A year in the Holly Cottage

The summer solstice is upon us and what better day to begin to tell of our year in the Holly Cottage. That it has been a year since I last pressed the publish button here on this blogosphere - or just a couple of weeks shy of - is a sobering thought. Sobering because I am keenly aware that so much has passed and come and gone, and yet it might seem as if nothing has changed at all. We are the same - aren't we? Maybe just a bit. The world is the same? Definitely not. Change is our only constant. And the heart? Oh dear! Battered and bruised beyond belief in the past year but somehow still beating and stepping up, ready to take on another year's random symphonies of being. 

"The only way is through" said Holly to Alannah, as they both passed through the fairy door.

Every day we wake, we rise, we greet the new day and welcome a new beginning. When the night comes we acknowledge day's passing and we give thanks for the life we have had and the adventure that it did/might/could bring. And that day passes, never to return again - save of course for in that imaginative space where it becomes altered in movie like memory that accentuates some, colours others and chops entire pieces on the editing floor to suit the playback mode and desired effect. New day comes with the morning, dying day gives life to the next and so on and so forth. Only the present remains true and real, the past fantastically edited and the future existing only to be fantasised. 

So I will try not to trawl too much over the past year to detail every moment - but I will in time reflect over that time and bring you the edited clips as they spill out onto the pages. And it was a busy year. Lives were lost and gained, a toddler turned into a little princess, books were re-written and edited, yoga lessons were received and given, holidays were had, a garden was harvested and re-planted, wetlands and woodlands were re-wilded, articles were written and views were aired, difficult conversations were had and endured, sickness was faced and uncertainties accepted. With a few laughs (to be sure) in between. Those moments that tower over all: the death of a beautiful mother and the precious birth of a beautiful boy. Both events have me alternating between the worlds of joy and sorrow, elation and exhaustion, and all states of emotion in between. 

Sometimes I do feel somewhat overwhelmed, but that's when I must remember to dance, dance, and more dance to the music of it all. For it is only in the dance that we can flow and bend and quiver to the joyous and painful beauty of it all, and only then that we won't break under the sheer force and power of it all. 

So, onwards and forwards. Here's to another year gone in the Holly Cottage, and another adventurous year to come. Best that we set off with an open mind and a brimming heart, and of course a good pair of dancing shoes. For in the words of the Bard - the readiness is all.