A New Sacred Place...

Peace and Quiet

Yesterday I visited a gem of a place on this little island.  My friend Dianne  who is a fabulous fountain of fascinating facts relating to feminine awesomeness http://www.femininefaceofmoney.com/ and all round cheerleader and great friend, recently told me about this place, and recommended I check it out.

Despite living in the area since 1993, clearly, there are still wonderful surprises that I have yet to discover about this corner of our world.

This little park, has a great and healing atmosphere with its exquisite views of the water, under-stated asian style landscape -  that doesn't distract from the natural beauty that surrounds, but also lends a person to go inside and experience ones own inner landscape....

Everything has obviously been done with so much care and thought... here's a few more photo's so you can see what I mean...

A wise owl welcomes visitors...

A smiling fox (or bear) beckons..

A Tibeten Prayer Wheel... look at the detail...

Surrounding the base is this quote...

"Faith is the daring of the soul to go further than it can see"


This was such a treat, and my first experience with a prayer wheel.  It's presence added great tenor and quiet import to the park.

As directed, I slowly turned the wheel nine times clockwise and said a prayer, on completion of the ninth turn the sound of a deep toned bell resonated from within the hollow wheel, its vibrations moved inside me to my core.

Sitting down, I was able to receive a respite from my over active mind and just be at ease with myself and the world - at least for a little while...

Needless to say, I plan to visit this sacred place often.

Finding My Way Home...

For the past five or six months I have been struggling to write and be creative and reach out.

Its as if my creativity has been held hostage by my emotions...   These past few months, I have experienced loss, betrayal, heartbreak, moved homes, had niggling health issues and little by little my appetite and love of writing, photography, blogging, cooking, art have been edited out of my daily life...

During this time of heartache, it would seem natural to by kind and gentle, to feed myself tender morsals of  inspiration, little truffles of delight to coax myself back to my center,  back to my alive and vital self but rather, I have struggled - literally my heart just wasn't in "it" - or anything for that matter, and rather than nourish, I have starved myself of expression.

When I started "A Year Of Finding Love," I really thought that I could write every single day about some reflection of love..  some might say (naively) that I didn't plan for those little moments when the road of life hits a pothole or two, and gets messy, or someone you love dies... I didn't take into consideration the impact of life's "little circumstances"  and how they might throw me off course for months on end...

But here's the ironic thing, denying my creativity is also the same as denying myself the opportunity to create myself back out of the world of grey-ness - its my escape ladder when the house is burning down... - I just figured that out - like... today!!!

After months in this state - and seeing no end in sight I've decided to tell myself in the immortal words of Cher in the movie "Moonstruck" (to Nicholas Cage,) "SNAP OUT OF IT" (I decided the words are enough and no, I don't need a slap across the face to grasp the reality of it all - remember - I'm going to try and be gentler with myself...)

So, I am going to try and find my way back home I hope to post something most days, energy allowing. The posts may not always be amazing and in fact be less than brilliant, but it is after all my practice to find love, and by allowing less than perfect,  I hope to find love for myself.

With Love and Appreciation

Neinah