Transitions by Nancy M Bell

 

To find more of my work please click on the cute dog cover above.  

As November trundles it way along toward the end of another year, separated only by the depths of December from yet another turn of the wheel, I start to think of the transitions in my own world. The sharp green exuberance of those years between, oh say, six and fifteen. Those years when the whole world lay ahead of me and I could be whoever or whatever I could dream about. The security of not having to worry if there was going to be food on the table for supper and a roof over my head. My only responsibility to care for my cat and my garden in the summer. All the golden and glorious opportunities that lay just beyond that border of almost a grownup but not quite. It relates to the Celtic cycle of Maiden, Mother , Crone. Oh, and wasn't the Maiden part of the journey glorious. More so than I realized at the time as I was always yearning forward, impatient to move on- to get there. Wherever 'there' was at the time.

The years between fifteen and twenty were interesting. Remember that Chinese curse? "May you have an interesting life." It seems that a female teenagers middle years are full of angst and strife. You're in between a child and an adult. Not quite old enough to truly understand some of the ramifications of some dubious decisions, but not young enough to excused on the basis of innocence. In a sense those teen years were a journey on innocence lost, but also a vast wealth of growth and a faint grasp on maturity. That being said they were good years, full of horses and friends and silliness. Midnight raids on horseback to the surrounding cornfields and later in the year the apple orchard. Riding in the moonlight, gathering in the stables until all hours secure in our little circle of yellow light cast from the barn. I learned that love could be transitory and words didn't always mean what they seemed to. First love, that real first encounter that comes after the tender throes of puppy love are left behind and you venture in the realm of more adult relationships, can be wonderful and devastating at the same time.

Leaving the Maiden years behind, I moved into the Mother stage at a fairly young age. Though not when I was married in 1977. You were expected to get married have kids. Which I did, but also continued with my work with horses which I loved. I don't think the Mother stage ever really ends, even when those kids are older than I was when I had them they are still my babies and I worry over them. Another stage of growing supposedly wiser and smarter. Hmmm. 

As I approach the last year of my sixties, I reflect on the transitions in my life. The lost of my dad and then 8 years later of my mother. Whether we realize it or not, our parents remain an anchor in our lives, our north star or lodestone, and when they are gone if left me feeling a bit rudderless. But now, I take on the role of anchor for my kids, although I'm sure they don't see it that way. I remember when I was about to turn 20, that was the most meaningful birthday. I would never be a teenager again. It was time to grow up. (or so I thought- there was still a lot of growing to do). Now as I near the seventh decade in my journey, I am still looking forward and reaching for the next adventure. I guess being a Crone does not necessarily mean I can quite growing and maybe, just maybe, actually achieve some semblance of maturity. Life if full of transition, big and small. Just as the seasons change and revolve, so too do our lives. What is that Macdonald Carey says on that soap opera? "Like sands through the hour glass, these are the days of our lives."

Until next month, stay well, stay happy     

Transitions by Nancy M Bell

 

To learn more about Nancy's work click on the cover.

The shoulder seasons of the year, spring and fall. Times of transition. Now in the autumn of the year the trees burn gold against the blaze of Alberta blue sky, the fields glow buckskin under the skies dotted with round bales where summer is wrapped up for winter feed. The nights draw in as the light slowly but surely loses its battle with the dark. The moon flares silver in the sable sky while the constellations march across the heavens. Orion leads his hounds and the Pleiades dance to song of star fire. 

Here on the Canadian prairies the sweep of night is wide and deep, often the moon lingers in the morning sky, a white wisp against the strengthening blue, while the sun breaks free of the eastern horizon to flood the landscape with pure gold light, pushing back the last vestiges of the night.

Our lives follow the seasons in a much slower manner. Childhood and spring, youth and prime of life and summer, the slow mellow aging and autumn and then the final dark of the final transition and winter. Leaving this turn of the wheel to walk the starlit skies, the winter skies, the summer stars, our feet sure on the path of the Milky Way. Perhaps that is fanciful, but I truly feel the rhythms and the stages and rightness of it. Everything in its time. In my case, maiden, mother, crone, all in their own time and with their own lessons. Part of a chain that reaches into the far distant past and into the future.

Children carrying the blood of our past and our heritage just as I do and the ones who came before me.

Transitions, always changing, always moving. Sometimes fast, sometimes slow...but always moving. Carrying us with them.

Until next month, stay well,stay happy.