James Ballantyne

Tag: life

  • Self Compassion Treasure moments

    I have been amazed by the universe treasure moments that seem to arrive to me, chance encounters, free gifts in shops, writing in books that match what I’d been talking about the day before (no algorithms there)

    This was one yesterday.

    I’d bought this John o Donohue book in a charity shop about six weeks ago, one of about 10 books I bought that day, this one went on the bottom shelf hidden away.

    Reading prayers and blessings not always my thing.

    Yesterday I had a tidy of my books, getting rid of 10 to the local charity shop, and re-found the John o Donohue…

    I opened the book, randomly

    To this page

    What did I write about the day before yesterday?

    Exactly

    May I be a friend to myself.

    This path of self compassion seems littered with treasure.

    I am a mystery, waiting to be loved….as are you

    May you and I journey to that place in your soul where there is love and warmth and feeling.

  • The Greatest Challenge

    Have you worked out the Greatest Challenge in Life yet?

    The easiest thing, is to be doing something. To be continually doing something. To be planning to be doing something is still doing something.

    To be doing.

    Last week I got over 40 ‘likes’ on a facebook post about something I had been ‘doing’ – 3 days of safeguarding training with the Methodist Church btw.

    Doing something.

    It may be physically impossible to ‘do nothing’ for an hour – our bodies have to breathe, our senses listen to the sounds from outside, or music playing, but what if being was valued more that doing?

    What happens if you try and sit and ‘be’? What creeps in? – A task, a worry, a thought? A distraction – the voice that says ‘ you should be doing something’ ‘ dont be lazy’ ..its always a critical voice – and what I do when I hear that voice – sometimes give in, sometimes try and distract from that voice…by doing something… ugh, and so it continues.

    And there’s no option for this when in the moment of survival in abuse, the mind is utterly active, and my body just wants to be active to compensate. Thats why I anxiety clean. Its why I needed EMDR to rewrite my brain, so I could sit.

    But- back to this moment.

    Here,

    Now:

    Sitting still, just for a moment.

    The greatest challenge.

    It takes a fight to sit and just be.

    It takes courage to be.

    To sit and breathe.

    To listen.

    Not just to the externals of some music or the sounds from outside- that are tempting to go and see

    But listen to the noise of my internal breath

    Listen to the sound, of quiet, of silence

    And notice myself.

    Just being.

    How good are you at being? How are you in your being today?

    What if I ‘just’ sit and be? and its not even just sitting, that makes it out to be something secondary, what if ‘being’ was valued and important, what if being me, being you was the ‘most’ important thing. What if it wasn’t a luxury to have a moments peace and quiet, but something valued, and treasured by all, and encouraged in each other. I could easily do a million and one other things, but the most important and difficult thing.

    Just to be.

    Realising the life in every breath. In every moment.

    Giving your self time. Time for yourself.

    Its not about getting off one rat race and finding another, but noticing the being inside. Bringing awareness to your very soul, and being, and heart. Its you that matters.

    So just sit. And be.

    Be with yourself for a while. Sense the life within. Sense you.

    References

    Gary Zukav – The Seat of the Soul

    Eckhart Tolle – The Power of Now/ A New Earth.

  • Discovering Life Internal

    Discovering Life Internal

    And…….. Breathe……

    That kind of day today, long day for me, what about you?

    So maybe

    Just sit down fellow life traveler

    and do nothing, with me

    Sit comfortably

    and watch

    your stomach in front of you

    rise

    and

    fall

    as you breathe

    Take a deep, slow breath

    and watch

    feel the air in your nostrils

    and

    the release of your chest and abdomen

    empty itself

    of the life air

    Did you notice anything else?

    A smell in the room – what was it

    This evenings cooking? Fumes from outside?

    Your own stale socks from a days work, keeping your feet warm?

    What else did you notice, as you watched yourself breathe?

    Nothing?

    Really?

    When you looked at your stomach rise and fall, and took those breaths

    There was nothing?

    Did something disappear?

    For a moment?

    I focussed on my body, and breathed life into it

    Did you?

    And in that moment

    Mind focussed on Body

    Mind focussed on life

    Mind still

    There was a gap

    That magic gap again

    That magic gap in the incessancy of the mind going a billion miles an hour

    Impossible to stop by thinking it to

    But take it else where

    Focus on life internal

    Not stress external

    Life internal

    That magic breath again

    Your beautiful body full of life

    Your incredible body

    As it is.

    Life mystery

    Hold that breath again

    not that thought

    Hold that breath

    and let it be released

    slow, and watch again

    feel again

    Bodyfulness

    The gap again

    Take yourself to the gap

    Body full of joy ness

    of being alive

    of being you

    In the present moment of every new breath

    Peace – Joy – Self love

    Stay a while longer, as long as you like

    The longer you want to, no pressure

    Come back as often as you like, as long as you like

    Im here, because you are here

    in the gap too

    Return

    To that free gift, the free moment of self-truth

    of the life internal

    love internal

    Joy deep within

    each breath.

    But only when you notice.

    Thank yourself for the time to breathe

    Life internal

  • Sensing the Mystery of Being Alive

    Sensing the Mystery of Being Alive

    I got up early this morning, waking up early

    After I showered, and said good morning to my love Christelle and read her to sleep

    I sat on the couch, and started to read a book – the same book – but a bit further on

    A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle.

    The view from my couch was a bit like this

    Looking out the windows, above the eye of the book

    Turning the page, in between sips of coffee

    I see movement in the corner of my eye

    A fledging blue tit on the arc of a branch

    Looking at me

    I looking at it

    I didnt rush to get a camera or binoculars

    Just stopped, and watched

    and looked at it

    Looked at it, for what it is

    A bird.

    Two Blue tits (Taken at Cowpen Bewley Woodland Park February 2022)

    Just a very ordinary bird

    But as I looked

    It wasn’t just a blue bird, a small bird, a young bird

    It was a joint traveller in this world

    Sharing the universe with me

    A creature of magic flight

    A fearless wonder

    Taking a moment on a branch

    To look me in the eye

    To feel the same mystery

    of life

    of air

    of flight

    A part of me, and part of it, one in the same universe

    Sense of being in the moment

    Sacred, pure creature, looking at me

    What does it take to notice?

    What does it take to sense being?

    Time to look up

    Time to see

    Time to breathe in and wonder

    To sense the mystery of the universe

    The magic of being,

    of being…Alive.

  • Crossing the Road in the USA; A New script

    Crossing the Road in the USA; A New script

    Over the next few days I will be away, as I’m heading to San Diego for a week to be with my beautiful fiancé Christelle as we plan our wedding for a few months time, meeting folks and importantly getting the license for our wedding.

    As I head there, I’m am reminded of something from the last time I was in San Diego, at Christmas time.

    I had to re-learn ‘crossing the road’ in a new context.

    Yup.

    Everything I instinctively followed about crossing a road in the UK I had to think differently. It wasn’t just that they drive on the wrong side – but that, get this, sometimes, a red light doesn’t mean stop – a ‘walk’ sign might mean walk if clear or walk if the car lets you, even if it says walk – do cars wait at crossings, who drives first at a crossroads – and what if two cars arrive first and why all the stopping and starting..

    At least on one occasion I was half way across a junction driving and nearly froze. On another occasion Christelle and I weren’t seen by a driver as we used a crossing. Madness.

    The rules were different, yet everyone seems to know how to operate in it, or at least, those with respect to these rules, who were aware of their surroundings were.

    But I had to unlearn what I knew and try and learn a new language.

    It felt like I was having to go against all my 43 years of unconscious competent instinct.

    Press, wait for the green man, look and then go

    was now, press, wait, wait and check, the car might not stop for you, then cross, carefully…

    As I think about this today, one day out from travelling, Im reminded of some of the life scripts I’ve become more aware of

    things like:

    You can only relax, when all the jobs are done

    Work hard, don’t be lazy

    Dont think about yourself, thats selfish

    Other people are more important than yourself

    Hurry up, the early bird catches the worm

    Dont be inconvenient

    Make us proud

    Keep things in the family

    Dont upset us

    Be strong…and care for me

    What have yours been?

    What about the words Ive said to myself ; Ill be ok if__________, or ‘that kind of thing happens to other people and not me’ or ‘I always___________’ or ‘If I do this then ill be happy/feel better/ successful/ok’

    Then there was the script about waiting to be rescued – having a magical rescue or disappearing

    The scripts are everywhere, just go to a coffee shop and listen to others –

    but what about yours – what about mine.

    One of mine definitely is ; ‘You can only stop and relax when all the jobs are done’ – and in previous situations those jobs were never done, but even now I have to make a conscious effort to undo that script – because there are still jobs to be done, and I can always make more, like cleaning the inside of the fridge, changing the beds, or the kitchen cupboards…even on my own in my new flat (or old one) being busy was part of my script – I might describe it as cleaning anxiety, conditioning as I was expecting to be ‘told off’ if things weren’t tidy, or putting my own needs last – either way I know that its there.

    I also know that as a response to the ‘Dont exist’ phrases from childhood, I developed a script that was that ‘I was ok to exist if…….’ and this included things like being compliant, tidy, quiet..and working hard – so its not difficult to see where this all came from.

    In Stewart and Joines (TA Today, 1987) they describe scripts to be one of these patterns, Always, Never, Until, Almost, After, Open ended, in the examples ive shared of my own you can hear the ‘Until’ as the common one, the reality is that there’s times I use all of them to some degree, but one might be more dominant than the other.

    I have talked before about the difficulty of doing my own healing work in that piece I noted some of the internal voices that were current verbalisations of past scripts.

    Like crossing the road, I have a choice – as do you

    Do I follow the script of the old pattern – that worked to keep me alive and safe in one context

    or Do I note it, see it, and realise that whilst it was needed, my context has changed? New rules, new awareness, new behaviours are required?

    What if I say

    The tidying can wait, its more important that I sit, in quiet and relax for a while

    I am more important than the things….

    or

    I should go and do that fun impulsive thing, without over thinking it

    I should do something I want to do – rather that what I think other people want for me to do

    The first step has been acknowledging the patterns of the scripts – seeing them

    The second is recognising that they were useful, kept me safe

    The third is about realising that I have a choice to maintain the script – or decide that I can break out of the script pattern – because I am in a new context….and

    Different things matter…..I matter… and I can choose…I am safe – so do I need the same script?

    Of course – I did have a choice before – but the reality was that in abusive relationships that choice is limited.

    Like crossing the road in the UK, its so long since I learned how to that that awareness has completely disappeared – I similarly didn’t realise that I was following script patterns for so so long – And I’m sure there are others I am yet to discover. I just instinctively did it, without realising – or felt I had no choice but to.

    Now some of those scripts, just don’t make sense at all. But others are more subtle….

    Be strong – and dont show your feelings – is another script I heard – as I had to soothe the abusive people around me – no space for me to show any emotions.

    To other men – what were your scripts? What did you hear and take on? and How might you respond to them, and communicate to others around you that this is what you need to do? Changing life patterns is no easy feat, especially if it challenges norms within relationships. Other times if we dont change, its like being continually bewildered trying to cross a road in a different country. A country in which our new self, new awareness is wanting to shape us, shape me, into healthier patterns.

    I am valuable and so are you.

    The world is a better place when we become closer to the core self we are meant to be.

  • Surviving Psychopathic Parenting (Part 29) Actually I nearly didn’t.

    (Trigger Warning: Suicide)

    I wanted to die at 9

    I was 9 when I had had enough

    9

    At the age of 9 years old I was desperate to get out, get out of the life I was in

    9 was the age I contemplated ending it all, suicide.

    At the age of 9, when my blonde hair was barely tinting itself brown.

    9 is the age of fun, playing out, bmx, bikes, games, toys, lego and the rest – and it was

    But it was also the age when I wanted out.

    I had something else to carry, that haunted me.

    Not 13, not mid teens, not early 20’s.

    Before being bullied at high school…

    But at 9.

    Who does that? Who wants to die at 9?

    I wanted to end it all, or end the part I was living in it

    I wanted to sleep and never wake up – or even wake up as someone else – someone famous, someone who wasn’t in my life – anyone, but just not me.

    Im not sure I would have gone through with it, but as the intercity 125’s roared past the bottom of my garden, I wondered if that might have been the place to go – but I couldnt

    Or what about from the upstairs window, would I die if I jumped out and landed through the shed roof?

    Im not sure I could do it – why? for the very reason that I wanted to do it. I’d be responsible.

    I would be responsible. I was already responsible. I was already too responsible, aged 9.

    I was just hoping I didnt exist anymore.

    At 9

    At fucking 9

    Who else thinks this at 9?

    Other people do – other people in so called ‘broken homes’ and ‘non christian ones’ – but not 9 year olds in a ‘stable family’.

    I was 9, and I wanted to not exist any more.

    Because of the weight of responsibility – I had and knew I had

    Because of the criticisms of being messy, being silly, being not good enough

    Because i felt utterly alone. At 9 there was no one to cry for help to – teachers wouldn’t have understood (mum was a dinner lady), church wouldn’t ( parents we’re involved) , and relatives were disappearing from the scene, one family row after another. So who would believe me, even if I could articulate it?

    Alone, cut off and carrying shame, guilt and responsibility

    Aged 9

    I was 9, but hated the responsibility of the drama queen, she who must be obeyed

    I was 9, and unable to ask – for fear of being demanding, spoilt or disruptive

    I was 9, and expected to know things, and so patronised if I did ask?

    I was 9, and bereave of guidance, nurture, or any physical close intimacy

    I was 9, and blamed

    I was 9 and internalised every thought and action I had done – to cause them grievance – I carried shame that stuck in the back like the metal frame of the awful rucksack they once bought me.

    I was 9, and facing the daunting life ahead of me, alone, responsible, frightened, – life was not worth living. Nothing to look forward to.

    I was 9 and had had enough

    I was 9 and not a child anymore and told not to be

    I was 9 and little professor was trying to work out how to survive, and how to respond to feelings of hurt, anger, shame, pain and fear that were continually emerging.

    I was 9 and took it all on myself.

    At 9.

    I would be in my room, waiting for a miracle to happen, waiting for the escape. Hoping beyond hoping.

    At 9 something was wrong. I was wrong.

    At 9 realising that these were my parents and were going to be for the rest of my life, this was going to be my life for another how many years, not something I could conceive of wanting to.

    At 9.

    What would have happened if I had done it? What would the story have been – What kind of narrative would have spun? ‘He was a happy child and no one expected this’ ‘He just couldn’t deal with not being spoiled’…

    In side my head at 9 so many voices. The one that was telling me that I could end it all, the other trying to survive, the other trying to work out what to do, what a solution was.

    What stopped me going through with it? I wasnt brave enough, I was too responsible already.

    Even when I kicked and screamed and tried even to pray – there wasnt any answer. Not even the God of Sunday school was any good. God wasnt doing anything. Yet.

    This is what I felt – these were the swirls of my thoughts at the ages of 9 and onwards.

    Then I felt shame for having them. The thoughts.

    A number of things did start to change for at around this time. One was that I started to realise that I accepted that if was going to make it in life – I was going to have to do it alone. The other was that I was beginning to see that some of those messages of ‘Im not ok’ from that parent – were slightly less valid – my teachers were saying good things, as were people like my Cub Scout leaders, and I started to dedicate myself to sports, and from nearer 10 or 11, to taking more care over myself – academically.

    I tried to keep trying to understand things or fix things – but thats another story. I took on the responsibility for my awful family – yet whilst they were destroying me.

    At 10 I became a Christian – because I wanted the sin and guilt ‘for what I had done wrong’ to disappear – be carried by someone else – because I was responsible. Further safe places emerged in my teenage life, places of rescue, further from the monster. I was crying out for love and nurture but projecting that I didn’t need help and I could deal with things.

    I only ever gave this part of me away twice. Both a few years later. At 14 I wrote a poem in English class in which I wrote it in the first person and then I died at the end , I think my American English teacher was a little surprised and also told me that I wasn’t allowed to write a poem in which I died at the end. And then maybe a year or two later, I was given the opportunity to share my testimony at the church, in it I revealed that as a child I felt suicidal, but wasnt successful. I was partly saying this because there’s a thing about making a testimony sound more dramatic, but also actually because it was true. I waited for feedback, or support or a space for someone to listen to me afterwards, but none came. Maybe they were just relieved that I didnt go through with it, or that I was lying.

    So I started to disbelieve my own story. Started to distance myself from it, shut it away, never to be seen again. Avoid and run. Survive meant blocking it out.

    But now as I listen to that inner child within, I see that 17 year old, the 12 year old, and also that 9 year old, and wonder what he needed, what he didnt have, and completely see how lost, alone, fearful, frightened, despairing and responsible he was feeling. At 9 I seriously wanted to end it all.

    So, when I think about ‘How I Survived psychopathic parenting’ – I actually nearly didn’t.

    Why am I writing this today? For a number of reasons, mostly because the memory of this came to me over the last few days, as I delved into the different ages of my inner child, partly as I read Stewart and Joines book on TA, I realise how many messages I heard that accumulated to ‘Do not exist’ , `Don’t stay a child’ and ‘Dont be important’ – and it took me to the time when I didnt want to carry on any more. I just knew from that moment on, or already, I was in survival mode. Digging deep. The other reason is that I have never spoken about this before to anyone, does anyone want to hear about the damage emotional, psychological and spiritual abuse does to children, to the point where they want to end it? Well, that was me. Im glad I didnt, but I still had a whole lot more to endure that I didnt know at 9, and it would take a long while to unravel the damage.

    Thank you for reading, sharing, and do seek help from specialists if my story at any point has affected you. You Are Valuable, You are worthy, and the world is a better place with you in it.

  • From Numbing to Noticing my Feelings

    From Numbing to Noticing my Feelings

    I’d probably describe myself as a former cycling enthusiast, It was a thing I did alot for good period of 2-3 year and then I found it harder and harder to motivate myself to get out on the bike. Though I have done a bit more recently. Scotland was the perfect setting, fabulous quiet roads, scenery and summer nights that were light until very late, and the odd glimpses of red kites in the sky, red squirrels on the roads, and did I mention scenery… that in bucketloads.

    I think this was somewhere between Perth and Bankfoot, but memory has gone. It was only many short 20-30 mile routes and it had a ford near the top.

    Anyway, one such route that was known was ‘The Beast’ – it involved over 100 miles, from Perth, Crieff, Aberfeldy, then up and over the back of loch Tay and over Ben lakers, Killin, Lochearnhead, Comrie, snd Crieff and back again. If you can see the little roads on this map you’ll see the route, what you don’t see on this map is the hills and climbs. A cafe a Bridge of Balgie supplied essential snacks at lunch, but the calories for them were gone after the Ben Lawers climb, and there was still 50 miles for me to get back.

    Anyway, If my memory serves me well, I completed this route three times. It was a summer thing, and needed several 70+ rides in the preceding weeks to build up to it. I didnt ever try and better times on it.

    The second time I completed it I had heard of a way of making myself cycle faster.

    In the bike magazine I was reading, it suggested that to slow down the messages from your leg muscles that you are in pain, listen to music on a ride. So I did. I borrowed a tiny iPod shuffle (it was 2011) and headphones and so, on the ride I listened to music. I dont remember the music, though I think I tried to listen to lively music for exercising and tempo.

    In effect, I was trying to numb the actual messages my body was trying to tell my brain.

    So, what happened? It told me, eventually, for though I had maintained carbs, liquids, gels, food all day – it wasn’t enough, I did complete the ride. If I remember I had suffered some kind of cramp around the route or on the 20-30 miles back. But when I got back I collapsed, on the bed, body fully empty of any energy, shaking, weak and beyond movement or functioning.

    Those messages had been screaming at me, and I wasn’t listening. Yes I responded at strategic stops for food/water – but to get to the end I was numbing.

    I feel like this was such a picture of how I deal with emotions, feelings – whether happy, sad, joyful, angry – I numbed them. I just had to survive. I just had to find ways of ignoring them, distractions, soothing, being busy, new hobbies, shopping, cooking, not stopping, to notice – then working, studying, staying in my head. My head was my safe place – but I also filled it with noise, of news, of podcasts, of opinions, of anything.

    Numbing the pain on a ride was just a metaphor for numbing the pain and emotions that I had been running from all of my life. Go faster, climb higher, ride further – dont stop to hear the messages, until..I …burn..out.

    Fearing what would happen if I could actually feel. Fearing that and losing myself in the soothing of others, denying myself, numbing myself and not listening.

    Why am I writing this today? – well because sometimes when im sitting, thinking, reading, or even processing my emotional reactions to some startling news today – an image, or a memory comes to mind – reminding me of where I was. I needed permission to feel emotions, and safety too, as well as the time to get to know and feel myself. Its funny how cycling 40 miles on bike rides was also part of escaping the childhood house.

    I can see that in this photo taken in 2012, that I am lost, and there is no life in my eyes.

    What I realised a few weeks ago, is that its far easier to ride a bike when it didnt need to do more than be a bike ride. I could relax and breathe and…enjoy being happy on a bike.

    Me in 2022..emotions on display…. a 10 year older face..but with spark and life.

    Its kind of obvious looking at these photos what numbing pain and emotion was doing to me, isn’t it?

    Instead of numbing my emotions, i’m learning to listen to them, learning that I dont need to hold them, noticing anger, fear, anxiety, and responding sometimes by swearing, drawing, moving, writing, listening – also means that I can feel all the happy feelings too, the bliss of being loved, smiling and laughing with my fiancé. I had to learn, and be in a safe place to begin to feel my feelings. Until that point I was numbing them out, like a mad cyclist on a 100 mile ride in the middle of Scotland. Like I used to.

  • Searching for Happiness, one feeling at a time

    Searching for Happiness, one feeling at a time

    I hope you don’t mind me asking, but where do you think happiness comes from? What makes you happy?

    (Hector, Hector and the search for Happiness, 2014)

    It might be a running theme this, after last weeks date night movie with my beautiful fiancé Christelle, and the piece she wrote about it, here : `The Day we Sang’ (whilst you’re there do read more of her story, of play, power and healing) , but yesterday evening (uk time) we joking said to each other ; ‘Well it won’t be as good as last weeks movie’ . It wasn’t, not for me anyway, but, it only wasnt quite. I guess Amazon Prime really does know what films we like, they must involve British eccentricity, quirkiness, life journey, discovery, love and a surprising, though maybe not surprising, moment of inner child – and that is all in ‘Hector and the search for Happiness’ – and a whole lot more besides – and it was funny, painful, despairing, violent, and contained bundles of colour and joy.

    Hectors journey to discover happiness, starts when he starts to make the journey. It starts when he starts, not when he finds. The realisation of disconnection between what he says and what he lives takes him to a place of personal angst. He gets Angry. He uncomfortably makes a change happen. He moves. In the persuit of others life coping as a psychiatrist he has forgotten someone, himself. The child that played airplanes and dreamed of adventures.

    I ask myself – what kind of happy was I wanting other people to have – if I want happy? What kind of life was I setting other people up for – if I couldn’t feel my own feelings and in self denial?

    On his journey, he observes, he writes, he lives- eventually … he feels happy. But he had to feel through the other feelings first.

    Ill not write too much more, as its so worth a watch for yourself. Should I give away the ending here.. Well no I won’t.

    What he discovers too, is that Happiness is a threatening question. Happiness is a question in a currency the world cannot cope with. Happiness could be discovered when he let his inhibitions go, through taking risks, through community, through following his instinct. Happiness is a dream sold, but is never found that way.

    It was another reminder to me, trying to control and inhibit emotions is such an easy default for me too. I dissociated from them, and my body, from an early age, survived by growing up fast and my ‘little professor‘ ruled – the adult/child. I gave up being curious and feelings – and played everything safe, stone cold safe – feelings in shutdown mode, hiding myself to be safe. What did Hector learn? What have I had to learn? That its ok to feel emotions. That its ok to feel them. Yes, it needed safety, care, love, and space. But like a car without an engine, life doesn’t work without making use of them. I was running and avoiding, not only the painful things, but also the feelings associated with the painful things – understandably so.

    Things keep unravelling for me, day by day, week by week, unravelling, not in the psychotic way, but giving myself permission to feel, having space to feel, and digging deep into the parts of me that were meant to feel anger, meant to feel love, meant to be nurtured, meant to feel grief. Only small moments cut through, the playing of Danny Boy at my grandfathers funeral, still gets me every time, that was in 2000. The rest of the time I was in survival mode, stone cold mode, avoid, or intellectualise my feelings away.

    Happiness, couldn’t be bought ..in the movie…..- it had to be felt – it was…..all of it.

    I am happiest when……?

    Hector and the search for Happiness

    Im just reading The Hobbit to Christelle; and was reminded of this:

    Thank you for reading. Maybe its time to keep discovering what makes us happy – and not just what makes us less sick, or soothes our pain – me included.

    Talking of dragons and gold…..

  • The Surprising Sex life of a Dunnock

    One of the new hobbies I’ve taken up in the last few years has been nature and bird watching, to accompany this I’ve bought a few reference books, you know the sort, the ones that appeared on other people’s bookshelves as I was growing up, like my nanna, actually.. RSPB British birds, that kind of thing.

    As well as taking the book out with me when I go walking, it’s been relaxing to read it, and also read it to my fiance Christelle. she’s been more interested in birds that I have thought, and I tentatively shared with her originally that I was beginning to like this slow hobby.

    But recently we’ve been reading together the different bird species in the UK so that we can go walking together and identify some. San Diego has very different birds. So

    So far I’ve read to her some of my favourites or the more interesting ones, like kingfishers, owls, goldcrests, Swans, blue tits, finches etc

    And many of them are very similar, in the ‘breeding’ section. There’s a courtship, female and male make nest, either or both incubate, either feed and then young fledge a few days or weeks later. Same for every bird I’d read so far.

    So, today I had no great expectations for the dunnock. Small grey/blue bird that my only knowledge of really was that it was prime nest material for the devious cuckoo.

    Dunnocks, it transpires practice polyandry and polygamy.

    Dunnocks are the promiscuous of the UK bird life.

    Who knew???

    I certainly didn’t…

    Clearly when the UK birds were deciding their mating patterns, the dunnocks were like ‘sod that, were doing our own thing to survive and reproduce’

    Look again, that little brown ish bird that hangs around with sparrows but hops along the ground…it’s hiding a bit of secret on its ‘relationship status’ more to the point it looks like either male or female it could be in multi relationship, that it seems like, works ok for it

    The thought of promiscuous dunnocks has made me smile all day, so I thought I’d share it with you. Maybe it’s a reminder to me to keep looking for the surprising stories in what appears grey, small and insignificant. M

    Maybe it’s about life and the world being full of surprises waiting to be encountered and explored. Maybe it’s just that I found the surprising sex life of a dunnock funny today was all it was. Sometimes the world has fun for us in places we didn’t realise.

    Even the writers of RSPB birds think so too.

  • Let you be you

    Im talking to you,

    Yes you

    Come closer,

    Come closer

    Look at me,

    Look at me

    I want you to know

    I want you to see

    I want to to tell you

    The truth

    That you are magic

    That you are love

    That you are life

    Breathe

    and let your heart

    let your body

    let the gaps between your breath

    feel

    the magic

    love

    life

    and free

    to be

    Come closer the the magic

    Come closer to the love

    Come closer to the life

    It was there all along

    Inner child running free

    Time to finally be truly me,

    Come closer.

    Let you be.

    Let you be you

    Kicking and screaming

    passionate

    free

    Let you be you

    Dont contain it any longer

    stuck in your mind

    Let you be you

    loving, gentle, kind again

    Let you be you

    all you ever wanted to be

    Let you be you

    the self you once tried to hide

    Let you be you

    as you wonderfully are

    let your magic shine bright

    free

    Come closer,

    to who you are

    Magic, love and free

    Let

    you

    be.