Tag Archives: movement

Autumn Approaches

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The roses are throwing out their end-of-summer blooms; the sun sinks below the horizon earlier; the air carries a crisper note of leaves on the turn, ripe pears and apples, and cooler nights to come.
Autumn has always been my favourite season of the year. It starts with an unfair advantage because my birthday is at the start, but the appeal goes beyond that. Autumn is the time when the universe changes its paint palette and sweeps a swathe of golds, amber, and scarlet over the dark wet green of late summer. The earth’s bounty is most plentiful in autumn. In this part of the world summer fruits are harvested well into march and mild temperatures mean a wide array of produce throughout the season. Autumn is best for running: not too cold, nor too hot, and the falling leaves crunch so satisfactorily under foot.

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Memories from last Autumn

Cooking:

Roasted Eggplant Salad with Smoked Almonds & Goat Cheese (source)

Roasted Eggplant Salad with Smoked Almonds & Goat Cheese (source)

Things to do:

  • To keep my hands warm on long autumn walks (and bike rides!) these are so cute!
  • Things to make my winter garden sing! Beetroot, carrots, and beans would fit in my kitchen garden. Perhaps some sunflowers too.
  • Boots to keep my toes warm this winter – maybe these?
  • A pretty autumn picnic amongst the trees.

Moving:

  • I don’t know what we’ve gotten ourselves into, but this should come in handy when Chris and I line up at Tough Mudder in August…
  • Training for the Gold Coast Half Marathon and taking it s-l-o-w-l-y as I work through this asthma thing
  • I did my first Blogilates workout on Monday, and I loved it! Can’t wait to integrate this into my training regime on a more regular basis.

Thinking:

I know, I seem to love lists, but I promise you all tomorrow I will return with a delightful Gluten-free Spiced Carrot Loaf (perfect for a weekend breakfast), and on Saturday a warming dinner for these cooler nights and a rally to gather your family around the table.

Tell me dear readers, anything on your Autumn To Do List? Anything you’ve been reading or listening to lately?

Remember to Play!

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I am not the most serious of people, however, I can be quite…sombre sometimes. I tend to get a little lost in the lanes and byways of my mind and end up picking apart situations, and opportunities into a million little pieces. I get caught in a web of my own thinking and spiral down more rabbit holes than Alice ever did. When these times come, and come along they always will, I need to remember one thing: to go out and play!

No better cure exists for serious grown up thoughts, and self examination, than a good old childish play. Sometimes I need to just listen to my eight year old self and leave worries behind. Romp, race, rejoice in the moment, and revel in the sheer pleasure of being alive and in the world.

Today, when I was lost in some thoughts that I needed to leave alone for a little while, I popped my iPod in my ears, slipped my feet into my runners and took off for a walk. When I happened across a pile of leaves on my path I remembered what I needed to do in order to forget my troubles and, wait for it, come on and get happy!

I needed to kick up the leaves. I needed to pick up big handfuls and toss them in the air and let them rain down on me in their brilliant winter kaleidoscope. I just needed to play. When I got back home I decided to write myself a list of all the childish things I can do when I feel the need to cheer myself up.

Then I decided to share it with you just in case you need to remember to play, here are some of the things that make me revert back to eight year old Amy.

  • Piles of leaves (well, obviously) – just ready to throw into the air
  • Wearing flowers in my hair
  • Dancing in thunderstorms – living in the semi-tropics is great in summer
  • Singing along to every Disney movie ever made
  • Freckle lollies (you have to sandwich them together though)
  • Playing Twister
  • Running in and out of the waves at the beach
  • Cartoons on a Saturday morning (oh, how I am glad we don’t have pay TV in our house)
  • Walking barefoot through the grass on a warm spring afternoon
  • Playing dress-ups (in my own wardrobe now)
  • Face paints (this one is for special occasions only…)
Now, dear readers, what do you do to play?
What brings out your eight year old self?

 

Good Things: Early to Rise

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Moments where the stillness of the world, and the fogginess of the dawn, reflect into your own heart, and calm the tides of your thoughts, are rare in this world. I believe when we get the chance to welcome peace and quiet into our hearts that we should embrace it with open arms. I seek peaceful moments in my life and at the moment, although I spend a lot of time alone and lost in my thoughts, I need them, I crave them. If only to still me for a little while. To allow me to escape the loops and whirls of the million thoughts carousing in my brain.

Early Thursday morning I set out to follow Mum and Molly on their usual walk to the dog park. Every morning, summer and winter, Mum gets up before dawn and takes our three-legged lady for a stroll (well, she’s a malamute so it’s never really a stroll). Sometimes, I wake early to accompany them for the first mile of my run. Yesterday the day dawned foggy. So foggy that it was like walking into the set of a real life Brigadoon. Through the mists we strode, four rugged up human feet and three dancing, prancing puppy paws. The pastel streaks of a winter sunrise bloomed across the sky and our breaths came out in small steam train puffs as we crunched through the dew-tipped grass.

I left Mama and Molly in the company of their furry friends, and companion humans, and continued on my way. I started by telling myself that I would just walk; just saturate myself in the quiet of the morning and the expanse that one senses in the hours before most of the world awakens – my favourite time of the day. However, inside me there was the need to run, to chase the fleeting dawn, and to arrive breathless, sweating, and warm back at home where I could revive with a nice sweet cup of tea. So I did. I ran up hill and over dale, and felt the chilled air slicing into my lungs as I sucked deep breathes greedily in after climbing the hill. I ran, and found freedom just in the movement, and stillness despite the racing of my heart.

The rest of the suburb came to life around me, and busy people made their way to work, and school, and onto the other things, the bigger things that consume our thoughts. Here I was though, with that hour and a bit of quiet, of recalibration, of stillness in movement. A place, a sweaty memory, that I could retreat back to when I needed to calm myself in the crush of bodies, and other people’s minds and thoughts, that makes up our daily life. I am lucky. These are the good things in my life. The good moments of just being. Not expecting anything of myself other than to keep putting one foot in front of the other; not expecting any more of the world than the new light of day, and a path beneath my feet.

So dear reader, where do you find your stillness? Are you a dawn chaser like me, or a night owl?

Movement Monday

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Today a new hot yoga studio opened up in my neighbourhood.

Today I decided it was time for a new challenge.

I have found that the best way for me to grow, and discover all the hidden parts of my person, is to find a cliff edge, walk right up, and jump off.

In this way, I have found a way to do more than just exist.

I am a runner. For the next couple of weeks I will take the challenge of yoga.

Who knows what I might find. A new way to be thoroughly nourished? A new way to express myself? A new community of healthy minded people?

A new movement.