Day 44: Nature’s Candelebra

Little Wormwood Horse Chestnut Candles

Thank God we didnt have the Ryanair On-Time fanfair on Sunday night.  The downside was that the flight was late getting in which compounded homeward bound travel plans.  It took me longer to get from Gatwick to West London than it did from Cork to Gatwick.  By the time I got in I was ready for popcorn and caramel fudge chocolates that had been intended for a friend.  No surprise I was still awake at 2am.  Wide awake.

Although my diary was clear on Monday the irritation of not being able to get to sleep chewed at me like a dog on a bone.  Bleary-eyed I let my 10.30am pilates class slide and eventually rose to meet the day as it started its slide from its zenith and I tumbled with it; letting time tumble like rushing water through my fingers, focused on the frustration of failing to catch and hold it and make it productive, missing out on the tickle of its joyful falling.  Eventually as the light began to fade I huddled myself out the door and up to Little Wormwood Scrubs, the knobble of a park at the top of my street separated from its big brother scrubs by Scrubs Lane a gash of tarmacadam running a rivulet of traffic from North to South.

I knew I was irritable.  I was struck by how the big letters of irritablity, frustration scratched like a briar across my frontal lobe consciousness tearing up my emotions and fanning the fires of dissatisfaction.  I knew I had the power to shift and that is why I had to take each leaden step to somewhere green, somewhere I could be surrounded by nature doing its thing, where anything my small mind could latch on to would be so irrelevant as to be laughable.  I wasnt sure that nature would be enough, this park is a familar place, I love its pretend wildness in this rather sedate of neighbourhoods but I wasnt expecting too much awesomeness.  I definitely wasnt expecting the rush of joy I experienced when I saw the avenue of Horse Chestnut candles – a breeze of kisses on the wind to blow my cobwebs away and nourish my heart.  When I got home I was inspired to check out if the horse chestnut, Aesculus Hippocastanum, has any medicinal properties.  It turns out that the chestnut bud Bach Flower remedy is prescribed for those who fail to learn the lessons of life, who find themselves repeating the same mistakes over again.  That is a sobering thought but it leaves me grateful for my heart that ensured that I received the remedy.

100 Days of Awe is a playful project I set up to bring my attention to awe in my daily life. I see awe as wonder, a mixture of amazement and respect.  I expect the experience of awe to be about perception shifting awareness and that demands a reframing of some sort.  I am excited to see what will awe me on this journey.

Anne K. Scott is an imagination technologist, her work to teach, facilitate and deliver innovation for individuals and business.  She is the creator of FindYourMojo iPHone app.

Anne K. Scott is an imagination technologist, her work to teach, facilitate and deliver innovation for individuals and business.  She is the creator of FindYourMojo a FREE iPHone productivity app. If you are interested in what intuitive coaching can do for you please do contact me.  I support clients all over the world.

Day 43: A Day At The Races

Under 11 Girls Sprint Final, CIT

Sunday May 5th Cork Institute of Technology (CIT) hosted the first day of the 2014 Cork County Juvenile Track & Field Championships.  A big event in for my niece Ella.  She loves running and playing the violin though, not as yet at the same time.  Hail or shine, she is eager to get out for training three times a week.  No one knows if this is a lifetime commitment but her passion and dedication drives on her weary parents and it is only right and fitting to turn up at the stands to cheer her on when the occasion demands.

The Counties are being hosted at the home track of Leevale, her club, so we dont have far to go, troops are galvanised and sandwiches are made straight after Mass on Sunday morning.  Heats are scheduled to start at 12.30pm.  It is a wet, cold and blustery day; friends, family and atheletes are clogged together on the stands for warmth, Irish sociability reigns and pronoucements, denoucements and speculations are shared over chocolate bars, cookies, lukewarm cups of tea and steaming smelly noodle pots. Down on the track a bevy of volunteers manage hurdles, sprint and middle distance runs as well as high jump, hammer throw, long jump and turbo javelin for all junior age groups. There is a plethora of activity from fast starts and false starts to photo finishes and long drawn out finishes.  I find that I have a lump in my throat and tears in my eyes for the striving runners and want to cheer them all on even though I only know my niece and her little knot of musketeers – who together are close to the fastest relay team in the Country.

Sprint heats are eventually called at 2pm.  It takes 3 hrs to line up the final. It is 5.10pm, just minutes before I have to leave to make my flight back to London.  I am down at the finish line, I dont want to miss this race and I dont want to miss my flight.  This is an event fraught with anxiety and tension and although it is all over in 9.22 seconds it is no surprise that there is a splutter of parental outcry at the finish line of a false start percipitating loser’s tears, but it is a controversy without legs; the kids are cold, there was no second gun, they all ran the race and they all crossed the line. Ella is the number one finisher in her club, a mere .17 of a second behind the winner, and stoked for next week’s training session.

100 Days of Awe is a playful project I set up to bring my attention to awe in my daily life. I see awe as wonder, a mixture of amazement and respect.  I expect the experience of awe to be about perception shifting awareness and that demands a reframing of some sort.  I am excited to see what will awe me on this journey.

Anne K. Scott is an imagination technologist, her work to teach, facilitate and deliver innovation for individuals and business.  She is the creator of FindYourMojo a FREE iPHone productivity app. If you are interested in what intuitive coaching can do for you please do contact me.  I support clients all over the world.

Day 42: The Doings Of Little People
They were circling the bus station in Cork to pick me up and I was swallowed up on Friday evening into a world of little people and their doings.  Friday night’s excitement turned into Saturday’s fractiousness.  There were distractions, ditherations; new shoes, music practise, homework, Cloze tests, painting robots and tying shoe laces, walking in puddles, picking curly ferns, making cards of glitz and glam for Tony’s birthday; Tony being Grandpa turning 80 this year.   Mini tantrums, arguments, disagreements, chocolate, popcorn, pancakes, chilli burgers and chips. Sunshine and showers, twinkles and scowls, Britians Got Xtra Talent and finally Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs 2.

100 Days of Awe is a playful project I set up to bring my attention to awe in my daily life. I see awe as wonder, a mixture of amazement and respect.  I expect the experience of awe to be about perception shifting awareness and that demands a reframing of some sort.  I am excited to see what will awe me on this journey.

Anne K. Scott is an imagination technologist, her work to teach, facilitate and deliver innovation for individuals and business.  She is the creator of FindYourMojo a FREE iPHone productivity app. If you are interested in what intuitive coaching can do for you please do contact me.  I support clients all over the world.

Day 46: Smell The Roses

Smell the roses Wednesday!  Oh I do love to pass by Tesco at the North Pole (London W10) for those bargain moments.  A £2 treat to cheer me up while winter lingers morose and melancholy on the street corners.

100 Days of Awe is a playful project I set up to bring my attention to awe in my daily life. I see awe as wonder, a mixture of amazement and respect.  I expect the experience of awe to be about perception shifting awareness and that demands a reframing of some sort.  I am excited to see what will awe me on this journey.

Anne K. Scott is an imagination technologist, her work to teach, facilitate and deliver innovation for individuals and business.  She is the creator of FindYourMojo iPHone app. If you are interested in what intuitive coaching can do for you please do contact me.  I support clients all over the world.

Day 41: Ah Go On

Bus Eireann, Ireland’s public bus service is more red setter than greyhound; cheery and up for short runs rather than lean and long distance, quirky vignettes rather than horror stories.  I was travelling at the front of the bus on my own from Waterford to Cork when Peter quezzed in beside me at Youghal, he breathed a Guinness welcome on me. Sure he was no harm he told me and asked would I join him for a pint in Midleton his final destination.  I bristled, contracted and pursed my lips in irritation. He wouldnt be diverted from his intention, like a dog with a bone I had to shake him off his one track intention with the only thing that works in Ireland – conversation.  The problem with that is that it opens things up for everyone else in the bus to get involved.  The drapper heavy-set chap in the seat behind starts mumbling through the gap about getting the driver to stop at the hospital to pick up his medication because he had trouble with his mind.  I wanted to say that is the trouble with all of us but bit my tongue rather than fan the fires.

Peter, my Guinness breathing companion, for that was his name had now told me about his early life in the USA and his work as a fitter, his wife who did her thing and let him do his – a recipe for a very happy marriage, his 5 children and their scatterling travels to Australia, Amerikay and Germany, the future daughter in law from Poland and the grandson in Canada.  A dewdrop of the Irish diaspora all in one family.  But it all kept coming back to that one drink he wanted to have with me in Wallaces in Midleton.  He would forgive me not having an ould drop of the black stuff and would be happy to share a bottle of wine;  he had never bought a whole bottle of wine.  Despite the inevitablity of this loop in our conversation I was beginning to enjoy Peter.  He told me about his visit to Kilkenny, the homeplace where his 84 yr old brother lives alone.  Before he left that morning he got up and made him porridge, followed by rasher (of bacon) and sausages (he forgot the eggs, though there were plenty there), light the fire and and he washed up the dishes.  He also turned the heating full blast but was sure to turn it off before the brother came down.  I was softened by his caring and his mischeviousness, I noticed the time creased skin on his hands, the neat cleanliness of his nails, the white hair and the sharp lines of the recent haircut, his well worn corduroys and the comfort of his tweed jacket.  We covered a life time in 30km, the hard edges of separation transmuted into the soft burr connection, two lives momentarily intersected.  He was surprised to be at Midleton and had to gather himself abruptly but not before one last try of an invitation.  I held my ground as he mock complained to the bus driver about my lack of compliance.  I watched his jaunty step up the street as he left the poignancy of our interlude behind.

100 Days of Awe is a playful project I set up to bring my attention to awe in my daily life. I see awe as wonder, a mixture of amazement and respect.  I expect the experience of awe to be about perception shifting awareness and that demands a reframing of some sort.  I am excited to see what will awe me on this journey.

Anne K. Scott is an imagination technologist, her work to teach, facilitate and deliver innovation for individuals and business.  She is the creator of FindYourMojo a FREE iPHone productivity app. If you are interested in what intuitive coaching can do for you please do contact me.  I support clients all over the world.

Day 40: White Rabbits & Bumble Bees

The first of the month, a pinch and a punch, the first person to say ‘White Rabbits’ gets a wish.  Well we all forgot this in our house this morning.  I was curious to find out about the origin of this superstition but interestingly there is very little cohesion or consistency about what is to be said or where it came from though it probably originated around the beginning of the 1900s whatever the variation it has the appearance of being nonsensical.  And non-sense was the topic of the day as I sat with Stan Phillips of Readings For Life & Bernadette Phillips of New Insights For Change in the Coastguard Cultural Centre in Tramore, Co. Waterford (Ireland) musing over tea and the remains of lemon drizzle cake.  We were all in agreement that now is all we have and that being in the unknown or the non-sense of life is where magic, serendipity and synchronicity reside.  Just the effortlessness of our meeting had that quality.  Stan & Bernadette are Facebook friends who I had never met, a Facebook message just before 2pm turned into tea by the sea at 3pm.  And how wonderful is that.  Later on my way home I am reminded again of the 1st of the month – this is May the start of  Summer at least by the Celtic calendar and the busy burr of a family of fuzzy bumble bees nuzzling the nectar teats of this flowering hedge.

100 Days of Awe is a playful project I set up to bring my attention to awe in my daily life. I see awe as wonder, a mixture of amazement and respect.  I expect the experience of awe to be about perception shifting awareness and that demands a reframing of some sort.  I am excited to see what will awe me on this journey.

Anne K. Scott is an imagination technologist, her work to teach, facilitate and deliver innovation for individuals and business.  She is the creator of FindYourMojo a FREE iPHone productivity app. If you are interested in what intuitive coaching can do for you please do contact me.  I support clients all over the world.

Day 39: Sometimes Sad Is Ok

Parrot Tulip in Tramore

I lost all heart to write about awe today when I heard about my friend Emile’s death.  Last Summer during my month as a facilitator with the Kalikalos Summer community on the Pelion in Greece I made Emile’s acquaintance.  More than one late Summer evening was spent on the terrace of the local tavernas in Kissos supping on wine and debating life.  Emile was a contemplative soul, with a sharp intellect and an inventor’s mind we shared long careers in the IT business.  A stalwart of the early days of the Kalikalos community he had chosen to step back a little, to live more sustainable for himself, to look after his heart both physically and metaphorically.   Last Sunday as this year’s work campers prepare to roll up their sleeves to launch another season Emile’s heart failed him.  He didn’t recover and passed on his way this 30th day of April.  I am sad, deflated and it feels right and fitting to be introspective with that.

100 Days of Awe is a playful project I set up to bring my attention to awe in my daily life. I see awe as wonder, a mixture of amazement and respect.  I expect the experience of awe to be about perception shifting awareness and that demands a reframing of some sort.  I am excited to see what will awe me on this journey.

Anne K. Scott is an imagination technologist, her work to teach, facilitate and deliver innovation for individuals and business.  She is the creator of FindYourMojo a FREE iPHone productivity app. If you are interested in what intuitive coaching can do for you please do contact me.  I support clients all over the world.

Day 38: Tackling Tory Hill

Ireland is not known for it’s towering mountains but rather its gentle, rolling, ice sculpted slopes of soft boggy earth, furze, fraghan or hort berries and somnulent sheep.  A slow drive across the border from Waterford into Co. Kilkenny and Tory Hill just 44 feet shy of mountain status.  I chickened out on an outing here in December to celebrate the winter solstice sunrise; the warmth of my bed overuled the lure of pagan festivities.  The proposal of a 10am start from my friend Marie, The Sea Gardener – an expert on foraging and nutrition of the sea shore, on a perfectly delightful late Spring day was a far more attractive invitation.  We slide from our slow drive into the rhythm of a gentle climb under the full warm breathe of the sun with canine companions Topsy and Lucy.  This unprepossessing hill revealed its magic at the Marian Cross summit.  To the east the vista stretched across wind turbines to Mount Leinster and Mount Brandon, to the south Tramore’s Catholic Church spire a smudge on the horizon.  A throne to the heavens on a beautiful day like this, the frauchan flowers just beginning to show, it is no surprise this place has a history that stretches back to the Greeks, is associated with druidic tradition and, I discovered on my post visit research has the remnants of the three chambered Faranogue Court Tomb.  In the 1700 and 1800s it was a refuge for Irish outlaws and in fact the name Tory is derived from the Gaelic Toraidh meaning one who is persued by the law.  More recently the hill was identified as an ideal site for a transmission mast but not everyone was in agreement.  A night time mission by torchlight succeeded in dissembling the mast and now only the concrete foundation remains as a reminder not to mess with this hill.

100 Days of Awe is a playful project I set up to bring my attention to awe in my daily life. I see awe as wonder, a mixture of amazement and respect.  I expect the experience of awe to be about perception shifting awareness and that demands a reframing of some sort.  I am excited to see what will awe me on this journey.

Anne K. Scott is an imagination technologist, her work to teach, facilitate and deliver innovation for individuals and business.  She is the creator of FindYourMojo a FREE iPHone productivity app. If you are interested in what intuitive coaching can do for you please do contact me.  I support clients all over the world.

Day 37: Terrific Tramore

I spent my teenage years growing up in a holiday resort.  Living at the top of the hill in the armpit of Tramore Bay Summer nights were alive with the sounds of  ‘down around’,dripping with t he public yearning of Jane Birkin & Serge Gainsborg’s Je t’aime or raspy with Rod Stewart and The First Cut Is The Deepest.  It is still the place I come home to.  In the winter the silent arcades are locked up against the salty fingers of the sea, the hurdy gurdies are hunkered down in the face of boisterous south wester weather.  In April the Easter knock is Summer’s wake up call, Spring has arrived and Tramore is crowned the tidiest town in the province and third in Ireland.  Road markings are being brightened up, there is a major clean up on the beach, sprucing up is the order of the day and outdoor tables are poised for sunny custom.  The beach is a sandspit across Tramore Bay, a wide yawn of sea between the Great Newtown Head, crowned by the ever watchful metal man , and Brownstone head.  Never quite reaching across the Saleens gap the sand heaps and gathers into a conflagaration of tumbling dunes and backs onto a salt marsh that has invaded the folly of a racecourse on Neptune’s territory.  It is a glorious day for a walk and a smooth Americano at T Bay Surf & Eco Centre.

100 Days of Awe is a playful project I set up to bring my attention to awe in my daily life. I see awe as wonder, a mixture of amazement and respect.  I expect the experience of awe to be about perception shifting awareness and that demands a reframing of some sort.  I am excited to see what will awe me on this journey.

Anne K. Scott is an imagination technologist, her work to teach, facilitate and deliver innovation for individuals and business.  She is the creator of FindYourMojo a FREE iPHone productivity app. If you are interested in what intuitive coaching can do for you please do contact me.  I support clients all over the world.

Day 36: Oh I Do Love A Small Airport

Flybe flight from Birmingham at Waterford Airport

I spent my teenage years in Ireland by the sea.  A place called Tramore an angelicized version of the Gaelic meaning ‘big beach’ and it is a wonderful beach.  A three mile sandspit stretching out across Tramore Bay. For about a decade I have had the luxury of being able to fy from London to the local airport in Waterford just a gasp from the back of Tramore unique salt marshes but about 12 months ago flights were discontinued. By default I assumed I woud have to travel home via Dublin, a tedious journey involving a 4 hour coach trip at the Irish end.

Perchance I discover there is life beyond London and there are regional flights from theBirmingham, Manchester & Newquay in the UK to Waterford.  On Sunday I decided to try out the afternoon flight from Birmingham.  Conveniently located just off junction 6 on the M42 a friend was able to drop me off en route from Stoke, where we had celebrated yesterday’s wedding Layers Of Love = Magic, to London.  A dinky little hub of activity thronged with travellers and adorned with multi-cultural posters I was transported to the cusp of exotic travel in the blink of an eye.  Queueing for security just heightened the tension.  It all seemed to be happening at Birmingham.  The other side of security had everything to serve the expectant traveller.  Unfortunately I noted that my flight was delayed.  However I had not accounted for the creativity of this little airport.  Afte a little vascilation an alternative plane was found and the departure gate was opened with 15 minutes to spare.  We had to bus it across the tarmac but en route it seemed we had mislaid a passenger or two so had to return to pick them up.  We were 20 minutes late heading out on the runway but the pilot assured us that we would make up time.  Despite the meandering of a scenic approach along the very beautiful Wexford coast and a long winded tracjectory directly across Tramore Bay, across the marram tufted expanse of dunes and the tranquil back strand we screeched into land a mere 9 minutes la at 15.29.  A flight time of around 45 minutes. By 15.35 I was through passport control, past the entrance perimeter and walking down the airport approach to the country back road to meet my Dad who was primed to jump into his car at home on receipt of my landing text but not before turning down the friendly offer of a lift from a lady who didnt give a thought for where I might be heading. Oh I do love  a small airport.

100 Days of Awe is a playful project I set up to bring my attention to awe in my daily life. I see awe as wonder, a mixture of amazement and respect.  I expect the experience of awe to be about perception shifting awareness and that demands a reframing of some sort.  I am excited to see what will awe me on this journey.

Anne K. Scott is an imagination technologist, her work to teach, facilitate and deliver innovation for individuals and business.  She is the creator of FindYourMojo a FREE iPHone productivity app. If you are interested in what intuitive coaching can do for you please do contact me.  I support clients all over the world.