I spent a blissful weekend in my friend’s Derbyshire garden last week. She has transformed a plot of land into a magical garden of multi-coloured nooks and crannies; every plant carefully selected for timing, colour and purpose. It was a rare summer-hot day in this rain soaked spring we are having and so we took full advantage and enjoyed Pimms in the sun, drank tea on the swing and contemplated life and the universe, just as we have always done over the last few decades. We met at primary school and never stopped being friends. Nothing much has changed except for the fact she used to come round to my house to play in the garden, and now I drive for two and a half hours to play in hers.  I always leave this little sanctury at the foothills of the Peak District inspired in many ways. Horticulturally, I was re-invigorated to tackle my own little estate. So yesterday I communed with nature and spent a meditative couple of hours knuckle deep in potting compost, planting a few new geraniums in the remaining empty pots and reviving the soil of the balcony boxes, whose incumbents survived the winter for the first time in [...]

Happy New Year my resident magpie seemed to be saying to me this wintry morning. I don’t know if he is the same one I see every couple of months, but he is always so jolly, and noisy. The Chinese call the magpie Bird of Joy; a bird that brings good fortune, which is quite a nice omen for a hangover-free New Year’s day. “A chattering magpie signifies good news or the arrival of guests,” says J.C. Cooper in the Illustrated Encyclopaedia of Traditional Symbols. Meanwhile according to Australian Aboriginal lore, magpies are associated with Happiness and enthusiasm. Dreams, Signs & Symbols also talks about European folklore where magpies are regarded as thieves and birds of ill-omen. Heading off to a Yoga workshop I gave the different meanings a lot of thought, but as I am all about what goes into the mind is what comes out, on this bright crisp New Year’s day I have to say I prefer the Aboriginal and Chinese interpretations. I wonder too, if the fact the magpie has caught my attention means he is actually trying to tell me something. After all he seems to appear at rather auspicious times. [...]

For me Making Peace with Pink is the story of 2011. From the moment I understood and accepted the energy and power of the colour pink, my life changed. I now understand the saying “Seeing the world through rose tinted glasses.” After all these years of absolutely hating the colour, I can now feel the soft, smooth, gentle, comforting and ultimately happy effect that pink has as a colour. Just a I can also sense the soft energy of  unconditional or divine love that emanates from pink stones such as rose quartz, mangano (or pink) calcite, and my newest discovery, pink kunzite. After Romancing the Rose Quartz, I have embraced rose quartz like my long lost soul mate. At last count, my collection of rose quartz, currently housed in the relationship corner of my home, totalled eight; a year ago it was one meagre tumble stone given to me by Davina MacKail when she was teaching us about Dream analysis. That stone is still under my pillow. Blue is still my favourite colour and turquoise as a stone, I am always drawn to, but today I bought my second piece of pink kunzite from Venusrox; the first, a rough pointed shard, it seems did not want [...]

This will seem like a very odd blog to anyone who does not know that there is and has almost always been a ladybird theme running through my life. I even once had a red Ford KA on which I put black spots, an unofficial Ford Ladybird. But on closer inspection it seems that ladybirds are quite a powerful Symbol. For me, it has nearly always been a sign of change when a very large number of images or actual ladybirds appear in my life at any one time.  So when one landed on my pillow at the end of July I started to think a blog on the subject was due. But when a ladybird landed on my desk the other day it triggered me to add one to the masthead. Afterall there are ladybirds everywhere else in my life–on towels, mugs, stationary, my hoover is a large ladybird, and I even have a stain glass window–so why not on my blog? Aside from my life long fascination with all things ladybird, red strategically placed one third of the way down and one third of the way across in any corner of an image is a photographic trick to enhance a [...]

Love is waking up at 4.45 am for a 7 am flight. I am not what one would call a morning person by choice, but when I do get up early, I do realise there is so much more of a day to play with. Today, however, I am heading off to Switzerland in time for my godson’s christening. Is it my love for him or for his mother, or simply a devout sense of duty that gets me up at this ridiculous hour? In this case, despite the mist across my eyes and the runway, it is with a heart full of joy that I can say it is love for his mum—who survived seven years of living with me on top of three years of university—that has bred a love for my new little godson and also his two older sisters. With an atheist Hindu father and an agnostic Catholic mother, religion was never on the agenda at home. The idea was to let us figure it out when we were older. That is one strategy. My friend, however, has another. She is teaching her children one framework but accepts the idea that one [...]

Today we celebrated my friend’s 40th at what we dubbed The Temple of Veuve high above the Austrian town of Lech. Her Dream was to be up in the mountains skiing for this big celebration, and after a few false starts, her dream came true. None of us, however, could have foreseen the discovery of The Temple of Veuve, an ice bar serving Veuve Clicquot at the top of the snow capped mountain. It was certainly more glamorous and apt than the cake and hot chocolate originally on the cards.  As I bathed in the alpine rays I found my self lost in thought about the history of Veuve Clicquot. Veuve, which means widow in French, happens to be one of the only champagne houses whose success today is down to a woman: François Clicquot’s wife Barbe-Nicole Ponsardin who took over the house after his death in 1805. Sat on eye catching orange bean bags sipping pink champagne under a bright orange sun having finished Der Weiße Ring—and in my case my first red run of the trip—can only be described as a little slice of heaven. To my friend, it was the perfect way to celebrate [...]

One of my guilty pleasures on a Sunday is to read Red Magazine from cover to cover before doing anything else. This particular luxury happens once a month, but today’s little indulgence it has thrown me into a state of comic cosmic confusion. And that is even before allow myself to consider the rumours of Ophiuchus, a potential 13th sign in the Zodiac. I like to read the magazine in the month I am in, even though it arrives the month before, and is likely to have been written even before that. So today I am reading February’s Red that arrived in early January. Normally this little eccentricity saves me from shopping as all the special offers are about to expire (sorry Red editors), but now I am wondering if this habit might have to change.  Another little custom I have is to race straight to the horoscopes, despite being fully aware that magazine zodiacs are likely to be more Barnum Effect than life predictions specifically meant for me. Something inside me still likes to believe that there is something quite important housed in the alignment of the stars in relation to the Earth at a [...]

Forgiveness is the act of letting go of anger, resentment or need for revenge that is the result of an offence or mistake. Forgiveness can lead to empathy and compassion for the person that did the hurting. One can forgive the person without excusing the act.

The throat chakra is the fifth chakra, which in Sanskrit is called the Visuddha chakra, and it is associated with the colour blue or turquoise.

If you don’t take your Dreams seriously: love them, nurture them, respect them, invest in them and encourage them to become reality, who else will? I loved Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and the idea that if you wish for something hard enough, it can come true. These days, especially after hearing Dr Wayne Dyer speak in a lecture called Mastering the Art of Manifestation, I am starting to see why some dreams do seem to come true. But after I “failed” to become an astronaut when I was 17, I stopped dreaming. What if I picked the wrong dream again? From then on I meandered my way through more than a decade on automatic pilot because of the assumption that there is such as thing as a “wrong” dream.  I managed to move forward because I made things happen but it was a rough and at times bumpy ride. David Dawkins in his book Power vs. Force is an advocate of harnessing the power of life rather than forcing it to happen. This way life is less bumpy.   And yet, as I was struggling along with my life, little day dreams I had indulged in during moments of quiet seclusion were coming true: photos were published; exotic adventures [...]