Hot Buttered Toast – Sigh + Sky
Sometimes going against what we feel is best for us, brings us just what we need
I’m recently returned from a week in Devon, rooting into a brand new Editor role with Riverford Organics. I feel so many things, all at once. Deliriously lucky to have landed, somehow, amid the off-piste trajectories of my various heart-led work pursuits these past years, in a place that feels so much like home, surrounded by people who care, share, support, listen, and come together, to try to do more than their bit, for this precious planet of ours and the people who work, day in day out, as its carers and custodians.
I’ve been up at 5am, on fascinating farm walks with men and women who’ve walked this land for decades, nibbling dandelion and mustard greens fresh from the fields, learning about everything from seed paper to soil pH, watching the iconic Riverford boxes (with their rainbow-coloured Live Life on the Veg motto) being filled with love and care, from scratch, every spud, sprout and squash an ally in this topsy turvy rollercoaster we call life.
I’ve been offline for almost a month. On computers for work and meetings and email of course, but away from all social media and keeping all non-urgent forms of communication and messaging at arm’s length, too. There’s a feeling, since having fallen ill last month, of preserving and cherishing my boundaries. Of redefining what really bloody matters. Of realising how much of my bad mood or grey cloud is created before I’ve even properly opened my eyes or breathed air into my lungs – by the information I absorb before I have entered my own day.
I want to take my own mind back. Want to put my thoughts where they can do good things. Want to determine my own trajectory, in so much as that’s possible, based on the righting of my inner compass… the gentle, nuanced nudges that radiate out from my truest centre.
I wrote last week about the small things that have been helping me most of all. Honestly, being offline is at the very top of that list. A cursory glance down to my dashboard on this computer reveals that I have 642 unread emails. This among my ‘non-work’ inboxes (Riverford’s stream now sat on a different system: an alternate work-only phone + computer – to keep the energy clear; to prevent my working mind and my resting home from muddying one another’s waters).
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