My Life

Sunset Kingston Canada I was going to write more about Canada, in Canada, but sadly so many life experiences happened to me in two weeks that I didn't have the time. So here I am, back in England. I didn't fully take in Canada's amazingness until I got home. But then Canada is a bigger country with stunning countryside...and England is stunning in its own way.  Canada has space. The houses are big, and the food portion sizes are bigger. My stomach is bloated to the extreme, or I have put on a few inches. Not surprising. I was living off whatever I could find, and sometimes that was cheesy pasta and English Muffins.  English muffins. I spent a long time figuring out why they were called English muffins. I was given my first English muffin by a new Canadian friend on the 'Becoming Kin' retreat (the subject of a separate post) and immediately loved it. I had to have four of them with butter. Hence perhaps my waistline isn't that happy.  Overall, I did a lot more in

Well, I made it here. Somehow. So far I find it all a bit overwhelming. The flight was fine, and the drive here was fine. I went to town yesterday and found a lovely waterfront, tourist information and some lovely Canadians.  Then I got lost on the way home in the dark, and that was pretty scary, to be honest. I did manage to find my way back in the end. I just got disorientated and found it hard to access people for help in Circle K. My phone died, and I couldn't get google maps to work in the first place.  Then I didn't sleep all night and didn't want to eat anything...yeah pretty intense stuff.  So I will write more when I have explored Kingston a bit and have my head together. 

(All images on this blog are from the internet: This image is from https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/386183736769091685/) So what happened on the retreat? A lot happened in the space of two days. Two precious days away from social media and trying to not read my emails. I didn't miss it all that much. We installed ourselves at the Sustainability Centre near Petersfield, a wonderful world of woodland, a natural graveyard, and even a few yurts. Petersfield is not too far from my hometown of Portsmouth, and it is a neighbour of Butser Ancient Farm, where I did my work experience as a fifteen-year-old. It is, in short, a great place to spend a weekend attempting to connect with 'the spirits'.  Ah! The spirits. Well, my questioning mind spent a lot of the weekend bugging our shaman with my analysis and doubts about the reality of the said spirits. I think a modern view would be something like these spirits represent aspects of our souls of ourselves. Whether we took that step into

(Image from the internet: https://druidry.org/resources/shamanism-in-the-celtic-world) Here I am...blogging again because a Facebook status just isn't enough. Yes, it is a diary...before you knock introversion.  Anyway, over the weekend, I went on a retreat into my native Hampshire forests. I learnt a lot about Celtic shamanism, had a trippy experience trying to connect to the blackberry spirit, discovered plant spirits are just well...a bit bonkers, and now I am home experiencing what I hope is not another bout of Covid.  ... If I have Covid then it would be deeply ironic, because it is a few days to the anniversary of the first time I had Covid.  Otherwise I probably just ate something unwashed and random like a root of something and my entire body is now suffering. Last year I went camping and came home and was dreadfully ill with a summer cold. I was told categorically I am a 'glamper.' I am after all in my thirties and less interested in random adventure and more inter