Mairela Reiki Healing Retreat
Holistic Healing Holidays in a Natural Healing Space to Cleanse Body, Mind & Soul

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This is a look at life that encompasses metaphysical aspects, nature and the cultural adventure of an English woman, Sara Gardner, from London living in the Finnish forest whilst setting up a holistic healing place to live and work.

Wednesday 27th December 2006

I hope that everyone had a great Christmas day and Boxing day. I like the old tradition behind Boxing day of taking boxes of gifts for the less fortunate. It would be nice if there weren't people who were less fortunate in the first place but we can work towards that one step at a time and in the meantime keep ourselves mindful of all our brothers and sisters in the world. This year I made extensive use of the Oxfam gift idea of donating some of the money I would have used for presents towards helping others. My youngest has a fridge magnet and card to tell her that she has brought a goat which will be helping to fight poverty and suffering in the most needed place around the world. The goat provides milk and kids to sell and free fertiliser too! Oxfam's goat-loan schemes pass the first female kid this goat produces onto another family so that the magic can begin again. My son provided an allotment, my daughter and her boyfriend a teacher and a tool kit. My mother and father provided 50 trees and safe water for 25 people. Can you imagine that somewhere in the world someone has been relying on a gift from us just to have safe drinking water....that fact alone should allow us all to be grateful for everything we have rather than focusing on the things that we don't have.

Our value is determined not by what we have but by what we do with what we have.

If you are interested in the Oxfam gift ideas then please visit Oxfam Unwrapped

Saturday 23rd December 2006

My article has now appeared in Kindred Spirit, I haven't seen it yet as my copy will still be winging it's way to me via the post but I have had some positive feedback from it already which is nice.

Last night I came across a very big monster, the one that haunts us all and is waiting for us in the shadows to jump out and smother us. You know the one I mean, its name is Fear. Fear is like a cancer which spreads throughout our society and it seems like the instances of it are increasing. The monster wasn't after me but I met somebody completely consumed by it to the point that they are no longer capable of maintaining a 'normal' life, everything has to be controlled and paranoia rules their days. It gave me a timely reminder of how we are always faced with choices in our lives but sometimes we don't think that we do and that's when fear comes charging through the door. Maybe I am lucky that I have such a trust in the Universe that I try to see the gift in all things and if I can't see it then I just trust that a more far sighted guide can and that guide has never let me down, or maybe I am lucky that I realise that our thoughts manifest our reality....if I worried all day about bad things happening then I know for sure that they will. However, the good news is that if I keep positive thoughts in my mind then these are what will manifest.

Thursday 21st December 2006

The morning light as I walked the dogs was very pretty and the snow still had that sparkly glitter to it as I walked down the road. It seemed that a lot of animals had been out the night before as the footprints going across the road were numerous, maybe there was a party going on down towards my place. The elk footprints were fairly obvious as there can't be anything that big and that shape around here, unless of course someone goes out with some fake elk feet on a stick....ok, that's unlikely! I saw some hare's tracks too and then I came across some prints that I wasn't sure about....they may have been dog prints except that they went across the road and headed back into the forest and then I found another set heading the same way, then another and then another. I think that they can only be wolf tracks, four of them out running together but crossing the road a few metres apart...and headed towards my home. That's really exciting as I'd love to catch a glimpse of them one day or night, or even to be able to hear them howling would be excellent.

The winter solstice is the turning point where the days become lighter and this happened at 21.22 today. It signifies enlightenment, the rebirth of light in the darkest hour. St Thomas's day is the festival of the undefeated sun...this comes from the time that the church discouraged pagan practices and made saint days around the old festivals in order to slowly push out the old ways and replace them with the church celebrations. Whatever your inclination is with spiritual matters the undisputed fact remains that this is the time when we welcome the light back into our lives. There is much symbolism of light in darkness from the candles we surround ourselves with, warmth in coldness from the log fires we burn, greenery amid barrenness from the Christmas trees we have in the house, plenty among dearth from the stack of presents under the tree and hope in time of despair because Christmas always brings out the best in folk.

Wednesday 20th December 2006

The school Christmas celebration was tonight so I have been very well entertained by the traditional nativity wherein Mary gave birth by pulling a pre wrapped baby out the top of her coat, oh if only it were that easy, lots of singing of Christmas songs by everyone including the audience and a few other plays around the Christmas theme. My daughter's class put on a play about a sheik in Christmas land, complete with his gun totting body guards, looking for a wife. I can only image the despair that would have occurred if it had been put on in Tony Blair's Britain when the sheik dismissed the potentials one by one as too old, too smelly, too fat etc!! Will my daughter grow up thinking she can treat people that way, or that all Arabs are rude and carry guns? About as likely as her growing thinking she can give birth to a baby already wrapped in a blanket just by unzipping her coat I suspect. Don't get me wrong we don't watch overly violent movies or play computer games based on violence but for the main part I rely on giving her a balanced view of life. There is far more good around in the world than not and that is the balance that we reflect here.

Tuesday 19th December 2006

We finally have some snow here and so the hares will roam a little safer now in their winter coats. I was driving down the road to Tampere to pick up some guests this morning taking in the beautiful scenery. It had been a cold night and morning with the temperature around -8, the winter sun , of course, is very low in the sky so only the tops of the trees had bright sunlight on them! The birch trees have a purple hue to their top most branches and these were frosted and sparkling in the sunlight. The sunlight itself ranged from orange to pink as it so often does during the winter months and the overall effect on the birch trees was amazing as they just glowed and shimmered in a soft pink colour. I love mornings like that. The pine trees also take on a special essence on mornings like that as the sunlight lifts the orange colour of their trunks and makes them stand out and glow with a special warmth.

Monday 18th December 2006

Apparantly there has been an article in the UK paper slamming complementary health and the papers have not seen fit to publishing an article defending alternative or complementary medicines. If you would like a look at this article you can find a copy here.

Sunday 17th December 2006

We drove down to Helsinki today to take a guest back to the airport and have a look around the Christmas market in the Esplanade. Lots of little red huts with many types of Finnish crafts and food for sale, including a half life size straw reindeer, lots of hats, gloves and slippers, candles, glass decorations, grilled sausages of course and wooden lanterns with electric lights inside them to simulate fire (strange but true and very pretty) We were talking about the roads on the way down and I was trying to remember a time in Finland when I was caught in a traffic jam....and I couldn't. The closest I could come up with was the trip to Tampere airport last month when I got stuck for 10 minutes waiting for the trucks that were skidding on the snow to clear.

Saturday 16th December 2006

The hares here seem to have been confused by the huge snowfall at the end of October because they have all turned white and now that all the snow has gone they stick out like....well like a white hare in a dark forest!! I hope for their sakes the snow comes quickly as I can imagine they are being picked off very easily by the foxes, lynx and wolves.....as if life wasn't hard enough already!! There are other creatures here that get a white coat in the winter time, the stoat I think is one of them. I'm not very sure about what is what with those type of animals...but I do know the old joke about them. A weasel is w-easily recognised but a stoat is s-totally different!! Boom boom!! Sorry, I'll get me coat.....

Friday 15th December 2006

We still don't have any snow!! The weather is too warm and very wet which is strange, what with me living so far north. The other day when I drove to the next town I noticed that all the ploughed field had started to grow grass on them and that really shouldn't be happening in Finland in December. On the news there are reports about people still finding chanterelles. The weather patterns of the earth are changing very quickly and I am interested in the correlation between these changes and the Schumann resonance ( resonation between the Earth's surface and the ionosphere) known as Gaia's brain wave. My interest mainly lies in the spiritual aspects such as the fact that its frequency matches that of the human alpha rhythms, the alpha waves produced by the brain when we are in a relaxed state such as in meditation. There is a known correlation between the weather and the Schumann resonance but maybe now is the time to start looking for a correlation between the Schumann resonance and the increase in human consciousness......

Thursday 14th December 2006

It would appear my guardian angels are still doing a marvelous job, working overtime and in shifts!! I have some outside lights strung around the front porch and a few weeks ago I discovered that some of my light bulbs from the house fitted them which was great because quite a few had blown. The only problem was that the new bulbs were candle bulbs and much longer and higher wattage than the old ones but after the initial melted plastic smell they seemed to settle down fine. I didn't worry about them overheating too much as they are hanging outside in the cold (that's my logic) and they shone so much brighter too. I noticed that they mostly had blown when I got back the other day and my mum had bought some replacements, 15w oven bulbs. She told me that she had tried to change them but some idiot (ah hem) had put in some bigger ones which had melted the case preventing her from getting the old ones out as the glass part shattered but the base remained. So today I took a look and decided that if I got hold of the bit that was left I could probably still unscrew the base and maybe the case wasn't too badly damaged and the new bulbs would still work. So I grabbed hold of the remaining part...unfortunately I hadn't turned the lights off and yes they are plugged straight into the mains!! I just felt a very sharp and intensive scratchy feeling on the end of my finger but I realised straight away what I had done and immediately thanked my angels. I've checked with an 'expert' and he believes that the fact that the concrete I stood on was dry and I was wearing wellies at the time probably saved me. I decided to share this here as it's a great story about divine intervention and guardian angels but I realise it won't make me look like Einstein.....oh well I can't be amazingly intelligent all the time...

Tuesday 12th December 2006

I've been away on my energy healing course again, this time we were learning about and experiencing Inner Child Healing which is very powerful. Most of our destructive behaviour patterns and thought forms were laid down at an early age and have now become so ingrained into our psyche that we rarely even notice them anymore. It's only after years of going through the same old patterns of behaviour and wondering why the same things keep happening to us that we then start to look at where these patterns come from and this is where Inner Child work is really helpful.

The biggest single step that I have taken in my healing journey came during this week and I shall share this personal moment here. I realised and released the whole control system that I have in place around everything that happens in my own universe. Until now I had great trust in the Universe and all that happened and yet I also knew that I always did things for myself because I didn't trust anyone else enough. Following this through in a healing I found that the reason why it was so easy for me to trust the Universe was that I was controlling everything that happened in my particular part of it......no wonder I sleep so much! I am actually quite impressed with how vast my controlling abilities were but I still wish to relinquish them because they limited my experiences. The Universe is so much bigger than we can possibly imagine and the abundance within it is limitless and I want to experience all of it, so I have dropped all my controls (gulp) and I can now truly live in the now (the present moment) and truly trust in the Universe. This is both a terrifying prospect and a very exciting prospect. Exciting because I can use all my power to create anything and everything that I desire and terrifying because I am learning to trust properly for the first time in my life and I'm about to jump off the edge of a cliff (metaphorically speaking!). Care to join me?

Sunday 3rd December 2006

An article about me has been printed in a Finnish national paper! Today's Keskisuomalainen talks about Mairela and how it's appearance in 'Fifty Great Escapes' has put Kuhmoinen on the map along with other greats like Paul Gauguin!! I did try to get them to print a picture of the house and the beautiful surroundings but they wanted a picture of me....so there I am beaming out from the page. It seems really strange to see me in the newspaper and I have made a mental note to work on my posing skills....why do I get a double chin when I smile? That's not fair! For a look at the article go here.

Monday 27th November 2006

A week last Friday I fell through the snow into the ditch and then last week a man came with a very large digger and dug out the ditches, laid pipes etc. and made it all flow much better...so no large areas for women to slip into. Was that collective consciousness at work? That part of the road has been flooding since I came here 3 years ago and yet it only got sorted 6 days after I slipped in. That has got to be down to collective consciousness in some form or other....now I wonder what I have to do to get that bank clerk to fill up my account......

In case you are not familiar with the term collective consciousness is pretty much what it says on the box, the cellular memory of a collection of anything that is grouped in some way is shared by that group. For example a group of monkeys on an island discover a new tool to use and another set of monkeys on a separate island with no communications links start to use the same tool because at an energetic level we are all connected. There is some science basis in this for the skeptics out there but it all makes sense to me from what I know and observe anyway!

Friday 24th November 2006

Today I finally wrote my page about my cancer journey, of course it's not a seperate entity from the rest of my journey but I believe it has the ability to reach out and help more people and so I have given it a page of it's own. If you are interested you can find it here.

Thursday 23rd November 2006

Do you know what happens when you shine out your light into the darkness? Moths! There you are just minding your own business being yourself and allowing your light to shine...which is a lovely thing to be able to do and a beautiful thing to behold in others...but it also attracts moths! They just appear out of nowhere and buzz around the light for what appears to be no good reason and it would appear that the only way to stop them from doing that is to turn off the light. There seems to be no point in asking them what they want from you as they just continue to flap in your face. I wonder what the spiritual equivalent of moth balls is.....if anybody knows please drop me a line and let me know. In the meantime I shall continue to shine out my light because of all the positive aspects....and maybe carry a rolled up newspaper with me....

Wednesday 22nd November 2006

I can't believe that it has been 21 years since my son was born but today is the day he turns 21 and although it seems like centuries ago it also seems like 5 minutes ago. I'm picking him up from the airport later so this morning I have been baking a cake for him....a very rich chocolate cake...and I mean rich!! Five bars of chocolate, loads of butter and cocoa have gone into making this extravaganza and I think it will be a fitting tribute to the new phase of the moon too. Goodbye to al my detoxing efforts for a while and hello to all my retoxing efforts!! However, this cake has been lovingly made with all the right ingredients so it will be very well received when we tuck into it later......a handful of pride in the way my son has grow up, sprinklings of laughter as I think back to some of our silly moments over the last 21 years, cupfuls of joy at being part of his life and of course lashings and lashings of love. Happy Birthday Ben, I love you very much.

Tuesday 21st November 2006

Since I last wrote here I have been doing loads of detoxing and healing, taking advantage of this quiet time of year to have lots of important 'me' time and also taking advantage of the waning moon. The waning moon is the time for 'elimination' and the effect is more powerful as we get closer to the new or dark moon which is today! I did a swap with another healer yesterday and got a massage in return. This was the first full massage that I have ever had and it was fantastic. I know that I have held so much in my muscles during my life as I have tried to stay in control of my life and now I'm trying to redress the balance. I set my intention to let all the tension go from my muscles and take with it all the rubbish that was attached to it. Setting an intention to anything makes it so much more powerful, I always get my customers to verbalise their intention for the healing that they are about to receive, it's part of taking responsibility for everything that happens in your life. I know that there are people who don't want to think that they have created everything that comes into their life but I look at it as a good thing because it puts us in the drivers seat.....if we created all the things that came before then we can now start to create all our dreams and desires. So back to the massage, this is a great way to clear blockages in our bodies and as I have stated before, with all levels being connected, the releasing of all my old, unwanted, redundant thought patterns leaves me in a much clearer, lighter and more connected place. The detox effect of all that rubbish leaving was quite intense too, it felt like I was drunk and I was certainly too incoherent to go to the parents evening!! It's not like an English type parents evening, you just sit and listen to a load of stuff, I can't tell you what the stuff is because I don't understand any of it.....I usually go along to show that I am interested in my child's schooling. The system is very different here because I get to see a lot of Emma's work as they have regular tests that then have to be signed by a parent to show they have been seen. I think it's a good system.

I finally managed today to get the pier ladder out of the lake, I still had to smash the ice around it using my iron spear.....it's always funny using that because it's about 1.5m long and very heavy so when it does penetrate the ice it just keeps going and it's difficult not to let go!! Although the temperature has been 5-7 degrees for the past few days the ice was still about 5cms thick. I threw the chunks out over the rest of the lake because I love the noise that it makes under the ice that then reverberates round the whole lake....it's a bit like the noise you get from a submarines echo thingy....sorry but the real word has fallen out of my head and I can't find it on the floor.

Friday 16th November 2006

I've had quite an exciting walk this morning, I found some blood and drag marks going into the forest so I followed them, they didn't go very far and then the snow was trampled down, there was lots of blood and then nothing. I couldn't work out what had happened, there were no tracks to see because the drag marks had covered them......but there was a clue of a discarded cigarette packet! I'd love to know what happened but I'll have to suppose that someone has knocked some quite large animal down, dragged it into the forest and then the fox has eaten it or maybe a Lynx. I don't think that it would be a wolf as I believe that they don't eat anything that they haven't killed themselves. As I carried on with my walk through the forest I heard a shot and a dog barked somewhere. We never saw anything but my dogs were very interested in something going on in the forest we were circling.

Then on the way back I continued with my theme from yesterday and now the Universe has shown me that I am also pretty stupid at times as well as lazy (I do have many good points too I should add!). There is a ditch at the end of this particular road and so I showed it to Sylka to have a drink but as I stepped onto the mound of snow along the bank my foot continued down and down. Of course the mound of snow was just the result of the snow plough clearing the road end and I now had one foot in the ditch with very cold icy water up to my knees with the entire length of my leg dangling off the side of the road because the snow pile was so big. The more I struggled to get up the more the snow pile started to disintegrate and I was faced with sliding entirely into the ditch! Don't get me wrong I wasn't going to drown or anything just be very cold and smelly (peat ditch!) and have a really hard time getting out. I did eventually managed to spin round a little and lever myself out. It's amazing how difficult that is to do, go and try it now (not in a ditch!), put your foot flat on the dining table and then try to haul your other leg up without having something above you to pull up with and nothing to kick off from underneath. Anyway, the cold water made my foot hurt like buggery but with little choice I just set off for the 1km walk home and it did start to warm up the water eventually. Looking back I can't believe that I just marched up to the running water without remembering that the bank would be covered somewhat, oh well I can't be a genius all the time and it is very funny now that I am back home in the warm! It reminds me of a friend of mine who had a similar experience in the Spring time and she said when a car went past that she pretended that she meant to be there....and now I know exactly how she felt because it crossed my mind that someone could help me out but it would be sooo embarrassing to be found like that. Aren't we funny creatures!

Thursday 15th November 2006

The weather has warmed up a little in the past few days and so the snow has become a complete nightmare! driving to Tai Chi last night was 'interesting', although driving there was better as at least I knew the roads were getting better as I drove towards the village rather than on the way home....I don't think I've ever driven home so slowly. The slush was so slippery and yet there was so much of it that it sent the car off in all directions which is most off putting! On Tuesday night at 12.30 I was woken up by something, then 1 minute later there was a whooshing noise and then a crash and the whole house shook!! A huge chunk of snow had fallen off the house roof but had landed on the porch roof, I've spent half an hour this morning cutting it up into small pieces and throwing it further into the garden as it was in danger of making a wall across the front of the house and if that got frozen then I'd be stuck with it.

I also took advantage of the slight thaw this morning to have another go at scooping out the rowing boat. As so often is the case it gave me another insight into something I had been musing about for a while. Firstly let me explain that I am a lazy person, if there is a quick way to do something then that's the way for me. I'm not unintelligent, I know that if I spend longer on some things then they will last longer and be less effort in the long run but such is the nature of this beast, I'll usually go for the quick option. I just can't stand spending more time on anything than I deem necessary. I acknowledge that it drives other people insane (you know who you are!) but it's just one of my quirks. In my healings I have been wondering about all these new methods that I have learnt and why I would use them instead of just going straight to the top, doing a Celestial healing and then that filters down and over time circumstances and events come into your life to give you the opportunities for healing and growth, job sorted! So even bearing in mind my preference for the quick route I still couldn't figure why I would want to clean up my rel;ationship cords, clear my emotional clouds, scoop out my astral mucous or spend time with my emotions and a box of tissues or a baseball bat etc etc!! It just seemed such a cumbersome way to be doing things (I'm talking about for my own healing here, not anyone else's) but then this morning as I slowly started to move lumps of ice and snow from the rowing boat it occurred to me that sometimes we DO have to just chip away at stuff, we Do have to just take off a chunk at a time because some things are just too darned heavy for us to be able to shift anything if we try to do it all at once. And so another little light bulb has been lit and now I see.

I'm very grateful to Mother Earth for the power to light up all these light bulbs inside me.

Tuesday 14th November 2006

I may have to finally admit that this snow isn't going to melt before next Spring and I'm not going to be able to rescue the ladder that is still on the end of the pier. When I got back from London the lake had frozen around it and doesn't show any signs of defrosting! I usually take it out when the weather gets too cold and I stop using it for dipping in the lake during my saunas but I've been caught out by the early snow...not so much that it snowed heavily but the fact that it has stayed here. The rowing boat is still the right way up.....well the right way up for rowing but definitely the wrong way up for snowy weather. I scooped most of the snow out the other day, now that I've given up on my idea of one last row round the lake before the winter. Unfortunately the boat is pretty heavy for me to turn over at the best of times and with a solid bottom of ice inside it I found it impossible to shift. I'll have to wait for another strong pair of arms to come this way.

This morning I finally sent in my school homework that I should have done during the summer.....not a great example to be setting my daughter but at least I've done it now. The Internet here has been a nightmare for the past couple of days, sometimes it gets like that what with living in the middle of a forest. I think that the wire from here travels 11kms before it gets to the exchange so it's a bit hit and miss....especially when it rains....no idea why that would be!

I have been following my cleanse routine, except for Friday night when I went to visit friends and do some healings in Helsinki but today I stopped again. I've processed such a lot of 'old rubbish' in the past two days and it has left me feeling quite tired. It's amazing how a physical cleanse takes with it emotional stuff too, it's not surprising when I think more about it, after all everything about ourselves is connected but I still find it fascinating that when my physical body detoxs then my emotional body detoxs too......and it works the other way too. We all know that when we are emotional our bodies pee, poo and puke more. Lovely!

Thursday 9th November 2006

This morning the elk bone had moved further across the lake but tonight I was lucky enough to actually see the fox. I had stuck a saucepan outside to cool down so I had the outside light on to remind me, I could hear the dogs barking at something but I tend to ignore them as it's usually just an elk crashing through the forest but then I saw the fox come and sniff the ash pile that I had put out in the garden....boy was I excited! I know it must seem weird to the average UK resident to get excited about seeing a fox, after all you only need drive through any town after dark to see loads of them but it's different here, this fox is truly wild and I've seen his tracks and markings for 3 years now and this is the first time I've ever seen him in the flesh. This has a lot to do with the fact that the dogs are now locked away at night I guess.....and in case you aren't aware the reason that the dogs are locked away now is because of the wolf pack!

'Twas a good day for wildlife, I'd disturbed a Capercaillie (Tetrao urogallus) whilst out walking with the dogs. It occurred to me but obviously not to the bird, that if he had just stayed where he was and not flapped off in a panic that neither me nor the dogs would have known he was there anyway! According to my bird book this bird is "rare and elusive, usually only seen at long range flying away, or at close range flushed from a tree top..." Well that's not the first time that one has taken off over my head so I must be very privileged. I've actually seen lots of them this year but the most spectacular time was in the Spring when I came across a male strutting his stuff in the forest that I was driving through. He had his tail fanned out and his feathers puffed up and he was making that strange noise that they make....which I'm not even going to try to spell!! I watched him for a while whilst cursing the fact that my camera was at home on the table. My camera is the biggest known wildlife deterrent on the planet.....leave it at home and the wildlife teems around you but take it with you and you'll be walking through an empty wilderness. This may have it's good points, for instance if I was lucky enough to see a bear then my instincts would be to follow it to get a good photo but that's probably not the safest option. Back to the Capercaillie, the male can be aggressive and have been known to attack people and cars. Looking at the picture in the book it has also cleared up the mystery of the strange tracks that I see in the snow, three long toes to the front and one behind.

The Raven (Corvus corax) family also flew over me yesterday, which was great as I haven't seen them all together since I was stalking them in the Spring!! I spent quite some time up on the Linnavuori (Castle mountain which is the old iron age fortress rocky outcrop on the other side of the lake) trying to get a picture of one of them once I had discovered that they roosted on the ledges. I never got a clear shot of any but I did have fun and a few scary moments.....I climbed down onto a ledge where I could hold my camera easily as my back was supported by a tree but when I finished taking the picture I realised that climbing back up was going to be tricky for someone like me who's not very good with heights!! In the end I got the dog to come over and haul me up, bless her!

Wednesday 8th November 2006

There is a lot of melting going on today so I been checking the situation before I walk out from under the porch as the overhang of snow from the roof is quite spectacular. It seems amazing to me that it can just all hang there together when it weighs so much, the roof is slippery (made of corrugated sheets), snow is slippery, gravity and all that!! I could barely see out of the front bedroom window because of nearly 2 metres of snow hanging down this morning....and I don't want that landing on my head, imagine how much it must weigh! If this lot stays here it'd be spring time before they ever found me under that lot!

I also noticed that the fox has been back in the night as there are more tracks on the lake and one of the elk bones has suddenly appeared out on the ice!

On my walk this morning I was able to use yesterdays footprints through the really deep stuff in the forest (they had frozen and set overnight!) and it got me thinking...I do a lot of thinking when walking through the forest, it has that effect on people! I was thinking how much easier it is to follow in the footsteps of another, that once the hard work has been done the first time, then the load gets lighter. A metaphor for life perhaps? Something to keep us going when we are blazing a new trail into the unknown for all the people that might follow. Then I started to think about how easy it is to just follow the footsteps of another because it's easier than making your own way in life, easier than that first hard slog through the deep snow......the kind of thinking that keeps us in our comfort zone even when it's not really what we would like to be doing. Then I started thinking that I think too much and so I just enjoyed the rest of my walk!!

Tuesday 7th November 2006

Today I finally got time to take a walk with the dogs and enjoy the snowy landscape, yesterday was particularly fine as the temperature was below zero and the snow falls had gently coated all the trees so it was a huge winter wonderland but now the temperature was rising and the snow was falling off the trees....which made my walk somewhat precarious. I took my usual route despite it meaning a long trek through deep snow as it took me to more remote parts of the forest where I could see all the elk tracks and other wildlife signs.....no wolf tracks though.. When I came home I found that there were fox tracks round the lake edge, the fox had walked around my pier rather than jumping up onto it.....I'm assuming that they were fox tracks as that's the most normal thing round here but I couldn't check them properly as the ice was melting, it's possible that they may have been Lynx tracks but the route taken didn't seem right. I'm no tracker I just have to go on the positioning of the pawprints and the number of pads and whether the claws are showing....I think I should get my tracking book out again to study!

Also because of the temperature rise to above zero the snow gets wet, which means that we can build snowmen from it and the roads are really slippery. It wasn't until coming to live here that I really appreciated the differences of snow at certain temperatures. When the temperature drops to minus something the snow is like a powder and is useless for making snowmen or snowballs, the air is very dry too the colder it gets and the roads are safer too. It's worth remembering that the average snowfall in the UK comes with temperatures above zero and that is one of the factors that makes it all so chaotic.....even with my studded winter tyres the roads are dodgy if the temperature rises, so if you are trying to drive with normal tyres then it's leathal...none of the Finns would do it! Apparently whilst I was away last week one night has a temperature of -18 so consequently my lake is frozen and I can stand on the ice but I wouldn't walk on it.....I usually wait until the night temperature has been -15 for a few nights but it is always a tense moment taking that first walk out across the lake. It doesn't usually happen until much later in the year so I'm not going to try it yet. I just have to say that last night the clouds lifted enough for the not quite full moon to shine through but with everything covered with snow it looked truly awesome...as per usual!

Now that the moon is waning it's the perfect time for me to do another cleanse, as when the moon is on the wane it's the best time to be clearing the body out and therefore is a great time for detoxing. I'm planning to do a quick two week cleanse to get my body fighting fit in time for Christmas when I shall probably pull out all the stops and do a massive retox!!! It's good to have balance in life!!

Sunday 5th November 2006

Here's a tip for anyone from Finland going to London....if you stop to give your friend a hug good bye at the bus stop before departing the bus driver will actually just drive off and leave you rather than wait as you may be used to in Finland!! luckily I have a good enough sense of humour and thought it was funny....and it meant that we got to try out our good byes again.

Stansted airport is a nightmare at the moment with all this security stuff....at least I'm presuming that's why it's so slow to get through. We all queued up as soon as the check in desk opened and we all joined the queue to go through security as soon as possible but it still didn't give you enough time to get to your plane before the final boarding call....and this was happening with almost every flight!! Luckily to avert a riot they waited for people to arrive at the plane but that meant we were nearly an hour late taking off and so it was almost midnight when I drove out of the airport carpark.

Saturday 4th November 2006

Had a wicked day out in town with my friend, we went to the Tate where I perused the Poetry and Surrealism section, then we headed up to the members lounge for a drink and a superb view across the river towards St Pauls. We didn't have time to queue up for the slides that are there at the moment but I can't really say I was too disappointed as I'm a bit of a wimp when it comes to heights (amongst other things). Then we took a boat trip up to the Tate Britain. The boat trip was fantastic as the sky had just turned a beautiful winter's pink colour and there was a full moon sat quite low in the sky and the river side is a mass of different coloured lights, the Houses of Parliament looked beautiful all lit up and the reflections on the water were mesmerizing too. I would thoroughly recommend it to anyone. We arrived at the Tate Britain too late for the exhibition we had wanted to see but we watched them dismantling it and it looked like it would have been brilliant!! We had a very quick tour round one of the main portrait rooms where I found that so many of the women in the paintings looked like me that it started to get a bit spooky! I think I would have made good money as a model around 150 years ago!

Friday 3rd November 2006

Today my friend was at work so I slobbed around her place for ages reading a channeled book that had been recommended to me which was turning out to be awesome, then I headed out in the afternoon to town. I went to Covent garden as I love to watch all the street theatre that goes on there and I wasn't disappointed with what I saw. I found a shop to buy some Branston for the folks back home as you can't get it in Finland and then met my friends and her friends for a meal in the evening. We ate at an Indian fish restaurant, the first of it's kind I believe. The food was good...except that I mistakenly thought I had a green bean in my spinach dish and chewed it up only to find it was a green chilli!!! And the lady next to me did the same thing too!! I believe that it gives the nose a good clear out to stream like that for about 10 minutes so maybe it was a good thing and luckily I wasn't out to impress anyone!!

Thursday 2nd November 2006

Today was the book launch in London! I was really nervous about going as I didn't have anyone to go with and I'm not very good with lots of people that I don't know but it's a good thing to face your fears.....apparantly! It all got off to a good start, I was introduced to a few people but I know that nobody wanted to speak to me really, I think I only got introduced to so many people because they all wanted to pass me on to somebody else. Ha ha poor things didn't want to get lumbered with me all night! I sat and chatted to a guy in the corner, so thank you Alex for making the evening not so stressful. I quite enjoy people watching as it gives an insight into very different worlds and the PR world is about as far removed from my world as would seem possible. I left after a few hours and took a walk along the river, looking at the lights and checking out the new Golden jubilee bridges to see if they wobbled but they don't.

Wednesday 1st November 2006

Last night was one hell of a night!! We left our friends at just after 10.30pm expecting to take a while to get home as it had been snowing consistently all evening and there had been no sign of any snow ploughs. We drove off very slowly and managed to get out onto the big road where there were some old tracks to follow, though what you do if you meet anyone coming the other way I don't know as there was only the one track in the middle of the road. After a few kilometres we had stopped twice to clean the wiperblades to assist with seeing clearly, then we came to a tree that had fallen across the road......did I mention the high winds and snow drifts? I tried to move it...wishful thinking as it was a huge Christmas tree but I couldn't believe that we had done so well and would have to turn back again. It was impossible to attempt to turn round in the road so I reversed back for a while, which involved sticking my head out of the window to see the old tracks.....now I wish I wasn't in my witches dress but in something very warm and snug! I soon got fed up with reversing so I phoned a friend that is a retained fireman and he rang the firebrigade. They were already miles away sorting out another tree but they promised to come to us straight after. So we sat and waited. I noticed another tree that had come down, so I moved the car to the best place I could away from any large swaying trees. I was so glad to see the blue lights coming down the road...it was quite exciting really! They cut the tree up in a matter of minutes and we were off again...this time with some nice big fire engine tracks to follow. When we came to the end of this road the fire truck and support car had caught up with us, I stopped to clean the wipers again and the guy in the support car asked if we wanted him to follow us home.....I replied that I wanted him to go in front of us to our home and bless him he did. I bet he was regretting that when I couldn't get the car up the last hill to my house...so frustrating to get all that way and then be stuck 100m from my drive!! We spent ages digging out the front of the car looking for the towing hitch, got the book out....the skoda has a weird screw in towing device which we eventually located in the dashboard....and all this time I'm outside in a blizzard in my dress and coat and luckily my snow boats. I got towed up to the drive and then we pushed the car onto the drive. When I went to open the door it was really difficult as the snow was right up against it so I made the decision to leave the car there as I had to be on the road early and so we walked the last 400m home and finally arrived at 1.10am. A 10 mile journey took us 2 hours and 40 minutes!!

Getting up early in the morning to set off to the airport didn't prove much easier, the walk up the drive took at least half an hour with me dragging my suitcase behind me making a kind of Wensaslas path for Emma to follow through the snow which was over her knees!! I was so exhausted by the time we reached the car and then I had to dig the car out. Half of the road was cleared and the school taxi arrived to take Emma whilst I continued to dig the car out getting it closer and closer to the road. By the time I'd got it out and filled up with petrol I felt a familiar feeling.....an airport run and not much time and awful conditions. I did quite well and got to the main roads of Tampere with time to spare but the weather there was really bad and there were big lorries getting stuck everywhere, so by the time I reached the airport the check in was closed.....however, being a lovely local airport they let me check in (and several others minutes after me) because they knew the kind of journeys we had endured to get there and to send us home again would have been really mean......not that that would stop them at Stansted!!

It had occurred to me that as I was having so much hassle getting away on this trip that maybe I shouldn't be going but then I realised that if I had stayed at my friends house we would have been snowed in and I would have missed my flight and if I hadn't been out that night or I had returned home early I would have had my car down by my house and would never have got it out.....so this reminds me that there is always a reason behind everything!

Tuesday 31st October 2006

Today I had an appointment to get my winter wheels fitted.....but the road was so slippery this morning that I couldn't imagine driving to the garage!! The dogs were having difficulty standing up on our morning walk so I didn't fancy my chances of driving up the big hill by my place and then round the bends at the top, assuming I even got that far. I figured that if I could undo the nuts on the wheels on my car then I could change them myself, so I tried them out and I managed to shift them all, then I rang the garage and told him my situation and then I rang a taxi to fetch my wheels for me. I think the taxi driver was a little concerned that I was going to pull a helpless female stunt on him and get him to change the wheels...but not this woman! It's really empowering to be able to do these things yourself.....although, of course the novelty will probably eventually wear off!!

We're going to a Halloween dinner tonight over at the kennels.....the wolves have been spotted around there these past few days and I'm hoping to see them, especially if we drive home late.

Sunday 29th October 2006

I took the dogs out for a nice long Sunday walk and I could hear the birds in the distance...but hang on, that sounded like cranes! And lo and behold it was 2 Cranes (Grus grus) circling in the sky!! I remember the day that most of them left to fly south as I was picking the currants at my friend's house before she went on holiday, so that must have been the beginning of September!! What on earth where these two still doing in Finland at the end of October. I watched them for a while and even tried shouting and pointing south in case they were just disorientated. Then I noticed a third one come up from the ground and the two in the air started to circle down to where it was, so maybe they were just trying to find a place for the night and the whiteness of the entire landscape had confused them for a while. I'll never know why they were so late leaving but maybe they are like geese, that if one of the flock is injured someone stays with them until they are OK to fly and then they fly together to catch up with the others. That seemed like a lovely thought so I'm going to keep that one and send them blessings on their flight to their winter home.

Saturday 28th October 2006

It's funny that over the past few days my friend and I have spent many hours talking about trust and faith in the Universe or God, or whatever you call the oneness of everything. Last night when I saw it was snowing and I knew that I had to get her to the airport this morning and I don't have my winter wheels yet I made a conscious decision to trust that everything would be OK, I thought that I would wake up in the morning and all the snow would be gone. Not the case! So I thought, just trust, it will be OK, the sun will come out soon and melt it all away, but that didn't happen so I thought, OK I can trust that when I get to the main road it will be fine....didn't happen! By the time we'd slip slidded our way to town and I'd realised on the way that I also needed petrol which would eat into the time I had left to get to the airport I was beginning to doubt a little but I reminded myself of the trust I had.....maybe I would see somebody who was going to the airport and had the right kind of tyres. At the petrol station I met my neighbour and he had his winter wheels on.....just like everybody else...I'd been hoping for some kind of solidarity, that all the locals were maybe convinced that the snow wasn't so bad and I didn't need the tyres really....but apparently not! My neighbour didn't suggest he was going to Tampere as per the plan in my head, so I filled up and started to drive. I knew that the time I had left to get to the airport would be fine if I could bomb down the road in my normal fashion but I also knew that I would have to drive so slowly to actually get there at all...but I had to trust. I decided to just drive within my abilities and to put aside any issues about the time because I couldn't do anything about any of it, all I could do was drive and leave it to the Universe...and the angels that i's asked for help. My job now was just to drive and talk to my friend so that we weren't focusing on the problem.....as according to the laws of manifestation, that which you put your mind to will manifest and we wanted the opposite! There were a few skiddy moments where I was really pleased that my driving skills have improved so much since living here....in other words I didn't panic and hit the brake when the car lurched sideways but rather I drove into the slid and even when I over did it the first few times which left us weaving a little I still didn't panic but just evened out my steering into the skid and eventually straightened us out...man I was so proud of myself but I knew it was the angelic influence that had kept me calm through all that. So we plodded on and I kept trusting and it finally started to dawn on me that trust with expectations about how I would be delivered wasn't really complete trust....the really is a life lesson in every situation. To cut a long drive short, we arrived at the airport with 2 minutes to spare before checkin closed, how we did it I don't really know except that I did it on trust and that's all that I need to know. And on the way back? Ha ha...well I don't push these things, I have to take some responsibility for myself so I drove the long way round to get home via the highways, 60 miles out of my way but no sliding!

So today really was a metaphor of my whole life, not really knowing how I am going to achieve what I want but going for it anyway and letting the angels and the Universe do the rest. I try not to let my thoughts and therefore my energy rest on the things that I don't want because that is what it will bring to me.

Friday 27th October 2006

What a difference a day makes!! This morning I walked Emma up to the taxi at exactly the same time and it was so dark, admittedly it was raining but still the difference as I walked the dogs was quite stark. It has been a day of weather, hard rain, bright sunshine, more hard rain and then more bright sunshine and ending with snow! My visitor didn't get up until gone 1pm today, just in time to meet Emma coming home from school in fact, which was quite amusing...but the aim of this place is to be peaceful and restful so that's good, plus we did have a sauna last night and I'd added lavender oil to the steam water to help Emma's stuffy nose but it's also a great sleep aid. She's going home tomorrow so she'll have to get up earlier.

Thursday 26th October 2006

Emma goes to school earlier on Thursday and Friday so I was out earlier with the dogs which meant that I caught the sunrise, a spectacular red sky that made me feel really grateful for this life and all that I have in it. I don't normally get to see the sunrise as east from my house is forest and of course I can't get out of bed so easily (my bed is such a cosy safe haven!), so it's really great as winter comes that the sunrise gets later and later. It's in November that I have seen the most spectacular skies, one morning in particular I remember that Emma and I were rushing up the drive when she caught sight of something red out the corner of her eye and when we turned round the whole sky behind us had been glowing....and to think we hadn't spotted it because we were rushing! I think that happens so often in life that we are too busy rushing and we don't take the time to notice the beauty around us. It's one of the aspects of Mairela that makes it so perfect as a retreat because it's so serene here that you are naturally calmed into a state of just being. When I talk about just being, I mean that state of awareness when you are really 100% living in the moment and allowing the moment to envelope you. It's what we are striving for in our lives, to be totally present each and every moment.....so it's nice to snatch snippets of it now and again to open up the neural networks.

It's gone midday and my friend is still asleep...maybe I should offer out this place for sleep therapy!!

Wednesday 25th October

I tried to sort out my winter wheels this morning, I'd found some old wheels and I still have the winter tyres from my wrecked car (I didn't wreck it!) so I was really pleased with myself for saving all that money and recycling old stuff.....but the hole in the middle of the wheel was too small...can you believe that? Every year in Finland we change our wheels in the winter time as the roads will be covered with snow for months. I use studded tyres and they have kept me out of trouble so far! When I first came here I found it hairy enough driving on gravel roads never mind snow roads but I started off driving slowly and gradually built up my abilities or my misguided confidence depending on which passenger you are talking to!! Fresh snow is the worse to drive on but I don't have to worry too much about that as I work from home and so I can just wait for the snow plough to clear the road before I venture out. The plough comes to clear my drive too as it's 400m long....imagine trying to clear that with a shovel, you'd just get done and then have to start again!

But it's not snowing yet although it's almost freezing this morning. I wish the builder would hurry up and bring back the rest of my window, the single pane is very noticeable but you can't hurry folks out in the country.....well you can but it won't make a blind bit of difference to what happens!

Outside in the garden the birds are busy feeding, the Willow Tit (Parus montanus) seems more at home on the feeder by the window than the Great Tit (Parus major) and the Jays (Garrulus glandarius) have emptied the peanut feeder but are feasting on the elk leg instead now! Most of the leaves have fallen from the trees around my garden now and the view across the lake is taking on it's winter look more and more, the stark white trunks of the birch trees at the bottom of the hill with their purple branches, then the dark green of the Christmas trees intermingled with the occasional yellow birch tree still clinging to it's leaves.

A friend from my course has come to stay with me for a few days but she is still fast asleep, that happens so often with visitors as this place is sooo relaxing they can't believe how much they sleep here.

Tuesday 24th October 2006

I've came home last night after a week away in the UK. I was attending the 1st week of the 2nd year of my Energy Healing course in Brecon. Emma and I had a whistle stop tour of London yesterday on our way to the airport, it seems really weird to think that this time yesterday I was wandering around a very crowded and stuffy London Dungeon and now I'm sat here with only the willow tits making a noise. The London Dungeon is a really good tour but it must be hell in the summer as you have to queue for so long and it's so stuffy in there!! I was made up to be pointed out by the Crypt Keeper as a non believer. I have to say that it was an interesting place to be after spending a week exploring the Astral......

So what is the Astral? Good question! If you take the first three levels of physical, emotional and mental you would still have something missing for experiencing life, something like imagination, unlimited imagination....the playing fields of the mind....that's how I think of the astral level. It's where we go to when we dream, it's a vast place that holds so much stuff....mostly irrelevant but non the less interesting and very diverse. The reason why we will spend a whole year on this level is because there is so much healing that can be done there, this is the place of past lives and relationship chords.

This week we studied the Shadow Self, Duality and the Schizoid amongst other things. It never ceases to amaze me how the events and people that come into my life just before I am studying a subject at the school reflect and teach me so much about what we are about to study. Especially since I did my cleanse I have had aspects of myself that I have tried to hide over the years, the bits of me that I think others will judge me badly for, all come into my awareness....which is great if you know what is happening and can allow them to be there!! Luckily for me it was all part of my healing process and although it felt overwhelming at times I knew that I wanted to become aware of all parts of myself. This is what's known as the Shadow....and the really amusing thing about the Shadow is that we all spend so much time and energy on keeping it hidden, or so we think, but it's so obvious to everyone who knows us!! However, I should point out that it's not a good thing to point this out to anyone unless they particularly ask you to....and even then be very very gentle!

I've always been aware of my Duality issue....I am one of those people who sees everything in black or white with nothing in between. I suppose it's better now that I am aware of that and I'm not just convinced that there are only two aspects to every event!!

I also realised that I am schizoid too...which I should point out is not the same as being schizophrenic, although that is the extreme aspect of the defence of the schizoid. It's basically a way of coping with life traumas from a very early age by disappearing out of the body...like daydreams and such like. You know when you are talking to someone and you realise that they aren't really listening to you....or maybe you never really know that they aren't listening to you!! It's much more involved than the simplistic explanation I'm giving but I'm not going to sit and reiterate my entire course here! But as I was saying in the weeks coming up to the course I had actually noted how I was having lots of daydreams just like when I was a little girl.....I lived in a day dream world as it was much easier than this world where I didn't understand the rules and got very confused.

There are 5 main character structures and we will be studying one each week...which means that in the next few weeks I'll be sinking into the Oral character...

I've collected the dogs from the kennel where they disgraced themselves by having a huge fight but they are now happily back home and tucking into some very juicy bones. My friend had processed her half of an elk and I'm happy to help her get rid of the remains! Both Freija and Sylka are enjoying an entire leg each complete with joints, tendons and all. I always wonder what it would look like if I had a crash on the way back and they found all these spare limbs in the back of the car...pretty gross me thinks!

Maybe tomorrow or later I'll reveal my shadow self...but then I guess it's obvious to everyone else anyway!! :-)

Sunday 15th October 2006

Yet another long walk with the dogs...I'm seriously in danger of getting fit here!! Today wasn't so rainy as yesterday and yet I didn't meet a soul. There was a little wind today and when I was walking the birch trees were showering me with their leaves just like beautiful bright yellow confetti....it did make me feel very special. It reminded me of a time a couple of years ago when my heart broke into pieces and how I would walk through the forest and find comfort from the trees....maybe it's just me but I think that it could work for anyone. They are so big and strong and so grounded that they hold you in such a comfortable safe space and yet when you see them moving in the wind they are also soft and gentle as they whisper to you....I love trees, they are just fantastic. Yes, I am a self confessed tree hugger!

Saturday 14th October 2006

I took the dogs for a long walk this morning, up the road and through the forest to the other side of the lake, then round the lake, through the forest and home again. And I have never met so many people out in the forest before!! It's the autumn half term holiday here so maybe everyone has headed off to their summer cottage. The funny thing is that some people around here are really frightened of the wolves in the forest and when these two dogs come tearing up to them for the first couple of seconds it must be really scary.....luckily one of the dogs doesn't look anything like a wolf....being a German Shepherd but like I said those first few moments must be frightening. I was really pleased that after I came along and waved and said good day to everyone they all smiled and waved back.

I've put up my winter feeding places for the sunflower seeds and peanuts that help my little feathered friends through the winter, it's one of my most favourite things about wintertime watching the birds on their feeders. In previous years I've had one hanging from the branches of the big birch tree just outside the house but as I've now sawn off the branch that it hung on and I've decided that I would like to see the birds closer up I've now placed that feeder on a pole right outside the window. I'm not sure how that's going to work yet but the birds are getting used to it being their already. At the moment that particular window is half missing, it's only got single glazing rather than the triple glazing that the rest have and consequently it's very see through.....I know that sounds ridiculous about a window but I was amazed when it was taken away for mending just what a difference it makes...it lets in more light and you can see in and out of it much easier!! The other problem that I might get later on in the winter is the snow falling off the roof might hit the feeder and would break it....but I'm hoping it's far enough under the eaves. The feeder hanging on the porch has peanuts in it and at this time of year the most regular visitor is the jay...it's not easy for the jay to hang on there but he manages it and of course empties it's pretty rapidly.....there are usually about 8 jays around the garden as they also like to eat the potatoes that I haven't picked up. The jays here are slightly darker than the UK variety and they provide a lot of the weird noises in the forest, they sound a little parrot like when they are squawking. I have spread the contents of my compost heap onto my vegetable patches and rotivated them and as I look out of the window now there are 4 jays searching through my compost stuff looking for food. There are also 3 greenfinches sat on the feeder outside the window so they are only 1 metre away from me and I can see them squabbling. I could just sit here for hours watching the birds go about their business. There are also many Great tits too, these are the most common birds and they will stay here for the whole winter unlike the jays and the greenfinches that will retire to more southerly climes.

Tuesday 10th October 2006

Today is a day of coincidences, which of course don't really exist...there is no such thing as a coincidence! But when you meet someone that embodies everything that you have been looking for in the same day that you manage to shake off a negative part of your life you have to ask yourself if the two events are connected. The way that the universe works (my belief) is that abundance and everything we need and desire flows to us but it is our distortions that stop us from accepting this flow. Today has been a really important day in my life, a day when I have been real and true to myself and with that abundance has flowed right through me. The energy of the universe is forever flowing, for movement is life and blockages bring stagnation and dis-ease.

Sometimes I come across a word or expression in Finnish that I love to use instead of the English word. One of those that I love to use is 'pikkuhiljaa' which literally means 'little quiet' but is used as 'little by little' but it means more than that, it embodies the whole concept of doing something that grows little by little in an organic way, a natural progression...the silence and stillness that accommodates the growing of the trees and the movement of the stars.

Today is also Aleksis Kivi day. Aleksis Kivi is a famous Finnish writer, although I'm not sure if he is famous outside of Finland. I have to admit I've not read any of his books. If you are interested in him there is a short biography here.

Monday 9th October 2006

I'm supposed to have my homework for my course done today but I haven't.......we've had since June to do it!! You know how it is with these things, you always put them off until tomorrow and of course tomorrow never comes. I suppose that there is some lesson in there about living in the moment...but I'm going with the lesson of being 'real', of being myself and if I don't feel like doing my homework then I won't. However, I don't suppose I would let my daughter get away with that excuse so I'd better make sure she doesn't read this!

Sunday 8th October 2006

I took the dogs with me in the car to head into the forest to gather some lingonberries ( Vaccinium vitis-idaea) and to search for mushrooms, in particular a member of the chanterelle family known here as suppilovahvero (cantarellus tubaeformis). I actually had more luck with the mushrooms than the berries but I managed to get enough to make a pan of porridge with the berries. I call it porridge which is a direct translation from the Finnish but I think in the UK we would just call it lingonberry semolina......whatever you call it, it's something that I remember my mother and grandmother making for me when I was a little girl and I love it. The lingonberry or cowberry as it's sometimes known grows in the forest and is usually abundant but this year it has suffered from the dry summer I think. I picked some nice big red berries to day but they were few and far between which made the picking more of a chore than usual. Last year they were so abundant that you didn't have to move very far and your bucket filled up. The mushrooms may also be fewer than normal because of the long hot summer, even though we are getting plenty of rain now. Last year I picked so many because they are especially good for drying, in fact I still have some left from last year.....I kept them just in case I couldn't find any this autumn. I also managed to find some of the yellow chanterelles which is what most people think of when they talk about a chanterelle mushroom. These mushrooms don't need any special treatment before being eaten, just heat them until most of the moisture evaporates, them fry the in butter (or coconut oil if I'm being virtuous!) maybe with some onion too, them add some flour to make a rout and then milk (soya in my case but whichever takes your fancy is OK) or cream to make a sauce. Depending on the amount of liquid you add you can eat it as a mushroom sauce or as a mushroom soup. They are delicious and they stay around until the snow comes unlike some of the other types of mushroom which disappear when the temperatures start to drop. The yellow chanterelle is quite easy to spot but these darker ones are trickier...they blend in so well with their surroundings but once you find one patch then you usually find you are surrounded by them. It's almost as if you have to get your eye in for spotting them and once you've done that then you see them everywhere. I also found lots of 'orange peel type' fungus which I decided to look up in my books..in the English mushroom book it's actually called Orange Peel fungus (Aleuria aurantia) and has the skull and crossbones sign on it and as is often the case in the Finnish book it has a similar name, Oranssimaljakas and it has the knife and fork symbol next to it!! clearly the Finns are more adventurous at sampling the delights of nature and hurrah for that. Although my language skills are not refined enough for me to pick some of it and cook it correctly I did deduce from the main text that it is almost tasteless. That's not to say that it doesn't contain a bundle of nutrients and it would make a dish look superb with the colouring it provided.

Something very strange has just happened, I could hear the dogs barking outside (one of my windows has only single glazing at the moment and I can hear so much more than usually I would with triple glazing!) so I went to investigate. I could hear a really strange groaning noise coming from the lake so I went down to take a look as the moon is still very big and bright after the full moon early yesterday morning which incidentally I didn't see any of because of the clouds. I could hear really loud splashes coming from the lake so I conclude that the groaning noises are coming from a beaver as that is the only creature that I know that makes such loud splashes. It makes the noise by hitting it's tail really hard on the waters surface and it does it to scare away perceived threats...of course this beaver doesn't know that it will only encourage me to start making such obvious noises but I think he got that in the end as he went quiet and I think swam away. I have no idea if beavers make a moaning sound as a usual thing or if this guy is hurt in some way or maybe just lonely. There is an old beavers lodge on this lake so maybe he was just sounding it out to see if it was occupied. Maybe I'll and investigate in the morning....

Saturday 7th October 2006

I went for a walk with the dogs and decoded to collect some rowan tree branches with fruit on so that I could dry the berries and have some nice decoration around the house at the same time. There are flocks of fieldfares around at the moment feasting on the berries before continuing their southwards journey for the winter. Although they are found in many parts of Europe they are associated with Scandinavia, I remember a guest here who was a poet and in one of his books was a poem about the fieldfare likening it to the invading hordes of Vikings and I liked the analogy. So I collected my branches and then I decided that there wasn't really that many berries on them so I collected a few more berries. I hadn't gone out to collect berries so as usual I had to rely on filling the hood of my coat and yes it did start to rain before I got home but I ignored the rain.....then I found some mushrooms and stooped down to pick them.....cue one big shower of rowan berries all over my head!!! Now if I had bent from the knees to pick the mushrooms this would never have happened which just goes to show how important good posture is in all walks of life! I did pick up most of the berries again as they provide a really good source of vitamin C for the winter and once they are dried they can be ground and added to anything. Of course this is all theory for me at the moment as I have never tried it before but this is the way to find out, it's quite interesting to see a table of vitamin C content for the fruit and veg we get in our shops compared to some of the natural plants around us. One of my favourite plants is coltsfoot which is found pretty much everywhere has 104mg of vitamin C per 100g of edible portion compared to say spinach (52mg) or cauliflower (73mg) and yet another of my favourites the stinging nettle has 333mg. I'm using nettles that I cut and dried this summer to make tea at this moment to give my kidney and bladder a good cleanse. Last week I picked some of the coltsfoot leaves to make a tea when I had that sore throat coming because it makes a great expectorant. I don't know much about plants yet but I already have enough knowledge of the basic ones in my garden to assist me in most ways.

I've taken the information about the vitamins from a really great book called 'Moon Time' by Johanna Paungger & Thomas Poppe. I recommend it to anyone.......as with all books, read it and take what you want from it, listen to what feels right with you and then dismiss the rest. This book and I totally agree that we should spent the time cultivating our own gut feelings and then listening to them rather than spinning this way and that depending on which 'expert' opinion we have just heard about.

Friday 6th October 2006

Today I decided that I was going to finish digging up all my potatoes, which I almost managed to do except for the last two rows. It's such hard work which doesn't become apparent until you begin. I've got loads of potatoes which is giving me a bit of a problem with storage, I'm not completely up to speed about how they are supposed to be stored even in the UK and I haven't restored the cellar here so even if they are OK to go in there they can't!! The cellar here is a room built into a rock with a metal door closing it (which has now disintegrated away) and then another door with a 1 metre gap between them which I believe is the important piece. I read something at the Arctic museum in Lapland that regardless of the temperature above the ground that the temperature 1 metre below ground was a constant 1 degree which is how all the little creatures survive around here during the winter so I think that maybe the 1 metre gap with the doors is significant in that respect. Anyway, whatever the reasoning my cellar is no good for any kind of storage...except for lots of huge slugs it would seem...yuk! I have stacked as many bags and boxes as possible in the little porch I have but I'm going to have to seek advise about the effects of temperatures below zero on potatoes as I'm sure that at some stage during the winter with outside temperatures of -25 my porch will freeze. One alternative that crosses my mind is that I could eat all the potatoes now and then hibernate until Spring...but then I'd miss Christmas and Christmas in this winter wonderland is awesome.

Thursday 5th October 2006

It's my eldest daughter's birthday today and it's scary to realise that she is 23 years old...surely if I have an adult child then I should be feeling really old by now...but I don't....except just after trying to dig the potato patch!! Time is a strange thing and seems to change either as I'm getting older or just as the the years move forward. Nowadays when I think of something like looking after the dogs, on the one hand it feels like 5 minutes ago that I was there and on the other hand it feels like it was centuries ago already. Feelings like this happen all the time especially since I moved to Finland.

Looking forward in time is also a strange thing, if I think about all the work that I did here at Mairela last year it really doesn't seem possible that I could have done it in the amount of days that there were and yet clearly I did. I started when the snow melted by felling trees that threw shade onto the vegetable patch, built a cage for the dog to keep it safe from the wolf at night, extended the pier so I didn't always get wet feet, scraped all the paint off the house and then repainted it, painted the back of the cottage, replaced the hall floor, replaced the stairs twice (didn't like the first ones I made!), built an entire kitchen from scratch and made a new kitchen floor, cut, chopped and stacked 10m3 of trees for firewood whilst doing all the usual stuff like running reiki courses, renting out the cottage, maintaining the garden and growing all my vegetables.

Now I know that I have achieved what would look to be impossible it does make me wonder more about the power of the mind. I know for certain that if somebody had given me a list of all that stuff and said that I had to do it all by the end of September then I would have just collapsed into a big heap of despair, wasted three days crying about it, then wasted another week getting depressed about it all and then eventually doing nothing except see the certainty of it not getting done.....yet luckily I didn't think about what I wanted to get done or what the timetable was except that I knew that I was creating the Mairela that I have a vision of in my head and I kept working towards that vision just one job at a time. Everything that I do here is taking me towards that vision.....just like any journey it's happening one step at a time.

Wednesday 4th October 2006

After my pampering day yesterday I feel much better, the emotions have settled after their traumatic day, I know that I have a healing planned tonight and I feel quite peaceful that everything is working for the highest good as usual! I made a slideshow of a pictorial depiction of the year at Mairela because so many people have strange ideas about what it is like here in Finland, some think we all live in igloos...yes really I have met people who think that! When I have worked out how to do and if it's possible I'd like to add it onto my site somewhere but as I've just taken responsibility for the website and I'm making it up as I go along then it might be a while before it appears. I also have to keep in mind that living in the middle of the forest I don't have the luxury of broadband and so big files are not my favourite....please note all my friends who insist on sending me files that are 2mb!!!

Tai chi tonight was good. I have always been a little out of kilter with my bodily coordination and boy does tai chi bring out the worst....I would say that it doesn't help that it's all in Finnish but it probably doesn't make much difference. I have never known my right from my left...I know that sounds stupid but I don't, if I have to go right then first I check which hand I write with and then I know which way to go, if I need to go left I check which hand I write with and then go the other way, it's not a great system but it's worked for me and I don't know any other. I spoke to somebody once about it who said that it was a known condition that certain people have, just the way the brain is wired...a bit like the generalisation that women can't read maps or are generally not so good at it than men. I have to tell you that logically I can read a map but I can only do it if I am traveling the same way as the map...yes sometimes I can cope with turning the map upside down but I also remember one particular occasion years ago whilst driving round Kent looking for a farm which sold these particular apples that my dad wanted, I came to a crossroads and just couldn't get my head round the map, so I tried to do ahead stand in the drivers seat and that didn't work so I turned the car round so that it was facing the same way as the map was and then I could work out where to go....yes I know it's ridiculous but there you have it, that's me! So there I am at tai chi trying to serenely and flowingly (think I made that word up!) move my right hand here, my left hand there whilst trying to coordinate my legs and feet too...I have to laugh and frequently do. I'm not so bad when imagining holding a big chi ball but I do feel like a really bad mime artist....especially when I pretend to drop my ball for a bit of light relief.

Tuesday 3rd October 2006

Last night as I finished up all my cleaning and packing whilst waiting for the owners to come home the stress levels of the past few weeks finally caught up with me and I could feel my throat closing up, my nose blocking and my body aching.....there has been some flu virus going around here. It's strange how it quite often happens that for part of your life you know that you are stretching yourself too much and putting your body under stress and then the moment that the stress is relieved then the body collapses and is ill for a while.....however in a way that is quite healthy too because if we continued to exist overstretching ourselves all the time then imagine the damage that we are doing to ourselves. So today was my big rest day, a day where I didn't have to do any driving for once and after walking my daughter up the road to the school taxi I could just light the fire and lots of beautiful candles...then spend the day listening to healing music and just 'being'.

The afternoon brought the news that two of my closest friends on my course have resigned.....this throws me into emotional turmoil.....did I mention that today is the dreaded transition day in my emotional biorhythm cycle. All this sets me off on a huge process spouting old emotions from times I don't even remember...it has plugged straight into one of my deepest wounds and yet I know that this is a gift for me because it is from the place of my deepest pain that I will find the way back to the light. Rather than cutting off from this pain I will feel it and acknowledge it because it is part of who I am and the only way to release it is to own it.

Then tonight I went to the sauna for the first time in weeks....the other house has an electric sauna which just isn't the same....and I could really feel myself getting clean, shedding weeks of stress (physical, mental, emotional) and unblocking my nose too by adding some lavender and tea tree oil to the water that makes the steam. Pure heavenly bliss.

Monday 2nd October 2006

So my last day in the mad house has finally arrived and I'm busy hoovering up dog hair and washing floors etc. Stanley finally drove me completely insane yesterday and has now been locked up in the secure cage in the barn.....slightly worrying about how much he can bend those bars just by sticking his head through!!

The elk hunters have been around this area for the past few days....the elk hunting season started last week. Every year in Finland a prescribed number of elk are shot by licensed hunters. The hunters operate in groups of various sizes and each has their own area and their own quota. It's all very organised, the area is surrounded and all the hunters wear red clothing to guard against accidental shootings (take note America), even the dogs wear a red jacket! The carcass is divided up between the members of each hunting group and provides an organic source of meat. Nothing is wasted and it's one of my dogs autumn highlights to receive a huge box of elk bones! Elk meat is very similar to beef......and of course energetically it holds a good vibration as the elk has been living naturally and wasn't transported half way across the country before being electrocuted and having it's throat slit as is the fate of some animals. The reason behind the cull is the vast numbers of elk here, they have plenty of young trees to eat and very few natural predators...despite all the bear and wolf scare stories! Elk actually cause quite a few nasty road accidents each year which is why the standard Finnish insurance package contains 3rd party, fire, theft and elk. Because the elk is huge with long legs, on impact the legs tend to get broken and the large body smashes through the windscreen......not a pleasant experience for either party. A few times whilst out driving in the winter I've came across large patches of road where the snow is bright red from an elk accident.

Sunday 1st October 2006

Today is Mikkelinpäiva in Finland which means the day of the Archangel Michael. From the 400's the date was dedicated to Michael and in later years it became the day dedicated to all the angels and is also now known as Angels Day. The actual date is 29th September but if that falls on a week day then it is celebrated on the following Sunday. The Archangel Michael is the warrior angel that embodies courage, strength and protection. Michael has a blue flame sword that cuts through negative attachments.....it literally burns away our rubbish. a little like I was talking about with the Christmas tree in the fire the other day. Michael is the protector of humanity and is often depicted riding a white horse, which symbolises pure spiritual power, slaying a dragon, which symbolises our lower selves or rather the destructive elements within it. The courage of Michael is the trust in God, Universe (or whichever aspect you view it from) and the feminine side to that is Faith.

Don't know if it's anything to do with angels day but my wounded arm has healed up really quickly overnight. I gave myself 2 healings last night to help the hole as it was quite deep and it has closed up already and looks really healthy and dry. It has always amazed me how quickly wounds like this can heal after giving energy healing or reiki treatments to them, I've seen it happen before with people that I have treated so it's nice to experience it personally too. It's funny how it never loses it's ability to amaze me...but I guess that it's the same as beautiful sunsets.....we may have seen one just the night before but it doesn't take anything away from the one we are looking at right now.

Saturday 30th September 2006

I was reading in one of my school books about biorhythms and how they have an effect on us as we go from the high to the low phase, so just out of interest I made a note of mine in my diary and I'll see if anything tallies. There are 3 rhythms (although I have heard others being suggested too) covering physical (23 day cycle), emotional (28 day cycle) and intellectual (33 day cycle). I'm hoping that I got the initial calculation right as everything is based on that.....luckily it wasn't a transition day in the intellectual cycle! I'll keep a note of anything that fits and report back later on next year probably.

I took Emma's friend back home this afternoon and then we headed back to feed the dogs, when we got back we let out the dogs from the house for a pee.....my dog Freija who is outside in a cage obviously didn't want to wait any longer before saying hello, so she climbed up on the kennel and managed to leap over the top of the cage (redesigning it in the process) and run up towards the house. Unfortunately, Cassie (the puppy mum) took this as an act of aggression towards her pups (I presume!) and attacked her.....which Freija didn't take lying down. I was in the house but saw what was happening straight away.....I can move quite quickly sometimes, it impresses me. Emma did as I have always drummed into her.....she kept well out of it. It took ages to get a grip of both dogs and occasionally to stop a third from joining in but I did it eventually, although not without getting bitten on my right arm. I'm now sporting some very interesting bruises and a deep hole but it doesn't seem to have hit anything major as it's not bleeding much but the nerves feel very bruised. And it wasn't even a physical transition day......I think I might plot the charts of Cassie and Freija to see where they were on their emotional cycles!! I wonder if dogs have different times.....

Friday 29th September 2006

Today it's cold and rainy, so the puppy pen in particular is really muddy and when I picked them up to bring them inside tonight I ended up covered with so much mud and probably several other revolting substances too......I have really had enough of all this now! Stanley is getting more insistent with his break out attempts as Echo is in season, I've been modifying the fence bit by bit as he chooses new places to climb over. Everytime I make the last place secure he moves to another location.....his pen looks like something out of a high security area because he actually climbs up the wire so making it higher doesn't help, I've made overhanging wire netting so he has to go upside-down if he wants to climb out and then gravity takes over.....but I haven't done around the whole pen as it's not my place and not my wire. So far I've done all my repairs using old cut off bits of wire but if the whole pen needs to be done then I'll have to start using the good stuff.....so I'm leaving that joy to the owners.

I lit the fire in the house too to dispel some of the wet chill, this lady has the same kind of fire as I have at home. It's called a Tulikivi fire and it's made from soapstone. They are amazing fires, very beautiful to look at, very efficient and very environmentally friendly. Basically the soapstone absorbs the heat from the fire and it does this very efficiently as the smoke doesn't go straight up and out the chimney (as in the British design!) but it is channeled round the fire a few times to extract as much heat as possible from it before it goes out the chimney. This means that less wood is needed...hurrah for that I say as I'm the one who cuts, chops and stacks it all!! The ashes are so pure they can be used on the garden.....and also they are used to clean the glass door...it's perfect! All of my English friends who come over in the winter time are amazed at how warm the house is with so little wood.....they have visions (as I did before coming here) of forever stacking the fire and drippy noses from the cold.....then they see me put 2 baskets of wood into the fire on the coldest days and then that's it. Obviously the triple glazing and the insulation help too but the fire is truly the heart of the house.

Thursday 28th September 2006

You know, there is a cultural pessimism or 'doom' factor that I get to see a lot around here, I'm not sure if it's a countryside thing or a Finnish thing. I'm talking about the way some people get off on fear mongering about, in this instance, nature. I have heard that in Australia they have this unofficial immigration deterrent whereby everyone goes on about all the poisonous snakes, spiders, fish and the man eating sharks etc. and that frightens people away from wanting to go and live in their country but they don't get embroiled in any political agendas and they keep more space for themselves. Well, I have wondered if this is also true here and I have asked a few of my Finnish friends.....they did all laugh.

When I first came to live here people expressed surprise that I should choose to be out here in the forest all alone when the trees were full of wolves, bears and lynx all apparently just waiting to eat me...and if they didn't get me then the very long cold winter would finish me off (no pun intended!). Some guy (who shall remain nameless) told me that the previous winter it had been -30 for 3 whole months......it was actually 3 weeks but that just wouldn't have made such a good story now would it. Then they get started on the mosquitos et al, my uncle gleefully told me about all the different diseases that each different biting thing carried. I had an English guy come to stay here for a while after doing a job in Finland....his work colleagues had done such a good job on listing every potential health hazard that the poor guy arrived with a sack full of pills, sprays, creams and lotions......and he wanted a life jacket for rowing on the lake (more stories of doom and gloom). Luckily this really is a healing space and he could calm down fairly quickly and relax into his well earned break. One night he was trying to list to me all the bacteria that some of the insects can carry but I wouldn't let him continue. Now I'm not saying that ignorance is necessarily bliss but I do believe in manifestation.....if you go around with your head full of all the problems that are going to happen to you then they will happen to you.....the mind is a very powerful thing. But even putting all that aside for now, yes I do know that some insects carry some bacteria, just as I am sure that the bacteria for meningitis is naturally occurring in the human throat, the bacteria that causes thrush is naturally occurring in the human body too......the reason that these bacteria sometimes cause problems is more to do with us having a run down or stressed body. The human body (or any living creature) is a marvelous act of creation and will deal with anything if it is just given the opportunity to do so, however in this example, if we spend our time stressing about what disease we are going to catch today then we are putting our body under stress, which reduces it's capacity to deal with infections and that in turn allows ill health to get a foot in the door. My philosophy is to focus on the joy in life and eat healthily (but not piously)....to be kind to myself. Try it....what have you got to lose?

Wednesday 27th September 2006

As I walked around the kennels this morning picking up the poop I mused to myself that I much prefer my usual work helping to sort through and release metaphysical crap as opposed to working with the physical stuff!! I know that it can get a little tricky sometimes especially with transference, where people project their problems onto me but then that can happen to anybody......all you have to do is marry them...just kidding!!

Tuesday 26th September 2006

Today I was tidying up some of the old junk lying around this place.....I know that technically it's not my place but I have been walking past two old bookcases and a cupboard for the past few weeks and I decided that they had to go....besides which I love dismantling stuff with an axe and then burning it so this was an opportunity to indulge in my favourite hobby! After I got the main fire going I added some Christmas tree branches that were in the grass around me, then I discovered that there were a whole tree full of branches underneath all the long grass. As I started to pull them all out I got a little bit philosophical, I imagined that the old branches represented old parts of the 'self' that had been cut off long ago because they were undesirable.....as opposed to the main trunk that got used for firewood, and that because they were no longer wanted they were just left to rot until eventually the grass covered them and they could no longer be seen. Sometimes we just cover over parts of ourselves that we don't want until we think that they can no longer be seen. Then I thought how nice it would be to have a new piece of grassland that we could play on if it didn't have the branches hidden beneath the grass and so I cleared them one by one, untangling them from the covering that we had been allowed to grow over them and then placing them onto the fire.......it is the element of fire that transmutes the old energy into a new powerful energy. So I imagined that I was uncovering old parts of myself that had been hidden away and watching how the new smooth area was growing and how much more useful it would be to me. As it happens there were things that I had been uncovering within myself as part of my work using the book 'Fear No Evil' and they were definitely things that I have tried to cover up for many years and so it was particularly poignant to me to imagine the old being uncovered, being brought out into the light and then burnt to release the energy into a new form. I feel more at peace for doing it.

Monday 25th September 2006

Today I finally discovered a circular route, so no more getting lost and no more having to turn round and walk back the same way....I really hate doing that, I'm not sure why but I've spoken to a lot of people who feel the same! I could hear the dogs a lot whilst I was out walking, the trees give a great sound proofing but in the places where the trees have been cut down it almost channels the sound and it's funny where you hear it come out. At one point I thought that the wolves must be in the area as the noise came from behind me but then I realised it was the noise of the dogs coming through an empty valley. The wolf pack around here has grown to about 9 wolves now that they have had pups for the past few years, I'd love to see them but I'm not sure if so many dogs is off putting to them or like a supermarket. So many dogs have been killed in the past few years now, it's difficult to know just how daring the wolves are as the local media definitely hype up the stories too. Whilst I was away last winter my cocker spaniel Charlie was killed by the wolves but I know that she went after them to attack them so I can't really blame the wolf. It's difficult to find an easy solution because I hate my dogs being caged but you have to protect them from themselves to a certain point. My other dog Freija is a shepherd dog and her instinct is to stay at home and bark 'there is a wolf over there' rather then the hunting instinct of 'let me at them'

The trees are looking more autumnal by the day now. Last night was quite cold and you can see the new patches of yellow on the birch trees where the cold air has enveloped the leaves. I find it fascinating to see the various stages that the trees go through, some have an even spread of yellow and green leaves and some have the odd branch that sticks out farthest completely yellow and the top that sticks out from the tree line is completely yellow.....you can almost trace the line of Jack Frost. The odd maple tree dotted around provides a beautiful array of autumn colours and I'm very pleased to have two in my garden. The aspen trees have slightly more colours then the birch too, as do the rowan trees but the birch is by far the predominant tree. The view from my living room window looks across the lake to a birch trees and then a hill covered with mainly Christmas trees and it's a forever changing picture of colours at this time of year becoming more and more yellow by the day. There are some beautiful autumn pictures in my gallery...it's my favourite time of year.

Sunday 24th September 2006

It's another gorgeous and very warm day, Emma is off riding again and so I'm at my house catching up with my mail etc. I got an email today to tell me that Mairela retreat is featured in a new book just published called "50 Great Escapes, A Global Guide to Creativity" by Jonathan Lee. I can't wait to see the book as I sent off a few of my photographs for inclusion months ago....it's very exciting, I've even been invited to the launch in London in November.

Saturday 23rd September 2006

It was a really warm day today which inspired me to clean out the barn and groom some of the dogs. I spent ages combing out the tail on Charley the collie mum as it had gotten a big tangled, I had thought of just cutting the tangles out but I'm not sure the owners would have been too pleased when they got back and their show dog had a vastly reduced tail. I was glad that I made the effort though because when it was all done it looked really good. It's surprising how soft the fur is, the puppies in particular are like little bunny rabbits as their fur is so soft. I'm also pleased to report that everyone was fully recovered from their runny bottoms.

In the afternoon I headed over to my place to harvest some of my potatoes, as they can be drying in the sunshine before being sacked for the wintertime. The old cellar at my house isn't any good anymore for storage so I usually end up with everything stacked up in the porch and it gets a little precarious in there at times!

I took the mower back over with me and mowed the lawns so the place will look nice and neat for when everyone returns in 9 days time (but who's counting!!). Emma took the tyre pump back with her to pump up the tyres on the rig as she loves to take Freija out. At home she ties her to her scooter and comes flying down the driveway. I've clocked Freija with the car and she can run at 40kmph very easily, it scares me to think of Emma coming down the hill at that speed on her scooter with her bottom just inches from the ground (she sits on the scooter rather than stands). So it seemed a safer option to let her try out with a proper rig, like a sledge but with wheels. In fact a 3 wheeled bike that is pulled by dogs. We had a quick try, it was very fast downhill and we had to help Freija out going up hill but overall it was successful. I expect with 2 dogs it would be awesome and with 3 dogs very scary but as Sylka is too dignified to do anything like pull a sledge and none of the other dogs are mine we'll leave trying that until the others get back and we get permission to use another dog.

Friday 22nd September 2006

I took Tweed and Echo out with Freija and Sylka for a quick run through the forest, then took out the big dog Delta as he spends a lot of time running round his pen. Trying to keep hold of him on the end of a long line doesn't help improve my shoulder but I wasn't wanting to risk him just running off. So off we went down the road and into the forest on the other side than normal. The tracks that run through the forest are usually old roads made exclusively for the lorries to collect any timber that has been felled in previous years. Sometimes you get lucky and they create a circular route, sometimes like the other day they don't and you end up miles from home and facing a walk back the same way or a long trek back home! Anyway, I set off down this new route and fell into the trap of 'I'll just see what's around this next corner' and 'I'm sure we'll come back out on the main road soon' and 'I'm sure I'm heading back to where we live now' and so we walked and we walked......eventually I had to concede that we were not getting back to the road and it was time to head across country. Luckily, for once, the fact that all the other dogs back home were barking occasionally meant that I did know in which direction to start my trek. One of the problems with heading through the forest at this time of year without a headscarf on is that I ended up with hair full of elk flies (Lipoptena cervi), these are big buggers that crawl around on your head after they land and drop their wings, they don't do much harm but they feel gross! We came across another road and then I spotted a roof and a house in the amongst he trees, so I grabbed the 3 dogs so as not to disturb anyone and walked towards the buildings only to discover we were back home but from the opposite direction! I really really must get a map of this area, not that all the old forestry roads will necessarily be on it. I'd like to find the pond that belongs to this house.....I should point out here that none of the lakes in Finland actually belong to anyone, they in fact belong to everyone, to the people.....and the right to roam laws are the best in Europe (from the roamers point of view!). Anyone can go anywhere and pick mushrooms and berries (wild varieties that is) regardless of who owns the land so long as they don't go into your actual garden.

It's a bit of a nightmare when a mother with pups is ill, I'm not sure if the pups got the runs first or the mum but it all ends up much the same in the end!! So myself and Emma spent the evening washing little fluffy collie bottoms as they'd all got stuck up...yuk!

Thursday 21st September 2006

I feel much better this morning so maybe the energy block has made it's way out of my system, most excellent! It's a beautiful sunny day so after taking Emma to school at 7.30am as she has German at 8am today and tomorrow, I cleaned the house (see I must be feeling better!) and made some dinner for us and for dad. Dad is staying over at my home as he can't stand the noise of the dogs!! So I've made a huge pot of spaghetti bolognese using soya....smells pretty good. Then I collected a load of apples off the tree to take over to dad too. Most Finns have a couple of apple trees in their garden and they produce the most gorgeous fruit, this year and last year have been most bountiful. Most Finns prefer to eat domestic produce and even in the early summer time when Finnish produce is highly priced the Finns will still buy it rather than an imported one. I think that this is a fantastic philosophy and of course it has a sound reasoning to it. If fruit has traveled less then it will have retained more of it's nutrients but also nature is very clever with how she helps us all out and the plants that grow close to our homes reflect the nutrients and the energy that is most relevant to that which we need. Our bodies are sensitive to the different energies found in produce and of course we will resonate more with a local energy. That's why it takes a few days to settle when we travel and then it's best for our system to eat the local food at our destination.

Wednesday 20th September 2006

I had an uncomfortable night with the beginnings of a frozen shoulder and toothache!! I decided to go for a walk to try and relax it all away so I took my two dogs and two collies for a long walk. I also finally remembered to take a bag with me for the mushrooms....up until now I've been sticking them in my pockets or in my hood. It rained the whole time I was out walking...stopped when we got back and then the sun came out!! I found loads of mushrooms including a few Saffron Milk Cap mushrooms (Lactarius deliciosus......which sounds like a Harry Potter spell to me!) which I think are Leppärousku in finnish.These mushrooms as their name suggests are delicious and you have to race to get them just as they emerge as the worm population seem to like them very much too. They look quite frightening too, all salmon pinky orange with green patches.....there is a picture of the mushrooms in my gallery somewhere from previous years.

The shoulder problem wasn't too bad but the toothache was getting quite tender, I couldn't bite down on that side of my mouth. So I slept most of the afternoon as I always figure that if I have some kind of infection coming out then from an energy point of view it's a good thing that bad stuff is being drawn out of my body and I should rest as much as possible to let my body deal with it as it will with all such things if left to do so. I left it until the last minute before deciding that going to my tai chi class would be a good idea.....it would help to get the energy moving and therefore would help to move this energy block which had manifested as an infected tooth. The whole thing was turning into a full blown migraine but I still enjoyed the tai chi and managed to keep going by concentrating on my breathing. We did some stretching exercises where one person held your feet and another your arms and then they used their weight to pull you.....it felt fantastic!

I fed and watered the dogs as soon as I got back, did a few enemas to clear out all the toxins in my body and then headed straight to bed. The dogs were actually quite quiet that night...maybe they understood that I was feeling really ill.....yeah right! Good night at 21.15!

Tuesday 19th September 2006

Today I arranged with Emma to get the usual school taxi back home and I would meet her there as I wanted to finish off the stack of firewood that me and dad had collected from the forest the other day. I loaded up the car with the few left by the road side as I drove down the drive, I'm used to having a car full of tree bits. It's one of my priorities when looking at a car...how many trees can you get into the back with the seats down? It's usually the suspension that is the deciding factor.

On with the safety trousers and the earmuffs but dispensing with the safety boots as I find it too difficult to balance on top of a log pile with them on, however I do acknowledge that it is dangerous. When the logs are piled up together it's easier to cut the ends off without too much effort as they are automatically off the ground (if you hit the ground with the chainsaw it blunts the blade...and can throw up sharp pieces of rock). It's like playing a huge game of pick up sticks except that you find the ends that are poking out enough for you to saw off and gradually the pile goes down. I occasionally stop to fling the sawn bits towards the wood shed as it saves walking with them all and too much bending down which gets to my back after a while. I think the whole process is a really good workout except that the vibration from the saw isn't very good for you. I've noticed before that if I spend a long time working with any vibrating machinery then I am more likely to be ill that night or the following day.....I think that there is actual legislation somewhere that covers how much work you should do so it's a recognised problem. However, faced with the alternative of sawing them all by hand I'll take the risk.

After finishing all that I realised that Emma must have missed the bus, they would normally wait for her but they aren't expecting her to be on it whilst we are living with the dogs. So I drove down to the school where she was patiently waiting for me on the swings.....it's worth mentioning that neither of us would panic about being left like that in Finland. It's a very safe country.

Monday 18th September 2006

Today the weather was lovely and warm, so I decided to take some more dogs for a walk. I chose to take Chelsea and Sydney, two of the gun dogs with me plus my two as they give a kind of stability. It was almost impossible to hold both dogs on the end of a lunge rein and so I gave them their freedom but with the long lines still attached....don't want to be explaining lost dogs when to dean when he comes home. They loved it, running through the forest and I found even more mushrooms to add to my growing collection in the freezer. I walked to the end of the path that I've been using as I was hoping to work out a circular route, the path eventually went down to a single track but I could see a forest road in the distance, so we headed towards that. We had a slight detour to get Sydney out of the most evil smelling black ditch...glad she had a long rope attached to her that I could just pull her with! Onto the road and I confidently headed off to the left, then we met another road and I went right, then I decided that I didn't have a clue where I was!! The dogs meanwhile found some poor woman out with her grandson and dog, I think they frightened the living daylights out of her as they charged down the road, what with this area being the heart of wolf territory and so many scare stories in the local paper...so I collected the dogs and left in a hurry, whoops! I phoned a friend to ask what way to get home...he just told me I was mad...true but not helpful! Then I heard a car which I flagged down to ask...I think they thought I was being attacked by a pack of dogs when I first ran towards them but then they noticed the leads. They didn't know where home was either but they drove back to their house to reappear later with a map, then they loaded us all into the car, that was no mean feat, and they drove us all home. What lovely people. It's a shame that Sydney was so car sick and dribbled all over the place but I'm hoping they didn't notice.... it was about 6kms by road to get back home...clearly not a very good circular route...maybe I'll buy a map...

Sunday 17th September 2006

Emma has riding today so I waited for her at home where I could catch up with some of my own work. I'm taking trees out of the forest to make firewood....not just any trees but ones that I have permission to take. Most of the land around my home is owned by the church and they have it managed by the forest people which means that the trees are thinned out regularly as they grow to make sure they have enough space until eventually the whole lot is harvested and they start again with growing new ones. The latest Christmas trees to be thinned out are no good to anybody so I am allowed to collect them......people think I'm nuts to spend all that time sawing off branches and collecting them as it's quicker to make firewood from bigger trees...true but this way I get firewood for nothing except my time and effort and chainsaw fuel. I have to say that a few hours work with a chainsaw and an axe is very therapeutic!!

I do wear all the safety gear when I'm using my saw as I don't think you get a second chance witha chainsaw, one accident usually does the trick. I must tell you about the time I went to buy all the gear and I enquired about the need for a hard hat.....the answer I got was that the bar on the front of the chainsaw would automatically cut the engine if the chainsaw flicked up and hit my head, therefore the blade would only ever go just a little way into my skull and therefore there was no need for a hard hat!!! Well that was not the answer I was expecting but I took his advice and didn't bother with a hard hat! Interesting approach to health and safety but I guess that it's all down to perspective.

Saturday 16th September 2006

OK, confession time....I broke my cleanse yesterday evening, Emma's slab of white and milk chocolate blended together in a perfect fusion of chocolate was just too much for me and quite frankly I broke.....not that I have had any regrets about it since then, it's been like a constant food fest, like I'd been stuck on a desert island for months, chocolate was followed by cheese and Branston on rye bread, chilli in tortilla's with melted cheese and salad. I should mention here that I don't even usually eat cheese as I don't have much dairy in my diet......but then I don't normally eat much meat either but I had sausages too on Friday evening!! So my cleanse finished not quite as the book would have you do it but at least I had managed 24.5 days of the 28 days and that means that I have stuff left so I can come back to it another day when I have less on my plate (no pun intended)

Today wasn't a great day for the dogs, there were quite a few sick looking pups and the mother of the older Lab puppies was a bit under the weather too, so we got then out for a romp around on the grass in the sunshine and that seemed to perk them up a little bit. Emma was helping me with crowd control, as 5 puppies can be a real handful, I think they are about 11 weeks old so they are fast runners. Just a few rolls of andrex and you'd have a great toilet roll commercial.

Then feeling brave we took the two spaniels out for a walk in the forest with Freija and Sylka (my two dogs). Wellington the male was a treasure and didn't run of but the female was a pain, at one point she jumped on my back and ripped my jumper!! Don't know what she's trained to be sniffing out but I'm sure I don't have any on me! But overall we had a good walk, we found a summer cottage in the woods made from a really old store house, everything inside it was made of wood (we just peered through the window after making sure nobody was at home!), it looked so fantastic you could just imagine the 3 bears living there. I also found loads more Woolly Milkcap mushrooms on the way back.....this track would appear to be a good place for them.

My two dogs seem to have been taken over by the whole pack instinct thing and got into a mega fight at feeding time, both looked very sorry for themselves when I'd parted them. It's a strange thing with dogs that sometimes they get taken over and start a fight even without really wanting too as the old instincts seem to rise to the surface.....perhaps that's what happens down the pub on a Friday night when gangs of blokes have been drinking together.... Anyway, I parted them for a while, then gave them a huge long lecture about being loving to each other......you can almost see them roll their eyes and tut...then put them back together again.

Friday 15th September 2006

Despite getting a much better nights sleep I feel very tetchy, sick and tired today....so that'll be the cleanse really kicking in! Since Tuesday night I've moved up a level with the cleanse to the power phase, the one where I only get to eat at lunchtime and dropped the 6.30 dinner. I've only been able to do this since Tuesday as I've been distracted in the evening by my evening classes...and because I've been drinking loads of orange and pineapple juice in lieu of food.

I took my 2 dogs out for a walk in the sunshine, it was still very cold as we'd had the first frost of the autumn last night. It's amazing how quickly I felt much better just to be able to go for a walk with my dogs, there is a certain something about walking in nature and in particular in pine forests that just resets your body to peaceful mode. It made me realise just how lucky I am that when I'm at home in Mairela I am living in the middle of the pine forest and I have this amazing effect on me all the time. I also found some Woolly Milk Cap mushrooms (Lactarius torminosus) or Karvarousku (Finnish) which are considered consider edible in this country but not in the UK. I have a UK mushroom book with it's skull and crossbones warning and my Finnish book with recipe ideas!! Anyway, provided that you boil them for 20 minutes before you use them they are fine.....well they've never hurt me and they taste delicious. It's been a funny year for lots of things growing in the forest, the blueberries (technically bilberries) just didn't happen this year because of a late cold night that wiped out all the flowers in May and many vegetable plots have been unsuccessful because f the very hot and dry conditions during the summer time. My spinach for instance went straight to seed and I haven't had any for eating......I looked this up on the Internet and apparently that can happen with spinach in dry conditions. Next year I'm going to use the beet spinach which is technically not spinach but tastes the same and produces a perpetual crop, in fact in the UK it would probably last most of the year. I've cooked the mushrooms and stuck them into the freezer so that I can eat them when my cleanse finishes next Tuesday, finally after 28 days! Fried in coconut oil (very healthy stuff) and then made into a white sauce using rye flour and soya milk these mushrooms will go nicely with some of the potatoes from my garden.

Thursday 14th September 2006

What a night and what a day!! The dogs drove me insane last night with barking , I was so tired from everything and they just wouldn't shut up so about midnight I stuck the worst offenders, the collies inside. This didn't seem to work completely as the dogs seemed stirred up still so at 2am I was back outside trying to get them to shut up. It was then that I heard and saw a puppy moving and thought that I was hallucinating from sleep depravation I went and pulled some trousers on and got a torch.....it was a puppy!! One of the dogs had been pregnant without anyone knowing and now she was giving birth. I grabbed the puppy which was cold and dirty and rushed it inside.....closely followed by mum! Emptied out the toy cupboard, rushed back down to the barn to grab handfuls of newspaper, rehomed the other indoors dogs into the dining room and settled the new mum into the cupboard. I was up all night delivering puppies, unfortunately only the first 2 were born alive, I tried for ages with gently breathing into the stillborn pups but there was nothing to do. I phoned the vet after the 2nd stillborn pup but she said that it happened quite often and there was nothing to be done so long as the others were happy and mum was looking after them....which she was. If I thought that I was sleep deprived at the beginning of the night.....

I managed to grab a few naps during the day and headed off to my Finnish evening class only slightly late. When I got there I was told that my Finnish skills weren't enough for me to stay on the course as there were others who wanted to be doing the course that could speak more than me. It seems bizarre that I should be told I'm not good enough at Finnish to be taught Finnish but I understand the reasoning. If there are people who would like to have some help with their citizenship exam then I am happy to let them have my place on the course as I hadn't learnt anything in the first 2 classes. So that was the end of my language course!

When I got back to the dogs the lady that was collecting 1 dog had just arrived. She was giving a good home to one of the older dogs.....the dogs went nuts when we walked down to the pens as they do when a stranger comes to visit and I couldn't believe it when the bitch she was collecting started fighting with the other bitch in the same pen. I had to grab them off each other but surprisingly neither had a mark on them! When my dogs fight they end up looking very sorry for themselves

Settling down at the end of this very long day I saw some lights outside through the blinds...going to investigate I found a police van parked outside the house. Two constables appeared at the door and said that they has heard from the previous owner that there were some old bombs at the house and they had come to remove them!! So we went outside and started to search through all the outbuildings for these 'bombs'. We never found anything, they even phoned the old owner and asked where they were eventually but that didn't help. The description of the bombs sounded just like the kind of dynamite stick you see in the hands of wily Coyote and apparently has kivibombbi written on them.....so they should be easy to spot if we come across them. Imagine seeing a dog running towards you with one of those sticks in his mouth!!

Wednesday 13th September 2006

Last night was my first night at evening class.....I didn't really understand much of what was said but I suppose that I will learn something eventually, although it seemed to be more geared towards passing the language examination that's required for citizenship. I'm not actually interested in becoming a Finnish citizen so maybe I'm in the wrong class!

The first day and night looking after the dogs has gone well, I remembered everything on my list and haven't lost any dogs. I can see that I am going to be stuck with timetables for the next few weeks which is going to be difficult for me as I don't like to be so structured. But what with feeding times for the puppies four times a day, taking Emma to school and collecting her and my times for taking my cleanse stuff I'm going to have to keep both eyes on the clock.

I went to a tai Chi class tonight and really enjoyed it. It's an evening class held in Kuhmoinen and it only costs 30 euros for the year much like most of the evening classes here. The government is quite interested in keeping people occupied and interested in things during the winter months when the nights get so dark. Personally I think that it's great and very forward thinking rather than firefighting approach of waiting for people to get sick and then helping them out (or handing them some pills!). The class is in Finnish, of course, and I think I learnt more Finnish during this evening than I did the previous evening at my Finnish language course! We did some walking movements which I loved.....when we added in the hands I got all muddled as I knew that I would, I'm one of those people who just can't seem to connect everything up, I'm hopeless at computer games that require hand/eye coordination. I'm looking forward to next week.

Tuesday 12th September 2006

I didn't sleep very well last night which is unusual for me and I have woken up in the middle of a healing crisis as predicted so I'm busy making notes in my healing journal and reading a very interesting book for transformation. It's called 'Fear No Evil' and it's part of my course. It's not a book that you just read from cover to cover but a book that you slowly work through the chapters being honest with yourself about who and what you are and it helps to uncover all the distortions that we all carry in our energy fields.

It's going to be a busy day for me as I'm starting to look after my friends Kath and Dean's dogs today whilst they are away. She has a lot of dogs, 32 dogs and 10 puppies at the moment, so my daughter will be in her element cuddling puppies every day after school. The dogs are either gun dogs which her husband breeds and trains or agility dogs which she breeds and trains or the occasional sniffer dog. I'm especially looking forward to spending some time with the agility dogs and seeing how they react to energy and healing. My favourite is Stanley who's half donkey and half dog....well ok that's just how he looks to me but he is handsome too. I'm also starting my evening classes in learning Finnish tonight and I'm really nervous about that. I've done many courses before but always covering the same stuff but this course is more advanced and I'm worried that I won't be able to understand what is going on...but of course I know that there is only one way to find out.

Monday 11th September 2006

Today is a beautiful sunny day and everything is going well.....now having gotten used to doing a few cleanses and much healing work I recognise these signs....I know that tomorrow is very likely to be a healing crisis day. That means that I'll wake up in the depths of despair and spend most of the day crying and writing up notes in my healing journal until I eventually work out what is at the bottom of it and can finally let it all go. Sometimes I can do this on my own but sometimes I have to get on the phone to my healer. It's a good thing to remember when you are traveling down the spiritual path that there won't t be a time and a place when you have reached 'that point', enlightenment is about being on the path and traveling it, not some goal that you will reach at the end of it where everything will suddenly be peaceful and bright and angels will be singing in the background.

I finished off cutting the grass and moving some of the ferns from around my currant bushes. I planted them last year and they still look pretty pathetic so I am taking my mother's advice (shock horror!!) and removing the ferns from around them to give them more room to grow. I love having the ferns growing in my garden as they look so pretty but I guess that I still have plenty of them around for me to gaze at. My sunflowers are looking a little battered but still very pretty and a welcome splash of colour in all this green. It probably seems weird to the average city dweller that a place can be too green but trust me it can! After all the new spring green colours start to darken then everything just blends together and then when the natural plants stop blooming in July all the colour goes. This year there is an abundance of rowan berries around so there are odds splashes of red.

I picked some rowan berries and I'm going to attempt to make some rowan berry jelly. I'll let you know how I get on with that as it's all new to me.

Sunday 10th September 2006

At the moment I am in the middle of doing a 28 day cleanse and so I'm permanently hungry or thinking about food! This is the Arise and Shine cleanse from America designed to remove mucoid plaque from your colon. This plaque is made up of all the rubbish that we have been eating since we were born! The body tries to protect us by wrapping it all up and hiding it away but of course we eat so much rubbish these days that our intestines are filled up with pockets of undesirables. Looking at it from an energetic point of view these packets of "rubbish" "toxins" or "poisons" that we lock away within ourselves correspond to packets of blocked emotions that we have locked away at various points in our lives. I find it really fascinating that when I physically release these blocks using this cleansing program then the corresponding emotion rises to the surface again. Yesterday I could feel huge waves of anger surfacing in me and it was all through the eyes of the little girl inside me. This little girl was seething about huge injustices and perceived hurts that had happened years ago.....I'm 43 years old now and it serves me no useful purpose to be carrying this stuff around any longer. In fact carrying all this stuff around but not being aware of how it affects everything that I do in my life is quite scary really! I'm very glad that with my studies and work with the Energy Healing School in the UK that I am slowly working through all this stuff and gradually releasing it all.....whilst still maintaining a fairly normal personal life!! :-)

I haven't decided yet is I will be brave enough to post all my experiences onto this site but watch this space! I know that by showing my perceived "weaknesses" and my perceived "badness" that I will heal myself much sooner and maybe I will also help somebody else who may recognise themselves in some of the things that I write.