Love and laughter

One of the greatest epiphanies I've had today is that I am deeper in love with my hubby, Greg, than ever before.

We disagree, fight, laugh, love, stress and niggle at each other - all the while constantly changing with-in, finding common footing, taking a breather before plunging into the next learning curve. And yet despite all that we go through, once all the dust has settled, the beacon of our love shines ever brighter.

New ventures

I wrote a blog a while ago called Stop Wasting Time and Effort (on my other blog). This is what I wrote:

"I had a very bizarre experience the other night at work. I was trying to settle a patient on a respiratory machine but he was fighting it.

Alchemical gold

Since my rant last week, things have changed considerably.

I have come to understand that my resentment and anger came about when we picked Mum up at the airport.

Acknowledging and accepting change

What a very interesting, emotionally draining and euphoric time I’ve had over the last 6 weeks.

With the current intense period of planetary alignments, eclipses, solar flares, the equinox, and blood moon, nothing is able to stay the same. Tonight is going to be a whopper. If you want to know more about this, there are plenty of astrologers who have blogs on the internet. One I find particularly interesting is this one Traversing Divine Darkness by Sarah Varcas mostly because Pallas Athena is very prominent in my life.

Ightham Mote

Ightham Mote - (pronounced 'i-tem')  "Dating back to approximately 1320, Ightham Mote is a medieval moated manor house close to the village of Ightham, near Sevenoaks in Kent."

Change within the heart

On the second to last day we were in France, I started to feel very restless. It got worse and worse until finally I realised that it was the combined pull of the Earth and my Soul.

With a quick word to Mom and Greg, I dashed out of the chalet and headed for the forest. As I walked I could feel myself starting to relax.

Nan Tien Temple, Australia

Nan Tien Temple - "Nan Tien Temple known as “Southern Paradise” is the largest Buddhist temple in the Southern Hemisphere. The temple focuses on the exchange of eastern and western cultures; the interchange of the traditional and the modern; and also the adaptation with the local communities."

Treehouse living in France

 

Here are the pictures of the treehouses that we slept in at Domaine de Poiseuil.

On our trip down to the Med, we stayed in two separate treehouses:

Our farewell trip to France

My mother arrives from South Africa on Wednesday. I've not seen her for about 5 years as my stepdad has been, and still is, too ill to travel.

Good day

Meandering path through Eastcourt park

Yesterday was a good day.

Actually most days at work are pretty good days, yesterday was a VERY good one - mostly because I experienced the first of my clinics with 30 minute time slots instead of 20. Who knew 10 minutes could make such a difference?

Aww...

After a long 12 hour shift up at the hospital last night, I stumbled home this morning to a laid table, a Hydrangea from our garden in a vase, mango juice and an egg sandwich wrapped in tinfoil.

Aww...my heart melted.

It was an unexpected gesture that made me feel really cherished.

Hubby has gone into London for the day to shoot some photographs while I sleep. He left very early this morning, long before I arrived home from work.

After 29 years, he still manages to get my heart pumping gooey happiness and love.

Haha...good grief - I need to adjust my camera's time. It seems I have come back from the future!

Split seconds of decision

I feel like I've become the most indecisive person on the planet this year.

It's not that I've ever had a specific plan, but I've always known, more or less, where my path is leading me and in the old days, after some deliberation I'd decide and then get on with it.
But these days I seem to constantly be swinging between what to do, kicking myself to make a decision and then changing my mind almost instantly - it is driving the logical part of me insane.

Past Lives

When we arrived at the jousting field of Hever Castle, the air of excitement and anticipation was palpable. It had both Greg and I caught up in the moment, grinning with delight.

Hey Ya!

You'd think that as a sleep physiology technician, I'd understand how important sleep is to the body.
Nah ah. I can be as obliviously thick-headed as the next.

There was a stage pre-2011 that I'd do anything up to 55 hours a week of shifts.


I wanted the money, the unit needed the man-power (or maybe I should say 'woman-power' as most of us are of the female persuasion), combined with the passion I have for my job, the great people that I work with and the pleasure I get from helping others, all made for (and still does at times) a lethal cocktail of 'yeah sure, can do'.

My body hinted with little things, but I ignored it - I was on a mission to be the best completely reliable  we-can't-do-without-you-type-of-person.

"You don't wanna listen, you silly woman," it muttered into my I'm not listening ears, "it's time to REALLY get your attention."

Greg's day in London

I have a love/hate relationship with London after having lived and worked there for 5 years. It was rather a shock after Cape Town's beautiful gentle energy - like sticking your finger in an electrical socket. I might venture there once a year, but mostly avoid it if I can...although when I do, I really enjoy it.

To infection or not to infection

It all started with Yoga Nidra on Thursday last week.

She asked us, as usual, to come up with a mantra that we’d repeat three times during the course of the Nidra. Of course I was prepared - I'm always prepared - but in the throes of the Nidra, a different one popped into my mind.



“I am a mentor.”

Eh? Where did that come from?

If I’d actually had a chance to make the decision, I’d never have gone with that. So, I tried to change it but it kept popping into my head, even while I was chanting another one.

Talk about persistent.

My body responded with a little resistance. I didn't go into my usual deeply lucid state. I kept wanting to move bringing me out of the relaxed state - which indicated to me that I'd rather not release the resistance.

Anyways, I didn’t think much of it for the rest of the day.

That evening as I took a perambulation (don’t you love that word) around the neighbourhood, was when I'd noticed that my kidney on the right hand side was hurting. I dismissed it - as I do. But again the persistence - that night was uncomfortable and difficult to sleep.

The following morning I had a whole day of clinical trials to get through from 8 – 5. I felt off throughout the whole day, but you just get on with it, don’t you? I was very careful about what I drank and ate that day hoping it would help. Frankly, Friday night was horrifically painful not only in the kidney but in the head too.

Borde Hill

Borde Hill - "Borde Hill Garden is nestled in 200 acres of English Heritage listed Sussex parkland and woodland, with wonderful views across the Sussex Weald and the magnificent Ouse Valley. The garden is home to a nationally important collection of rare shrubs, champion trees and exotic plants."

Zoe Kors: 6 Ways to Have Radically Intimate Sex

I came across this article today -


Zoe Kors: 6 Ways to Have Radically Intimate Sex

“Sometimes I get real lonely sleeping with you.” ~ Haruki Murakami, A Wild Sheep Chase

 

We want intimacy and avoid sex. Or we fear intimacy and crave sex.

 

Stop wasting time and effort

I had a very bizarre experience the other night at work. I was trying to settle a patient on a respiratory machine but he was fighting it.

Finally at 1 o'clock in the morning, full of despair, I sat looking at the screen, wandering what I could/should be doing, when I suddenly noticed something very odd. On closer inspection there seemed to be, what I thought was a woman wearing a pale bodysuit of some kind, crouched next to the bed. The infrared light makes everyone on camera look rather anonymous, so I couldn't be sure.

'She' looked up at the camera, with - what looked like - an agonised expression on her face.

Puzzled, I asked my colleague if she could see something on the screen.

"What?" she asked and stared at the screen in silence before saying, "Are you talking about those dust particles floating around?"

Um...no I wasn't. Those we'd been seeing for ages and they weren't dust particles...but that's another story.

I gathered from her response she couldn't see what I was seeing.

YouTube: Why I stopped watching porn: Ran Gavrieli at TEDxJaffa 2013

He explains this so much better than I can. This invades our life in every way whether we realise it or not.

It reminds me of a book I purchased on a whim many years ago called Centerfold Syndrome - How men can overcome objectification and achieve intimacy with women by Gary R Brooks. Very very interesting. I reckon his work has been undervalued...probably because it doesn't suit the commercial world. Distortion of the beautiful act of lovemaking is a money making industry.

But...we have all been complicit in allowing this. We sure have hit the bottom of the barrel when it comes to degradation of both sexes. Ah well, onwards and upwards, eh?

Extract:

"...In the latter half of this century (20th), however, this component of men's sexuality has been so exploited, distorted, and outrageously exaggerated that the emotional and sexual health of most contemporary men has been seriously compromised."

It is up to us as individuals to decide whether to support this industry in its many forms or not. I leave you to draw your own conclusions.