Birthday Blues…and Greens…and Greys

Perhaps a splash of pink and yellow too

Or…

How to Start Commanding Life Like the Queen (and Witch) You Are

I recently wrote a piece using the theme of Waves in which I wrote the following:

Because life is like waves; sometimes we ride the crest, surfing it, and feeling on top of the world, while other times, we find ourselves being tumbled by them.

Sara Burdick gave a lovely response:

“I sometimes ride a wave hourly, depending on the day, but its so true, riding the waves is part of life and part of finding ourselves.. and yep its always when we tumble!”

It made me appreciate her vulnerability no end because I could totally relate. Recently I have really struggled. I feel exhausted much of the time.

I am finding ways of managing it but it doesn’t mean I stop tumbling and falling off the crest of the wave. I keep tumbling daily.

As I responded to Sara, I feel like I’m in a cauldron. Probably my very own witchy cauldron, because I have been exploring my witchy side of recent. Yet, I truly only feel witchy when I am stepping into my power, while falling into the cauldron is what happens when I try to balance on one foot in my power.

So being tumbled by waves, and even being caught in the cauldron of a churning sea, is a great reminder that my witchiness needs to keep surfacing and allowing herself the freedom she deserves. A freedom also know as the who gives a fuckness of life.

How does that look? A little like this…

I may not have the possibility to go away on a vacation at the moment but I can damn well take myself out for breakfast when we’ve run out of milk for my coffee. I mean, I could go to the Co-Op and grab some more, but why not leave that privilege for other people and treat myself?

I could even fuck it further and take myself out for a movie and dinner. That’s the kind of date with a queen, I mean myself, that I love!

A witch knows her worth. She knows she is the queen of her own kingdom. And she treats herself as such.

Yes, her concoctions and incantations are a part of her witchy power, but the action is vital.

Being a witch (or a queen) is about seeing the world in colours. It’s about recognising when it looks like it’s filtered through a single hue, and it’s about recognising the pattern-interrupts, when splashes of colour appear.

Yesterday, my birthday, I journaled this piece while sitting under a grey sky at the beach. The grey was definitely grey but there was a brightness that seeped through, warming me, comforting me.

The colours of life are always changing, it seems. Just like the sky in England. Always changing.

It turns out I am always changing too. Mostly, I am growing older. Today, for instance, I am a whole year older than I was yesterday.

Change can come in subtle ways or miraculously massive ways. It’s unpredictable, to say the least.

But I am talking in riddles (when am I not, for it is my speciality?) so let me try to clarify why I am here, right now, writing now, writing this. I am writing it because I have little else to do when the world that surrounds me cannot be captured and held onto in any way, shape or form. I cannot control the fact that time passes and will continue to pass, despite how still I make myself. I try my hardest to be like one of those human statues I have seen in the crowded streets of Avignon and Saint Malo, and even if I could remain as utterly unmoving as they can, I’m pretty sure time will keep on moving, leaving me behind…which it does anyway.

I heard slow-moving is healthier for the soul, and thus for the body too, but I’m now not convinced. I wonder, if I were to work on my running speed, rather than standing still, might I not manage to move faster than time itself, and thus get time to slow down for me? It’s worth a try, don’t you think?

Perhaps in a bit. Running feels a little too energetic for right now.

But back to colours, blue hues have been a little dominant recently. Lots of blue and blues. Plenty of green, too. And a whole lot of grey, because it’s generally a favourite in England, not just because the sky is most often that colour. Or maybe it is. I don’t know and I don’t care…

But I can’t say that it’s all blue, green or grey, because sometimes there are splashes of other colours — reds, pinks, purples and yellows are often gracing the landscape, when I look a little harder.

Mostly, people in my locality know me for my bright outlook on life, always having a smile at the ready, and finding the funny side of most things.

But I will be the first to admit that has gradually been slipping over the last months. I’m incredibly resilient when I can have my own personal space to gradually awaken to the outside world each morning, but when that gets taken away, I struggle.

When I first opened my home to my nephew to live with us, it was on the understanding that it would only be for the school termtimes. However, he soon made it clear that now he was making a life for himself in England, he had no intention of returning to his family in France during the holidays.

At the time, I wasn’t concerned. It was a subject we would have to broach and he would have to accept that this couldn’t be a permanent home. I needed those breaks and the space that is my home.

However, as time progressed, other things changed and the members of his family that he did wish to associate with (as opposed to the ones remaining in France that he no longer wished to see) also arrived on British soil, in need of beds and a roof over their heads. And now, here we are, nearly a year after my nephew arrived to begin a life here, and I still haven’t had a morning to wake up to the world in that spaciousness my soul needs, at least once in a while.

It’s a small thing that I ask…and need…but it still is not forthcoming.

Yes, I know, I can decide enough is enough, and believe me, I know that it’s more than enough. I am also not afraid to put that boundary in place, but I am being careful with how that happens since I also need to consider future relations between all of us and what is reasonable in order to protect them. So I have made a decision about a cut-off date and will stick by it.

But that’s not what this piece is really about.

It’s about being willing to recognise and admit when life feels overlaid by blue and grey hues, and being willing to look for, notice, and draw on the splashes of magenta, pink, yellow and purple. To draw it all into my cauldron and stir it all together while chanting my incantations of fierce self-love and empowerment, and radical kindness.

That’s how to step into my witchiness and queendom. It’s not all about herbs and plant medicine, though I will still brew a dandelion root coffee to celebrate with, from dandelions I have dug up from my garden — just watch how witchy I can be!

What it is about is being true to myself and being honest with the world around me, while dowsing it all in rich and beautiful shades of any colour I choose.