adventure – Threads of Thought

Silence in the Storm …

“Silence is a silent storm that breaks all our dead branches.” ~ Khalil Gibran

The silence hung low and heavy …1 hour …2 hours …3 hours …4 hours …each minute an hour …each hour a day …

Pacing in the loneliness of an empty house … I took a breath, and the coldness of the deafening quietness enveloped me …drowning in the blackness, chaos, and swirling emotions immersing me in nebulousness of a personal hell

This crazy journey of life with twists and turns…highs and lows …sometimes life becomes too much and threatens to swallow us up …each breath dizzying …

The phone finally rang, listening through worry …Tiredly, the doctor informed me that the surgery went longer than anticipated …all was well and Mr. P was in “High Care” or Intensive Care …the turbulance resided as I hung up the phone and inhaled …

Now the wait for the biopsy to reveal what all the doctors said was a 95% probability of the cancer returning …the crack, in the facade I held tightly in place no longer able to hold the torrent of tears …the pain falling faster than I could control …torrents of grief poured from my heart for all that had been, was, and might be in the future …an involuntary moan slipped through my lips as inconsolable sobs wracked my body …

“Grief is like the ocean; it comes on waves ebbing and flowing. Sometimes the water is calm, and sometimes overwhelming. All we can do is to learn to swim.”
Vicki Harrison

As I lay in the dampness of the agony of heartbreak for the love of my life …with a life lived had come the cracks in the illusion that I had control …I was powerless …no matter what the future might bring to me …the only option was to open the day with faith to unfold the gifts given, wrapped in the magnificent love of God …opening my eyes to His grace to be able to float on the current of unfathomable grace …

Surrender to What Is …choosing to accept what is, even if what is not what we want it to be …being OK when things aren’t OK …giving ourselves to feel …doesn’t mean we crawl into it …to allow it to swallow us up …learn to explorers of our emotions …what is happening outside that is causing that uneasiness …

Surrender to the currents …surrender to the fact that we are where we need to be …it’s ok, not to be ok all the time …accept what is …let go …float on the current of the tide of time…

I floated …kicked and screamed …almost drowned …floated some more …prayed …cried …and when exhausted …I surrendered to it all …the past, present and future …

In the midst of the unbearable angst of the week, something transformed within…a mystical experience that is unexplainable to the faithless …I have lived with desolation as my constant companion … a dark hopelessness in which nothing that happened around me often seemed to matter, and everything seemed so aimless, futile, or trivial …an uncomfortable sense of failure, a pessimistic feeling that I would never find peace, joy, or happiness that I yearned to experience …a spectator to the myriad emotions of the actors in this play called life …

I have lived my life on an island …in a cage with an open door …like the wild baby elephants that are trained and so was I …at an early age I was tethered to thick, heavy, metal chains attached to a massive iron stake driven deeply into the ground …the lies that said I was not worthy …the fear of being hurt, if seen or heard …never safe …not good enough as a female …lie after lie …after lie I was bound …each abuse, a boa constrictor slowly squeezing all the life out of me …

The baby elephant grows into a massive elephant …strong, yet held with a thin rope tied to a small piece of wood …easily able to break the snugly tied rope and be free to walk away …yet it doesn’t …why? …because it spent years believing that it couldn’t …so it doesn’t

“It is not until you change your identity to match your life blueprint that you will understand why everything in the past never worked.”
Shannon L. Alder

And so it was with me …believing all the lies kept me caged and bound in an island of isolation and loneliness …the solidity of my hopes and dreams would become wisps of nothingness, as I would begin to open the door to leave …time after time during the years …there were times that I left believing that I was strong enough …and the tendrils of the lies, beliefs and fears cut into the skin of my soul and I turned to return to the safety of my cage …I knew how to live with the skeletons of lost hopes and dreams …

When I totally surrendered …something changed within…I screamed, not with frustration …but with the bloodcurdling war cry of a warrior …I am done … setting fire to the cage …burning the carcasses of past visions and aspirations …the tendrils rising in smoke …

With the smoke in my nostrils …I walked to the edge of the ledge …an old rickety wooden bridge slowly revealed itself through the midst of lost hope …spanning across the depth of the chasm that I always feared …looking like it had been there for years …ready to collapse at any moment …badly in need of repair …some slats broken or completely missing …

There was no going back …nothing to go back to and the pain of staying the same was more than even the fear of death …it was forward to live or die …gathering the last ounce of courage within me …I called to the fire of all my hidden innermost seething anger…the lost opportunities …the abuse, the controlling and manipulating …the rejection and gaslighting … a single flame darted from my soul to the first broken piece at my feet …the fire slowly gathering strength as each piece of kindling stoked the fire …growing with intensity …the heat rushing to reach the next cracked tinder plank …consuming as it licked at my feet …

The tears ran down my soot covered cheeks …leaving trails of sadness and heartbreak …slowly my legs crumbled under me at the edge of the rocky ledge …no strength left …there was nothing that remained …the inky blackness still following me …

There I sat for what felt like eons … the dark shadows in the foliage across the chasm beneath my feet waiting for the seeping of the grey sliver of daylight into my vision …arriving to grant me a few hours of a quiet heartbeat, as I waited for night to reveal itself again ..to feel again the panic that enveloped me every night listening to the sounds of things that I could not see …it had been a frightening place that never allowed for a sweet dreams …only nightmares of the monsters that I knew were lurking …

Total exhaustion of body, soul, and spirit brought a heaviness to my eyelids that I could not control …and with the slow arrival of the night, I slipped into the oblivion of the nothingness that would sometimes envelope me with such tightness I could no longer struggle against the terrors that played with me…

The first soft sunrays caressed by cheek and rubbing my tear swollen bleary eyes …the rosy hue of the new day with the promising songs of melodic chirping greeted me …sadness still lingered in the shadows …but I could think without the sobs wracking my body …I sat taking inventory …

Nothing …nada …zilch …I balanced myself to get on my feet …touching a lumpy cloth something or other …”that’s strange” …beside me laid a tattered, threadbare, barely there knapsack …I hadn’t remembered bringing anything with me as I fled …

Sitting back down …curious as to the contents … heavier that I would have thought, it took both hands to sling the bag into my lap …tentatively unknotting the tangled and twisted string …finally gingerly opening the bag …the absolute darkness obscuring any definite image …but nothing moved …I reached in and felt the rough edges of a hardness that I had felt before …on the other side …

Gently and slowly, I took a piece of the severely edged rock and brought it to the light …it was cold in my hand, and the tendril of a fearful memory slowly started to wind its way up around my arm …creeping upward towards my heart…

Like the sun rising, a warmth flowed through the crown of my head, through my chest…a light started to glow from my heart throughout my body and as it ran through my body and down my arm that held the dark lump …the black tendrils shrank back into the blackness I held …and as I sat there holding the memory …the light reached my hand enveloping the object …as I sat there the pain of the frigid object warmed …slowly and gently morphing …in the center of my palm where the agonizing sharpness had been, now there was only a soft pile of ash that now emitted a fragrant smell …I closed my eyes to embrace the odour and feel the softness that I held …

A gentle scented breeze stirred …kissing my cheek, flowing across my open hand and like buoyant wave embracing the sand, lifted the ash into the sky…making the grains dance with happiness for the freedom that came with the liberation …It brought tears into my eyes – tears of contentment, love and pure joy

The sun was now on the horizon … slowly melting into the horizon …like an artist’s canvas …filled with the colourful strokes of the reds, yellows, and oranges spreading like the final glows of a flame …with a welcoming feeling of warmth and love …the panorama before me including the mystical soft white, pink tinged clouds …the light continued to slowly faded and with it the tranquil wonderment of the day …

The snarls and roars across the ravine beginning as the light continued to fade my anxiety and terrors of the darkness beginning to swell inside me…the coldness starting again to envelope my body and mind …tentatively I laid my head on my arm and closed my eyes …turning my leg felt the sharpness and hardness of the stones within the knapsack …and the memory of the incredible surprising day totally obliterating all other thoughts for the moments …

The morning would bring new experiences …into the unknown I would travel …difficult it would be carrying the weight of the stones …not ready to leave the only protection that I had …and my mouth quirking into a slight smile …I could always try and learn more about changing the stones into that beautiful ethereal dust that would lighten my load …and create such feelings of love and lightness …

The future could be dangerous …an unknown risk …I could not even image what lay before me …my only reference was the cold dark loneliness and horrific experiences that I had known …it could not be any worse …even death would be more acceptable and more honorable …

“A hero is somebody who voluntarily walks into the unknown.”
Tom Hanks

Silently, one by one, in the vast blackness of the night, twinkling light blossomed as I lay there on the hard earth … until the night was no longer such a scary place … each pale twinkle whispering that would be safe as they all watched over me …breathing deeply I lost myself in wonderment …

If this was all there was of my life …it was enough

The Privilege of Aging

Conflicted…still conflicted …but maybe less so…just a tad. Aging is a challenge for me, that keeps showing up every January 26th …to be truthful, every day that I pass a mirror and stop with surprise …wondering who that woman I see is🤣

“Every birthday is a gift. Every day is a gift.”
Aretha Franklin

The holidays are past …my guests arrived and departed this month …sick husband on the mend for a chest infection …and my own health challenges kept me from being as present here as I would have loved to have been …

Health becomes so much imperative as age demands it portion of our life …losing lean body mass (slowing down our metabolism) and bone density, if we do not make fitness a priority and a part of our daily life …

Honestly, I also ferociously deal with confronting the uncomfortableness of my aging looks …I absolutely detest the idea of being a frumpy old lady baking cookies …or sitting in a rocking chair knitting a scarf for someone …never been and never will …although that has been a hope by daughter carried for many years …

My hair has never seen more than a small sliver of grey since I saw my first one in my twenties …oh, that was a day to be rued …couldn’t change the thinning, but really cut short cuts are much cooler in the steamy hot summer months here in South Africa …no air conditioning is not a norm here and I ‘glow’ quite a bit more during the peak summer months …and that is one strange turnaround …celebrating my birthday in the freezing cold of midwestern life to a sweltering drippy humid kind of day …

Yet, I am finding that there is a relaxing to what is …microscopic but growing …and I am releasing the brittle mask that pinches and that I have held so tightly onto to try and fit into the expected societal norm …there is a gentler pace here and a more natural acceptance to life in general …when I relax and breath into the moment …shutting out the din of marketing …the unreal expectations that we see on television and all the social media outlets …

There is a quiet peace in acceptance and even a joy that bubbles up …this little ele loved blowing bubbles in his water …after all, sometimes we must create our own bubbles

“There is a fountain of youth: it is your mind, your talents, the creativity you bring to your life and the lives of people you love. When you learn to tap this source, you will truly have defeated age.”
Sophia Loren

It is difficult saying good-bye to the “good ole ‘days” …it is an emotional and difficult one …besides the loss of youthful dewy skin and unbounding energy, losses in life start to become more prevalent …learning how to accept those with loving grace is not a straightforward process for me …a best friend and confidant in the US had a stroke that she will not go home from… we sent WhatsApp messages daily updating our weight progress and pitfalls …supporting the ups and down of life …I did not feel so alone here, even though we were eight hours and 2000+ miles apart …I am still reeling with the loss …

Yet, it is a part of life the is here to stay …as friends and relatives age …I desire to make friends with loss and grieving …looking with love at the memories and love that were shared …gratitude for the life that I have lived …the scars that have healed with renewed strength … it’s time to say goodbye to the physical youth, shed some tears and then optimistically embrace our ever-evolving selves …

That is part of my evolution …gratitude and being present in the moment …living whole heartedly and with wild abandonment (but then taking a nap 😴) …I can now become the wild woman that my soul has yearned to be …embracing the opportunities that are now available …I’m not stopping, but just starting to dance in the joyful creativity that I am able to pursue …the writing (a fantasy novel carried for eons, tapping to be let out) and photography (becoming a story teller of the beautiful of our world) …

Time expands with all the technology at our fingertips …and I can accomplish in my life now what would have taken years, when I started working …Photoshop is so much cooler than cutting and pasting, messy airbrushing and retouching on a lightbox with several magnifiers …yes, I am that old …

Now it is time to continue the path to health, so my years can produce what is within my heart and mind …and I don’t travel onward to my next journey, taking with me what I was meant to share and leave here…

“Aging is an extraordinary process where you become the person you always should have been.”
David Bowie

This is dedicated to my loving Mom …who I miss every day🥰 I know that she is happier where she is …

Wishing magic and “bubbles” for your day …sent with love from a fellow traveller ❣

The Abyss of Despair❣

The monster Fear grabbed by hand and led me to the edge of abyss of despair …wrapping its arms around my shoulder, whispering …”there is no hope” ….”Make it easy and just give up”…”the pain will be unbearable” … “there is no way around or through” …”You have always failed, ALWAYS” ….

A recent professional diagnosis of ADD (ADHD) encouraging me to fall to my knees, one more time …some close to me denying the diagnosis …saying that it was incorrect … I do not outwardly exhibit the symptoms that people typically think of as ADHD …I appear calm and peaceful on the outside … not hyper or fidgety …feeling alone because others in my life, do not understand what it means to have to struggle every day with the inability to stay focused and the myriad other mental challenges that ride the coattail of ADD … “It’s like being a cat with 100 people with laser pointers.” ― Jamie Hynds

“They said I could pass as normal, that I was clever and no one would ever know. They lied. Not about passing. The lie was hidden beneath, in the desire for me to be the same as them. I am extraordinary. They should have helped me soar, be more of me, not less.” ― Anna Whateley
Anna Whateley

Trying to understand myself …I recently read that ADHD can Drastically shorten a patient’s life …”ADHD can reduce life expectancy by as much as 13 years, but its risk is reversible.” ^{https://www.additudemag.com/adhd-life-expectancy} …and the darkness enveloped me …shrouding me with the coldness of hopelessness …

That’s all I could focus on … ‘Drastically shorten‘ … “and much higher in women as men” ^{https://edgefoundation.org/does-adhd-shorten-life-expectancy} Here I am… enjoying the “best” years of my life, after finding ‘my knight with only moderately dented armor’ and I am being handed a notice of eviction from life sooner than I had planned on …fear saturated every nook and corner of my mind …then I took the keys back …

“As they have taught me, I believe that without asking, we are given all we need. We must have the wit and wisdom to recognize the strengths and tools at our command, and find the courage to do what must be done.”
Dean Koontz, Life Expectancy

The second part of the quote reads, “but its risk is reversible.”… and reading further, “mainly due to accidents” …due to our distractedness and impulsive thinking …I raise my hand 😱…falling after a shower with a nerve damage from a deep shin cut, because I wasn’t paying attention,my mind far away on thoughts of a possible photographic setup …

Although my primary concern is with the health of being at optimum weight for longevity …Hallelujah!!! I understand now, why even though I always have known what I need to do to lose weight and become healthier …I have never been able stick with a program long to lose weight and then keep it off …or lose some weight and then gain it back when life became stressful …

Not only are people with ADHD wired for obesity, but also struggle with the routines that support health …😫ADHD is an executive function deficit disorder …which in laymen means that we lack (in various degrees) the mental abilities that people need to actively pursue goals …our self-regulation …our self-awareness, self-restraint, the ability to hold things in our minds (how we picture things mentally), our internal monologues, emotional self-regulation, and self-motivation, and our planning and problem solving abilities .

My brain craves dopamine (as most ADD brains do) …the neurotransmitter that impacts mood …although exercise increases dopamine …so does the bread, chips, and sugar …which is so much handier and easier to get quickly …

Symptoms like impulsivity make us more prone to give in to cravings for high-fat, high-sugar foods. And the dopamine rush we get from carbohydrates and sweets becomes addictive; it feels as if our brain needs that grilled cheese sandwich.
By ADDitude Editors, John Fleming, Ph.D., Roberto Olivardia, Ph.D.

This week, it was heart wrenching to hear again that the one person that I rely on for support had given up on my losing the weight and being healthy 💔…what is more devastating is the knowledge that there is no way to explain sufficently the difficulty that I deal with on a daily …a minute by minute struggle …when I am actively doing my absolute best to do what I know is supportive of weight loss …even more of a struggle, because I am also in an incredible stressful situation currently …

I had no idea, how much the ADHD worked against me with this goal of becoming healthier …

ADHD creates problems with self-regulation — of attention, short-term memory, and emotion—that extend to food intake. Trouble with impulse control keeps people with ADHD from thinking, “I won’t eat that because it’s not healthy, and I will regret it later.” Instead, we grab an unhealthy snack without considering if it’s a good idea or not.

_{The ADHD brain has low levels of two neurotransmitters: dopamine (responsible for feelings of reward) and GABA (responsible for inhibition). We crave sugar to stimulate dopamine production. This, paired with a lack of inhibitions, can set the stage for weight gain.} ^{https://www.additudemag.com/slideshows/adhd-weight-loss-tips}

Still, possible …just more challenging …’Diets’ are not going to work …but that’s the case for even the 90% +/- of the world’s “neurotypical” … So where do I go from here???????????

It’s going to be one beautifully, blessed day …or minute, or second at a time …even a nanosecond, if necessary … because I have not come through burning hell to lie down now …I am determined to live … I will fight for that privilege with every breath that I have … if a few more scars are incurred…I am willing to pay that price …my scars are my beauty

Always sending love, happiness, and magic for your day … for those who are struggling …please hold on and find beauty in the darkness …it is there, if you search …You are never alone …I promise❤

“My thoughts are like butterflies. They are beautiful, but they fly away.”
― **Anonymous**

Flying Free …

“If you want to fly in the sky, you need to leave the earth. If you want to move forward, you need to let go the past that drags you down.”
Amit Ray, World Peace: The Voice of a Mountain Bird

This is difficult writing …my diagnosis of having ADHD … I started therapy for support and tools for finding out why I could not climb the mountain of weight loss …and then suddenly, I found myself in the twilight zone … wrangling with a mixed bag of emotions that I am still untangling …

I’m 66 years old and just now finding out why I have struggled all my life is heartbreaking …Exhaustion, both mental and physical, has been a constant companion in my life…pushing hard to accomplish my goals and dreams …yet never quite attaining what I felt I could do … I would get tired and would give up for a period when I didn’t have the ‘umph” to try that day …yet, the minute ember of hope for my magnificent and heartfelt dreams would not die …

“Strength does not come from winning. Your struggles develop your strengths. When you go through hardships and decide not to surrender, that is strength.” ~Ghandi

I mourn for all the self-hatred, self-criticism, low self-esteem …heartache for the impulsive decisions that cost me years of happiness …resentment and grief for the years that I struggled alone…sadness for lost opportunities … for thinking that I just wasn’t strong enough …a lifetime of depression …there is grieving to walk through …

Don’t recall. Don’t imagine. Don’t think. Don’t examine. Don’t control. Rest.
Tilopa

… Now there are answers and new shining possibilities … as I accept and understand what Adult ADD is, there is Hope …I’m not broken …it is a quirky, fascinating thing that’s just part of who I am; and is manageable …

“All adventures, especially into new territory, are scary” ~Sally Ride

I have only been on the medication for less than a week …and it already makes a difference in the goal of becoming healthy …before I received the diagnosis, I still had been trying to figure out why I felt mentally resistant to losing weight …and a part of the stubbornness and refusal to be consistent appeared to be from coming from the point of view of weight loss for beauty …or the common social media type of beauty …

Becoming thin for the accolades of people (in particular the male species) …for beauty only …seems to be more effective short term …and that does not work for the long-term healthy life that I want to create for my future… I am modifying my ‘why’s’ for climbing the weight loss mountain …

It takes a great deal of pressure off …it’s not about losing weight quickly for the vacation and then gaining it back again …but gradually learning new healthy habits that I can be consistent with day-in and day-out …changing how to relate to food so that it becomes an aspect of my life that I enjoy …that I don’t need to obsess about every single moment of the day …

A much easier path to take …longer and more circuitous …but the path is easier and less stressful to walk daily …for lifelong sucess, it will be the slow building of self-care habits … I started last week by Intermittent Fasting …not every day, but most days (80/20) make life more realistic …it’s been easier this week to maintain consistency …not worrying or tracking every bit of food …but learning to be conscious of what I eat …even enjoying a wonderful date night with my husband relishing wonderful flavors of well-prepared food …

Exercising began with just a 1-mile (15 minute) exercise in the morning …dog walking in the afternoon if not raining or recovering from a fall on slippery tile …last week was a definite win …not perfect, but I’m giving myself grace to not be ‘perfect’ …especially since it’s an impossibility …

I lost less than a pound …it’s ok …I moved forward toward my goal …this week is another step forward …a little more practice with consistency and just learning to function with my diagnosis …I read that ADHD can contribute to health problems such as compulsive eating, substance abuse, anxiety, chronic stress, and tension …all which causes emotional eating (in my case) …

I had lost hope of things working out the way I had dreamed^{_{(I am incredibly blessed to have my Mr. P and his loving support)}} …my big goals had been reduced to faint misty illusions …I had fallen into a tenacious holding pattern … just keeping my head above water, so no one knew how close to drowning I was…my dreams had kept collapsing …now there is a gleam of light through the streaky dirty window that my spirit looked onto the world with ….for me it now suddenly feels even more awesome and incredible …a beautiful journey ahead …

I have lived enough of life to know that it is not going to be all smooth sailing …but now I remember who I am … that my story is important, eternal, and sacred …I may have been taking the longer route … the sights along the way are going to be pretty incredible, now that I can see more clearly …

Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, “life is a journey, not a destination”

“Dance. Smile. Giggle. Marvel. TRUST. HOPE. LOVE. WISH. BELIEVE. Most of all, enjoy every moment of the journey, and appreciate where you are at this moment instead of always focusing on how far you have to go.”
Mandy Hale

A word of Advice from a dreamer …NEVER, EVER, EVER GIVE UP! Life is challenging with its twists and turns …when you least expect it, the world will open into the most magical of places

This was a Magical Hidden Place in Hogsback, South Africa❣

“Life can be so unpredictable, always remember that!
The rain can pour down and the winds can blow hard,
sweeping away those peaceful moments you had.
It’s never the end of the world when things go wrong.
Just keep faith in yourself, keep going and stay strong.
Never give up on your dreams and never give up hope.”
― Mouloud Benzadi

Blowing magic your way with Love ❣ and Hope

A Place that Time Forgot

In the heart of the sizzling arid Karoo lies a small quaint village…Nieu-Bethesda…A little artist town with dusty untarred roads…approximately 50K (31 miles) from the town of Graaff-Reinet…

Karoo…not a Kangaroos in sight…maybe a herd of Springbok or the ever present dorper sheep with their distinctive black heads…a mountain tortoise crossing the road…now and then…clean shaped hills or koppies capped with the hard jagged rock formations formed over millions of years..

The original inhabitants were the Bushman or San people…who named the area the “Karoo”…a Bushman word meaning “dry space”…

I had never traveled into this semi-desert region since I arrived in South Africa… on the central plateau of the western half of South Africa… place of relentless sunshine… a vast, open, arid region dominated by low-shrub vegetation and abundance of rock cropping’s…

Halfway to Camdeboo National Park in the Karoo

Doesn’t look like a desert…looks can be deceiving though…in stopping to take this photograph…the surrounding area told a vastly different story…the photos below were all taken at the same location…recent rain in the area had brightened up the brown to a more vibrant green…

Mr. P and I had taken a couple of days to breathe the desert air to check out a birding route that was located in a national state Park named Camdeboo…a park that literally surrounds the town of Graaff-Reinet… over 240 bird species and the famous breathtaking Valley of Desolation…towering dolerite columns rising to heights of up to 120 meters…formed by volcanic and erosive forces over a period of 200 million years…Wow!!!

It was over 100F that day…hot and windless…sweating (or glistening as the ladies are more prone to do) as I climbed over stones and up a narrow dirt path to the top…the view was breathtaking…towers of Sheer cliffs and precariously balanced columns of Dolerite rise 120 metres from the valley floor … worth the trip to see what millions of years have created…makes me wonder what the next 120 million years will create on this magic blue marble in the sky…

We still had some time in the day and following the suggestion of our hostess at the B&B…we took a short drive to visit the renown “Owl House” in Neiu Bethesada…off we went to check out this quirky little town…

Almost missing the turnoff…just a small country road…surrounded by fence…scrub land…with interest in what we might find…we traveled on…

The narrow road started slowly spiraling downward…descending we were on the outside edge of the road…I held my breath, closed my eyes, and wondered if we should go back when I saw a car coming towards us…just nowhere to turn around… and …after all…just another adventure

Breathing again at the bottom of the hill…we continued forward…around a sharp bend in the road…almost running into a white farmhouse smack dab in the middle…delineating where the road changed from blacktop to a dirt and gravel lane…how could we be on the right road to the famous “Owl House”…where thousands of visitors stop in to see this treasure of either weird or wonderful (depending on your preferences) art is located…onward, Mr. P…

Dusty, dirty road that seemingly led nowhere…passing abandoned buildings…now only inhabited by Mother Nature and her children…

**Like a valley of desolation…everything in ruins**

We continued…the road would eventually end up somewhere…we hoped…

Tree lined dirt roads…a dusty padstal…which is an Afrikaans word that many locals use, and roughly translated means “shop next to the road”… so, there was life somewhere…at least at one time in this remote part of the world…finally the town came into sight…

Quiet street scene in Nieu Bethesda — *It was not what I had envisioned…but there was an other worldly charm about it…*https://www.karoo-southafrica.com/

Our first stop was not the “Owl House”…but the Kitching Fossil Exploration Center…Mr. P’s ongoing fascination with dinosaurs, our history, and how the earth began…

A small museum that shows fossils of life 50 million years before the dinosaurs…what life was like in Nieu-Bethesda 255 million years ago…James William Kitching (6 February 1922 – 24 December 2003) was a South African vertebrate paleontologist who was born in Nieu Bethesada…at six years old he scoured the countryside to find specimens for a paleontologist named Robert Broom…his becoming one of the world’s greatest fossil finders had begun…I had never been aware of the life in the Permian Period, “populated by mammal-like reptiles called therapsids”…learned something new

Down the street to the where Helen Elizabeth Martins who was a shy, retiring recluse… rarely seen outside on the streets of Nieu Bethesda… where she create a magical inner kingdom that she breathed into life…

Miss Helen’s imagination transformed humble materials such as cement, glass, mirrors and wire into a secret, magical world that she shared with few, drawing upon Bible stories, the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, the Orient, and everyday objects – all of which blended to create a personal cosmology.
https://theowlhouse.co.za

Her life had been tragic and unhappy…after the death of her mother and abusive father…she began to use her inner creativity and imagination to transform her home into a wonderland of color, light, and texture … an escape from the dullness and despair of her previous life…

She transformed every space within her house…changed by finely ground glass of assorted colors using an old-fashioned coffee grinder…

Craft Market Behind the Owl House

The sadness of her life was palatable to me…the black ground glass in her father’s bricked up old room…called the Lion’s Den… the fact that she committed suicide when she found out that she was going blind due to the long-term exposure to the crushed glass she used…yet, she had been happy creating and envisioning new work daily with her helpers…and left behind the richness of an “outsider” artist …

“Over the years Miss Helen and her helpers added to the mostly quasi-religious tableaus. Mythical figures started to appear, half human, half creature. Today it is a forest of some 500 statues, intense, baffling and compelling. Miss Helen committed suicide in 1976 by swallowing caustic soda. She left behind a legacy of intrigue – her kingdom sparks the imagination like few other places in South Africa…”
https://www.sa-venues.com

At the Owl House…I focused on the beauty that spoke to me…the vibration of the earth…alive and creating poetry for those who listen with their heart and not just their eyes…for me it is always in the perspective…

I embrace the journey to Neiu Bethesada…not what I expected…”old places have soul” …a place of that will fill my own soul in the remembering… may your journey’s take you to all the magical places you never even began to think about…

Love, laughter and lots of magic for your life travels…

Delightful Disappointment

“Landscape photography is the supreme test of the photographer – and often the supreme disappointment. ”
― Ansel Adams

Sometimes it is just best to enjoy the moments…when everything seems to be failing…falling apart and nothing seems to be cooperating with your agenda…find some pleasure in what is and let it wash away every drop of frustration…sometimes you may find what you were really needing in the space of time you are in…

Yesterday was like that…the photographic club takes a yearly outing for a Whale Dolphin and Penguin Island Cruise…last year had been my first and I had been new to the club and just relearning the new camera equipment and post processing applications after several decades of being out of the photography business…I felt exhilarated…everything was going to be perfect…well, I girl can hope and if I had come back with even one or two awesome photographs I would have been satisfied…I must not have gotten to 10,000 yet🤣…“Your first 10,000 photographs are your worst.” ~Henri Cartier-Bresson

The weather had predicted rain…but the day was grey…but not raining…everything packed…lens, camera, extra batteries, snacks, water…and off Mr. P (with his binoculars) and I went…we met up with the other camera fanatics at the pier…there were more than the boat could take, and we split into two boats…

Off we went…the men in black leading the pack

The water was incredibly choppy…I had chosen a seat in front of the cabin…most had chosen to seat under the canopy…I wanted to photograph different viewpoints than the average…and then it started…

The front of the boat went up and then it went down, and the salt spray came up over the front of the boat and smacked me…from the top of my head to the seat of my pants…looking like a bedraggled puppy at that point…I wasn’t about to give up my prime spot for a little water…luckily I had used my coat to cover the camera…I would see something that I wanted to take a picture of and the boat went up and down again…as I tried to get my balance…I would slide the other way…back and forth…up and down as we headed for the island…giving up after the numerous time and with no respite in sight…I wrapped the camera up and enjoyed the sea air and roller coaster ride…it became rather exhilarating…not worrying about camera speed, aperture, ISO or composition…I breathed and smiled with the beauty of life…salt…sea…blue of sky and water…the most healing medicine for that frazzled feeling…

The sea was filled with diamonds…for the bride-to-be…the variegated colors of my entire world at that moment were too numerous to name…the white of foam and clouds…aqua…green to dark blue…shades of clearest turquoise reflected in the playful wild splashes of waves hitting the rock and bursting into joyful exuberance…I was beyond contented…

I did not come back with one photograph that I felt was great and none were exceptional…too much distance…too much movement…but sometimes we photographers just need to lay the camera down and breathe in the world and the creative energy that the entire world is filled with…

“Life keeps throwing me stones. And I keep finding the diamonds.” – Ana Claudia Antunes

More photographs of the trip at.. http://beautifultapestryoflife.com/2021/11/21/delightful-disappointment/

LIFE IS FULL OF MAGICAL DIAMOND MOMENTS….hope your life today is full of them

With Life, love, lots of laughter and magic💖…Renée

Misty Morning

“Life is foggy; always try to see what lies behind the fog!”
― Mehmet Murat ildan

That dream-like state…you know you’re awake but then maybe not…the path is a little unclear and the mind feels dull and full of cobwebs…the days feel like you’ve been holding your breath because you forgot to breathe…and you might pass out any moment…that’s been the past several weeks…

I’m waiting for the sun to burn off the fog… yet I am enjoying this misty magical feeling…keep looking for the fairies and the unicorns to arrive any moment…

It’s been 2 1/2 years since my replanting to this beautiful South Africa…like any movie…adventures galore…some heart pounding, breathtakingly scary and some amazingly magnificently beautiful…but all I hold tightly in my heart…

Let’s see…

The last few months…not including the pandemic…cancer surgery, chemo…canceled trip home…we’ve recently renovated the house…and are still in the process…although we can now use the kitchen…had a helper quit unexpectedly…Mr. P’s crown and implant…6-month cancer checkup…my request for renewal of my visa application that was delayed due to the pandemic…which meant I couldn’t leave even if I needed to…applying with immigration for a wedding registration…YES!!!! Mr. P and I are getting married…nothing big…casual and very small❣

In two weeks’ time, I will be married to the man of my dreams…after a millennium of dreaming and believing…and more often than not…telling myself I was stupid for hoping that I could still find a knight in shining armor…often joking that at our age…the armor has a few dents and dings…but then my ‘damsel in distress’ robes are a bit tattered and torn…and everything is viewed through the lens of love and care…and that changes everything…

When I write it out…it sounds hokey…but it is a true as the sun rising and setting…we had wanted to get married with family in the us and Europe but all that was nixed when we couldn’t travel last year…we will be blessed to share the day with a small part of our South African family to celebrate with…and now we can party all next year when we meet up again with others…

Which brings me back to trying to put it all together in a country where I don’t know who to use for catering, cake, or flowers…although everything will be wonderful no matter what…sometimes the most memorable events are those where things didn’t go as planned…

I wish for you the same magical life in the midst of living the day-to-day…wonder and wander like a child…get lost in dreams…in your hopes…never ever give up…connect to the moment…to what is…to yourself…to the universal energy that flows through everything…find gratitude until it overflows your cup…play…in everything play…doing dishes…dance to the music of life…

Dance Like No One Is Watching Pictures, Photos, and Images for Facebook, Tumblr, Pinterest, and Twitter

Embrace the mysteries of who you are…make wishes and believe that they will come true…I will warn you that probably not when you want them too…but they do…be crazy in love with life…it is short…to short not to live in joy…for breath, life and love…My life changed when I became content with what and where I was…happy…just plain delighted to be alive…when you find happiness and joy where you are…sharing the magic of the now…you would be amazed at what happens…

Sending love, laughter, lots of magic…don’t forget to dance…it is quite liberating…

Magnificent Messy Life

This is my life at the moment…incredible messy…renovating a kitchen means that everything that was in the kitchen ends up somewhere else (for us that was the dining room)…now all covered in dust…waiting to be cleaned and put away…🤣…Russel Westbrook wrapped it up well…

“Messy stuff irritates me. I don’t like messiness. If you leave something around my house, I’ll tell you to move it back, clean it up, throw it in the trash – don’t matter, just get rid of it. I need stuff neat, organized… Otherwise I’m irritated all day.”
~ Russell Westbrook

For someone who is a neat freak…living like this for a couple weeks…washing dishes in the bathroom sink…only cooking with the microwave and air fryer…is enough to make me want to crawl into bed and cover up my head…hoping to wake up from the dream…well more like my nightmare really…

There is a Japanese way of life you may have heard called Wabi Sabi…an ancient Zen Buddist belief…an elegant philosophy that motions us towards searching for the beauty in imperfection…that everything …life itself is in this constant flux of being “impermanent, incomplete, and imperfect”…change itself is the only constant……it is the “Becoming” that is irritatingly messy…https://www.omaritani.com/blog/wabi-sabi-philosophy-teachings

It reminded me of all the times that my life unseen was a place filled with broken filthy shambles…in fact most of the time it still feels untidy and tangled…like the back of a beautiful tapestry…life itself is inherently complicated…never is it what you feel it should be or what you want it to be…Unpredictable…only death is simple…it is the living that is difficult and messy…I am constantly in the process of learning to embrace the imperfection and trying to find the beauty of it…

Wabi sabi is an artistic sensitivity as much as an ephemeral feeling of beauty. It celebrates the passage of time and its sublime damages. In many art forms in Japan, this notion of prettiness through imperfection is present.https://japanobjects.com/features/wabi-sabi

More on instagram. — **“I don’t have to be perfect. All I have to do is show up and enjoy the messy, imperfect and beautiful journey of my life.” ~ Kerry Washington**

Stemming within this philosophy, there is an art called Kintsugi. The masters will delicately patch up broken ceramics with powdered gold adhesive, leaving the restoration clearly visible to others…should we not apply that same principle to our lives…being proud of the dents and cracks…taking our broken pieces and turning them into works of art…

Now that I’m older…I really appreciate the idea that I don’t have to throw away any of my broken pieces…the scars of our lives can be seen as exquisite…repaired with the gold of grace…they tell a story…a display of dignity and pride in our strength and fortitude in living…we don’t have to be perfect to be beautiful…we are beautiful because of our imperfections…

We’re not quite there yet…but isn’t life about the progress😉

You may be a mess…yet, you are a masterpiece…embrace it all with self-love…remember that you are loved…always and forever…sent with prayers for all the love, laughter and magic your heart can hold…and then some❣

"Embrace the glorious mess that you are." Elizabeth Gilbert

Amakhala…Game Drive

With over 240 different birds in Amakhala…no sounds of morning traffic…I woke to lovely songs of the birds…Mr. P grabbed his binoculars to tell me the names since he the avid birder…I just enjoyed the melodious sounds…opening the tent to sunrise light and grabbing a cup of coffee…I crawled back between the warm covers and just luxuriated between the sheets…no rush to get anywhere…time just delightfully relishing the morning until the grumbling stomachs forced us from our indulgent pleasures…

September is still a little cooler and I debated whether to shower in the “great outdoors”…thinking I might have to contend with something besides Mr. P and the chilly morning…picturing Norman’s trunk coming over the top…closing my eyes and I could imagine being in the middle of the jungle under a waterfall…only with warm water…I do think Tarzan would approve…definitely a repeatable pleasure-loving experience…

A short jaunt to the dining room…friendly morning greeting and smiles…no skimpy buffet…an eye pleasing array of cereals…fruit…cheeses…jams and all the accompanying accouterments…the fresh air is a great for the development of monstrous appetites…so we dug in…several times…breakfast was leisurely…the butler then handed us a menu for a “hot” breakfast…we had no idea that we had that option…vacation and over indulgence are a synonyms…do I need say more…

After breakfast we sat on the veranda outside of the lodge and watched the antics of the Nyala and Impala as they grazed the grounds…and Big Daddy trying to keep his harem in line…

As a photographer…I couldn’t sit still for long…after running breakfast off…lunch was served before our game drive…there are not enough superlatives to use…

The mist was nippy and enveloped us with a cool hand…provided with warm ponchos and rain gear…it didn’t stop us…hopping up on the land rover…we were off with one of the most knowledgeable guide that I have come across with…

Our guide would stop and show us indigenous plants that were used for natural medicine…such as a plant that if you pricked your skin…it would go numb…used for toothaches…species that were used for colic and almost anything that ailed a person…you forget what people did before there was a doctor a phone call away…we made a special stop so he could show us this particular spider that he watched spin and weave…never a question that he didn’t answer with pleasure…and I’m sure he heard them all a thousand times…

Surreal & Beautiful…it was like living inside a movie scene..

Every moment was full of amazement…but if I had to choose one favorite scene it would be the magnificent lion brothers…it was misting..yet there they were sleeping as though they had not a worry in the world…mist on their manes…sparkling like they were sprinkled with diamond magic…we turned the engines off and just watched them…

They are brothers and appeared almost human in the way they behaved together…I could just image the older one thinking…”sheesh, such a clown”…and then the younger rolling over and putting his paws on his brother…”but I just Looove you, bro”…

Giraffes are fairytale animals…beautiful faces with big eyes…I have this fascination with them…maybe because it was the first animal that I saw in the wild when I arrived here in South Africa…there is something so regal about them…

“A giraffe is so much a lady that one refrains from thinking of her legs, but remembers her as floating over the plains in long garb, draperies of morning mist her mirage.”
– Isak Dinesen

I am at a lost to describe the thousands of Mother Nature’s miracles that we saw that day…I do hope that you enjoyed the game drive too…❤

There is something of the marvelous in all things of nature.
~Aristotle

~Sent with Love, laughter and magic

Amakhala…Nature in all it’s Glory

“The beauty of Africa is not man made, it is natures gift to humanity.”
― Paul Oxton

When life becomes hectic and emotional turmoil…the panic…agitation…and confusion surrounds the soul…John Burroughs said it best…”I go to nature to be soothed and healed, and to have my senses put in order.”

Amakhala is such a peaceful balm…nature’s delightfully restful and calming potion

Situated only about an hour (84 km) from home…a luxurious Safari Lodge is hidden in a valley of native bush…Amakhala is home to 5 of the 9 plant biomes here… the most common biome is the Albany Thicket, which is made up of dense shrubs, herbaceous plants and succulent trees…

*Mixtures of Rich and Subtle hues being brushed against the canvas of the evening sky*

This is a “Certificate of Excellence” award winning four star safari lodge…beginning in 1999 as a joint conservation venture between 6 families that were direct descendants of families that settled in the area in the 19th century to farm sheep and cattle…little by little the land was rehabilitated and animals that had freely roamed the area were reintroduced…

One of the unfortunate consequences of Pandemic has been the loss of bookings in the tourism industry…with an unbeatable package deal we were able to book a 2 night, 3 day Safari package…a new mind boggling event in my life living here in South Africa…

I felt like I had been dropped into a magical wonderland…better than any “rabbit hole” I had gone down before…the colors of this world…the natural smells of earth and nature…the exquisite culinary tastes…the feeling of peace and calmness that can only be found in the wild…

Greeted by the most warm and amicable staff…we were immediately made to feel right at home…Norman being the most surprisingly unexpected of our welcoming committee…

We need another and a wiser and perhaps a more mystical concept of animals… In a world older and more complete than ours they move finished and complete, gifted with extensions of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not brethren, they are not underlings; they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendour and travail of the earth.
~Henry Beston

Norman is the wrinkly grumpy old man bachelor that freely roams the park…after luggage drop off and stretching legs…we had almost gotten to the parking area and out of the bush comes one of the largest elephant that I have encountered…and I have never seen Mr. P. reverse so quickly…Norman just slowly ambled down to us…taking his sweet time to come and investigate who the new interlopers were…

Like a crotchety old geezer…didn’t care that his lunch crumbs were still stuck on his truck…he continued to snack while he contemplated whether we should be allowed to stay…finally deciding that we were harmless…he slowly sauntered off in search of more twigs and leaves to fill the never ending elephant pit of a stomach…an elephant’s life…eat…sleep…and poop…eating about 16 hours out of the day…sleep 4 to 6 hours and producing lots and lots of manure…200 to 250 pounds per day… oh, and produce enough methane gas – LOTS AND LOTS OF GAS😂…Properly equipped, a car could travel 20 miles on the amount of methane produced by one elephant in a single day https://elephantconservation.org/elephants/just-for-kids…

I just adored the time worn gnarled and tuskless Norman…he made the entire stay specially entertaining and we missed him when he left to wander far from the camp…

A refreshing chilled glass of lemonade while checking in and then we were escorted down a path winding through native brush…escorted to our tranquil suite…tented and thatched…the perfect combination for me…I think it was what I’ve heard described as “Glamping”…the experience of the “Great Out Doors” with the essentials of mattress, indoor toilet and running water…this was the epitome of elegance and good taste…wrapped with the wonderous sight, smell and energy of nature in all of her abundant splendor…

After a deliciously scrumptious dinner…warmed by the fire and conversation with new friends….we were escorted back to our hideaway…with all the fresh air and excitement we fell into an exhausted sleep….dreaming of all the wonders that the next day might hold…

“A well spent day brings happy sleep.” — Leonardo da Vinci

Focus your intention on your dreams, you can wave magic when you set your heart and mind to it – Author: Miranda Kerr

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