Now that I have built that all up I will try and explain myself. Each January I love to participate in Homesong Blog's Rest Retreat, a month away from social media with weekly prompts to pause, rest and realign yourself with what is important to you and which direction you wish to set your intentions upon for the coming year. One of the aspects this year was to choose a word that would guide you through this year and to come back to to remind yourself of your intentions, an embodiment of them. I meditated over this and the word which come to me, and then would not leave me alone, was Rooted.
There are so many paths which converged together to give me this word, and I can see that now looking back over the last year (or more!). It is strange how last year should have been amazing for me, I should have come out of it feeling enlivened, buoyant and yet I felt drained, I felt stressed and disheartened. Last year I travelled to India for a month and completed my 200hr Yoga Teacher Training, I had my first art exhibition showing at Tresco Gallery, Will and I flew to Australia for a near 3 weeks and had the wonderful chance to see one of my oldest friend marry. I started teaching weekly yoga classes too, a long held dream. I am not saying that I do not feel so unbelievably grateful for all of these wonderful opportunities, because oh my gosh I am, and I loved these happenings so much, but taking the time to stop, and notice that something didn't work there for me, I was on a rollercoaster. What on paper sounds amazing drained me and quite frankly left me feeling discombobulated.
And this is where Rooted comes into it. I realised I needed to stop feeling dragged along by life: I felt a huge need to sink my feet so deep into the earth which I am standing upon, dig my hands deep into the soil and connect deeply to me. Not through reading books which help you 'connect' or peoples helpful advice and reminders on how you should life but let all that shrug away and remind myself what is underneath and has always been with me. There is a beautiful term in Yoga summed up by the word ignorance, where we constantly view the world through layers which distort the true image; when someone gives your there opinion on a film, how easy is it to watch that film without hearing that other persons ideas about it. So what happens when we peel back all these layers, how do we see things then? And that can be so tricky to do in a world that is constantly suppling input of opinions and views and advice. So to be Rooted I found myself stepping back, not returning to social media and like I said before when the lockdown came I could see the good there.
The big thing with I found myself doing was enrolling in an introductory Herb course. What better way to become rooted in the land, rooted in the natural world around me and getting my hands dirty trying to grow a new type of garden. Herbs are something quite special to me, they have been that niggle in my brain since I was a little girl, that they were important to me somehow, I just didn't know how to access them. This is the part which feels fresh and tender, finally finding a route into something I have wished to be a part of my life, and doing it because it satisfies that little girl in me who annually watches Practical Magic and says yes, that is what I love. Doing this course because I love it, not make a career or business from it. Doing this course because I am learning so much about the world around me and I now actually smile each time I see a Plantain plant at the moment (which is a lot considering how many of them there are at the moment!)
With this all said I feel I can write about picking Violets and planting out the garden and it makes sense. It makes sense now when I write I feel at ease with the quieter world that needs for you to stay at home at the moment, to stay local, to ground yourself with where you are and find contentment there. Isn't it strange how things come together that way x