Charles de Lint | The Contented Crafter

Sometimes I sits and thinks

And sometimes I just sits ……

~ AA Milne

I have been contemplative for a whole month. I didn’t realise it until I arrived at the epiphany last night. I was busy telling myself to get on with ….. something, anything really. I have a dozen projects at varying stages from starting off to half way through and only one of them has made any progress in the last four weeks.

I was sitting and thinking – or just sitting. Or gardening and thinking, or just gardening.

Sometimes I was driving and thinking – but mostly just driving.

And then I was introduced to a new blog. My pal Frank held a blog party and I went along and met some lovely and interesting new folks, including Robin and I read this on her blog

I want to be magic. I want to touch the heart of the world and make it smile. I want to be a friend of elves and live in a tree. Or under a hill. I want to marry a moonbeam and hear the stars sing. I don’t want to pretend at magic any more. I want to be magic. ~ Charles de Lint

I heard myself take a sharp in-breath as I read these words and something deep, deep down inside of me sat up and smiled. I have so much magic in my life and I want to be magic too. I want to experience what it is like when I live every day looking into the world around me and seeing the magic in nature, in people, in events; knowing anything is possible and trusting in it and keeping that in the fore-front of my mind. It is time, said the deep-down, smiling some-one, to stand up and be counted; to put your money where your mouth is; to walk the talk and live in the trust. It is time to put aside all doubt, all fear and celebrate what you know to be true. Life is a miracle and it works in you and through you and is found in every one and everything – the seen and the unseen! I know these things, I just don’t always allow myself to live in them and with them.

I went to bed and slept fitfully. My head and heart were tingling with excitement and possibilities and newness and potential and wonder. Somewhere during the night I realised I had been sitting and thinking and sometimes just sitting, letting everything settle and just be, because now was the right time to simply live in the magic. And, as always, someone else had to proffer me the way forward. Alys had asked me if I thought procrastination was sometimes a cover for fear. “It’s always a cover for fear!” I had replied and heard myself. Thank you Frank, thank you Robin and thank you Alys!

And did you notice, right there we had an example of magic in action!

I have been learning a poem. Inspired by my friend Christi who taught herself a multi-layered, beautiful poem in three short weeks, I blundered about picking and discarding and not quite finding the right one until another blogging friend, Kerry, posted this on her site

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree

And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;

Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the honey bee,

And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,

Dropping from the veils of morning to where the cricket sings;

There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,

And evening full of linnet’s wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day

I hear lake water lapping with low sounds from the shore;

While I stand on the road way, or on the pavements grey,

I hear it in the deep heart’s core.

~ WB Yeats

When I first heard this poem spoken, many years ago now, I wept. For me, the perennial gypsy, it has always represented my longed for home, my safe haven – my place on earth. Now I have learned it and say it to myself many times a day and let it be part of me along with the new acceptance of magic.

I am ready to begin work again! And this morning, just to solidify the whole deal with another sprinkle of serendipitous magic my fat-bottomed friends posted a ‘Getting Fierce GOALFEST’ which I bravely/foolishly/fool-heartedly/wisely/positively/magically joined in with and vowed – VOWED – to complete the mixed media painting that has been languishing around in the art room and various other rooms of the house for some three months and which is destined for my dear friend, the lovely Alys. I have until the end of the month………

The lovely Orlando is recovering well from a bout of spray poisoning which included a quite spectacular bout of projectile vomiting. The lovely Siddy is off getting his first hair cut – and incidentally only his second adventure sans mumma ever. I wonder how he is doing, but I did get this post up and out in record time without him!

And to finish, here are a few more shots of Siddy helping with the gardening.