Welcome to my blog – with extras! Extras like courses and events, cup of tea sessions, meditation recordings and podcasts, poetry and stories.
I am an elder woman: I’ve seen a lot of life and a lot of death, navigated many transitions and passed through numerous thresholds. I have worked in many different capacities but all of them are simply vehicles for my particular shape of love. This website is one way of offering my love and my gifts to you.
Please do feel invited to write to me, send poems, images and so on – I would love to hear from you.
I hope you will leave my site feeling warmer, comforted, smiling on the inside and in some way accompanied.
With love,
Nickie
“[Nickie is] like a magic porridge pot overflowing with love to give”. S.E.
- The oyster and the pearl
The soft, vulnerable mass of an oyster is encased within a hard shell comprised mostly of calcium carbonate (which is chalk). The inner lining of the shell is iridescent with nacre, or mother of pearl, formed from crystalline calcium carbonate and a 5% addition of several trace elements.
When an irritant gets past or through that protective boundary – usually a parasite- nacre is secreted to immobilise and encase the intruder. Little by little layers of nacre are laid down, until over months and years, a beautiful gem is formed which we call a pearl. Often they are spherical and sometimes they follow the shape of the intruder to form irregular baroque pearls.
Most of us know this story. I was a homoeopath for many years and we use calcium carbonate as a remedy, but we don’t use chalk, we use the inside of the oyster’s shell. Within the remedy is not only a chemical constitution but the oyster’s story.
If you read my blog of a couple of weeks back, you will know I have been ill with acute vertigo. In an attempt to get rid of it, I treated myself homoeopathically but I was only treating the symptoms and it didn’t help much. I considered Calc Carb. As I write this, I am fingering the necklace my late husband gave me – a pearl, partially encased in silver.
Resonances
There are hundreds and thousands of words written about Calc Carb the remedy and I’m not here to give you a homoeopathy lesson nor to overshare by giving you my case history, but along with many resonances is this. Death bored through whatever defences I had, because defences are useless in the face of love and death. When it arrived I grieved. I grieved the little boy who had arrived with trouble in his soul, who brought sunshine and thunder clouds, who gave me flowers from the hedgerows and volcanic eruptions of fury. I grieved the man who had seen beneath my shell to the gentleness and timidity in my eyes, the arms which could hold and the hands which could mend me.
Little by little, I have immortalised the shape of them. I have laid down ‘nacre’ in the form of tears and longing, messy feelings and resistance, self pity and understanding, loneliness and hope, and over the years I have made something subtly coloured and softly shining. I write, I support people and I hold groups, not to give away my pearls such as they are, but to say, within you are your own. They won’t be the same shape as mine or the same colour but nonetheless there is a transformation which can happen within you. There is a way in which something which hurts you so much, can, over time, become a source of understanding and solace.
Stories
Of course, the pearl is my metaphor and you will have your own. Maybe your story is that of the flight feather of a widowed female swan, or of the shy wind flower whose roots cannot bear to be waterlogged; or maybe your treasure is to be found buried deep in the earth’s crust or in the salt of the sea, both crystalline and dissolute. But here is the joy of a story: there is a narrative, a journey, a development, often character development, and nothing remains static or there would be no story. I am the heroine in my own story and even though there are times I feel like Cinderella surrounded by ashes, with a whole lot of work to do and a harsh mistress (also myself) bellowing commands, that is not the end of the story. Come to that, neither is marrying the prince. While I’m here and until I turn to the last page, I’d like my story to be interesting, worth a read, illuminating and above all heart opening. And, if you’ll bear with me, I’d like to keep offering you little extracts now and again while you write your own.
With my love
Nickie
NEWS
DYING MATTERS WEEK IS 5TH – 11TH MAY
THE NATURE OF LOSS – Starting from Newton Abbot Library Tuesday 6th May -2-4pm
Hosted by Emma Capper and myself. We will offer resources and invitations to connect us to nature, as a guide for managing dying, grieving and loss of all sorts.
This event will be free of charge with tickets available from Eventbrite and on the day at Newton Abbot Library. More details to follow but if you are interested please email Annette here
WALKING WITH LOSS, TOGETHER – Ivybridge Wednesday 7th May- 11-4.30
Spend time with others who are managing loss, sharing, being in nature and letting the trees, the river, the earth and the season guide us. More details to follow but if you would like to join us, the booking form can be found on the events page here. You can also email me at the address on the poster for more information.
TBC: CREATING OUR FUNERAL CULTURE- Buckfastleigh MIC Centre Thursday 8th May time to be confirmed.
Conversation hosted by Sarah Bax of Heart & Soul Funerals and myself, about how we develop our personal culture around funerals. There will be a practical element to this session. More information to follow.
TOTNES Saturday May 10th – Birdwood House
A full day of events hosted by Sarah Parker of Dying with Grace. I will be holding a grief space. More information to follow. You can email Sarah here
Buy me a Coffee
I gift these blogs to you and I am very, very grateful to the many of you who have been gifting me coffees. Being gifted feels very different to being paid. Neither you nor I are obliged to one another, we choose an act of generosity. Thank you so much.
For those of you who would like to gift me regularly or every now and again, please know that every cup of coffee (£5) matters to me and I appreciate each one. You can do so here if you would like to at any time.
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