October
What the Hell do Tarot, Apples and Frankenstein have to do with Coaching?
I wanted to include some posts on things I’m inspired by. I am a Holistic Life Coach, and as our lives are holistic, the things that feed our souls are just as important as setting a goal or healing our nervous systems. We are unique, if we allow ourselves to be. Our curiosity and the things we’re called to spend our lives doing are to be paid attention to. They are to be noticed and honored, to be unearthed and followed. Our life purpose(s) are but callings added up.
Spreading our unique inspiration around is always a good thing, and though I do this in my intimate circles and within my household, I want to share it more widely, lead by example in following my own inspiration, even the things that may seemingly have nothing to do with my work. I use the word ‘seemingly’ as everything has to do with everything. Nothing is actually more important than anything else. Part of what creates our suffering is hierarchy. So, on that note, here are some things I’m really loving that I wanted to share with you.
Tarot Decks
First off, I ordered these INCREDIBLE tarot decks, I ordered two different ones because I couldn’t help myself. They are so incredibly beautiful. And though I haven’t been into tarot in the past, this certainly gives me reason to start. I heard about them from the hilarious Kate Forster, which if you don’t follow her, I highly recommend www.instagram.com/kateforsterwrites. She is my source for humor, and makes me smile regardless of how I’m feeling on any given day. They’re made in NY, you can find them and other incredibly beautiful prints and decks here https://uusi.us/ they’re on Instagram as well www.instagram.com/uusidesignstudio/
Mary Shelley and Frankenstein
With Halloween up and coming we’ve been reading this lovely book at home, Mary Who Wrote Frankenstein. The illustrator, Julia Sarda, is one of my favorites. It’s about Mary Shelley writing Frankenstein, which she did at 18! She had never written a book before and was with a group of other seasoned (male) writers stuck inside on a holiday due to bad weather and one of them challenged them all to write a ghost story, to see who could write the best one. And Mary, well she wrote what became one of the world’s best ghost stories of all time.
So, over the weekend we made a trip to Somerset in the Quantock Hills, we were told that Mary Shelley was buried close to where we were so we drove to try to find her grave. It was such a gorgeous day for it, by gorgeous I mean cloudy and moody, the sky felt pregnant with rain and driving through the hills and turning autumn trees was so romantic and spooky. We reached a manor house and couldn’t figure out if it was part of the church or not, there were cars there, and although it looked intimate my partner had no problem knocking on the door to ask, I’m always grateful to him for being that person. It was home to a wedding that afternoon, and though the man at the door had no idea about the grave, he pointed us toward the church. At this point we were late for an appointment, we vowed to come back and drove back over the highroad away from the site. It got late so we didn’t make it back that weekend.
Now. What we later read is that Mary Shelley is buried in Bournemouth. Not in Somerset. Apparently she never made a trip to the Quantock Hills, not once, though she was very much inspired by Andrew Crosse who through the use of electricity attempted to bring dead animals back to life, he lived and worked in the area. Although this misinformation initially had me feeling duped I quickly moved to appreciation, it granted us an incredible afternoon. My kids happily were along for the ride and all four of us were in awe and excitement for the length of the adventure.
Sidenote: Mary Shelley is buried in Bournemouth, close to the city center with her parents and son, also buried there is the heart of her husband, the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. Mary kept his heart, wrapped in silk scarf from when he died until her own death nearly 30 years later. Depending on where you read the story, she is said to have carried with her nearly everywhere for all those years. A year after she died, the heart was found in her desk. The extended story is even better than that, I just can’t spend this whole newsletter telling it. :) Go look it up!
Apple Cake and Books
On another lighter note, we also have very recently turned our Sundays into days where we leave devices off. Phones and computers are left to themselves and we spend the day together as a family. In the last couple weeks I’ve noticed some incredible things that have happened organically due to making the space. Albeit there has been some tension in exercising a new habit. One is that it’s opened the day for us to go on adventures, things we were passing up or forgetting about, it’s also made time for projects at home. My daughter and I made an apple cake last week, I’m obsessed with the Rory O’Connell’s cookbook Cook Well, Eat Well,, which some very dear friends of mine introduced me to. I haven’t used it nearly enough so we made a Tuscan Apple, Lemon & Almond Cake from that. It was delicious.
I always mean to cook with my kids, but when we are in it I lose sight of this. We also get in bad habits of looking recipes up on the internet when we have a really incredible selection of cookbooks at home that I have collected over the years. Device free Sundays allow me to dig into it.
The slowing down has, so far, made space for the little most important things that we somehow had forgotten. Though I didn’t think we spent that much time on devices on Sundays, somehow the devices and the kids vying for watching time sort of loomed over the weekend and I felt it was dictating too much of it. Now I look around in the afternoon, and everyone is reading on the couch, each engrossed in his or her own book. I’ve happily been dipping into our large book collection too and have pulled out some of my favorites as well as books I had forgotten about.
There’s a copy of the recipe here, the recipe in the book doesn’t include the blackberry compote, but I’m sure it’s delicious https://thegannet.co/recipes/tuscan-apple-cake-blackberry-geranium-leaf-compote/
I enjoyed looking through this Agnes Martin book this week, it’s a book of her writing and although a lot of it doesn’t speak to me, beyond giving me another glimpse into an artist’s head who I admire, this passage called to me as I sat in an armchair next to a rain soaked window in our flat. I read it aloud to my family and below is a video of me reading it aloud to you. 💛
A quote
This is the quote that has really hit home for me this week.
There is no greater burden on a child than the unlived life of a parent.
- Carl Jung
A poem
And one of the poems I shared Thursday in Breath Club.
LOST - David Wagoner
Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you
Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here,
And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,
Must ask permission to know it and be known.
The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,
I have made this place around you.
If you leave it, you may come back again, saying Here.
No two trees are the same to Raven.
No two branches are the same to Wren.
If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you,
You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows
Where you are. You must let it find you.
I hope you all have a beautiful weekend, however you do yours. Maybe you’ll find something here that interests you, if not, I encourage you to search interest and curiosity out, or if curiosity feels out of reach, find something that at the very least feels good to you.
This weekend I’ll be recharging and getting ready to spend some time in nature next week when school is off. I’d love to know what you’re up to.
xxxWhit
Adventure Sunday - perfect.
Reading in our house is insane - the little guy, ‘you might need to put the book down to get ready for football -here’s a bookmark’ 🫣 it’s a great problem to have as a mum of a boy 🤍