How to be a wild flower...

The day I came home to my true, authentic self was the day that I found peace.
-When I realised that I was here
 to be
 a wildflower....

To wander, to ponder, to gather, to savour....the wonder of life & nature.
Have a little look at Katie Daisy's book trailer & you'll understand what I'm talking about.


How to be a Wildflower Book Trailer from Gabriel James on Vimeo.

The wild flowers are the enduring ones, the unfussy & unpretentious blooms that flourish where-ever they find themselves & merrily, freely share their seeds around in wild places or treasured gardens. They etch themselves into the stories & the memories of the gardens of childhood & mother's love; attracting beneficial insects & gracing the bouquets of both brides & of children alike.
 Chocolate Lace Flower is a niece of Bishops's Flower also known as Lady's Lace & Lace Flower or even Bullworth & White Fennel.

 Charming & frequently medicinal too, there is a resilience amongst the wildflowers that is unmatched in the cultivated garden world.

 They are the ones that have stood the test of time yet are no longer available in the garden centres & commercial places. Still they remain the flowers that cottage gardener's still love to grow.
It is the time for collecting the seeds of these treasures & what a mess they so generously create...paper bags & baskets filled with stems & pods can be found on almost every surface inside & out of our little house.

 So, fortunately I recently found an old painter or paperer's box at the Salys...

 & I rummaged around for the exquisite seed packet pictures that I had tucked away from an old calendar.

 I used up some old paint that Rob had poured for me another time & that was now so lumpy as to be unusable but once I added a little water I had a good mix to wash the well-worn wood with.

A coat to two or modge podge to seal the pictures & I am now a good deal more in order.

Being a wildflower means that you are always learning & observing & looking out for stuff & wondering. And then, of course, you are amazed at every new find...like this Gum Emperor moth that I spied on the tarseal in the supermarket carpark as we were one day wandering through.

 I gently scooped him up & popped him in my bag with my foraged elderberries

 to take him home for care..

 admiration

 & revival.

 Astonishing it is, that such a brown moth emerges from this colourful caterpillar body. We used to find them in the pepper trees when I was child, but I've not seen one since.

I am enchanted by the colours of the summer hydrangeas.

 Bashing their stems with my little hammer has meant that they have lasted a week in a vase, in heat, undaunted.

Summer can be a little overwhelming at it's zenith & there is always much to do, but we managed to plan a picnic a week or so ago & just went...to the sea

 with rock pools

 and ancient native bush,

 where it is cool & primal & fascinating things grow out of trees.

 Wildflowers wind themselves along fences.

 The earth is moist...

& gifts are to be found on the sacred pathways. This lichen: usnea, the Maori call angiangi. It can be made into a tincture that will help fight bacterial infection anywhere in the body.

It grows very slowly & is precious.

There is a peaceful brook..

that is a perfect spot for a celebration picnic. We frightened a family of fern birds out of the long grass at the riverside. They are very rare & precious too & not very good at flying.  

 There are still times in my days when I notice that I feel quite shut in, shut down or sad.
And then one morning I read these words (you may have to click on the picture to see all the words):

And so that's exactly what I did.

And quite soon we had made friends, several actually.

I intend to invite them for tea more often.

After this little session things became quite clear on the matter & I realised that I could choose to no longer be bullied by another's refusal to allow discussion or honesty.

I recalled how precious I am & the tea soothed away the gloom. 

I admire this wonderful creation often, just now. It was a sweet gift from my dear nephew. I have blue-tacked it to my my kitchen cupboards so that I can see it a lot.

That's me with golden hair & Rob is driving. Lucy in the sky with diamonds!

It is a tree of life, I just know it.

Just as Katie Daisy's tree...of life.

I feel filled with life & wonder when I see these pictures.

Must be because I am a wildflower.

who wanders, gathers, ponders & savours.... the wonders of life & nature.

Much love to you all, dear friends & readers....how amazed I am that you come to visit me here. I treasure, always, the lovely things that you reflect & share.....& your kindness.
 You are marvellous! Thank you x0x0x

Giving The Fairy Feet

I've never really been a wishful thinker or a flibbety-gibbet. I'm not a dreamer or a schemer, nor do I get lost in fairytales. I would have liked a happy life.

Just that.

But we don't get to chose our heritage, do we. We are given what we get!

And then it's our work to do, to resolve, heal & redeem.

My journey has been hard. Many times I have nearly drowned, yet here I am, having plumbed to the bottom in the murk, now gliding in calm clear waters.

The tools I need to build with are now in my hands, the strength is in my back & the fairy now has feet, at last.

I am well practised in the language of authenticity & the arts of imperfection. I have let go all the structures & the judgments of the past & I now rest.

I rest in being me; fully.

In the early days of blogging I "met" a dear kindred soul who wrote at Fading Grace. Many are the metamorphoses of Sophie who quite recently wrote this truly charming dedication to her followers & friends over at 
hettie brown : 

...."It seems a shame to me to give way, to the more popular, more stylish, younger, thinner, perfect bloggers, although they too have their place. What about the not so perfect, the slightly wonky, the ones who admit to their failures and crapness at times, I think we are worthy too.

So I continue to scribble away here, with my heart on my sleeve, with my successes and total pants failures. I am being brave, I have no idea who reads it, and some idea of those who do who i wished didn't.  When i dont write , I miss it, when I stop missing it, Ill stop writing.....

So I dedicate this blog and all its writings from this post onwards to the

Wonky, broken people who happen to stop by,
to the shy and introverted, and maybe not so,

who always drop their dinner down their fronts and mostly look like they've been dragged through a hedge backwards,

to those who wear big knickers and knit their own socks,

who are fraying and maybe greying a little round the edges......

To all the misplaced souls who strive for perfection and never quite reach it

I write this blog for you

Love

hettie brown"

Here I am one of the wonky & not quite so broken ones, only dropping my dinner down my front on occasions. As to the big knickers...well you'll never know!

Sophie's words make me feel right at home; found.

Another friend passed on the writings of Jeff Brown on Facebook about New Year. Every day I am encouraged & expanded, empowered & strengthened by what I read.

It's about giving the fairy feet.

It's about finding romance in the naked fires of everyday life.

Oh yes!

Jeff Brown

(The little ballerina is me, by the way)

So what does all that mean?

It means taking Pollyanna & making here real, grounding her...& I don't mean sending her to her room! As an old Pastor friend once preached....let it work grace.

In the fiery yet enervating heat of summer we fill our paddling pools in the garden & sit & rest & chat, not fussing that there's nowhere to swim. 

We fill our pretty jug with cool water & lemon & we drink!

A little music might be nice...streaming jazz is great, the reception not so much.

So he put the little speaker up here. That's better.

A kindy teacher from way up north kindly sent me some of her giant sunflower seeds. I figured growing up the nice high wall might be good

 but the traitors just stand there waving at the neighbours!

 The birds come & feast on the early figs & they are welcome, yet time & again I go to the tree & find one is being eaten & right beside it one is ripe yet untouched. That's kind sharing, don't you think?

 Bright & early one morning, quite recently, there was a knock on the door. I opened it to find...

 a long package containing a stick!
Fortunately the other half was waiting in the letterbox.
Shoes everywhere, leaves & debris scattered all around.....not so perfect (fairy feet)!

A spontaneous & thoughtful gift from my dear & treasured friend Julie who lives a creative, crafty & truly inspiring life near Te Awamutu.

Our birds are so used to us by now, they made themselves right at home immediately.

I have been trying to grow hollyhocks in my garden for years now, without success & especially trying hard to grow the double dwarf variety. I've tried them in all the places I was sure that they would love & even in pots but time after time they would curl up their toes until...just one, grew right here. Apparently they are an oak-leaf variety.

 I have tried some more along Margaret's front fence next door. Some are single, some are double most are quite wonky but they all make the most delightful hollyhock fairies.

 I think I may need face drawing lessons.

 It's easy to walk in to the Garden Centre (Green Door...marvellous place!) & see everything flourishing & vibrant & fabulous & feel discouraged that at home it's all flagging, messy & pooped

 and that the snails have crept out night after night & munched through the middle of your petunias,

 that even though you followed the instructions for pruning hydrangeas to the letter they are so late & lanky & are being very sparing with their flowers, like there's a shortage.

 Sometimes life just feels like the paint spilled in the middle of the plan.

 But then you turn around & look again & there...right there in front of you is the most stunning fragrant beauty that you'd forgotten you even planted & you inhale the heady fragrance & wonder whoever chose the name Heart Broken?

Outside the kitchen window high up in the neighbours elm tree we realise that the tuis have built a nest....right here in town! The tree should have been a golden elm but part of it reverted & got taller & taller & made suckers that come up through our garden...yet, had it not, the tuis wouldn't have built 

right there for us to watch them & hear them feeding their babies.

But even in the beautiful & happy-go-lucky world of the tui things go wonky. This wee one arrived on to the middle of the lawn. early one morning  The parents were extraordinary & we all looked out for him for a week until one day it all became too much, his wing was damaged & he'd never fly. Margaret found him last week under the fig tree, dead but unharmed. So....we rang Anna & she came & collected his wee body & will use the rarely found & beautiful feathers in her flax weaving.

And so...having "got to the bottom of things" in me, it was interesting to notice as I drive past every week the old house, the funny little place where we lived when I was little...where I fell madly in love with feijoas, made my first attempt at concocting perfume, got a little potato stuck up my nose & had to be carted off by flustered parents to see Dr Earle to have it removed, 

where we lived when I first started school & where my best friend Wendy lived just down the road (still a bestie after 53 years!) was empty & being prepared to be removed. 

Just the right time to say goodbye to the past.
Peace.

Everything seems overwhelming in the sweltering heat of summer & we wonder how we normally manage to do life & feel a lot less prickly. Best idea is to plan an hour or two at the river & revive,

however, upon arrival the river banks were busy, someone was in "our" spot, another crowd had their builder's boom box up full bore tuned to the radio & there was rubbish all over the show so...we had a little paddle & a wander round & found another little shady spot to picnic that was quite perfect & very soon the noisy one drove off on his way,

leaving us to gently descend in to peace & tranquility.

Life is just about the moments.
So here's to hettie brown & Jeff Brown (entirely coincidental!) & Pollyanna...to the wonky ones, the cheerful ones, the kindly ones, the ones still getting-to-the-bottom-of-things, to fairies' feet & you.
Much love,
Catherine x0x0x