It’s 9.55 am. Two and a half hours ago I had a phone call. J was in the hospital after a night out. The paramedics think he had his drink spiked.

Of course I blame myself. I have powerful thoughts. Last night I sat in bed at a reasonable hour with a fresh cup of peppermint tea and a good book and I felt like life was calming down. I shouldn’t have thought that because it tempted fate…This is magical thinking. I know it’s nonsense. That by thinking I precipitated the next drama. Of course I know that’s nonsense… Mostly.

So I’m sat in J’s flat in Margate having retrieved him from A and E and got him cleaned up. He’s shaken and feels like crap but will live.

I am constantly reminded that life is what you get. Each day just now I feel the disjoint between IG feeds and Facebook posts and what actually happens. I post a snapshot in a rare 5 minutes of leisure. Because it’s rare. Not because this is my life. If I posted about real life it would mostly be; a computer keyboard, cat litter trays, Morrisons (our local supermarket), a bowl full of washing up, laundry.

I’m beginning to think that I may have to shed the social. I don’t want to throw it away altogether, I have made some amazing friends and soul connections this way. But more and more it bruises my soul to be so constantly visible.

In magical terms it reminds me of a glamour. A glamour is spell which represents something which isn’t real, which shows you an illusion or something as other than it is. Glamours are deceptions, misrepresentations. It is a powerful magic which requires willpower and a strong sense of self to overcome. Tiffany Aching faces it when she deals with the faery queen in Terry Pratchett’s The Wee Free Men. It needs a bone deep connection to your own truth and confidence in your own wisdom to escape…

I’m not as strong as Tiffany. I want to be seen. This magic makes me feel real. If I am visible I exist. If you can’t see me I vanish, like a baby hiding it’s eyes, I’ve  disappeared…

I am working with breath and body. I am working to explore what is actually present, rather than what I think is here.

For years now I’ve been working hard to create a work life which encompasses my passions but while I know this is valued by those who work with me and I enjoy it, in real terms it’s not supporting us.

Life is I find a constant process of revaluation. Shifting clouds of circumstance. It is not helpful to persist with particular ways of thinking or believing when these are no longer working . If I were tending a garden it would be time to see what is actually growing. From many seeds planted what has sprouted? What is thriving? What needs watering, or pulling up and composting? What tiny fruits can I feed with the energy of intention and purpose as they swell and flourish, ripening for harvest?

I am giving myself permission to do this work. To make mistakes. To try and fail. To change my mind. This is the essence of life lived rather than observed. Reaching down to the roots of the soul to find the elemental self and bringing her into daylight, blinking in the light of an awakening life.