Song for Louis

"All the stars are coming out tonight,
They're lighting up the sky tonight
For You, For You"

Louis and Me

Louis stayed last night. Most thoughtfully, he decided to go to sleep before Carole and I sat down to our evening meal. It's a real joy when he stays. It seems so easy to understand how he lives his life. His presence is magical and he is a blessing. He loves to interact and play, eat when he's hungry, be changed when he needs changing, have a roll on the floor after lunch and a little excursion in his pushchair in the fresh air to watch the river flow. He is enjoying a little story before sleep time. I know that sleep time is approaching when he gives the signals - repeated yawns, the rubbing of his eyes or a vocal request in the form of a little moan of displeasure, usually when he begins, with some frustration, to assault the particular story book he's reading. The last occasion he stayed with us was on New Year's eve. He woke just before midnight!
This morning we paid a visit to a friend's ceramic studio to see if Louis' footprint plate was ready. He really isn't keen on the waterproof hood of his pushchair, preferring to feel the raindrops on his face as we walk to the studio. We were there last week. He was so fascinated by having the soles of his little feet painted! I realised how difficult it was too, trying to get a perfect footprint, but I think the right foot smudged one looks just fine -- and as I gave up 'perfection' a few moons ago, what does it matter? - anyway I think it represents Louis at his present age - full of beans and not being still enough for one of his more lively moments to be held still in paint! When we arrived, he was excited as ever and keen to have a look around the studio. He certainly seemed to enjoy meeting my friend and her two children (who were busy painting plates at the time).
This afternoon we enjoyed a family sunday lunch together, sharing news, plenty of laughter and lots of catching up. Just a lovely warm occasion. Louis slept for the first part of the meal but joined us later, full of smiles and completely interested in everything that was going on around the dining room table. Everyone, it seems has adjusted in getting back to work, some more than others. A busy month ahead with family and friends birthdays. As we said our goodbyes at the end of the afternoon, I finally managed to hand over over the potted-up amaryllis bulbs to family members, which hopefully will be in full bloom by late February. Time is flying!

January 2008 Pluto enters Capricorn

Well, the Sun will be moving out of an earth sign and into the air of Aquarius today, representing a significant 'shift' in energies. The practicalities of life and the honouring of tradition and boundaries give way to big ideas and change over the coming weeks. Some interesting movements of the heavenly bodies in the month ahead including a retrograde Mercury. (Watch those phones, computers and communications with significant others!). Still, many souls in the astrological networks are tuned into the BIG event coming up in a few days time. For the past 13 years, Pluto, "the great transformer" in astrology, has been penetratively moving through Sagittarius (ideals and spirituality). Just remember all the big eruptive changes experienced in religious organisations over the past decade, from the 'conventional' to the more extreme and 'unconventional') -----------and even the Da Vinci Code (book) moved (slowly) to "bestseller" status!!! So, was your search for your truth realised during Pluto's transit through Sagittarius? On 25th January Pluto enters the earth sign, Capricorn, for the first time in 230 years! Capricorn - I'm thinking of convention, structures, authority, discipline and authorities, tradition, Saturn, self employment and 'big' organisations --- and I think of Afghanistan, Albania, India, Orkney and Shetland. Pluto's task is to bring in the changes so that transformations come about. Its going to be the start of something interesting!

"A Rose Will Bloom"

"A rose will bloom
And then will fade
So doth a youth
So doth the fairest maid"

Romeo and Juliet - William Shakespeare

Thought for today - Extract from Fire and Rain song by James Taylor

"Just yesterday morning they let me know you were gone
Susanne the plans they made put an end to you
I walked out this morning and I wrote out this song
I just can't remember who to send it to

I've seen fire and I've seen rain
I've seen sunny days that I thought would never end
I've seen lonely times when I could not find a friend
But I always thought that I'd see you again

Won't you look down upon me Jesus
You've got to help me make a stand
You've got to see me through another day
My body's aching
And my time is at hand
And I won't make it any other way"

Whispering the Sadness of That Old Song

"In the early morning rain
With a dollar in my hand
And an aching in my heart
And my pockets full of sand
I'm a long way from home
Lord I miss my loved ones so
In the early morning rain
With no place to go"

Dangerous Liaisons

Do you remember
When I told you that I loved you
And nervously, with disbelief you smiled and said "I love you too"
But that just wasn't going to last
Because in every hoping will come the fading
Like the sadness in a million falling autumn leaves
Nothing ever lasts
And you knew it too
All those giggles and laughs and shared times
That seemed so very special
And in the leaving we said we'd "be in touch"
And I knew then but couldn't say it to you
What it was I felt
But don't you know just how difficult real friendship can be
That fragile pressure of commitment
And the frightening intimacy of knowing another, a comfort too close for most
While you'd rather keep on travelling on and on
Searching for it out there and not inside
When you're living that life
I wonder how you do it?
How perfected in the art of making friends you must be
In that connection
You made with me
Only to leave me with your space and disappointment
And in moments of quietness I wonder "Were you ever left too"?

A Winter's Tale

Don't you just love the gardens at this time of year? Definitely a 'suspended animation' sort of energy about those exposed cold green spaces at the moment. Although the wallflowers were planted late in the autumn, they've really driven down strong, firm roots now and are standing proud in beautiful deep green clumps in different corners and spaces of the garden. We've moved the old birdtable from the back to the front recently and are really enjoying the daily garden visits and antics of the sparrows, blue-tits, blackbirds and robins. This morning, it looked like the starlings were the busiest though. Louis continues to growand is almost standing. He's also become a keen birdwatcher, fascinated by our feathered friends, smiling, chuckling and dancing up and down as he gazes out of the front window, tightly gripping the chairback cushion. Snowdrop, crocus and daffodil shoots are springing up all over, I think, responding to that horticulturally-perfect blend of raised air temperatures and regular showers. I love indoor plants too at this time - such a variety of form, colour and fragrance to transform the cold winter days. Most of the Christmas cacti (mainly Zygocactus truncatus) are approaching the end of their flowering cycle. In recent years, they seemed to have felt the benefit of a 'summer holiday' in the open air in a sheltered spot in the back yard during August and September. The hippeastrums (var.Red Lion), potted up after Christmas, are sitting, majestically in a light front lobbyway for the time being, these will be brought into a slightly warmer place inside the the house, once their main shoots /stems are underway. The pots of china blue and white hyacinths have been so beautifully abundant this year, filling our rooms with heavenly fragrance over Christmas and New Year. In a week or so's time the little potted Jasmine will bloom, spilling tiny white starry flowers over its miniature sword-like foliage. It's scent will bless the air and lighten up darkened rooms on those grey days over the coming weeks.