Sacred Life Sunday - week 2 - Safety and Security

picture copyright: Susan Seddon Boulet

I have been very blessed through my life to always be loved and protected, not only by my family, but by friends as well. In fact many of my friends have become my adopted family, with some being held so close to my heart it hurts when I think how very far away they are today. I have forged bonds so deep through circumstance, be that travelling through a foreign country or depending upon each other during our hours of care for other people, that whenever I have felt lost or alone I have know always that somebody, somewhere loves me and that there will always be someone there to pick me up when I fall.

But never have these special bonds held me back and taken from me my independence. My father, the wisest man I know, has always said that he knows he cannot save me from making mistakes and even if he could it would be unfair to do so. He knows instinctively that if he were to wrap me in a bubble and keep me from harm I would never grow. It has been so hard for him at times to stand back and watch me struggle through things on my own, making mistakes he could see before me and fighting the unfairness of the world around me - yet each and every time he has stood by, watching and waiting for me to turn to him, knowing that only when I ask should he act. And I have always known, without a doubt, that when things fall apart and I feel I can go on no longer, as soon as I turn he will be there, ready to pick up the pieces alongside me, brush me down, pat me on the back and see me back onto the path. His love is, for me, the ultimate expression of a father whose love and protection understands that mistakes are a part of life and trying to banish them from my life would do more harm than good.

And that love reminds me of an even greater security I have in my life - my belief in the unconditional love of god, the universe, the angels, spirits and all that live in our world. I don't know what your own personal belief is in regards to the unseen energies in our world, but for me they have always been a great influence in my life. Through the years I have learnt to see each mistake, each hardship as a chance to learn and grow, a chance to build up compassion for others in similar situations, to understand that life is made up of both aspects - good and bad, light and dark, health and sickness, joy and sadness... and through the years I have come to see the blessing in being allowed to experience both sides of life. Without my most painful experiences I would no more understand my happiest times than I would an expression of love without ever having experienced the lack of it. And without those trying times I would have no idea of how strong I am or just how loved I can be.

But the one thing that keeps me going through both the good times and the bad is the knowledge that on all levels I am loved and protected. Nothing can harm my essence, so long as I remember the love sent to me from all sides. I might forget this, I might feel like a helpless victim at times and I have certainly felt like I may never find my way through the pain at certain moments in my life - but each time some part of me has come through to remind me of the safety that will never be taken away from me. And so I leave you with the following poem that I wrote some years back, which seems to fit this Sacred Sunday posting so well it's as if I wrote it knowing one day it would be shared this day with you.

Safe in your arms

You hold me tight

whispering sweet love songs

until my heart breaks.

You give me time

with bated breath

as my world unfolds before us.

With tender love and gentle grace

you hold my hand

and let me go.

And now I know

love awaits me there

safe in your arms.

Recipe disasters

Ok... so sorry for leaving you all hanging from that last post. Work called and I had no time to finish my post again!

So these cakes of mine - not what I planned at all but rather scrumptious (so I am told). I had wanted to bake a spelt flour carrot cake for New Year's Day to take to T's parents' house. We were going to have dinner with his parents and his sister and brother-in-law whose house we had been staying at and I thought it would be nice to take a little gift. And as I cannot eat wheat I thought the spelt flour would work (for those of you who don't know spelt is an ancient form of wheat so unlike all the other non-wheat flours which require crazy adaptions to the recipes to make them work, spelt flour is pretty much the same as wheat - and I can digest it even though I can't digest wheat - weird that and something I attribute to the genetic modifications of wheat in the 70s).

So I got everything ready, only to find I was lacking baking powder. Here in the UK we don't all keep baking powder in the cupboard because we tend to use self-raising flour. So that's what I did... I went onto the self-raising and threw the plan of making a me-friendly cake out the window (it wouldn't be the first or last time I've baked something I couldn't then enjoy lol). So I got the carrots to prepare, only to discover that the only grater I could find in the entire kitchen was a parmesan one... oh how long it took me to grate all those carrots on such a fine grater!! But I finally got there and added the oil (instead of butter), sultanas, walnuts, sugar and flour and mixed until my arm felt like it might drop off and then mixed some more... then into the oven it went.

A couple of hours later it still wasn't cooked through to the middle *sigh*. Either my recipe was flawed or it just wasn't baking because I'd put it in the top part of the oven. I have only rarely used electric ovens so it could have been that but I think it was more likely to be the recipe because the one in the cookbook I used was so far removed from the one I have used previously it was almost another type of cake entirely!!

So at gone 10pm on New Year's Eve I threw out the spoiled cake and started afresh, this time on a recipe I didn't need a cookbook for - the good old Victoria sponge. It's a good job I didn't need the recipe book because it called for 6 eggs - SIX EGGS?!?! I'm sorry but no cake I have ever made has used that many eggs!

I'm sure you all know the basic cake recipe, but just in case you don't, it is usually 6oz flour, 6oz buter, 6oz sugar and 2 eggs. Nice and simple. Cream the butter and sugar together, fold in the flour and eggs, mix well until creamy with a good dropping consistency and place in a greased pan and bake in the oven until golden brown and springy to the touch.

The end product was, to my relief, a success. There was me telling T that I couldn't cook but I was a fantastic baker and the very first cake I baked for him was a disaster - oh the shame!! So in order to prove to him that it was just a fluke I decided to bake some ginger biscuits for him to take home to his family after he visited me this weekend. This was another recipe I had tried before with much success and so I knew it should work out well.

Again I was going to use spelt flour, but guess what... my spelt flour was now out of date *pouts*. So again it was back to the good old self-raising. But what was this? We had no self-raising... good job I now had baking powder and could make the biscuits with the plain flour in the cupboard lol. One day I will have a fully stocked baking cupboard, just you wait and see!

I cannot show you a picture of the finished biscuits because I don't have a camera - but they went down well with all who ate them so I am assured they tasted good. Below is the original recipe taken from my Lincoln Cathedral Cookery Book and then the adapted recipe (which is also one and a half the amount in the original because I wanted extra biscuits. My version was not of a consistency that would roll into balls, so I just plopped dollops of the mixture onto the greased trays and they still came out crunchy round the edges but chewy underneath so all was well!)

The original recipe by Ann Marsh of Lincoln

8oz self-raising flour
2 5ml teaspoons ground ginger
pinch salt
8 oz demerara sugar
4 oz butter
1 egg, beaten
1 tablespoon milk
almonds

Set oven at 325 F/170 C/ Gas mark 3. Sift flour, ginger, and salt and add sugar. Rub in fat. Add beaten egg and milk. Mix well and form into 36 balls. Place on greased tray and flatten a little. place a split almond on each and bake for 30 minutes.

My alterations

12oz plain flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
3 5ml teaspoons ground ginger
1 5ml teaspoon cinnamon
pinch salt
12 oz demerara sugar
6oz butter
1 and a half eggs, beaten
1 and a half tablespoon milk
almonds

prepare as above.

Let me know if you try the ginger biscuits and how they turn out.

Cakes and biscuits

First of all I'd like to say thank you to everybody who has left me comments over the past week or so. I have loved reading each and every one and would have loved to reply too, but it has been a rather busy week and my time online has been a bit limited.

I just wrote a post about my baking over the past few weeks but I lost it at the last moment and have to run off... so I shall try and get it rewritten over the next couple of days - pop back for a ginger biscuit recipe and tales about how I finally got round to baking the abover cakes!

Sacred Life Sunday week 1 - life is sacred

I am very excited to be beginning my (hopefully) weekly Sunday posting, exploring the Sacred in my life. Sacred Life Sunday is something I stumbled across at the beginning of last week and thought I would join in with. Too often I find myself having random musings which I find no place for on this blog, so Sundays will be my day for considering the Sacred and Divine. Even more than this, it will remind me to truly value what has been given to me in this life and make me focus on how truly blessed life can be.

And so, I spent most of this week looking forward to this day, but once it arrived I was unsure as to where to begin. I didn't want to write masses that detracted from the sheer beauty of simplicity - sometimes the most sacred things in our lives are the simple things we overlook. It is so easy to become so entwined with the latest scientific theories, fantastic gadgets and sweet-talking guru that we forget that in fact all we ever needed was already in our hands. Life is given to us, without explanation, and the simple wonder of how a grain of sand is formed, the child grows in the womb or the tree blossoms each spring can be all we need to remind us of the sacred blessing that is life.

And so I leave you with this beautiful poem, which I recently re-discovered, that sums up for me the complete sacred-ness of life itself. Enjoy!

Creation

You were made

under the sea

your ear gives you away.

You were made

in the calyx of a rose

your skin betrays you.

You were made in heaven

your eyelids as you sleep

cannot disguise themselves.

You were brought to me

by a giant kite

his wings stir white

on my face still.

Never say you grew

from a seed in my body

the dandelion brought you

the spring brought you

a star with brilliant hands

delivered you

leaving his light in your eyes

as a seal, and a promise.

Jeni Couzyn

PHOTOS!!!!!!!

T just sent me the photos we took at New Year with his mum's camera and also told me he is bringing it up with him at the weekend so I am going to make sure I take enough pictures to keep blogging with pictures for some time - YAY!

And so, here are the photos I promised in this post of our New Year Collage - enjoy!


So this is what happens when I haven't had a camera in soooooooooo long - I just go crazy and forget how to take normal pictures tee hee. This shot was taken during our cutting session on New Year's Eve...

It was midday by this point I think but I was being totally lazy and still sitting there in my pjs, after eating my Coco Pops (haven't had them in years lol) and watching T demolish what was left of the bacon, eggs and mushrooms for brunch!

Ahhhh I finally made it into my clothes (well it was the evening by the time we got to this point... we were gluing the final pieces as the bells rung out the New Year!

T being so wonderful and creative - I can't believe that he enjoys these things as much as I do *gasps* (Did you notice the pink post-it note on the drawer in the background? His sister left us loads - including a "Drink me" on a bottle of wine lol)

And that's the final product *sighs*. It is everything we want to create in our life and should currently by stuck on T's wall opposite his bed so he can see it each morning. But as I managed to bring the Blu Tack we bought for it home with me it is still sat in the corner of his room... not the best of starts then?!

And that's just a picture of me and T because I have yet to have a good photo of the two of us and I am so happy this self-taken one actually turned out well! He's only just got those glasses - before he had rimless ones so it took me most of the New Year period to get used to seeing him in them hehehe

There are more photos, loads of them, but I will keep them for later posting :o)

Oh how I wish I had a camera

Because then I could show you all sorts of things...

Like what my darling T looks like

And the peg bag I made for my mum for Christmas

Or the baby blanket I am making for my sister's friend's current bump

I could even show you the scarf I just started crocheting to send to Germany, including how my first row was too tight, as usual, and how I tried to combat this by dropping a stitch in a later row and how this was a big mistake because the row was in triple crochet stitch and I now have a very visible "mistake". I could even tell you how instead of being a good little crocheter and going back to rectify the problem I carried on and added a stitch in the next single crochet stitch row *sigh*... and all because I have three scarves to make in a short length of time...

So maybe it's a good thing I can't actually show you my error... because then you might just have to step in and tell me that I just have to go back and change it even though I am now about ten rows further along my completely pattern free scarf that will probably be completely wrong by the time I finish... go on... you can say it... what a bad little crafter I am!!

Just because...

I didn't want you left with just a random dream to read about I thought I would share something nice... so here's a poem for you, chosen from a random bag of paperwork I still have to sort through (have I mentioned I am on another one of my "spring cleans"?)

This one was written during a play rehearsal when I was in Russia... as the play was 3+ hours long and I only had 5 lines throughout the whole thing and had only been graced with one sheet of the actual play (they could have at least given me the whole scene I was in!!) I spent many hours sat, trying to find something to amuse myself with *quietly* so as not to disturb the rehearsal that was going on...

One day I suggested that my friend give me 3 things to write a story about. "Be as random as you like - I like a challenge" I said... so she was. Her three things were: 1) Cabbage fields, 2) pink elephants, and 3) Marlon Brando.

Now before you ask, Marlon Brando was a major fav of our Russian group and he turned up in a lot of our Russian tales (as in tales we told each other in order to learn our Russian vocab - we had 10 words a week we had to use in the tale). So it was no surprise that he came up once again... but how would pink elephants and cabbage fields work?

Here is the product, written in about 20 mins, and laughed about for much longer - I hope you enjoy it!

Down by the stream, in the middle of the wood
where the mushrooms grow and the food's all good,
there you will find the most amazing scene -
a herd of elephants; pink, white and green.

The elephants see each day as a game -
they'll run and they'll joke, jokes so good and so lame,
the elephants, they will laugh all day long
but one little 'phant thinks something is wrong...

So off on his travels this little 'phant goes
but where he is going, no elephant knows,
they watch his tail swish as he trundles away
maybe they'll meet him again one fine day.

The elephant who was so pink and so small
wanted to wander, to see and know all,
so wander he did from east to the west
up north and down south - to see all was the best!

He wandered and wandered through all kinds of weather
over hills and through dales, through the pink and blue heather,
through the fields which in winter were covered in snow
and fields where in summer the cabbages grow.

But this poor little elephant never did find
that thing that was missing to his little mind,
one day he was ready to give up the fight
when suddenly a man came into his sight.

The man and the elephant came face to face
the elephant's heart started quickly to race,
the man stuck his hand out to meet little 'phant
who offered his trunk to the man with a pant.

"What is you name?" asked the man with a smile
the elephant stopped and thought for a while,
"I really don't know," he said, truly wishing...
"I think I have found what I feel I am missing!"

"What are *you* called?" asked the 'phant of the man
"Marlon Brando," he said, "my mum was a fan!"
"Of what?" asked the 'phant, knowing nothing of stars
"Of a man in a film in a land not too far."

"Oh!" cried the 'phant and he jumped with delight
"I might take that name, really I might."
"Why not?" asked the man, "if it makes you so happy,
It's such a fine name for such a fine chappy!"

And so with a name that suited him well
the elephant started for where his friends dwell
"I've found what I'm lacking, now I can go home
oh how they will smile when the see how I've grown."

And so as he came to that place in the wood
where the elephants play and life is so good,
he heard a great cry of delight and such joy
from every small elephant, each girl and each boy.

"What did you see, dear friend, what did you learn,
did you find what it was that you yearned?"
"Yes," Marlon cried, "It's the simplest thing,
it's a gift for you all, it's a gift that I bring!"

And so little Marlon gave each one a name -
never were two elephants called the same,
and today as they play in the depth of the wood
each one has a name that is strong and so good!!

Copyright Amanda Fisher 2005