After some good news on Wednesday, I’ve spent the last two days relaxing and reconnecting with our native plants and nature as my way to celebrate.
It’s good to have time out after a “win” against the abusive other parent. It takes a lot of energy, hard work, sleepless nights, and stress to stand up against abuse of the system and others. It was nice to just not worry about it for two days.
So, to celebrate, I went for a walk on the Huatoki walkway yesterday, barefoot on the grass. In our culture (Māori culture) we call mother earth Papatūānuku and when I walk barefoot, I’m connecting to her through my feet. I walked a full circle around one side to the other.
After walking to the other side, I spotted one of our native plants called koromiko - or Hebe stricta.
Koromiko has medicinal properties that we can use for healing, physically and spiritually. I sat beside koromiko and connected in with her. I recall the very first time I ever connected with koromiko a few years ago, the tears just flowed instantly, but there were no tears this day. Just calm and joy. The tides have turned in my fight and I’ve been strengthened by the various support given to me.
I laid on Papatūānuku (mother earth) and fell asleep in the sun for 20 minutes. I hadn’t done this in a long time. I got a bit hot and woke up groggy but relaxed. I drove home sleepy and went straight for a proper nap.
Today was another great day - a day at the beach. The winds were calm enough I could use my umbrella to lie in the shade.
I got to eat a nice picnic I packed, corn, figs from my tree and chippies. Then I fell asleep for 30 minutes and woke up because the sun was hot on my face and my umbrella was missing. I thought, “did someone sneak up on me while I was asleep and steal my umbrella?” but no. I walked to the top of the sand dunes and my umbrella was sitting upside down.
The wind had picked up quite a bit and blew the umbrella away. I folded it down and walked down to the ocean and put my feet in the water for a while. Packed up and drove home.
It’s only about 5pm at this stage, but I cooked gnocchi for dinner with some green chard from my garden. I’m grateful for my vege garden during these tough times. The gnocchi was delishious - one of my favourite dinners.
Now, I've just finished a relaxing bath for 2 hours and after this post I’ll be heading to bed early. These last two days are how I want my life to be. Stress free, content, and doing what makes me happy. This is how my life used to be before I met my daughter's father.
I hope to get back to that life soon (with my daughter beside me, of course).
Thanks for reading - all images above are my own.
