Tag: Poetry

Fifteen minutes

Soon after I was diagnosed with MS, my nurse offered me a course on managing fatigue. What a gift! Here was an opportunity to find solutions to the most troubling and disabling part of the condition.

Each week, I went along and gained insights: some helpful, some less so. But the one thing that struck was the notion that I should measure activities by time and not by task. This was a novel idea. It was also one that took a great deal of effort to adopt.

After all, most of us think of completing a project as one entire, fluid action. We set time aside to do it, yes, but that is flexible. We do not stop half way through. Or a quarter. Or an eighth.

Managing fatigue meant slicing time into portions that you could cope with. For me, that was about fifteen minutes. Despite recovering well, I still find it the ideal amount of time to work without the consequences of fatigue and brain fog.

Mini breaks

Sadly, not this kind of break. Image: Danny Mc on Unsplash

Battering myself against this truth got me nowhere. I’d soldier on, vowing that I could easily do more only to find myself, half an hour later, prone upon the sofa or feeling nauseous.

Slow learner that I was, I hadn’t realised that half an hour broken into two with a short pause in between was quite manageable – or even an hour or more. The breaks were key, whether is was to sit for a while before resuming a walk or stretching and getting a drink when writing.

Though I hope that none of you reading this suffer in the same way, I do think that little parcels of effort paradoxically get us further than when we are faced with huge tasks.

This week, I’ve been pondering all the wonderful things one can do in fifteen minutes that enrich our lives. If you have a quarter of an hour, you may like to try some.

Journal

I’ve finally got back to my journaling and doing it regularly and seriously. I am aided by the woman who started it all’s new book, Living the Artist’s Way, by Julia Cameron.

I’ve written about The Artist’s Way before, and this is a sequel. Whereas before, she wrote about the creative journey, here she focuses on guidance.

And with so much uncertainty in my life at the moment, it is exactly the help I need.

You can think of guidance as heaven sent or from the depths of a benevolent subconscious, but if we trust the method, we can use it to find solutions to even the most complex issues and subsequently, a greater sense of calm.

Read a poem

This Christmas, I was given a gorgeous selection of poems which I added to one I bought in Maine. Poetry seems to be luring me back. I once wrote a great deal of it and reading and being inspired by these verses seems to be a prelude to my own renewed practice.

The perfect short read

One can, of course, guzzle poems as sweeties from a jar, but I like to take my time. When teaching, I instructed students to view them as condensed short stories and give them ten to fifteen minutes to read properly. A good poem is like a very dense, and very satisfying morsel.

If you find one you love, write it out in a notebook or even strive to learn it. The beauty of it is revealed through time and reflection. Here’s one of my favourites from Watching Swallows. 

Thaw

Over the land freckled with snow half-thawed
The speculating rooks at their nests cawed
And saw from elm-tops, delicate as flower of grass,
What we below could not see - Winter pass.

Edward Thomas

Make a nourishing meal

With new science showing the link between good physical and mental health, eating properly becomes an imperative rather than a life-choice. Convenience and high fat foods are less convenient when they result in diabetes or Alzheimer’s. And despite the popular assumption that cooking a wholesome meal is time consuming or expensive, I rarely spend more than fifteen minutes on a light meal and no more than thirty on a main one.

Homemade soups, flavourful salads and pasta dishes can all be easily whipped up in quarter of an hour and include a good portion of your fresh fruit and vegetables. Fuelled on deliciousness, your fifteen minutes will be productive too.

Turkish pasta topped with olive oil, spring onion, yogurt and za’atar spice. Image: Karen Costello-McFeat

A side dish with sliced apples, carrots and other raw fruit and vegetables is always a great accompaniment.

Take a walk in nature

Yesterday the winter sun shone brightly and I took the dog to a gorgeous park not far from where I live. Hampden Park is elegantly landscaped and densely populated with ambling visitors and a wide array of wildlife.

On the lake, I spotted a military-looking heron in his grey uniform, three large swans, dozens of mallard ducks, moor hens, coots and, I believe an Egyptian goose. This colourful and unusual creature is probably one of the many exotic escapees now living wild in the UK.

Hermione didn’t know what to chase first.

The combination of fresh, cold air; a gentle walk serenaded by birdsong and hints of spring bursting in every corner was an excellent tonic for the spirits. Immersion in nature for as little as fifteen minutes is enough to improve one’s mood. Add a little exercise and meditation on a bench and much of one’s daily self-care is satisfied.

Make art

I thought I would end with my latest daily exercise. I spotted this book whilst browsing in Much Ado Books. Whether it was the charming style of the illustrator or the chiming with the topic for this post, I decided to purchase it.

After all, a good doodle always gets me into a great mood and learning a little about colour and shading is a bonus.

Time well spent

My list of 15 minute exercises is rather longer than we have space for here. I attempt to do them all regularly and find that despite the handicap of my fatigue, my days are generally productive.

A short time to meditate, learn a language, or take a nap can be incredibly refreshing. Mixing the cerebrally taxing and physically restful allows an abundance of projects to be completed each day. And if you only have five minutes? You can read my blog!

The Darling Buds of May

Apple blossom Image: Karen Costello-McFeat

Wandering about the garden and admiring the blossoms and new buds, I could not help but think of these immortal lines. Many of us will have studied this sonnet in school, but I think that it is worth revisiting. Whilst Shakespeare was clearly writing a very flattering portrait of his patron, he also touches on some truths that might aid us in these uncertain times. 

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date;
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature’s changing course untrimm'd;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st;
Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st:
   So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
   So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

William Shakespeare
A surviving tulip Image: Karen Costello-McFeat

Rough winds

As in many parts of the country, the beginning of the month was marked by extremely high winds. We live at the top of the hill, so their force is felt even more strongly here. One night, we wrestled in the garden furniture and retreated to the safety of our home. The next morning, our beautiful swathes of red tulips were no more – only the slender stems that had supported them. The lawn was covered in blossom confetti and the trees, so richly dressed the day before, were naked save their vibrant, unfurling leaves.

The same happens every year. Our fruit trees entice the pollinators with their delicate blooms. The wind decimates them. And often life seems to behave in the same way. No sooner have we found our perfect place, than something comes along to destroy it: an ailing relative, our own health, life struggles.

Yet, more often than not, during the brief spell of their existence, the blossoms are pollinated and though the flower may be gone, the fruit is set to grow and thrive. The previous decade of my life has felt more like a hurricane than just rough winds. At times, it seemed that there was nothing more that could be stripped away. Only somehow, like the blossom, I had been ‘pollinated’ with a sense of acceptance and gratitude; that despite the storms of life, there is so much to live for. It is only when we are challenged, sometimes to the very limits of our being, that we can grow. My mind is much calmer now than ever before and equally, I have never enjoyed the natural world in all its guises so much. Though cold and rain are not my favourites, they only whet my appetite for spring and they are as vital to nature’s cycles as sunshine.

Clematis Image: Karen Costello-McFeat

Every fair from fair sometime declines

May is the month of clematis for me: that gorgeous, bountiful herald of summer. After months of anticipation, the buds finally open and a cascade of flowers appear. But they do not last long – a few weeks at most. Like all beauty, it is transient and all the more precious for that.

In Japan, the cherry blossom festival (Hanami), was derived from earlier tree worship. Emperor Saga (reign: 809-823) is attributed with establishing the more modern celebration in which flowers were admired, poems written and picnics enjoyed outdoors. And the idea of transience is at its heart. The flowers, like life, are short-lived. Here is a charming set of haiku to give you a flavour of Hanami.

Drinking up the clouds
it spews out cherry blossoms –
Yoshino Mountain.

Wind blows
they scatter and it dies
fallen petals

Petals falling
unable to resist
the moonlight

Sakura, sakura
they fall in the dreams
of sleeping beauty

Josa Buson

Ornamental cherry Image: Karen Costello-McFeat

Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade

Though we cannot, like Shakespeare’s muse, be immortalised in his verse, our brief lives do not end with us. Perhaps we have children who will pass on our genetic code; perhaps we have positively touched the lives of others and they revive us each time we are remembered. For though our transient state is sometimes frightening, it is no different from the cycles of the seasons.

So what can we take away from this? First, surely, is seize the day. Enjoy life’s bounty while you can. Second, for all our incredible intelligence and technologies, we are still carbon based life-forms. In the same way that energy cannot be destroyed, only transformed, matter too is not destroyed but only reconfigured. So that even when our physical being ends, and our composite parts are broken down to their atoms, we will not disappear but rather recombine to make new, living things. Who knows? Perhaps the atoms that make up me will join others to make spring blossoms of the future. I certainly hope so.

Floral reincarnation? Image: Karen Costello-McFeat