Wellbeing notes: Being peaceful in a hectic world
01/04/2024 at 1:05 pm | Posted in Wellbeing notes | 1 CommentTags: Guidance, healing, inspiration, life skills, meditation, mindfulness, nature, Splendid Fairywren, wellbeing
A good friend once lived in a serene flat on a lively street. Cars sped past. Lorries lumbered. But in my friend’s lounge there was a picture of a temple garden that seemed to invite the viewer to breathe, and relax.
I’ve always loved the contrast between busyness and peace. Perhaps it dates back to an old tollbar cottage that my grandparents used to live in. We children slept under sloping eaves. Outside, cars zoomed. Inside, all was still. Yes, the traffic held dangers. But in the cottage, we always felt safe.
Now, this can require a certain amount of work, a shift of mindset. But sometimes, when you are surrounded by bustle, that’s when you can feel especially peaceful.
There is an old story that illustrates this. Weighed down by state business, an emperor was hungry for tranquillity. Three of the best artists in the land were summoned to produce a painting that would help him to feel calm.
The first artist painted a still lake. The second created an untrodden, snowy landscape. “Very nice,” said the emperor. And then he turned to the final painting, which didn’t seem tranquil at all: a forest waterfall crashing down from a great height. “This is the one,” exclaimed the emperor to his puzzled courtiers. And he pointed to a nest, where a bird slept soundly. “That,” said the emperor, “is true tranquillity.”
However hectic the world may be, I wish you the peace of true tranquillity.
Wellbeing notes: Believe, dream, rinse, repeat
01/03/2024 at 6:23 pm | Posted in Wellbeing notes | 2 CommentsTags: Guidance, healing, inspiration, life skills, meditation, Mind body spirit, wellbeing
Recently I spent a couple of days by the sea. The apartment was a quiet, uncluttered space. There was little in the way of decoration – why compete with the marvellous view? However, the few decorative touches – cushions, pebbles, wall art – featured a bunch of positive slogans, often with a maritime feel.
At first I smiled and then basically ignored the uplifting messages. But in an eyrie with little else to distract the eye (when not actually looking at the view), these pieces of advice gradually sunk in, like a sort of mantra. Dream, invited a pebble by the front door. Believe in your dreams, urged a canvas above the kitchen sink. By the sea all worries wash away, whispered a driftwood panel above the harbour boats.
And actually, I decided, it was very sound advice. How often have you dreamed of something you would love to have in your life and then decided that it wouldn’t be possible, for one reason or another? But it’s okay to believe in a broadly positive future. There is always room for hope.
And then what about the idea that water can wash away your troubles? I have a friend who has struggled with mental health issues, who has found that outdoor swimming stops the spiral of destructive thoughts like nothing else. Although that’s not for everyone, even a simple, candlelit bath can shift the mood quite wonderfully. What dream do you have? What dream will you believe in today?
Wellbeing notes: Banana bread/tray bake recipe
01/02/2024 at 11:40 am | Posted in Uncategorized, Wellbeing notes | 2 CommentsTags: hygge, imbolc, recipe, simple pleasures, wellbeing
There’s something about February. The land is just beginning to warm up, the days are becoming longer, and the snowdrops and aconites in nearby Lacock Abbey gardens are splashing the ground with beauty. After a bracing walk outdoors, it’s the perfect time to enjoy simple home comforts – including, very possibly, some easy baking.
One of my family’s favourite everyday recipes is banana bread. The version we like best comes from BBC Good Food. All you need is 140g each of butter, sugar and self-raising flour, two eggs, one teaspoon of baking powder and – of course – a couple of very ripe, mashed bananas.
Instead of the caster sugar that the BBC recipe calls for, we make use of whatever sugar is in the kitchen: granulated, or perhaps soft brown. We’ve discarded the old loaf tin in favour of a silicon, traybake mould –18cm x 18cm – which bakes quicker. When it’s out of the oven we drizzle it with around 70g icing sugar dissolved in a few teaspoons of water. And, as soon as it’s cool enough, we cut it into springy, fragrant squares roughly the size of a cupcake. There should have been more slices to include in this illustrative photo, but half of them were eaten straight away!
Banana bread is a great example of kitchen therapy – simple dishes, made mindfully, can be hugely soothing to the cook. The traybake pictured here was made during stormy weather, and the contrast between howling winds outside and cosy domesticity indoors is something to be cherished.
Wellbeing notes: Embracing wabi-sabi
01/11/2023 at 2:26 pm | Posted in Uncategorized, Wellbeing notes | Leave a commentTags: healing, inspiration, life skills, meditation, mindfulness, time passing, wabi-sabi, wellbeing
November is not a famously pretty month. Though autumn leaves are stunning, they won’t be around for much longer. The nights are getting longer, and the land colder… and that, in a nutshell, is why November is a great month to enjoy the Japanese concept of wabi-sabi.
Wabi-sabi is a philosophic outlook that accepts the imperfection of beauty. Wabi-sabi recognises that nothing lasts, and yet nothing is ever truly completed. Leaves in late autumn are a perfect example of this. A growing season has finished… and yet the trees will burst into new life in the new year.
There’s a sweetly melancholy element to wabi-sabi, inviting us to experience the sadness of beauty as it fades away. To face up to this – to accept that real life does not come air-brushed – is a form of mindfulness, which can lead to a healthy acceptance of ourselves in this moment. The message of wabi-sabi is that it’s okay to age; and it’s okay to feel sadness for what has been and now is gone. When we accept the melancholy, we are also accepting that the scars we gain through life are a valuable part of who we are. In our imperfection lies a different, rarer kind of beauty.
So I invite you today to look at your world through the principles of wabi-sabi. What, or who, embodies the subtler kind of beauty that comes through imperfection? What, or who, deserves cherishing?
Wellbeing notes: Sparrowhawk meditation
01/10/2023 at 12:19 pm | Posted in Wellbeing notes | Leave a commentTags: Guidance, inspiration, meditation, mindfulness, nature, wellbeing
To live surrounded by nature is a privilege, and one I don’t take for granted. It feels extra special when animals – deer and hares in particular, as well as countless birds – trust humans enough to come up close.
Recently, this particular bird came calling: a female sparrowhawk. She was striking in every sense: strong, watchful and beautiful. I’d never seen one in such detail before, and was curious to read about her.
The Eurasian sparrowhawk, also known as Accipiter nisus, is a modestly sized bird of prey. They live in woodland, and hunt smaller birds. Used in falconry, they’ve featured in poems, myths and stories from many cultures.
The sparrowhawk, small and fierce, is said to represent a warrior’s inner spirit, complete with a clear-sighted ability to see the whole picture. A simple meditation on these qualities can be uplifting and energising.
Sit somewhere quietly. Take relaxed, even breaths. Then close your eyes and focus with your thoughts on the sparrowhawk’s characteristics – whatever comes to mind. You might think of its striped feathers and far-seeing eyes, You might think of its beauty, boldness and strength.
As you continue to breathe in and out, be aware that those qualities are also within you. Feel a purposeful power filling the whole of your being. Enjoy that sense of strength; truly own it. And when you’re ready, open your eyes.
I hope you enjoy this nature meditation. The message of the sparrowhawk ultimately comes down to this: you are stronger and more able than you think.
Wellbeing notes: Coconut flapjack recipe
01/09/2023 at 9:28 am | Posted in Wellbeing notes | Leave a commentTags: oats, recipe, simple pleasures, sweet treats, wellbeing
Back in the 1970s, I was given a new, blank recipe book. The first treats I added were simple, buttery flapjacks, which tasted lovely, but were… gooey. Over the next two decades, in a string of London kitchens, I tweaked the original ingredients. The notebook filled up, but the flapjacks remained a favourite. They were so easy to make, and almost everyone liked them.
In the 2000s, cooking times were adjusted for an old Aga that I acquired, in Wiltshire. But then, unaccountably, the recipe book was put on a shelf and forgotten. Not any more, though. “Oh, my goodness, these are amazing,” said one friend. Another mentioned that oats and coconuts have lots of health benefits (some of the other ingredients, less so, but I reckon home-baked snacks are broadly better than packaged sweets). A few asked for the recipe. So here it is.
Ingredients
170 g butter
1 tbsp honey
1 tbsp golden syrup
170 g demerara sugar
280 g oats
30 g desiccated coconut
Handful of sultanas
Optional: 30 g chocolate chips
Method
Set oven at 150ºC (fan-assisted)/170ºC (conventional) or use baking oven of Aga.
Butter and line a square 7”/18cm baking tray.
Slice the butter and melt gently in a pan. Add honey and syrup, then sugar. Stir from time to time until dissolved.
Add oats and coconut to a large bowl. Pour melted mixture over and mix well. Stir in sultanas, and chocolate chips if using.
Transfer mixture to baking tray and press down with the back of a spoon.
Bake for 16 to 20 minutes, or until browning slightly at edges.
(If using Aga, place on oven shelf on floor of baking oven, or use roasting oven with cold shelf above.)
Remove from oven and leave to cool thoroughly before cutting into squares.
Fiction notes: Every bookish person needs a tote
15/08/2023 at 9:10 am | Posted in Fiction notes, Uncategorized | Leave a commentTags: Amor Towles, bookish, fiction reading, Maggie O'Farrell, one book at a time, reading community, TBR pile, wellbeing
Some days are manic. There are so many demands on my time, it’s hard to focus on just one thing. So I write lists and action plans and those help. But what also helps is a book tote. A book tote, in the right circumstances, can be a pocket of calm within a hectic life. Open the tote and, aah, the pleasure of reading emerges.
This is currently my favourite tote, found recently at Waterstones in Bath. That day, I bought one book, and popped it inside to carry it home. And I’ve repeated the exercise several times since then.
The key point is this: in a busy life, recreational reading can seem like a waste of time. But it never is. Reading fiction in particular brings new ideas, fresh insights and a dose of escapism. If you’re bookishly inclined, reading is a necessary luxury that recharges you for the manic times. A tote of stories brings respite from the daily grind.
My tote is designed purely to carry books – just one or two or maybe three at a time. That moment of putting a new volume in the bag brings a breath of calm, a sigh of relief, and the prospect of a mini-holiday from other commitments.
It’s important not to to over-stuff my book tote. Yes, I have a giant TBR pile at home but that, while a wonderful thing, can bring pressures of its own: I should have read this, I should have read that. In contrast, the book tote only contains what I might read in a week or so. And therefore, I often do.
Currently my tote contains A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles and The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox by Maggie O’Farrell. Both, curiously, feature sequestered lives, something I’m both drawn to and repelled by. The incarcerated characters in each novel cannot choose freedom. But moments of optional solitude – just me with a book, enjoying a mini-break from my crazy schedule – now they can be wonderful.
Do you have a book tote for selected, pared down reading? Or do you have another method of creating pockets of fiction reading in an often busy life?
Wellbeing notes: The therapy of small things
01/06/2023 at 9:57 am | Posted in Wellbeing notes | 2 CommentsTags: Guidance, healing, inspiration, life skills, mindfulness, nature, wellbeing
I’d come home from a really stressful term of studies. I was questioning everything I’d ever learnt, anxious about the truth and direction of my life.
Home at that time was an Italian villa by a lake where water buffalo roamed, and mafiosi ruled. Home seemed so different from the English university I’d just left. And the contrast just made things worse.
But then something small happened. I was walking in the garden, between green lemon trees and a wall where purple bougainvillea grew. Beneath the wall, my mother and brother were positioning a section of flattened tree trunk. “It’s a bench,” my mum explained.
Curiously, when she said that, something within me settled. All those big questions, crowding my mind… they were abstract problems. You couldn’t touch them, like you could touch the lemon trees or the bougainvillea. And a bench in the garden where people could sit, and maybe heal from whatever was troubling them… you could touch that.
Right then, I began to appreciate the therapy of small things.
Fast forward to present times, to Wiltshire, in England. Last week, a young family friend came to stay, anxious and needing a break from uni. There was no handy tree trunk to turn into a bench. But I was looking after my neighbours’ hens. So, I invited her to help me feed them.
As the hens tucked into lettuce, she visibly relaxed. “I needed this,” she said.
And I hoped then that the therapy of small things had found another fan.
Wellbeing notes: The Patina of a Person
01/05/2023 at 12:11 pm | Posted in Wellbeing notes | Leave a commentTags: ageless, antiques, self-acceptance, slow beauty, time passing, true beauty, wabi sabi, wellbeing
There’s an upcoming auction near me on 11th May: The Fine Contents of a Wiltshire Property. I may attend, because there’s a similar scene I’m working on in the novel that I’m currently writing. It’ll be useful research.
There’s something about antique objects that is innately pleasing, despite or maybe because of the way they’ve changed over time. Consider my great grandmother’s sewing box, pictured here. Maybe one day the parquetry lid will be restored, but even so, it will never again look new. Its surfaces reveal the passage of time – and that is surely part of its charm. Wear and tear, interspersed with licks of polish… there are no short cuts when it comes to creating an aged surface, or patina.
And so it is with people. We all age differently, and we all face different choices when it comes to the process of time. Do we apply skincare creams, including sun block, daily; do we opt for more drastic intervention? How do we react to the arrival of white hair? And do we keep our bodies flexible through exercise?
We each find our own answers to these questions. However, the icon of older beauty for me will always be the white-haired woman (or man), with serene and cared-for features, who accepts and embraces her true age. She has learned the art of self-acceptance, and to love life fully. That is truly something to aspire to.
Wellbeing notes: Teachings from an ancient flower
31/03/2023 at 9:09 am | Posted in Wellbeing notes | 1 CommentTags: Guidance, inspiration, magnolias, mindfulness, nature, wellbeing, wisdom
There’s a magnolia tree that I know and love. With spring blooms of velvet pink, it brings pleasure to all who view it. But my magnolia is more than just a bunch of gorgeous flowers. Its cup-shaped blossoms tell an ancient story. And if I slow down enough to listen to that story, wellbeing results. Here are a few of magnolia’s insights.
‘Age is relative’
Magnolias have been growing for 20 million years. In comparison, humans are so young. It is believed that we have been on this planet for a mere 300,000 years. We are new-born babes compared with the magnolia tree. Maybe we should cut ourselves some slack. We are still learning, and that’s okay.
‘Think out of the box’
Magnolias evolved long before the arrival of bees. So, they attract a much older insect: flightless beetles, that chomp the sticky nectar. So, next time you’re grappling with a tricky problem, you might think of an alternative, ‘magnolia’ solution.
‘It’s fine to be a late bloomer’
Although my favourite magnolia tree flowers in spring, it likes to have a small, colourful flurry later in the year. And so it is with our own talents and interests. We are never too old to do something new.
‘Plan ahead’
By December, my magnolia will be covered in countless tight buds. The tree will protect them over winter, then enjoy a head start next spring. In the same spirit of looking ahead, what could you prepare today, in order to better use your energy tomorrow?
Website Built with WordPress.com.
Entries and comments feeds.
Suzanne Askham 