All good things are wild and free

So, I sat by the fire and read The Snow Child.  It had been nudging me for quite some time, unsurprising really, given the cabin in the woods and the snow thing that’s been going on for the last few months.

It’s rather lovely - a deceptively simple tale of a couple trying to forge a life in the harsh Alaskan wilderness. Their one child was stillborn and now they are too old to have children of their own.  One day they build a child out of snow and give it mittens and a scarf.  The next day the clothes have gone and the snow girl has also vanished.  And then a child appears.

Is she real?  Is she a creature of snow and ice?  There is a blissful ambiguity about the book; it is never entirely pinned down.  And yet the characters in the book try to pin down the girl, they try to tame her, to domesticate her, to pull her into their ordered world.  They know, they are sure, they are certain, what should be done, how she should be.  They try to help her out of love and caring but their control suffocates her; it is anathema to her, it is death.   You can never tame a wild thing, nor should you try. 

And it got me thinking along a pathway that I often think, when I think.  That some things, many things, are ruined if you try to pin them down.  That it is a mistake, particularly when it comes to things of the heart and soul, to seek to trap and bind and trammel and dictate.  But it is hard.  We humans love to impose our will – on everything and everyone.  We like certainty; we like to know what’s what. 

Ah but then, oh then, maybe the mystery, the beauty, the wildness is lost.  For some things, many things, should  not be pinned down; they should be left to breathe, to live their own life; to do their own thing.  To be wild and free.  When the wild flower is picked it wilts and dies. When the wild animal is brought in from the forest its eyes go dull, the fire leaves its belly.   And, truly, we cannot ever own anything, not really.  We can make contracts, we can sign papers, we can put our signatures to documents; or we can bind by ties and strings and snares of emotion - of love and hate and fear and guilt and duty.  But nothing is ever really ours.  Everything changes, everything is ultimately ephemeral. 

They say that if you truly love something you should let it go.  Or rather allow it the freedom to come and go as it pleases. Yet we cling, how we cling. 

Sorry.  Just thoughts floating round my mind like a flurry of snow. 

Living life with passion

The natural world is full to bursting in August - nothing is held back, nothing is begrudged or stinted.  Maybe we can learn by watching this wholesale giving.  There are times when we need to conserve our physical energy but this isn't one of them.  And it is certainly not a time to hold back emotionally.  In fact if we learn to live life with pure passion and joy we could find life a much more delightful place. 

You know how some people are so passionate, so full of life and the joys of living that they virtually leave you breathless?  Well, why shouldn't we all have that sense of wonder and delight?  It doesn't mean that we have to become different people; just that we try to introduce a little verve and enthusiasm into our daily lives.

People think of passion as something that is inevitably to do with sex. Well yes, it is, but passion itself is much deeper than just sex.  It can touch every corner of our lives.

I learnt a great deal about the power of passion from the absolutely gorgeous American lecturer and workshop leader Denise Linn who is the living embodiment of passion.  A five minute conversation with her is enough to kick-start your whole week.  ‘Passion is about living life to the full; it's about excitement; about making life really worth living,’ she says.   But surely passion is something you simply either have or you don't have?  How can you learn to be passionate?  Denise says that, although as children we are naturally passionate creatures, as we go through our teens and into adult life we gradually learn not to be passionate.   

We are taught that to be an adult is to be calm, in control, rational, considered - even cynical.  The passion is inexorably drawn out of us until we have forgotten what it means to cry at a sunset, to become lost in a painting, to giggle like a child.

Society regards passion as emotion out of control, as an irrational force that, left to run wild, would grind industry to a halt within the day.  In fact quite the opposite is true.  Live your life with passion and you will become more effective in your work, more pleasant to live with and, most importantly, you will enjoy life to the full.

Denise insists that risk and passion go hand in glove. By learning to confront our fears of looking stupid, of making fools of ourselves, we can begin to take risks in life.  Once we believe we can stretch ourselves and do more, we can start to find out what we really want to do with our lives:  instead of living life safely, we will begin living passionately, to the full. 

DENISE’S TEN POINT PLAN FOR RECLAIMING PASSION

1.  Look back and remember what made you passionate as a child.  Tune in to that sense of childhood joy and maybe try reclaiming some of those activities.

2.  Think about what you are passionate about now.  What activities make you really lose yourself?  What causes are you passionate about?  Get involved.

3.  What stops you being passionate?  Work out what beliefs or anxieties prevent you from living with passion.

4.  Take risks.  Even small risks help you to push through your fear boundaries and gain confidence.  Be willing to make mistakes.

5.  Be kind.  Random acts of kindness (leaving a flower on desks at work, feeding a stranger's parking meter if it's run out) have a chain-reaction, making everyone feel good.

6.  Make a commitment to include activities you really enjoy into your life. 

7.  If you hate your job, find something - however small - that you can enjoy in it. 

8.  Imagine you were at the end of your life, looking back.  What would have given you fulfillment that you didn't do?  What would you regret not having done?  Why not do it now?

9.  Maintain passionate relationships by keeping your imagination alive.  Be spontaneous every so often - whisk your partner off for a picnic, buy a surprise present.

10.  Get in touch with your body.  Experiment with movement and music.  Crank up the music and street dance round the kitchen.  Dance is a wonderful means of freeing the straightjacket self.

This is an edited extract from the August chapter of my book The Natural Year – a seasonal guide to holistic health and beauty. Now available in e-format for Kindle and containing a lot of previously unpublished material.  The book is a season by season, month by month guide to living in tune with the natural world. 

"I read (and re-read!) this book many years ago and it inspired me and filled me with great hope. After loaning the book to several friends it eventually found a new home and I hope someone is now enjoying it as much as I did then! The philosophy seems so simple, yet it is so meaningful..." (from Amazon.com review)

I have kept the price low - about £2 from Amazon.co.uk or $3 from Amazon.com - so, if you fancy living more in tune with the seasons of the year, go buy. :-)

On being feckless and child-free

James finished school on Friday for the summer holidays. Yup, that’s right – the start of two months stretch ahead of us (and again I wonder why it is that you pay huge fees for less school time than state schools – one of life’s mysteries). More for less, that’s a principle I wish I could apply to my working practice (and my whole life really).
Anyhow, the curious thing is that I haven’t seen him yet. Could he go home with a friend for the night? Well yes, sure. He has fun; we get a night to frolic around town. Freedom! Freedom without the cost of babysitter! Exclamation points surely allowed for this? We had early supper at Woods, bumped into some friends, got chatting, didn’t have to keep looking at our watches for the witching hour. Adrian sank a fair few pints and I sank, hmm, two decaf cappuccinos, one J2O, one mineral water and one ginger beer. God, I hate this not drinking lark.
Unused to being off the leash we trailed home reasonably early and watched American Gangster with a mug of Options hot chocolate (how sad is this?).

The next day was surreal. Vague memories of a life pre-child floated back. The actual reading of papers (rather than skimming the headlines and then putting them in the recycling pile – some days I even bypass the headline bit); the leisurely drinking of coffee; the silence (no PlayStation, no yelling, no thump of rugby ball against wall); the sheer unadultered luxury of a bath uninterrupted by ‘Where’s my (whatever)….’ and ‘I’m hungry’. Then the phone call. He was having a fabulous time and could he stay another night please? We looked at each other, shrugged and said, sure, why not. A whole weekend of feckless freedom. Bring it on. Arms punching air.

But the problem is we’ve forgotten how to relax. We’ve lost the gentle art of childless pottering. One morning was fine but the prospect of a whole other day sans child, sans Playstation, sans incessant ‘what can I do’itis? I went into panic mode. This was my chance to do all the things that normally can’t be done. Panic turned into headless chicken. The list reached such monumental proportions that it toppled over and fell to the floor in a heap.

I got some work done; we visited SWCBM; we cleaned; we tore down half the old kitchen; I washed piles of clothes; sorted out tons of stuff and freecycled a bunch and took another bunch to the charity shop. Then I decided to make an assault on the garden. So this morning there was I, in the sagging fruit cage, picking fruit in steampunk fashion, arms like pistons, fruit flying anarchically – half in the bucket, half out. My back aching, vicious gooseberry spikes stabbing my wrists. A young blackbird hurtled past me in terror and I suddenly wondered what on earth I was doing. How tragic is it that I can’t even pick fruit in a vaguely bucolic leisurely fashion? Instead it’s a manic race against time.
I really truly envy people who can lose themselves in the moment, wobble through life in a gentle manner, smell the roses, seize the day. But maybe I just have to accept that that is never going to be me. I’m always going to be spinning, arms flailing like a demented Indian deity.

Also, I realised that, while childless freedom is fabulous, I miss my boy. Hate having his room empty, find it unsettling that I leave my PC for half an hour and come back to find it still on the same page (rather than being greeted by wild flashing graphics and some new just-discovered game). As I type this, Adrian has gone to pick him up. Within half an hour we’ll be back to the usual mayhem. Have to say I’m pretty glad.