Thirty Nine Turns

Here we are. Thirty-nine years old. Growing older is such a privilege. 

Am I any less romantic? No

Am I any less hopeful? No

Am I any less playful? No

Am I any less excited about life? No

Have I been tested? Yes

Have I taken some wrong turns? Yes

Have I had to make some tough decisions? Yes

Do I still use humour as an emotional crutch? Absolutely 

Do I still listen to "I'll be seeing you"  and "moon river" at least once a day? Yes

Am I hardened? I hope not

Do I still have an "old soul"? Yes

Do I still have a "young heart"? Yes

Do I feel older? No

Do I feel wiser? A bit

Am I still open to feeling life to its entirety? Yes

Do I still walk through life like it's a movie? Yes

Am I still a manic-dream-pixie-girl? Somehow, yes

Do I still have faith in people? Yes

Do I still lead with kindness? Always

Do I still paint? Yes

Do I still write? Clearly

Do I still make music? Yes

Do I still want to continue to touch every nook and cranny of the world? Yes

Do I still prefer animals over humans? A lot of the time.. 

Do I understand my own mortality? Yes

Will that stop me? No

Am I still The Bluebird? Forever. 

 

Mortality, Humility, Laughter and Longevity

 

Mortality, Humility, Laughter and Longevity

This is reflective, it may make you think, it might make you laugh, it will definitely give you hope

This entry is dedicated to my dear family friend Paul Fitzgerald, who we lost 4 years ago this month, too young.

At some point during our lives, we are confronted with the reality of mortality.

When we are young, this confrontation can come in the form of the loss of a family member, friend, or pet - and we learn the lessons about finality, grief and mourning. 

Ordinarily, what doesn't seem "fair" is when a relatively young person is faced with their own mortality.

But, it happens: in children's cancer wards, war zones, poverty stricken communities, accidents, crime and the result of depression and bullying from a young age. 

The world is cruel and unbiased. We dip our toes into the universe to find relief from the weight of it - and we are never quite prepared to be directly impacted by the harsh realities of life.

13 years ago, I was a firecracker of a 25 year old, invincible, limitless. Living in a bustling city and swinging from one country to another like a pendulum. Collecting memories, moments, feelings and culture;  not performative but alive, truly alive. (And already writing this blog).

One snowy mid-January morning in London, everything changed. I woke up in a pool of sweat in my bed. Dizzy. My right leg was purple, swollen, hot and I couldn't move it. 

Cultivating Cinematic Calm

Cultivating Cinematic Calm 

There is a quiet courage that comes with calmness. Calmness, unlike chaos, is a choice - not a reaction or ramification but a conscious decision for your nervous system, mind, energy and body. It takes immense courage to take control, and to have enough discipline to evoke an authentic calm.

Calm: A state of tranquility, serenity, or stillness, characterised by freedom from agitation, excitement or disturbance. 

Calm is the rejection of collective cultural conventions tied to urgency, priority and repercussion. Society chases calm; in meditation, in yoga classes, in self help books. Calm for most, seems like an unattainable alien concept completely at odds with our modern world and perhaps only exists in temples on the foothills of Tibet. 

Calm, however, isn't a performance or even a community. It isn't a class or a revelation from a well written book. It's a state of being achieved only by allowing social constructs to effectively become pebbles on the beach rather than an all encompassing omnibus of cortisol and dopamine spikes. 

The realities of life are difficult to ignore. Between the unrelenting pressures of work, career and finance,  the uncertainty of geo politics across the world, the desires, obligation and maintenance tied to relationships and family, the uncertainty of health and time - how can authentic calmness be achieved in an echo chamber of universal commitments and conflicts? 

Buddhism preaches Impermanence (Anicca) for calm. Understanding that all things change is designed to stop us fighting reality, which brings the human spirit a natural sense of peace. In simple terms, letting go of control and realising that many aspects of life are unpredictable and instead focusing on stillness. 

Contrastingly, Buddhism also teaches compassion, mindfulness and awareness for calm - which includes identifying when "this is stress" which creates a space between physicality and the emotion, reducing its impact whilst also refocusing on showing compassion to others. 

What I find most interesting about both of these teachings is that they simultaneously preach conscious calm, and the rejection of control and power. (Which is much easier said than done for the vast majority of people). Particularly poignantly, is the refocusing of mind to show compassion - effectively, creating a distraction with positive implications.  But, I would argue, to make a conscious decision to be a certain way - you must have an element of discipline, power and courage- not over circumstance, but of yourself.

Calmness doesn't only exude peace. Calmness offers benefits not immediately visible to the naked eye. Aside from a reduction in stress and anxiety, it improves cognitive function and decision making; having a domino effect on life trajectory as a whole (work, career, finance) . It enhances physical health, lowering blood pressure. Mentally, it boosts emotional regulation which feeds to strengthening relationships through better communication (relationships, family). Calmness increases resilience under pressure, creating a pathway to navigating crises efficiently rather than reactively (chaos management). 

So, really - and ironically - calmness is actually the answer to most of realities challenges.

So, how is it possible to calm a "monkey brain".  

Air

With my imminent 39th birthday 18 days away...

Gemini - The Twins 

Element: Air

A gemini woman is laughter in the rain, 

Dancing barefoot through joy and pain.

She was born like a wildflower swaying into light,

Where rivers keep secrets all through the night,

A gemini heart is a wandering breeze,

Speaking in birdsong and the language of trees.

She tangos with storms before the flames, 

Spinning through fields that remember her name,

Collecting the sunlight that slips through her hair, 

Leaving soft chaos in suspended air. 

One soul is the ocean, restless and blue, 

The other is the forest, still covered in dew, 

One longs for mountains and cold northern skies,

One burns like a sandy sunset that never quite dies.

She falls into pages the way rapids run,

Chasing old poets and theories for fun,

Collecting small fragments of people and places,

Storing whole galaxies deep in their faces. 

She'd rather be understood deeply than admired,

Though sometimes the two become intwined and turns to desire,

She hops like a grasshopper hard to restrain,

Then she kisses your mind again and again.

She chases deep talks through midnight skies,

With a restless body and bright wild eyes,

Yet when she chooses which soul to hold,

She burns warm, devoted and bold.

She asks too many questions at half past two,

About life and the stars and what makes people true,

A mind like wildfire tearing through trees,

Carving ideas the way oceans do seas.

She talks to the moon like an old trusted friend, 

 Starting stories with the sun that never end, 

Tracing her thoughts through the shape of the tide, 

Keeping whole universes hidden inside.

She reads people slowly like difficult prose, 

Searching for meanings they keep carefully close,

Finding mystery beneath what they say,

The hidden small wars that they keep tucked away.

A butterfly mind with cyclonic wings,

Drawn toward beautiful and dangerous things,

Laughing like waterfalls breaking through stone,

Yet somehow still frightened of the winds yet to be blown.

She'll love like the earth after lifetimes of pain,

Suddenly green and alive once again,

Then drift like the mist through distant terrane,

Impossible to fully capture, keep or sustain. 

And if you should find her asleep in the grass,

While clouds and constellations silently pass,

Speak softly, some spirits were never designed, 

To belong to the world for too long at a time. 

Through playful words and sweet surprise, 

In stolen glances and soft replies,

She shares in ways both fierce and free, 

A system of thought and light poetry. 

Don't be frightened by her strange winding mind,

Embrace the softness and beauty you might find, 

Hold her gently as hurricanes are hard to tame,

Especially one born under Gemini's name.

 

 

The Dance - Poetry

The Dance

I move like water calm before the wake,

Like rivers that tremble before they break. 

The music pours smoke through my bones and spine, 

Turning flesh and breath into borrowed wine.

Desire lives deep in the arch of my back, 

In the dangerous spaces self control lacks.

I dance in storms before they arrive, 

Heavy with thunder, electric and alive. 

I move like a wildfire learning restraint, 

Like colour escaping the edge of paint. 

I spin like planets pushed higher and higher,

Orbiting rhythm, gravity and fire. 

The floor hums softly beneath my feet, 

Like earth itself has discovered a heartbeat. 

Each motion unravels yet another disguise,

A language and pulse with no need for eyes. 

The music enters me low and deep,

Waking the parts of myself that refuse to sleep.

And when I spin the the whole world seemed to pause,

Caught somewhere between performance and applause. 

My hips speak truths my mouth never would, 

Of hunger disguised as being understood.  

I move like the sea when the moon pulls too near,

Chaotic, consuming, ecstatic and severe. 

Because women were not made for stillness or sleep,

We were made to be felt - profound and deep. 

The Dance

 

Weeping Willow - Poetry

Weeping Willow

Weeping Willow

Beneath the weeping willows veil,

Where the wind blew and the swans set sail, 

I stood close and felt your breath,

Like something sweet that threatened death.

The day was warm, the air was slow,

The lake whispered soft below,

And every branch that swayed above, 

Seemed tangled in my thoughts and needed a shove.

Your eyes held mine without a word,

The loudest silence I have ever heard,

While fingertips brushed fleetingly,

A spark, a dare, at least for me. 

Wanting to pull you near,

To taste the things that we could not hear,

To let the willow hide our sin,

While my darting eyes explored your skin.

The silver leaves danced overhead, 

As wild thoughts circled in my head, 

So if there's ever such a place, 

Where longing can finally leave a trace,

Where the the leaves weep for something true,

Back to that willow, with you.

It bent as though it understood,

The hunger hidden beneath the good, 

A keeper of unfinished things,

Of stolen breaths and tangled wings.

The willow wept like it once knew,

What aching hearts are destined to do. 

 

Time

 

Time

Time: The continuous, irreversible progression of existence, moving from past, through present, to future.

Duration: The measured period during which an action or condition exists.

Dimension: A fourth dimension, combined with spatial dimensions, in the space-time continuum.

Measurement: A system for organising events in sequence.

Psychological: The subjective experience of time passing, which can speed up or slow down based on cognitive perception. 

Many years ago I wrote a piece entitled "Time Credit: Spending time in an interest bearing account".

I simplified the concept of time into categories of different types of 'spenders' and what it meant about their individual psychology and priorities. Although theoretically practical, summarising time into such a basic concept was a disservice to the ultimacy and importance of time, the most valuable asset that we have. 

Philosophical speaker Alan Watts once argued that time is a social illusion, emphasising that only the present moment exists, and continued to famously state that we live in a culture "hypnotised by the illusion of time, missing reality by focusing entirely on memory or expectation." Watts pushed a narrative that urged living in the "eternal present" rather than wasting energy on the future. 

This concept is eutopic but flawed. On the one hand Watts preaches and perpetuates that a real, creative life only really happens when you stop rushing and worrying and move with the eternal present, but on the other hand Watts states that we are never actually experiencing anything other than the present and that time is a social institution used for measurement, not a physical reality. 

I have always been fascinated with time - it's speed, its finality, it's biological prowess and most of all, its functional mystery. There is nothing more powerful than the concept and enigma of time (illusion or not). People fear it, devour it, waste it but more often than not, never question it. Societal pressures, expectations and perceived milestones outweigh the value of time to a checklist of "expected achievements before we die," which leads me to my next reference from theologian William Penn 

"Time is what we want most but we use worst."

Seems obvious, doesn't it? Let's take a step back to societal pressures and expectations. 

• Birth
• Education
• Career
• Mortgage
• Marriage 
• Children
• Retirement
• Maybe grandchildren
• Death

In this case, time is deeply misconstrued as societal conformism. 

Reflecting on Penns quote, he refers to choices rather than time itself. The current global statistic of diagnosed recorded depression is sitting at an estimated  at 5.7% of adults. When including entire populations, one in 21 people experience high levels of emotional distress, with depression being especially prominent in 18-40 year olds. Studies from The University of Melbourne state that the impact of expectations and cultural societal pressure are largely to blame. So, I can safely assume that the "check list" and its requirements may be a contributing factor in how time is poorly used, at least for some people. 

"They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself" is a quote famously penned by artist Andy Warhol. 

It seems like a very elementary point of view, but, is it?

What if time was spent singularly living based off of instinct, want and need rather than adhering to a script based on the assumption that life is a one-size fits all pressure cooker of achievements. What if time was experiential rather than didactic? To quote my birthday twin JFK "conformity is the jailer or freedom and the enemy of growth."  and one of my favourite authors JRR Tolkien "not all who wander are lost".

Could it be that the answer to modern day sufferance and time 'wasting' is simply to welcome a free society that cherishes nonconformity as opposed to uniformity? Encouraging people to live on their own terms, in the present that could be pleasurable and meaningful, as opposed to under sufferance for perceived reward? Remove the benchmarks and everything changes. 

Time: the past, present and future. A tool to learn, live and evolve - to change. A ticking clock that could run out of battery at any moment. But, how do we make that clock kinetic - how do we stop time?

No, we're not going to fall into a black hole. 

Between luck, fate and biology, we can only manipulate time to a certain degree, but, we can still manipulate it to work on our terms. 

The advantage of having a past, reflecting on memories and referencing different periods of our world is that we give ourselves the ability to fully embody the present in peelable layers in order to anticipate a future that is a direct result of the way that we choose to spend our "now."

A good reference point is in Buddhism, time is not an absolute, linear or external reality, but a relative mental construct dependent on causes, conditions and perception.  Meaning that past, present and future are all combined to create an active, present moment as opposed to linguistic differences of before and after. 

In simple terms, the past is now, the present is now, and the future is now. Slightly differing from the Watts mentality that time is wasted focusing on the past or future - in this case, all elements are equally as valuable; and whilst placing equal value on all of these moments, we are effectively deconstructing the illusion of time by not defining what qualifies as "right now."

Therefore time doesn't move forward or backwards - it stands still. And if you really think about it, this theory is the most malleable to life as we know it. As humans, we are nostalgic for the past, we take the present for granted and we are either excited or fearful of the future. What if we changed that though? What if we looked at all three as though they were today: 

• So we can feel the joy and pain of yesterday.
• So that we can be present today and not dreaming of tomorrow.
• So that we can see ahead whilst simultaneously living in the now.

They all feed off of each other; blurring lines of differentiation. This is how we live a full human experience without feeling time, embracing change.

Now the boring part: 

Time goes hand in hand with biology, as much as we try to run from it - we do age, it's unescapable. But how do we slow down the wrath that time takes on our bodies? This is probably the easiest to execute and will work directly in correlation with the mental health required to reassess life and time as a whole.

We bounce back to nonconformism. It is possible to metaphorically age backwards. It means embracing a lifestyle that may not be the  most common or understood. 

• Stop poisoning our bodies. It sounds dramatic, but alcohol is poison, cigarettes are poison, vapes are poison, drugs (legal or not) are also poison. The kindest thing we can do is support our engines, because once it starts having problems it's very hard to move backwards. Living in a world where poor lifestyle habits are normalised isn't only putting a timer on our biological clocks, but also stopping us from experiencing life in a real, fully immersive way. 
• Exercise. In a day and age that encourages being sedentary, be it at a seated office job, or the distractions of never ending screen time entertainment -  we need to be the exceptions. Move - nothing revives youth more than movement. Walk, run, weight train, dance, stretch, swim. Idle bodies are times workshop, nothing makes a human feel and succumb to the loss of time more than seeing it on themselves.
• Food. We wouldn't put dirty fuel in a premium car, would we? If we did, we would be knowingly shortening the life cycle of the car, so why would we do that to our bodies? 
• Sleep. this one seems counter productive. But, time spent tired, or sleep deprived everyday isn't time worth having at all. There is a difference between quality over quantity. Our bodies need to recharge. 
• Laughter. Laugher is a powerful anti aging mechanism that is proven to lower stress and inflammation, improve heart health, boost the immune system, act as a natural pain reliever, and engage cognitive function. A 15 year study has found that individuals with a strong sense of humour had a lower risk of death and disability (in a study of 14,000 older adults). It is also a great way to deal with the challenges that come with life. 

"Our bodies are our gardens, our wills are our gardeners" - William Shakespeare.

In closing, time is what we make it. It is our most precious, non-renewable resource, urging us to cherish life and live intentionally on our own terms and nobody else's rules. Time is the only currency we spend without ever knowing how much balance we have left, we must use it wisely. 

Live fully and cultivate leading with our hearts, minds and bodies, that way we will never be lost in the labyrinth milky-way of time - it may even stand still at just the right moment; even if it's just for a little while.