and goals, so what's your bucket list? And better yet, what are your proudest achievements?