Category Archives: Nature

Avrum Frankel made Vegetables come alive

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Perfect imperfection and growing where we are planted.

There I was on a mission…. Proud Mother going to support my son Avrum doing a cooking demonstration at the Holkham Food and Drink Festival this week-end as he is Head Chef at The White Horse at Brancaster Staithe.

Even tweeted (a new found tool) that I would be proudly videoing it and announcing with great confidence to their lovely PR lady that I would be on the case.

It all started so well – bristling with pride, full of confidence in my “new found” video abilities, basking in my son’s success, having my lovely grandchildren by my side. It would be perfect this time. I know, this is quite cringeworthy on my part! Hmmmmm.  Of course, we sat in the front with my supportive demeanour shinning out. What could possibly go wrong …

Is it any wonder that at a crucial point the whole thing started to unravel…. my IPad told me with great delight it was going to stop recording. The Universe certainly works in clever ways but without missing a beat I switched to my phone. Phew!…. it was only after that I realised that I had cut Avrum’s head off almost throughout, I had also recorded my youngest grandson being very assertive about his need to pee – he is in full flow of being potty trained and my rather terse tone saying “in a minute!” In my defence and combined with his willpower, no accident happened.

Avrum sailed through all this singing the praises of all the local producers with heartfelt passion, naming them all saying how fantastic they are. Really celebrating the Spirit of Place. He made vegetables come alive and what shone through him was his love of this part of Norfolk and what it has to offer. So the video you can see is just a taster of what is on offer. He certainly embodied the phrase grow where you are planted. As a family we certainly love where we live.

VegetablesPerfeck Pork

What I have learned over the years is to laugh at myself when it all becomes about me and at least the Universe meets me half way and mirrors the error of my ways. I can laugh with delight at perfect imperfection and a shortened video is more than enough, less is more …

Crush

 

Creativity, Nature and Meditation

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Creativity, Nature and Meditation have formed an incredible support system for me throughout an extraordinarily eventful time this summer. Birthdays, a big wedding, an exciting birth and a funeral – all part of the rich tapestry of life.

Without this support perhaps the overwhelm of emotion would have been too much as all these events came along like busses!  How creativity is part of our natural support system fascinates me and I decided to take part in an e-course on connecting to nature and ourselves as a way of my exploring this further, particularly as I am planning to write about this in more detail. I have already touched on it in my book “Healing the Ouch of Disappointment” which will be coming out soon.

We are only at the end of week one of the course and I can’t believe how much all my senses have been rewired yet again. I thought I would be roaming the countryside far and wide and yet have found extraordinary wonder and delight on my own doorstep. It has reminded me of a lovely expression “grow where you are planted”.  The wonderful spirit of place is definitely on that doorstep….

The video is about the hidden miniature world in nature that we only take time to notice when we stand still, contemplate and “wonder….”. The exquisite fragility of the young sprig coming out of the bark of the massive eucalyptus tree in our garden sparked my curiosity to explore the microcosm in our garden. Another expression that came into my head was “out of acorns, oak trees grow”.

All this made me reflect on how, despite our apparent fragility, we can be incredibly strong when we see where we have sprung from. This was even more poignant for me as my fourth grandson decided to be born at home in a hurry and literally plopped into my arms. We all felt incredibly vulnerable and strong at the same time as he entered into the world with a carpet of stars above his head and the moon shinning in through the front door.

So where does meditation come in? Well I am a great believer in meditation in its many different forms and techniques.I have been busy making lots of different kinds of meditations for clients – by default walking my talk, listening to them myself over and over again and sending them to my family as well. My son , the proud father, kept saying “I can’t believe how cared for we have been and how calm everything feels”. It could have all been so different and am convinced all the meditations helped us build that calmness up, reminding me that we never know when we might need to dip into that reserve of inner peace, remembering to replenish it afterwards.

I am continuing to add to the meditations and soon will put a specific page on this blog as they definitely connect to Spirit of Place but in the meantime you can find some on http://www.tiegsolus.moonfruit.com/#/meditations/4577484263. Enjoy the journeys.

Have a look at what the lovely Morwhenna and Jaimie are up to with their workshop on nature: http://www.madecurious.co.uk/workshops and http://www.morwhenna.com

 

Celebrating Summer Solstice

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Whenever I am having a challenging day, if I just stop for a moment and look around me there is nearly always something interesting that catches my eye. Despite the changing weather during this summer solstice, the flowers have been wonderful – especially the roses. They become like a soothing balm. Perhaps that is how the expression “stop and smell the roses” came about!

In turn they inspire my creativity and I become absorbed in making my own images. Read about this solstice on www.tiegsolus.moonfruit.com. Last night I was having dinner with friends as an early birthday celebration and I was given this apparently simple little bouquet of flowers and yet ….. these flowers represent so much to me and the friend who gathered them knows this. The yellow flower Immortelle is all over Dali’s house in Port Lligat where I often go to resource my creative energy. Such a beautiful and loving way to “say it with flowers”. People with their kind thoughts can evoke such a strong feeling of belonging and spirit of place with such a simple gesture.

Immortelle

What inspires you in nature? What small gestures have you received or given lately?