Starting a blog is like starting a book. The opening paragraph. Will this capture my attention? What is it all about? How does it all start? A cataclysmic event to change the course of history? Or a chance meeting, a random thought, a whispering breeze stirring the ripest and frailest of blooms?
It started with me, of course, my self, my antecedents, my education, my story, the things that have made me and moulded me, occupied my time, spent my energy, used my resources. For each of us it is true that these things make our lives, and each life creates the unique individual that we each are, each with our own personality, temperament and range of interests and preoccupations.
So this blog is about me, my unique perspective, and my particular interests and preoccupations. These are, very broadly, spirituality and conscious living, and I am deeply influenced by one or two current and contemporary issues that have formed the backdrop to twentieth/twentyfirst century British society: feminism and gender issues; cultural, social and political diversity; and the loosening grip of Christianity on our lives.
I was born in post-war Britain and brought up in rural Cumbria. I went to a boarding school while my parents went through a particularly acrimonious divorce. Then I went to a good university which at the time was going through the birthing agonies of expansion in a brave new world. I emerged with an unexceptional degree, though still with an idea that I possessed rather an exceptional mind, and with very little idea of what life might have in store for me. I married a very unusual farmer, we had three children, and started up a unique (at the time) rural industry. I then left my unusual man and went through a protracted and somewhat acrimonious divorce myself. Then followed a long struggle, coping with the vicissitudes of being a lone woman with parental responsibilities and not much to recommend myself in the way of qualifications and quantifiable work experience. I have lived with a lot of depression. Or is it existential angst? Or just getting lost in a spiritual wilderness? These questions have framed my life, along with, later, the death of a grown-up child, which coincidentally meant the loss (to me) of her daughter, my granddaughter. Yet somehow in my mature years, still holding to that idea that I have a good mind and a unique and particular perspective on life, I sense my voice arising, not only that of the wise old ‘crone’ but a confident, creative, vibrant, prophetic and new voice.
That is the voice you will hear in this blog. A voice that is alternative, has a unique perspective, and shares the insight and wisdom of a thinking and thoughtful life.
