The wind, I think,
is peace.
The breath of the earth.
The song of the trees.
And we will bathe in her softness,
today,
and every day.
The wind, I think,
rolls all days into one.
May she catch us
and show us
the truth in her song.
I had to write. With my heart open wide and my energy flowing, I had to write because writing is what my soul does when it needs to breathe.
My soul needs to breathe.
I stood beneath a tree in my front yard the other day. I was gardening, but gardening has become so much more than just a word, to me. How about caring for, nurturing gently, cherishing life as it grows beneath my hands? That sounds about right.
I was always going to love like this. Always going to be the one to love that little bit more. And where it often hurts a great deal to live with my heart wide open, I can’t imagine any other way of being.
A bug caught my eye as it crept up a branch. It was my baby daughter. Of course, it wasn’t my actual baby daughter, that would be insane of me to consider. But I knew in that moment that I loved this little beetle. That I would protect it. That I cared so much more deeply for this little life than I ever thought I could.
I have only just allowed myself to feel this deeply again. It was often unsafe to be my fullest self in this world, and many have hardened beneath the hardness of generations before them. My culture was not built to tolerate a soft heart. It is a culture of jokes at people’s expense and arguments over petty things. I reject it entirely. And it rejects me.
But I stand under trees and I love them with all that I am.
And I write.
Because my soul asks me to write. So I do.
I write.
Categories
Soft Things
She floats on the wind
as they stare.
And they will never know her
as their own.
Never see her truth
as anything other
than feathers in the garden.
Yet, she knows herself, dear.
And she knows, darling softness,
that a field of daisies
and daffodils
and dandelions waits for her
somewhere.
Where the soft things come together
at last.
Categories
And Just Like That
Here we are. The 25th of March (in Australia) and the final day of my lots and lots of days in a row of meeting you in bloggy land.
I’ll admit that, this time around, it’s been difficult to be here wholeheartedly. I’ve been so busy with life tumbling every which way around me.
A small baby to care for.
Two additional busy little people to raise.
A barely there garden, slowly growing beneath my fingers.
All the while, the soft girl within has been whooshing away, trying to teach me life’s simple lessons in love, life and everything. She has succeeded on many a day.
She’s also failed, which (I hear) is simply part of this human running race called existence. Imperfection? Never had I ever considered such a preposterous thing, and yet life has forced her hand of late and said, ‘Near enough will have to be good enough, dear Brooke.’
And so it was. Near enough, good enough.
I showed up with less than I’d hoped to give on many a day, and although my heart ached not to have been here with more…’near enough’ was all I had.
And guess what?
I became okay with that. I have given. I have been. And I will be back again, hopefully to bring something wonderful beyond this moment here and now.
I do hope you’ll join me, again.
All my love,
Brooke. xx
Oh. And bloggy friends?
Thank you for coming. I adore you.
Categories
Little Koala Arms
Such adorable little roots.
And no one is more surprised than I am that my plant journey has taken me this way. It was just the way of the wind and so I flew there, in a great big gust of life, and suddenly I’d begun propagating succulents.
What you do is: you take a leaf from the plant and you let it sit in the world to do nothing for a while. The idea is that the wound (where the leaf tore from the plant) dries out and, when it does, you place the leaf on a bed of soil and lightly mist over the coming weeks. That’s when it happens. That’s when the teeny tiny roots appear.
Such adorable little roots.
My little darlings have begun to dig their arms so deep into the soil that, when tugged, they come away with an arm full of soil, clinging like little Koala arms to the soil below.
They remind me of my baby girl. The way she clings to me as I wander about the house, knowing I am her only life line, the one she needs to feed her and grow her perfectly into this big old world.
My succulent babies are the same. They cling to their Mother (Mother Nature) and she breathes them to life as they hold her.
The whole act is a vulnerable one.
Such adorable little roots.
Such achingly tender little Koala arms.
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Motherhood
Motherhood has opened my heart in both expected and unexpected ways. It’s taught me that I never truly knew concepts such as shame or guilt before, or responsibility, or disappointment, or sorrow.
And I often get down on myself when I don’t get it right. When I snap at them for being children. When I’m too lazy to be the Mother I know I can be to them.
Then there was today. Today when a situation arose that put my parenting skills to the test, and they were met and exceeded, to my absolute delight.
I have to celebrate this beautiful victory with all of my heart. I have to love myself as much as I love my babies and say: Mum, you did a great job.
I am not perfect.
But today, I was a great Mum.
Who knows what I’ll be tomorrow.
Categories
A Little Story
A little story. A lovely one.
While standing in line at the shop, today, holding a baby in one arm and a pram in the other, the lady in front of me turned.
‘Please go ahead of us. I see you have two little ones and a baby. Please go ahead.’
I could have kissed her beauty.
I could have held her love in the air and said out loud for all to hear, ‘this is the kindness I choose.’
Instead, I said thank you.
Once. And once again.
True sunshine.
The end.
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Kissed
How beautiful to see your tears
and know your soul
has been kissed
by music.
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My Garden Home
If light though the trees is your wish,
it is my wish, too.
If a meadow awash with eerie shadow
calls you,
I am gone.
Already beyond the boxwoods
and sweet peas
of my garden, home.
Day 24. Somewhere over the rainbow.
Categories
Home On The Wind
And today I built a garden.
I toiled and sweated, pebble by piece.
And today I met my soul again,
today I knew my home.
How blissful to find home on the wind.
How dear to follow the heart
where she leads.
brooke-cutler.com 