On my long and winding healing path I learned about the power of visualisation, although I think I have always felt that in order to achieve anything you have to have a very clear vision of what it is you are working towards. My healing journey through Reiki taught me that this holding of a vision is very important even if you have no idea of how you are going to achieve your goal.

The title of my blog is no cutesy attempt to lure in readers with the promise of coffee and freshly baked scones (although both are often available). No, From The Kitchen Table is so called because that is exactly where I write from – my kitchen table. I yearn and ache for a room of my own in which I could write without distraction or disturbance.

My ideal writing space would be a cabin at the end of my garden, just under the Hawthorn tree. This cabin is fully heated and insulated making it cosy in winter. It also has a little veranda running around outside for summer days. Inside my cabin is a rocking chair for thinking, a stove for brewing coffee and a desk by the window from where I could write.

I see lots of plants and a bed in the corner for visiting cats. The walls are decked in colourful batiks and hangings and paintings that speak to my soul. There is a wicker basket which holds some beautiful blue, turquoise and green throws from Avoca Handweavers for extra winter warmth. Just inside the door, on the floor are my special furry writing slipper boots. There are shelves holding my reference books, dictionaries and books of poetry. On my desk sits my laptop, notebooks, scribble pads and a large candle.

Can you see it? I am there right now. As I hold this vision and will and dream it into being I am reminded of a poem I learned at school,

The Old Woman Of The Road by Padraic Colum.

O, to have a little house!

To own the hearth and stool and all!
The heaped up sods against the fire,
The pile of turf against the wall!

To have a clock with weights and chains
And pendulum swinging up and down!
A dresser filled with shining delph,
Speckled and white and blue and brown!

I could be busy all the day
Clearing and sweeping hearth and floor,
And fixing on their shelf again
My white and blue and speckled store!

I could be quiet there at night
Beside the fire and by myself,
Sure of a bed and loth to leave
The ticking clock and the shining delph!

Och! but I’m weary of mist and dark,
And roads where there’s never a house nor bush,
And tired I am of bog and road,
And the crying wind and the lonesome hush!

And I am praying to God on high,
And I am praying Him night and day,
For a little house – a house of my own
Out of the wind’s and the rain’s way.

Where do you write from?
Photo is of the old shed which is currently occupying the space for my writing cabin… under the Hawthorn tree!

WISE UP

Power, Wisdom and the Older Woman

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