Beltaine

Greetings on this Beltaine morning!

The sun is currently breaking through a chink in the leaden grey sky and lighting the leaves on trees in my line of sight. The leaves are glowing a fresh, bright green on one tree and on the other, a rich coppery colour; set against the dark grey of the sky, it looks utterly beautiful. The light is bouncing off the roof of a garden shed in silvery layers and the leaves of my neighbour's bamboo are dancing in the breeze.

Today feels like a new beginning. It's not just the hackneyed idea that I ought to feel something fresh and new today, but I really do. I spent two hours with a Medical Herbalist yesterday on my first appointment and as part of the process, I had to tell her all about my life, my illnesses and medical history. That was a fascinating thing to do; apart from anything else, it made me realise that we present ourselves in many differing ways to different audiences. I tried to be as objective as I could, and realised that I have been, on the whole, as healthy as a horse throughout my life. That was a nice discovery.

Rather than taking notes in the way the medical profession do, Shelly, the Medical Herbalist, just let me ramble and flicked through her tick boxes and paperwork as I did some real stream of consciousness talking about me. She's an incredibly articulate and intelligent woman and her ability to let things flow without getting in the way of the process was fabulous. I left feeling like I knew myself a lot better and understood my situation more clearly than I have for a number of years. I know that I'm not floundering around in this morass of menopausal ineffectiveness and that I have, without being hugely conscious of it, been putting structures and strategies in place to get my life to how I want it to be. That was just such a great thing to realise!

What was more remarkable was that I felt so energised and was bouncing around on my chair as I was talking about this, that and the other. It feels as if life is starting to trickle back through my veins.

I did something new as well today. After writing the top part of this blog in the morning, I headed off to the beautician and as I had a manicure booked, I sat back and enjoyed the pampering. When it came to selecting the colour for my nails, she whipped out a deep purple nail varnish and looked hopeful. Now, anyone who has known me for ten minutes will know that one of my favourite rants is about the 'fashion pagan' dripping with pentacles and purple nail varnish! I have never worn this colour on my nails as a matter or principle, but today, I decided to give it a go. I rather suspect it looks as though I have trapped my fingernails in the door jamb, but there has to be a first time for everything and this is my salute to the purple hat!

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The Lady must have seen the funny side of things as, on the way home, all traffic was held up by a gang of Aylesbury ducks waddling very slowly over the main road to the village so that they could dabble in a large, muddy puddle. She waited until I had got into the house before the skies opened and then, as the rain stopped, we got a double rainbow over the village! I took a picture and it's hard to see the upper rainbow, but to the eye, they were very bright and clear.

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Hey! Maybe I should stick with purple polish rather than my normal scarlet...