Tip Toe Tapestry

Many weeks have passed since the chattering pebbles of Findhorn beach whispered on these pages. Months have slipped by, and have seen the short wintry days gradually stretch into one of the hottest summers Scotland has known under long, light days. Time keeps its steady march forward and another autumnal equinox has passed. The days smartly shorten as the pace towards winter gathers speed, hewing daylight minutes daily until those times when the working day starts and finishes in darkness, and we see little of our neighbours.

And still the pages have been empty, my writing soul not yet ready to pick up the pen.

The longer the silence continues, the more deafening it becomes. Venturing back onto this space means I must tread softly and gently, testing the firmness of the ground as I timidly move forward.

At the start of the year, I set out my three word mantra. Search. Settle. Weave. And over the past months I have been pushing forward with a long search. I have been nurturing my soul and seeking to encourage the growth of roots ready to settle, slowly drawing out the threads to weave the tapestry of what is my new and different life.

Tapestry – The Tree of Life

As the year began, I knew that I had a long and deep search ahead. I had been looking for meaningful work, but not quite sure in which direction I was headed. My age definitely counted against me, and experience which seemed not to match needs back in my home country made it difficult to find clarity around a professional role. Oh, and the winter which swept through with a rare ferocity which kept us in a grip of unusual cold and deep snow over a number of weeks making it hard to move forward. A meeting of like minds and a timely opening brought some interesting tasks my way and the opening of a meaningful role which I have been delighted to take up. Slowly my search for purpose has found a path and direction. With this stability, I am extending my search for a place to call “home”. These things take time, and energy which I need to muster as the threads of this part of the woven picture emerges. I look towards the end of the year with hope and optimism that I will have a clearer sense of where this search might lead me. Thus, when I look back to my first post of the year, I am encouraged to see that my searching has brought me a renewed sense of purpose, greater clarity and stability.

I have been longing to settle. The past three years have seen such enormous change in every area of my life and now gradually I feel that the turbulence is calming. Search and settle are intertwined and almost interdependent. Settling relies to an extent on the searching leading to finding. But not entirely. Stability through work, as well as processing the various painful elements of being lone again and moving towards a more healing place, combine to lead to a more settled state. Settle is a comforting, healing goal to aim towards. I am gradually settling and the threads of this part of life are also beginning to form an image.

My third word brings the other two words together figuratively as well as literally. They provide the necessary foundations for the third word – weave. Those threads of my life which were loose, cut or unravelled are all becoming apparent. I feel now as if the weaving has begun, the different strands are emerging, growing and moving into place ready to weave a picture which has strength, stability, clarity and which can shape into an image of beauty and inspiration.

I am ready to move gingerly forward, tip-toeing softly as the tapestry of my future begins to form. There are many images in that tapestry to define as that process of weaving begins to move forwards.