Creating Your Future | Owls and Orchids

Posts Tagged ‘Creating Your Future’

The Hands of Time

Posted in Blessings, Coping Skills, Gratitude, Identity, Life lessons, Magic, Poetry, Spiritual, Uncategorized, Writing, tagged a helping hand, Court, Creating Your Future, dreaming, dreams, emotions, Family, heartache, human behaviour, justice, Magic, magic carpet ride, Possibilites, Sexual abuse, trauma, Trial, Universe on September 26, 2013| 3 Comments »

Waiting in the wings

Just around the corner

At the edge of sleep

Or as you start to wake

Are the memories

Of the past and

The hopes for the future.

image from fieldguidetoconservatism.blogspot.com

There is no magic carpet ride in the physical world we live in; that’s where our hopes and dreams are. If we are creative enough and believe in ourselves, we can create our magic carpet ride, fill our lives with magic and whatever it is that makes our hearts and minds sing. We can, if we but believe, bring our spirit alive with all manner of wondrous things. If we but believe – and are offered the support to allow our imaginations to blossom.

I am content that the extremes of human behaviour can still lift me to the heavens or crush me with sadness. I am grateful that I am able to feel those emotions to the fullest of my abilities. You might wonder why I would choose to be so saddened. It means, to me at least, that I am not inured to the grossness which people can descend to. I can still hold tight to the hope that if I give of my gratitude, love and well-being to the world, and enough others do the same, that we can make a difference to this wonderful world of ours.

I’d like to show you a small example, unhappy and unpleasant, but then, for some, that’s life.

Many years ago, when I was living in a country town, there was a horrendous event. A young child had been systematically abused by her mother’s defacto for years. Despite trying to tell her mother, she was not believed. Apparently her mother couldn’t believe her “wonderful boyfriend would want to be sexual with her teenage daughter when he had her to satisfy him.” The situation was even more horrendous than this and lasted for four years before she told a friend.

image from http://www.mirror.co.uk

Everything this child told the police was true and the perpetrator confessed to the police. Her mother, in anger and frustration, blamed the child and threw her out of her home. The rest of her extended family refused to help her either and she was taken into Child Services until the trial.

This presented a dilemma. The police needed her to be at the trial and yet she had nowhere to stay where she felt supported in what was a horrendous time. This was how she came into my life. She stayed with us for the week whilst the trial was held. She was visibly timid and trembled constantly. Despite the fact that my ex was the arresting officer she was obviously ill at ease with a man close to her. After we went to bed for the night I heard her crying in her room.

My children were still babies and I couldn’t ignore the pain in this child’s cries. We spent the entire night talking, or rather she talked and I listened in mounting horror. She had been unable to talk to anyone about what had occurred after giving her statement to the police. Her trauma was so great she had been unable to open up to anyone. Somehow she felt safe enough to talk to me.

It was a long week, with little sleep for either of us. She desperately needed to talk to someone after each days’ events and I wouldn’t, couldn’t turn her away. It so so apparent she had not had the chance to get the horrors of the past out into the daylight so she could begin to heal. On the last day she flew through the front door and into my arms and sobbed for an hour. The Judge had sentenced the man to five years jail after he had been found guilty on all counts.

image from de.123rf.com

On the steps of the court her mother asked her to come back home, to look after the younger children so that she could work, but only until the day her boyfriend was released from jail. Then she would have to leave! After all that had happened, this broke her heart all over again. She wanted someone to tell her what to do, something I couldn’t do, even if, in my heart, I would have liked to.

We spent another long night talking, exploring the avenues she had open to her. She was, fortunately, now of an age where she could remain in town to complete her schooling. From there she was able, for the first time, to look at what she might like to do. I suggested she let herself dream of the possible things she might like to do and build her plans from there. She realised she had a future she could dream of and plan for.

image from http://www.simonabunaphotography.com –

The next morning she left and for the first time there appeared to be a huge weight lifted from her shoulders. The haunted look which shadowed her eyes was, not gone, but much lighter than I had ever seen. She was nervous but she was looking forward to tomorrow. She told me it was the first time she had been able to sleep without listening for the door opening. With tears in my eyes I hugged her and then waved her off.

Just over two years later I answered my phone and heard a bright cheerful voice on the other end. Two years had made a tremendous difference to the frightened girl I met. She was going away to University, far away from her “home”. She told me of her dreams for the future, some already beginning and some she was still working on. She still had bad days, but the good ones outweighed the bad and she told me she dreamed of the wonderful things she was going to do. Somehow I know that her dreams came true.

I believe that when this child and I met, I was the one Blessed to be the hand holding a candle, to banish the darkness for her. I believe that I was allowed to light a window into a future she could embroider to make her happy. I believe that magic happened, and that I was honoured to be able to witness that happening.

image from http://www.crystalinks.com

Magic is all around us, in the golden morning sunrise, the silvered evening moon glow, in the twinkling sounds of the fairies dance and in the bright imaginings by day or in the cocoon of sweet dreams.

I wish everyone the joy of magic and dreams fulfilled, laughter and far horizons. As it should be.

Blessings Susan xx

“And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it.”
― Roald Dahl

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Finding Your Place

Posted in Challenges, Coping Skills, Gratitude, Identity, Life lessons, Love, Lyme Disease, Photography, Psychology, Spiritual, Uncategorized, Writing, tagged Arthritis, Courage, Creating Your Future, Creativity, despair, Disappointments, Friendship, Learning curve, Loneliness, manifesting belief, pain, Relationships, Spirituality, strength, support, the Universe, unconditional love on September 25, 2013| 13 Comments »

image from tidetheland.blogspot.com

“There are essentially two questions in life – a spiritual question and a material question. The spiritual question is ‘Who am I?’ The material question is ‘What am I to do with my life?’ One leads to the other.”
― Rasheed Ogunlaru

I found myself in a familiar place today. Not that it meant it was a good place, simply that I have been there before and recognised it. In truth, if I had a choice I probably would decide not to visit it, yet each time I do I learn something I didn’t know or had forgotten. So, in essence they are times to remember important things, and often things I haven’t wanted to learn.

The difficulty is that life is not one-dimensional. It has as many layers as an onion and people are exactly the same. I must be a tightly wound onion since I seem to be forever peeling away layers!

One doctor tells me I’m making progress, I feel like something a cat vomited under a bush and that is supposed to be good news. (Thank you Lyme disease). I can cut down on the “vomitous” drugs for a while and that’s good, yet it has also brought a gargantuan upsurge of inflammation and arthritic pain which is not so good. I know the mantra, two steps forward and one step back, and always a little more progress is made until you reach your end goal.

My end goal – wellness! Perfect health and well-being, positive physical energy, (and spiritual energy) and a return to normal activities. Simply being able to walk in the country or on the beach for more than five minutes before I have to stop will feel like I’m a captive bird which has been freed. I long to do ‘normal’ things like window shopping, going for a drive in the country without being ill for two days. Without needing a carer to watch over me. That sounds ungrateful, yet it isn’t, it is simply a desire to be free to do those things alone – if I wished to.

image from http://www.colourbox.com

Some of my most intense and beautiful memories are of lying amongst the bluebells in my favourite meadow, my border collie by my side, watching the fluffy clouds creating pictures for me to make stories around. The gentle breeze would stir the leaves casting a mosaic of shadows around us, the squirrels would be chattering away and the birds warbling overhead making a musical backdrop. Occasionally a pair of rabbits would pop out and, being quiet, would go about their business unaffected by our presence. It was a heavenly interlude and I could feel the beat of Mother earth, my Angels and Guides around me and I was part of our great Universe. It was, and still is peace on earth.

I have different memories now. The shared joy and love of watching the glorious moonrise. Seeing the orchids and hippeastrums beginning to bud in my garden. Watching the Rosellas mating and building their nest in our nesting box. The storm clouds boiling up only to drift away and the birds drinking nectar from the flowers. New flowers I’m learning about.

Storm clouds rolling in

Chasing the best nectar

Lady Slipper vine

Love is in the air

I mustn’t forget all the new friends I’ve found here, through my blog. Generous people who have accepted my first steps at writing and poetry, my amateur photography and the kindness and encouragement by their visits. Its makes the difficult days easier to bear because I have something to look forward to.

Not to forget the many things I learn…that spirituality is within and it is in evidence when I look out. When the words of someone far away can touch me deeply, can bring light to a dark place and give me answers to long-held puzzles. Then there are the special people who have brought something more, with their stories, sharing their experiences and those special friendships which are found in the most unexpected ways.

I have been blessed by friendship which I thought a figment of imagination, someone with whom I can discuss the many strange things which I have seen and experienced because we have a similar ‘history’. A dear and special friend who has become, in a short time, a cherished friend. Wonderfully for me, a friend my husband and I can share in different ways.

image from damonsmithnow.blogspot.com

I had a goal when I started writing today. I wanted to paint the picture of how, from a seemingly bleak start it was possible to find that calm centre and the clarity which can come from there. The connectedness with everything around us, which grounds us and allows us the strength to find the positive amongst the dross and succeed despite the struggle.

You see, I have difficulty finding my way at times so I’m sure I’m not alone. There are days I feel so isolated I want to curl up, pull the ground over my head and hide. People I looked to for support are so busy garnering their own they are unable to spare a small measure for anyone else, not even to share a morsel of friendship or support.

I fall down and eventually have to pick myself up. I have a heart overflowing with gratitude for the unconditional love and support my husband gives me every second of every day. I know how very fortunate I am and I thank Spirit for finally bringing us together. I pray, if that is what you pray for, that you find the same. I pray you find the support and friendship I have, and I wish you the strength to get back up and keep going when the days are miserable and hard because I know that there will be an end. I know my happy place, my dreams and plans will all come to be – soon.

I believe and it will be so, because what I think, what I believe, will be. That is how the Universe provides. It creates what we think and believe. So build your dreams and hold fast to them and surely as day follows night, they will be….. soon.

image from urbanspiritual.org

I’d like to share two of my favourite quotes which help me and perhaps may help you also.

“All men dream: but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dreams with open eyes, to make it possible. This I did.” T E Lawrence

“I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something; and because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do something that I can do.” Helen Keller

So dream on and believe because even one dreamer, one believer can make a difference. Join me!

Blessings and love. Susan x