To the sea
/Hello my loves,
Jaysus, it’s been quite the fortnight. Sweeping currents of high emotion have been surging through my life, leaving me feeling like a lone sailor on an oceanic voyage who’s struck a patch of unfortunate weather. While I absolutely know that this is the fabric that makes up a life, frankly, I’m a little depleted. So today, I’m downing tools, and heading to the ocean to wash it all away. I’ve spoken before about how powerful I find water in helping me to release and rebalance. I’m a huge fan of a long hot bath, and I’ve also come to embrace the ocean as a place of comfort and realignment. So I’m strapping on the togs, and heading off to my favourite spot - a sheltered bay with crystal-clear water, where the sky feels huge, and I’m wading right in.
It's been an enormous year for everyone, and it's not over yet. Many of us are exhausted and overwhelmed. If this is you, I encourage you to give yourself full permission to care for yourself in whatever way you need to. Have an honest look at the to-do list you're holding yourself to, and ask yourself what really has to be done. I'd be willing to bet that a lot of it can wait. Create some space in your day to focus on you instead. Curl up with a book, take a snooze, run a bath, pop on a podcast, take a walk. Do whatever it is you need to do to recalibrate, because it's really important that we're super loving to ourselves right now. A lot is being asked of us this year, and the flip-side of that is that we have full and unfettered permission to care for ourselves however we need to as we work our way through it.
Before I take to the sea, I did just want to mention something I haven’t noticed this week, and that’s the usual proliferation of Halloween-festooned houses. What a blessed relief. There are a few lone verandahs sporting faux cobwebs, but on the whole it feels much more subdued than previous years. As you can imagine, I’m enjoying it. Plonking Halloween in spring has never felt right to me – I have no problem with Halloween itself, only Australia's blind adoption of the American date which has lead to the unfortunate ‘Springaween’ situation that’s been escalating here for the past few years.
For the record, Halloween is an ancient, seasonal celebration of death, spirits and the other side, which belongs quite firmly in autumn, the season of dying. Maybe Covid’s had an effect this year, with people not wanting to encourage house-to-house contact, but all I know is that in the annual battle of spring flowers vs plastic pumpkins, this year, in Newtown at least, the blossoms appear to be winning. Long may it continue 💛.
Love, Rachel xxx
