Dearest Susie, I’m falling behind on my reading these days but please know you are never far from my heart. Your aching is felt deeply, you are one of those humans who seem to be forever entangled in the multitudes of lives surrounding, the human, the winged, the furred, the leafed. It’s as if there is no edge between you and the rest of life. Because of this, everything is sharper when it’s sharp, hotter when it’s hot, but of course, also sweeter when it’s sweet. I do hope an extra swell of kindnesses are arriving on your doorstep these days. You are always attuned to the smallest of occurrences, funding the magic where others might just stomp on by. I hope those moments expand to fill all the aching parts today and every day. You are so loved.
Oh Kim, you have every reason to be elsewhere, perhaps roaming with angels ensuring they hold the hands and heart of your mum, to reassure yourself as well as her, to allow grief to flow through and out of you both. To allow the peace of knowing that in this great beautiful world, everything is unfolding as it should.
That you are thinking of me, your friend from afar on hill that looks like a sand dune makes me ache with love for you and your big, big heart... know that I am thinking of you with tears for your loss and for the courage I know you will need. Know that up in the vast universe when you are ready to let go of the hands that have held you all your life, that will be making new constellations to shine down on you.
Thank you beautiful you, so many hugs and so much love to you. Know too I am thinking of you xxx
Susie... again, I am utterly absorbed in your writing. I'm so sorry you are going through such an abrupt and upsetting change... how can they do that without an explanation?!? I will keep my fingers crossed for you, that they respond to you and allow you to remain where you love to be, and where you are no doubt, cherished.
How is it, you can write about the unrelenting heat with such beauty and magic? Where I am, we are also now feeling the heat, breathing in the thick smoky air and watching late night lightning storms with awe and a healthy dose of fear. Our lovely little mountain town is so incredibly vulnerable. Is it only a matter of time that we have to evacuate and watch everything turn to ash and char? There are over 1000 forest fires burning in Canada right now... how are there any trees left??? You remind me in the most beautiful ways to allow the fear to be present, but also to let in all of the magic that summer brings. All of it feels like a bewildering oxymoron.
Your words bring comfort, my sweet friend. I can just see you all out there on your hill, watching the falling stars... and the hares, savouring those precious moments. May the raindrops feel inspired by the stars, and begin to fall as well. Much love to you, Susie. xo ✨💜🤗
Good grief Jaime! 1000 wildfires? I don't think I would ever sleep! How can there possibly be enough water, fire fighters and equipment to combat such a vast amount of forest? I am praying hard for you and your mountain dear one, I know how bewildering it all is, how terrifying to watch fire devour a whole mountainside in not even a minuscule fraction of the time it took for it to become.
The only grain of hope for the future, is belief that eventually those that are in denial will see for themselves the damages they are causing, until then I fear Mother Nature is will not calm her fury until she feels those who have the power to at least begin to reverse climate change are doing their best to do so... this will be a long battle but I, no we, cannot let it blind us to what is still a joy to behold, the beauty of all that which remains, small creatures, tiny mushrooms, even those trees that you have written of with such love, that have fallen and become part of the story of a wild place. There is still magic and much comfort can be derived from that.
When I sit on my hill, watching the hares or even the full force and fury of a storm, despite the fear in my heart there is love too, and amazement and joy because all the while nature is showing us her moods we know she has not been beaten!
A huge and grateful hug to your beautiful soul... please be safe, I am praying for you xxx
This light is more than 8 minutes old, it's more like 8 months or so or something awfully long since I have made my way here (or anywhere on Substack), for too many reasons, but I am here and remembering how easy it is to be awestruck by your writing.
Our polar opposites of geography have probably never been more apparent: we wait for spring and warmth and relative dry spells, for we've had a lot of rain and some bitterly cold (for Melbourne) mornings, and would love for a comfortable day of warmth, but then all I see and hear of in the northern hemisphere is the terrible heat and fires and I know I should be careful what I wish for.
Which is to say, I hope the rains come, the air cools, and the world stills (for us all).
Congratulations to Seth, and bravo on the mechanical skills. Most impressive. Fantastic photo!
PS my favourite line:
"Tell me how to be still when the light shimmering over a field of barley on an unimaginably hot evening in July lasts but a few minutes—is already eight minutes old—will never be repeated in the exact same way, ever again, when that light catching in those particular trillions of barley beards is like phosphorescence or the Milky Way or thousands of damselfly wings?"
Nathan! Firstly my apologies for such a tardy reply... 8 minutes, 8 months... no matter both time spans seem to pass in the blink of an eye with advancing years... it's really quite alarming! Anyway, I saw your comment arrive on a day when I had literally just been wondering—even to the extent of checking I hadn't inadvertently unsubscribed from your account, another boring age thing—where you were!
It's good to hear from you dear friend, you are sorely missed here. Strangely, I am convinced there is an inexplicable telepathy passing between us... I wonder how long thoughts take to travel from one person to another when half a planet sits between them?
So the rain is your side, hmmm... sadly little can be done to change climatic tantrums, this year they seem to have been worse than ever and completely unstoppable, the heat and the fires have had tragic consequences for anything living close and summer is not yet over... I am awash, with perspiration and fear and a longing never felt before for the cooler days of autumn.
Many thanks for popping by, I hope you are both well settled into your new home.
I'd send a hug but truly, it wouldn't be very pleasant! X
I think we've had enough of these kind of moments to know that said telepathic connection exists and is well established between us. ☺️
For the last few weeks I have been fleetingly making it to my keyboard to tend to some nascent words that are forming in a draft of a story. It is being nurtured, but not quite yet into maturity.
As for real life, I have much to tell, but whether or not I will pen real life into a post or keep things entirely fictional, I'm not sure.
Either way, I long to be here more. I miss you and all of the fellow writers I cherish here.
I hope you can stay cool and safe and away from fires.
I will enjoy whatever you decide to write Nathan and I guess there is no rush other than for those—me—that are impatient to read another story from you!
The thing about the pieces you write Susie is that they’re so full of sensual detail. I feel immersed whenever I read your posts. I’m right there sweating with you or shivering, depending on the time of year. It’s such a gift to be transported.
A thousand thanks Ben, to read that you feel immersed is high praise indeed, especially coming from someone that writes with such an extraordinary ability to draw the reader into a story from the very first page! That too is a gift!
Aww thanks darling hazel... you are incredibly kind; I wish I was as brilliant as Seth, his brain is extraordinary and kind and beautiful... I am deeply proud of him. 🥹
I love every heated sentence. No matter how stifling, sweaty, stinky, or sultry hot it gets, if we feel it, we are alive. “Rosie and I gaze at the trailing glitter that is The Milky Way in a silken black sky, unimaginably vast, unimaginably distant.”Does life get any better than that? I wish I could send you the feeling of slipping into cool glacial waters, one shoulder at a time—silver skin covered in water droplets reflecting the night sky. Alas, I can only do it for you and leave the rest to your imagination. Let’s just say—pass the ice cubes, please. And you might even need a light blanket to sleep. I am attaching 2 videos from a wonderful movie. It came to mind as there are a few similarities that resemble another story you are all too familiar with. You may remember it: Mr. Holland’s Opus. A brief synopsis—due to budget cuts, a well loved teacher 60 years of age, close to retirement, was forced out of his job. In the end his students, past and present, and the entire school, gave him an incredible send-off. Two songs define the entire movie. The first, I am including because of your son. The lyrics are not a total fit, but the love woven through is a perfect fit, this song:
Dear Lor, thank you for kind words in suffocating heat, still. I am so grateful for the night sky, for the cool air and dreamy galaxies it carries when there isn’t a trickle of water left and the earth is just too darn hot!
We have a storm coming, or so I hear, 100kmph wind and hail, fabulous 🙄then when that is over our fourth heatwave of the year. I am not sure what we signed up for when we moved to France, kinda sure it wasn’t this though… and where next, at age 62 when my beloved hill cannot be moved?
Oh and you have one very impressive repertoire of films and music, I am just a lot in awe! I have seen Mr Holland’s Opus, now I will track it down and watch again… with Kleenex at a handy distance of course, I remember from the first time tears were involved. I saw it with my mum, meaning I’ll blubber twice as much and now there’s the boy too!
I just heard that there is a red alarm for wild fires now in the south of France, I hope not in the region where you are! It’s a scary world, isn’t it.. 😢
About the stillness-motion topic: perhaps it’s not either-or but both stillness AND motion. Everyone needs both, no-one can do without either one. How much of each you need depends on how your brain is wired, for instance, introverts need more stillness to recharge. Does this make sense, or am I missing the point? 😅
Bless you for thinking of me JoAnna, we are thankfully not in danger. 🙏🏼
I was just reading about the fire near Toulouse and another near to Marseilles neither are close to us although Rosie tells me there is smoke in the air around her apartment, mercifully she too is not in http://danger.You
This summer is terrifying!
No lovely, you are not missing the point at all… I agree completely and without doubt, we are all different! But it absolutely is both stillness and motion we need, ideally equal doses would be the best for good health. I am simply incapable of staying still (not good for my well-being). I am fearful, there is so much in this world I have yet to see and I don’t want to miss a single bit of it, not the sun on sheep’s wool or the light glinting in the barley, not one second of it. I think perhaps it is much to do with age and a realisation my time becoming less by the year, and that the years seem to fly by at the speed of light! It scares me slightly I think… to have so little time when there is still so much to see. 😥
It’s good to know you’re all not in danger, although it must be terrifying to be relatively close to the danger zone. Summer is no good anymore…
You sound a bit like a friend of mine who is always afraid of missing out the beauty that might be just around the corner. She is a gemini too, you know..☺️
I too think it is scary to realise that time is becoming less at our age, and it nevertheless seems to fly by at high speed 😧
Be safe and cool, and let’s enjoy all the good and beauty around us 🧡xx
You bring enchanted moments of magic and mundanity to us. I am forever grateful to join you in catching the light in the glittering trail of the Milky Way, a trillion barley beards, thousands of damselfly wings, in hot hugs and oily hands from children who light the world. I’m sorry to learn of your work woes, and I send hope and cool hugs to you. It has been much cooler here these last few days, not reaching 30oC, and cooling more in the coming days. I am hopeful that are heading to weather of maybe 31oC in a week when we travel to France, when I am also hopeful that I might then get to relax and be still for a time, away from the constant necessity of responsibly that feels hot and heavy on me today. With forever love and light xx
Good morning Em, thank you, it will always be an honour to have you join me in glittery, shimmering trails no matter where they lead to or where they've arrived from.
I am trying to be positive about my work, trying to see it as an adventure which could be just as extraordinary and beautiful as that which I have been on... I have no news of modifications to my contract and now, doubt I will. There is always that tiny sparkle of hope though, nobody has replied with a resounding NO yet!
I am so relieved to hear the heatwave has passed, here too, while still very hot the alerts on my weather app have been lifted, we can breathe again. And sleep again!
I hope you have the most fabulous holiday, I keep trying to think of ways to meet, it is such a long journey though and in this heat unfeasible. I do hope Eleanor will be there while you are though? I will imagine the two of you with something cold and refreshing in your hands chattering away about all things creative and literary, raise my glass to you from my hill.
I know how weighty those incessant responsibilities feel, courage ma belle, just a few days to go!
Sending forever love and light right back sweet soul! xxx
Dear Susie, your writing is so very beautiful. I look forward to every article. I’m very sorry you’ve been ambushed by your new contract. So lucky are the students you will instruct, wherever that may be. Thank you for introducing me to coal-tit birds (I always learn something new from your posts). Reading through all of the thoughtful comments I’m struck by the eloquent writing of your many friends. Sending you buckets of pixie dust <3 <3 <3
Dear Luci, thank you for your so kind and encouraging words and especially for bucket loads of pixie dust of which I am in dire need.... Ambushed is a good word for how this change of contract feels but I am trying to filter positive thoughts out from the anger and sadness to lay out before me in the hope they will form some sort of adventure... I am not without hope!
I am delighted to make your acquaintance with coal-tits! To me they are the cutest little noise makers in my garden, I welcome them with a smile and open arms though they are yet to trust me sufficiently to alight... I live in hope!
Luci, there are so very many beautiful, eloquent, thoughtful, brilliant people here on Substack it is difficult to know where to begin and harder still to know when to stop!
Sending tiny notes of love right back to you from voices with tiny badger faces xox
Battening down the hatches in another of life's shitstorms is never pleasant work, but within the cloy and darkness of a swelter... it is a form of torture. I'm achey for you, my friend.
Life is funny in that way that it often has a plan for you that simply seems like a prison sentence as it approaches. Ask any caterpillar that is at that chrysalis formation stage of its journey. Prison. No more eating. Unable to move. Hell and damnation, almost certainly.
Goodbye cruel world.
Wait, what? Now I wake back up and I'm a freaking butterfly?
Obviously I cannot know whether your latest heartaches will lead you into an unending cycle of doom, but some little voice in me, the one that has watched carefully for a while now sees you as someone uniquely tooled for living a heartfelt and magical life. And if I can see that, and so many others here see and feel it as well, well, I have this sense that the universe sees and understands it much better than any of us, your adoring fans. So my little wonder observer wonders what wonders are about to appear for you, next. I just get the feeling that there is magic afoot and that you are meant to find it, because you'll share it, even when you least expect to. Could be wrong, of course. I am so often. But usually not about things like this.
Just for fun, what if you imagine that all this is a setup for something wild and wonderful, then put on a summery frock and act as if you're ready for the party that will surely begin soon, acting as if...
The universe seems to love those who give it the benefit of the doubt, assuming that it wants us to succeed far more than it wants to destroy us.
Dear Davey, your aching and understanding go a long way in easing the weight of this summer's especially lengthy torture. Tidings of new contracts, leaving old schools behind, much loved and revered colleagues and adored students too have squeezed many tears from these tired eyes, but... and I don't say say this without having given much thought to my decision, I fear resignation to the situation is likely an easier option than fighting the bosses... I will give them the benefit of my doubt, time will tell, as it always has a habit of doing, whether their decision was a wise one.
I am still sweltering under a too hot sun while a traitorous wind fools me every afternoon into believing cool is following close behind... it doesn't and yet every day I believe it will. Where I come from they say 'there's no fool like and old fool' they sure weren't kidding...
Yet during all that lands with a heavy thud on fragile emotions, and I hope this makes you smile... I spent a weekend with old friends, very old school friends, the type that make you reminisce with genuine smiles and happy tears and laughter so often you leave with deeper lines on your face than you arrived with! I put on a floaty dress the colour of terracotta tiles a little bleached by the sun, we feasted on food prepared for us by a handsome chef who cared very much that we enjoyed every morsel and then we danced and danced... no acting necessary! A glorious two days which liberated me of all woes...
Perhaps the universe really is unfolding as it should... perhaps a little dose of dancing and faith in fate is all that is necessary?
I am sending smiles of deepest gratitude right back to you my dear friend. I hope summer is a little less relentlessly suffocating where you are and if it is, that you have one of those wonderfully cool rivers adorned with dragonflies you write of close enough to cool off in.
I always couldn't finish Susie's passages in one go. I needed to breathe, and walked away sometimes. Light is the trickster of time and reality, and light has no fear, light picks out light. They dance like in an endless beguilement. Leaving humans out of breath.
This is beautifully written as always Susie but I am sorry to hear your news about having to leave the place you've worked after so many years without any choice! I didn't know they could do that there but I do hope your appeal is successful. And here's hoping that this heatwave comes to an end soon, I know I'll be out there dancing in the rain when it eventually falls!
Thank you Lin, the work situation is still unsolved and I fear at this stage of the holiday is unlikely to be and as such perhaps it is better to accept and forget what can't be changed. I will not give up hope entirely but I will stop dwelling on changing something that is out of my hands. Que sera, sera... no matter that it upsets me immensely!
I do hope the heatwave has abated back in the UK, here we are still—too—hot but the heatwave has floated off to torture some other part of this poor planet. Ordinarily I would be relieved but I truly wouldn't wish such intense heat on anyone...
and I did do a little dance with my sheep shearer who arrived at the exact same time as the first, thankfully very short-lived, storm on Thursday... we had a cold drink, watched it pass and got on with the job!
Light, stillness, movement, hares who sense friends, shooting stars, milky ways - you and your daughter looking from the Northern Hemisphere, my daughter and I looking from the Southern, all is connected, a proud mother, a capable son, changes in work situations, uncertainty in both work and weather, fire and fear, goats who have never seen the outside burn alive. 300! Oh my gosh. 😢
Wishing you beautiful rain Susie. Thinking of you, of Josh and Veronika as you remember your time with them last year in Porto. 🙏❤️
I love the thought of us and our daughters watching the stars from the two hemispheres, separated by oceans and mountains and forests and deserts but connected for always by soul work, and love and the challenges life bring us Jo, distance is nothing where hearts are concerned right!
Our heatwave has drifted elsewhere. We are still sweltering under a hot summer sun and the land is tinder dry but we can breathe again. The fear of wildfires stand strong though... I watch and hope and pray for rain very soon; it's all any of us can do.
The hours spent with Josh and Veronika; we never know how special such moments might become, how the honour of meeting someone stills one's heart. 🥹
Forever thanks for your beautiful comments and friendship Jo, sending love ♥️
Oh, those poor goats. And you, too, dear Susie, to have been moved from a job and community that you were so much a part of. I'm so sorry, friend. I would love to hug you in the rain.
Hello beautiful, I can't even come close to telling you how broken my heart was when I read of those poor goats, neither how enraged I am at how easily it could happen again and again...and not just to goats but all animals that are farmed so intensively that they never see the light of day.
Oh Kendall, I have asked myself over and over, what did I do wrong? Then, am I still capable of undertaking this work? Every scrap of confidence has become a mire of self questioning. I am trying to be brave, not resolute, not yet but I accept that if this change must be then I will work with it, not against it but good grief its hard!
I am imagining that hug in the rain, and oh my... it feels so good! Thank you sweet soul... sending love right back to you xx
I have had not one, but two head gaskets blown in two different vehicles over my lifetime and would love to live the rest of it without another one. So glad you had your son to help you!!
Wish I could send you a cool breeze and lower temperatures altogether. But sending you my gratitude and friendship instead.
I went car free for a few years, and it was marvelous. I was living in Santa Barbara, California, at the time. And it’s made to bike. Perfect riding weather 350 days of the year. Long flat stretches with great bike lanes. Buses that accommodate bicycles. Everything you can need or want in easy distance.
I didn’t love everything about the town though. So I don’t regret leaving. But I am glad that I had the experience.
I guess we can’t have everything, as hard as we may wish it Holly… and I truly believe if we are meant to be somewhere, it calls to us. Santa Barbara obviously didn’t sing the right words…
Gratitude and friendship are cool breeze enough Holly, thank you. 🥰
This is my second blown head gasket also Holly. The first, about a gazillion years ago now, was a VW Beetle which I repaired with the help of a friend. This one, a 2009 VW Golf V Estate, I wouldn't have known where to begin. I have given thanks to the gods of mechanics I have a son who knows what's what!
If I could live without a car I would, without hesitation!
As I picked up my keyboard to write to you Susie, coal tits chatting outside my window called in so loudly as if to say, "tell Susie, WE know." And I think 'they' all know. Like the Hare in the starlit night. The goats. OMG the goats. :( The trees and the barley. Yours and mine preciously loved ones.
I felt it all, come right through my screen and sit, playing a duo on our remote hill. The searing heat, the dry earth filled dust, the heat gun wind, even the void Moon, still hidden by the Sun's light, whilst at the same time colliding with Jupiter, who is expanding all the fears with the gusto of Leo. Of fire. Of new horizons. Like Holst's Planets. That none of us know, or can describe, especially in eight minutes. Yet you have Susie, and I thank you for that and I want to hug you, and tell you it will be OK.
And...amongst all that, you have the most cleverest son and wonderful daughter to behold. And that is all we can do. Is hold on. To every single liminal minute that 'feels' right.
I hope you are able to find out more about the post and college you have no option at present to go work in. Maybe calling in curiosity about that might help shift some unknown dread or even help you see new or different opportunities there. By removing the focus from leaving the old school, the Universe might however just bring it back. Who knows. Knowing is a wonderful thing but so often it's not always what it's cracked up to be.
I am forced to sign off now, by a big fluffy tail virtually covering my keyboard and paws flying paint brushes and last night's art across the desk to the floor, as the adjoined body flops down heavily with all four legs akimbo, to feel the draft of the fan! Love you until next time. xx
Thank you Susie for your wonderful words. I am sorry not to reply before as I am back in the UK because our precious daughter needed an operation and someone to care for her.
She is now home and on the mend now thankfully and I am grateful to the failing NHS yet wonderful surgeons too and as I sit in her little wildflower and bee fest garden, the magpies fight loudly above me as chaffinches and greenfinch play and feed on midges in the huge birch tree that centres and grounds this tiny idyl in Southampton.
The fires in Spain are sadly but thankfully so fa,r further south from our hill and I pray our mountains are spared this year. I dreamed of fires there only last night! The air quality is very poor, with an unhealthy alert and temperatures so high. We keep fingers crossed and pray ‘we’ are all spared this summer.
And in the UK there is the huge risk of fire. I sit only miles from the New Forest and every blade of green grass is now brown in a what was a flooded mass only this year. But…..this weather pattern has increased the butterfly population immensely!!!
All fingers crossed for a change of mind at the school. And of course those wrong thought of what had you done wrong will prevail. And of course you know the truth. Nothing. Just bureaucracy and ignorance I imagine.
Keep well my lovely hill top friend and keep us posted on what’s next for you come September. And keep hope as always that IT will all be OK. xxx
Oh Sally, please give your daughter a huge hug from your hill top kindred sister in France, I pray she will be recovered fast with but a fleeting memory of hospital beds and operations.
As I sit here at my desk in a sweltering heat that stifles and suffocates by night almost as efficiently as it does by day, huge fat rain drops are beginning to fall, I can tell by the way the drops are already slowing that by the time I have finished typing my reply it will be over.
Thank goodness your hill is safe from wildfires, it is almost too much to imagine England being at risk too but I know it is, I feel so scared for everyone right now, but for the moment, here, we are clear of both smoke and fire for today.
What a way to spend summer sweet soul... thank the gods for birds to keep us smiling , especially magpies who seem to have a permanent death threat over their heads where I live. I don't try to understand why...
I will keep you posted on whatever adventure awaits me come September, for now you take very good care of you and your loved ones — stay safe dear one, smile lots even if the day doesn't demand a smile! xx
Dear Sally, I am so glad for you that you have coal tits! Aren't they just the sweetest tiniest feathered dreams ever!
But, before anything and everything, I am praying you are safe on your beautiful hill. that it is far enough from wild fires to not have to worry any more than is necessary? Meaning I wish you didn't have to worry at all but if you do I hope it's no more than might be considered normal in summer... if indeed worrying about fire is normal at all?
The goats... don't, it is just too sad and the truth about goat farming here, worse, so maybe I will just stop right there.
I am trying to accept being posted to another school.without asking myself over and over, what did I do wrong, why are they doing this, nothing is broken? Then, am I still capable of undertaking this work and all my confidence becomes a mire of self questioning. I am trying to be brave, not resolute, not yet, there is still time to reverse the decision but I accept that if this change must be then I will work with it, not against it. Maybe it will be serendipitous... I live in hope of miracles and magic!
I am sitting at my desk as I type to you and although it is still very early in the evening, there is a family of blue tits flitting back and forth chattering to each other over the elder in search of the hippest berries... they are a delight to watch and listen to as they rip a mouthful then decide they are not ripe enough, I wish I could learn blue-tit!
Love right back dear Sally, please be safe, I am praying for clouds of rain to stop over Spain for at least a week! xxx
Dearest Susie, I’m falling behind on my reading these days but please know you are never far from my heart. Your aching is felt deeply, you are one of those humans who seem to be forever entangled in the multitudes of lives surrounding, the human, the winged, the furred, the leafed. It’s as if there is no edge between you and the rest of life. Because of this, everything is sharper when it’s sharp, hotter when it’s hot, but of course, also sweeter when it’s sweet. I do hope an extra swell of kindnesses are arriving on your doorstep these days. You are always attuned to the smallest of occurrences, funding the magic where others might just stomp on by. I hope those moments expand to fill all the aching parts today and every day. You are so loved.
Oh Kim, you have every reason to be elsewhere, perhaps roaming with angels ensuring they hold the hands and heart of your mum, to reassure yourself as well as her, to allow grief to flow through and out of you both. To allow the peace of knowing that in this great beautiful world, everything is unfolding as it should.
That you are thinking of me, your friend from afar on hill that looks like a sand dune makes me ache with love for you and your big, big heart... know that I am thinking of you with tears for your loss and for the courage I know you will need. Know that up in the vast universe when you are ready to let go of the hands that have held you all your life, that will be making new constellations to shine down on you.
Thank you beautiful you, so many hugs and so much love to you. Know too I am thinking of you xxx
Susie... again, I am utterly absorbed in your writing. I'm so sorry you are going through such an abrupt and upsetting change... how can they do that without an explanation?!? I will keep my fingers crossed for you, that they respond to you and allow you to remain where you love to be, and where you are no doubt, cherished.
How is it, you can write about the unrelenting heat with such beauty and magic? Where I am, we are also now feeling the heat, breathing in the thick smoky air and watching late night lightning storms with awe and a healthy dose of fear. Our lovely little mountain town is so incredibly vulnerable. Is it only a matter of time that we have to evacuate and watch everything turn to ash and char? There are over 1000 forest fires burning in Canada right now... how are there any trees left??? You remind me in the most beautiful ways to allow the fear to be present, but also to let in all of the magic that summer brings. All of it feels like a bewildering oxymoron.
Your words bring comfort, my sweet friend. I can just see you all out there on your hill, watching the falling stars... and the hares, savouring those precious moments. May the raindrops feel inspired by the stars, and begin to fall as well. Much love to you, Susie. xo ✨💜🤗
Good grief Jaime! 1000 wildfires? I don't think I would ever sleep! How can there possibly be enough water, fire fighters and equipment to combat such a vast amount of forest? I am praying hard for you and your mountain dear one, I know how bewildering it all is, how terrifying to watch fire devour a whole mountainside in not even a minuscule fraction of the time it took for it to become.
The only grain of hope for the future, is belief that eventually those that are in denial will see for themselves the damages they are causing, until then I fear Mother Nature is will not calm her fury until she feels those who have the power to at least begin to reverse climate change are doing their best to do so... this will be a long battle but I, no we, cannot let it blind us to what is still a joy to behold, the beauty of all that which remains, small creatures, tiny mushrooms, even those trees that you have written of with such love, that have fallen and become part of the story of a wild place. There is still magic and much comfort can be derived from that.
When I sit on my hill, watching the hares or even the full force and fury of a storm, despite the fear in my heart there is love too, and amazement and joy because all the while nature is showing us her moods we know she has not been beaten!
A huge and grateful hug to your beautiful soul... please be safe, I am praying for you xxx
So perfectly said, Susie. We humans need to wake up!! Sending you a huge hug right back, my beautiful friend. Dreaming of Autumn. xoxo
This light is more than 8 minutes old, it's more like 8 months or so or something awfully long since I have made my way here (or anywhere on Substack), for too many reasons, but I am here and remembering how easy it is to be awestruck by your writing.
Our polar opposites of geography have probably never been more apparent: we wait for spring and warmth and relative dry spells, for we've had a lot of rain and some bitterly cold (for Melbourne) mornings, and would love for a comfortable day of warmth, but then all I see and hear of in the northern hemisphere is the terrible heat and fires and I know I should be careful what I wish for.
Which is to say, I hope the rains come, the air cools, and the world stills (for us all).
Congratulations to Seth, and bravo on the mechanical skills. Most impressive. Fantastic photo!
PS my favourite line:
"Tell me how to be still when the light shimmering over a field of barley on an unimaginably hot evening in July lasts but a few minutes—is already eight minutes old—will never be repeated in the exact same way, ever again, when that light catching in those particular trillions of barley beards is like phosphorescence or the Milky Way or thousands of damselfly wings?"
Nathan! Firstly my apologies for such a tardy reply... 8 minutes, 8 months... no matter both time spans seem to pass in the blink of an eye with advancing years... it's really quite alarming! Anyway, I saw your comment arrive on a day when I had literally just been wondering—even to the extent of checking I hadn't inadvertently unsubscribed from your account, another boring age thing—where you were!
It's good to hear from you dear friend, you are sorely missed here. Strangely, I am convinced there is an inexplicable telepathy passing between us... I wonder how long thoughts take to travel from one person to another when half a planet sits between them?
So the rain is your side, hmmm... sadly little can be done to change climatic tantrums, this year they seem to have been worse than ever and completely unstoppable, the heat and the fires have had tragic consequences for anything living close and summer is not yet over... I am awash, with perspiration and fear and a longing never felt before for the cooler days of autumn.
Many thanks for popping by, I hope you are both well settled into your new home.
I'd send a hug but truly, it wouldn't be very pleasant! X
I think we've had enough of these kind of moments to know that said telepathic connection exists and is well established between us. ☺️
For the last few weeks I have been fleetingly making it to my keyboard to tend to some nascent words that are forming in a draft of a story. It is being nurtured, but not quite yet into maturity.
As for real life, I have much to tell, but whether or not I will pen real life into a post or keep things entirely fictional, I'm not sure.
Either way, I long to be here more. I miss you and all of the fellow writers I cherish here.
I hope you can stay cool and safe and away from fires.
I will enjoy whatever you decide to write Nathan and I guess there is no rush other than for those—me—that are impatient to read another story from you!
The thing about the pieces you write Susie is that they’re so full of sensual detail. I feel immersed whenever I read your posts. I’m right there sweating with you or shivering, depending on the time of year. It’s such a gift to be transported.
A thousand thanks Ben, to read that you feel immersed is high praise indeed, especially coming from someone that writes with such an extraordinary ability to draw the reader into a story from the very first page! That too is a gift!
I’m transported as always when reading about your life on the hill Susie ♥️ And isn’t Seth brilliant, just like his mum!!
Aww thanks darling hazel... you are incredibly kind; I wish I was as brilliant as Seth, his brain is extraordinary and kind and beautiful... I am deeply proud of him. 🥹
I love every heated sentence. No matter how stifling, sweaty, stinky, or sultry hot it gets, if we feel it, we are alive. “Rosie and I gaze at the trailing glitter that is The Milky Way in a silken black sky, unimaginably vast, unimaginably distant.”Does life get any better than that? I wish I could send you the feeling of slipping into cool glacial waters, one shoulder at a time—silver skin covered in water droplets reflecting the night sky. Alas, I can only do it for you and leave the rest to your imagination. Let’s just say—pass the ice cubes, please. And you might even need a light blanket to sleep. I am attaching 2 videos from a wonderful movie. It came to mind as there are a few similarities that resemble another story you are all too familiar with. You may remember it: Mr. Holland’s Opus. A brief synopsis—due to budget cuts, a well loved teacher 60 years of age, close to retirement, was forced out of his job. In the end his students, past and present, and the entire school, gave him an incredible send-off. Two songs define the entire movie. The first, I am including because of your son. The lyrics are not a total fit, but the love woven through is a perfect fit, this song:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0IMASimhRo
And this one: (don’t forget a box of Kleenex)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bz85A_zNiJU
Dear Lor, thank you for kind words in suffocating heat, still. I am so grateful for the night sky, for the cool air and dreamy galaxies it carries when there isn’t a trickle of water left and the earth is just too darn hot!
We have a storm coming, or so I hear, 100kmph wind and hail, fabulous 🙄then when that is over our fourth heatwave of the year. I am not sure what we signed up for when we moved to France, kinda sure it wasn’t this though… and where next, at age 62 when my beloved hill cannot be moved?
Oh and you have one very impressive repertoire of films and music, I am just a lot in awe! I have seen Mr Holland’s Opus, now I will track it down and watch again… with Kleenex at a handy distance of course, I remember from the first time tears were involved. I saw it with my mum, meaning I’ll blubber twice as much and now there’s the boy too!
Sending a thousand thanks and hot hugs xx
I just heard that there is a red alarm for wild fires now in the south of France, I hope not in the region where you are! It’s a scary world, isn’t it.. 😢
About the stillness-motion topic: perhaps it’s not either-or but both stillness AND motion. Everyone needs both, no-one can do without either one. How much of each you need depends on how your brain is wired, for instance, introverts need more stillness to recharge. Does this make sense, or am I missing the point? 😅
Bless you for thinking of me JoAnna, we are thankfully not in danger. 🙏🏼
I was just reading about the fire near Toulouse and another near to Marseilles neither are close to us although Rosie tells me there is smoke in the air around her apartment, mercifully she too is not in http://danger.You
This summer is terrifying!
No lovely, you are not missing the point at all… I agree completely and without doubt, we are all different! But it absolutely is both stillness and motion we need, ideally equal doses would be the best for good health. I am simply incapable of staying still (not good for my well-being). I am fearful, there is so much in this world I have yet to see and I don’t want to miss a single bit of it, not the sun on sheep’s wool or the light glinting in the barley, not one second of it. I think perhaps it is much to do with age and a realisation my time becoming less by the year, and that the years seem to fly by at the speed of light! It scares me slightly I think… to have so little time when there is still so much to see. 😥
It’s good to know you’re all not in danger, although it must be terrifying to be relatively close to the danger zone. Summer is no good anymore…
You sound a bit like a friend of mine who is always afraid of missing out the beauty that might be just around the corner. She is a gemini too, you know..☺️
I too think it is scary to realise that time is becoming less at our age, and it nevertheless seems to fly by at high speed 😧
Be safe and cool, and let’s enjoy all the good and beauty around us 🧡xx
I have yet to meet a gemini girl who isn't as flighty as me and your friend JoAnna, the curse of the stars my dear mum used to call it!
I reluctantly agree with you when you say 'summer is no good anymore' it breaks my heart but alas, it really isn't.
I will be doing my best to stay cool, not always an easy task but enjoying the beauty makes up for so much! Much love to you 💛xx
You bring enchanted moments of magic and mundanity to us. I am forever grateful to join you in catching the light in the glittering trail of the Milky Way, a trillion barley beards, thousands of damselfly wings, in hot hugs and oily hands from children who light the world. I’m sorry to learn of your work woes, and I send hope and cool hugs to you. It has been much cooler here these last few days, not reaching 30oC, and cooling more in the coming days. I am hopeful that are heading to weather of maybe 31oC in a week when we travel to France, when I am also hopeful that I might then get to relax and be still for a time, away from the constant necessity of responsibly that feels hot and heavy on me today. With forever love and light xx
Good morning Em, thank you, it will always be an honour to have you join me in glittery, shimmering trails no matter where they lead to or where they've arrived from.
I am trying to be positive about my work, trying to see it as an adventure which could be just as extraordinary and beautiful as that which I have been on... I have no news of modifications to my contract and now, doubt I will. There is always that tiny sparkle of hope though, nobody has replied with a resounding NO yet!
I am so relieved to hear the heatwave has passed, here too, while still very hot the alerts on my weather app have been lifted, we can breathe again. And sleep again!
I hope you have the most fabulous holiday, I keep trying to think of ways to meet, it is such a long journey though and in this heat unfeasible. I do hope Eleanor will be there while you are though? I will imagine the two of you with something cold and refreshing in your hands chattering away about all things creative and literary, raise my glass to you from my hill.
I know how weighty those incessant responsibilities feel, courage ma belle, just a few days to go!
Sending forever love and light right back sweet soul! xxx
Dear Susie, your writing is so very beautiful. I look forward to every article. I’m very sorry you’ve been ambushed by your new contract. So lucky are the students you will instruct, wherever that may be. Thank you for introducing me to coal-tit birds (I always learn something new from your posts). Reading through all of the thoughtful comments I’m struck by the eloquent writing of your many friends. Sending you buckets of pixie dust <3 <3 <3
Dear Luci, thank you for your so kind and encouraging words and especially for bucket loads of pixie dust of which I am in dire need.... Ambushed is a good word for how this change of contract feels but I am trying to filter positive thoughts out from the anger and sadness to lay out before me in the hope they will form some sort of adventure... I am not without hope!
I am delighted to make your acquaintance with coal-tits! To me they are the cutest little noise makers in my garden, I welcome them with a smile and open arms though they are yet to trust me sufficiently to alight... I live in hope!
Luci, there are so very many beautiful, eloquent, thoughtful, brilliant people here on Substack it is difficult to know where to begin and harder still to know when to stop!
Sending tiny notes of love right back to you from voices with tiny badger faces xox
Lordy, Susie, where to even begin.
Battening down the hatches in another of life's shitstorms is never pleasant work, but within the cloy and darkness of a swelter... it is a form of torture. I'm achey for you, my friend.
Life is funny in that way that it often has a plan for you that simply seems like a prison sentence as it approaches. Ask any caterpillar that is at that chrysalis formation stage of its journey. Prison. No more eating. Unable to move. Hell and damnation, almost certainly.
Goodbye cruel world.
Wait, what? Now I wake back up and I'm a freaking butterfly?
Obviously I cannot know whether your latest heartaches will lead you into an unending cycle of doom, but some little voice in me, the one that has watched carefully for a while now sees you as someone uniquely tooled for living a heartfelt and magical life. And if I can see that, and so many others here see and feel it as well, well, I have this sense that the universe sees and understands it much better than any of us, your adoring fans. So my little wonder observer wonders what wonders are about to appear for you, next. I just get the feeling that there is magic afoot and that you are meant to find it, because you'll share it, even when you least expect to. Could be wrong, of course. I am so often. But usually not about things like this.
Just for fun, what if you imagine that all this is a setup for something wild and wonderful, then put on a summery frock and act as if you're ready for the party that will surely begin soon, acting as if...
The universe seems to love those who give it the benefit of the doubt, assuming that it wants us to succeed far more than it wants to destroy us.
I adore you, you know.
Smiling in advance on your behalf.
Dear Davey, your aching and understanding go a long way in easing the weight of this summer's especially lengthy torture. Tidings of new contracts, leaving old schools behind, much loved and revered colleagues and adored students too have squeezed many tears from these tired eyes, but... and I don't say say this without having given much thought to my decision, I fear resignation to the situation is likely an easier option than fighting the bosses... I will give them the benefit of my doubt, time will tell, as it always has a habit of doing, whether their decision was a wise one.
I am still sweltering under a too hot sun while a traitorous wind fools me every afternoon into believing cool is following close behind... it doesn't and yet every day I believe it will. Where I come from they say 'there's no fool like and old fool' they sure weren't kidding...
Yet during all that lands with a heavy thud on fragile emotions, and I hope this makes you smile... I spent a weekend with old friends, very old school friends, the type that make you reminisce with genuine smiles and happy tears and laughter so often you leave with deeper lines on your face than you arrived with! I put on a floaty dress the colour of terracotta tiles a little bleached by the sun, we feasted on food prepared for us by a handsome chef who cared very much that we enjoyed every morsel and then we danced and danced... no acting necessary! A glorious two days which liberated me of all woes...
Perhaps the universe really is unfolding as it should... perhaps a little dose of dancing and faith in fate is all that is necessary?
I am sending smiles of deepest gratitude right back to you my dear friend. I hope summer is a little less relentlessly suffocating where you are and if it is, that you have one of those wonderfully cool rivers adorned with dragonflies you write of close enough to cool off in.
I always couldn't finish Susie's passages in one go. I needed to breathe, and walked away sometimes. Light is the trickster of time and reality, and light has no fear, light picks out light. They dance like in an endless beguilement. Leaving humans out of breath.
What beautiful though, to dance in an endless beguilement, breathlessly watching light picking out light...
Thank you my friend... these words I will carry into my dreams.
This is beautifully written as always Susie but I am sorry to hear your news about having to leave the place you've worked after so many years without any choice! I didn't know they could do that there but I do hope your appeal is successful. And here's hoping that this heatwave comes to an end soon, I know I'll be out there dancing in the rain when it eventually falls!
Thank you Lin, the work situation is still unsolved and I fear at this stage of the holiday is unlikely to be and as such perhaps it is better to accept and forget what can't be changed. I will not give up hope entirely but I will stop dwelling on changing something that is out of my hands. Que sera, sera... no matter that it upsets me immensely!
I do hope the heatwave has abated back in the UK, here we are still—too—hot but the heatwave has floated off to torture some other part of this poor planet. Ordinarily I would be relieved but I truly wouldn't wish such intense heat on anyone...
and I did do a little dance with my sheep shearer who arrived at the exact same time as the first, thankfully very short-lived, storm on Thursday... we had a cold drink, watched it pass and got on with the job!
Here's to cooling rain for us both! X
Light, stillness, movement, hares who sense friends, shooting stars, milky ways - you and your daughter looking from the Northern Hemisphere, my daughter and I looking from the Southern, all is connected, a proud mother, a capable son, changes in work situations, uncertainty in both work and weather, fire and fear, goats who have never seen the outside burn alive. 300! Oh my gosh. 😢
Wishing you beautiful rain Susie. Thinking of you, of Josh and Veronika as you remember your time with them last year in Porto. 🙏❤️
Stunning post - words and photos - as always.
I love the thought of us and our daughters watching the stars from the two hemispheres, separated by oceans and mountains and forests and deserts but connected for always by soul work, and love and the challenges life bring us Jo, distance is nothing where hearts are concerned right!
Our heatwave has drifted elsewhere. We are still sweltering under a hot summer sun and the land is tinder dry but we can breathe again. The fear of wildfires stand strong though... I watch and hope and pray for rain very soon; it's all any of us can do.
The hours spent with Josh and Veronika; we never know how special such moments might become, how the honour of meeting someone stills one's heart. 🥹
Forever thanks for your beautiful comments and friendship Jo, sending love ♥️
♥️🙏
Oh, those poor goats. And you, too, dear Susie, to have been moved from a job and community that you were so much a part of. I'm so sorry, friend. I would love to hug you in the rain.
Hello beautiful, I can't even come close to telling you how broken my heart was when I read of those poor goats, neither how enraged I am at how easily it could happen again and again...and not just to goats but all animals that are farmed so intensively that they never see the light of day.
Oh Kendall, I have asked myself over and over, what did I do wrong? Then, am I still capable of undertaking this work? Every scrap of confidence has become a mire of self questioning. I am trying to be brave, not resolute, not yet but I accept that if this change must be then I will work with it, not against it but good grief its hard!
I am imagining that hug in the rain, and oh my... it feels so good! Thank you sweet soul... sending love right back to you xx
I have had not one, but two head gaskets blown in two different vehicles over my lifetime and would love to live the rest of it without another one. So glad you had your son to help you!!
Wish I could send you a cool breeze and lower temperatures altogether. But sending you my gratitude and friendship instead.
🥰🥰
I went car free for a few years, and it was marvelous. I was living in Santa Barbara, California, at the time. And it’s made to bike. Perfect riding weather 350 days of the year. Long flat stretches with great bike lanes. Buses that accommodate bicycles. Everything you can need or want in easy distance.
I didn’t love everything about the town though. So I don’t regret leaving. But I am glad that I had the experience.
I guess we can’t have everything, as hard as we may wish it Holly… and I truly believe if we are meant to be somewhere, it calls to us. Santa Barbara obviously didn’t sing the right words…
Gratitude and friendship are cool breeze enough Holly, thank you. 🥰
This is my second blown head gasket also Holly. The first, about a gazillion years ago now, was a VW Beetle which I repaired with the help of a friend. This one, a 2009 VW Golf V Estate, I wouldn't have known where to begin. I have given thanks to the gods of mechanics I have a son who knows what's what!
If I could live without a car I would, without hesitation!
As I picked up my keyboard to write to you Susie, coal tits chatting outside my window called in so loudly as if to say, "tell Susie, WE know." And I think 'they' all know. Like the Hare in the starlit night. The goats. OMG the goats. :( The trees and the barley. Yours and mine preciously loved ones.
I felt it all, come right through my screen and sit, playing a duo on our remote hill. The searing heat, the dry earth filled dust, the heat gun wind, even the void Moon, still hidden by the Sun's light, whilst at the same time colliding with Jupiter, who is expanding all the fears with the gusto of Leo. Of fire. Of new horizons. Like Holst's Planets. That none of us know, or can describe, especially in eight minutes. Yet you have Susie, and I thank you for that and I want to hug you, and tell you it will be OK.
And...amongst all that, you have the most cleverest son and wonderful daughter to behold. And that is all we can do. Is hold on. To every single liminal minute that 'feels' right.
I hope you are able to find out more about the post and college you have no option at present to go work in. Maybe calling in curiosity about that might help shift some unknown dread or even help you see new or different opportunities there. By removing the focus from leaving the old school, the Universe might however just bring it back. Who knows. Knowing is a wonderful thing but so often it's not always what it's cracked up to be.
I am forced to sign off now, by a big fluffy tail virtually covering my keyboard and paws flying paint brushes and last night's art across the desk to the floor, as the adjoined body flops down heavily with all four legs akimbo, to feel the draft of the fan! Love you until next time. xx
Thank you Susie for your wonderful words. I am sorry not to reply before as I am back in the UK because our precious daughter needed an operation and someone to care for her.
She is now home and on the mend now thankfully and I am grateful to the failing NHS yet wonderful surgeons too and as I sit in her little wildflower and bee fest garden, the magpies fight loudly above me as chaffinches and greenfinch play and feed on midges in the huge birch tree that centres and grounds this tiny idyl in Southampton.
The fires in Spain are sadly but thankfully so fa,r further south from our hill and I pray our mountains are spared this year. I dreamed of fires there only last night! The air quality is very poor, with an unhealthy alert and temperatures so high. We keep fingers crossed and pray ‘we’ are all spared this summer.
And in the UK there is the huge risk of fire. I sit only miles from the New Forest and every blade of green grass is now brown in a what was a flooded mass only this year. But…..this weather pattern has increased the butterfly population immensely!!!
All fingers crossed for a change of mind at the school. And of course those wrong thought of what had you done wrong will prevail. And of course you know the truth. Nothing. Just bureaucracy and ignorance I imagine.
Keep well my lovely hill top friend and keep us posted on what’s next for you come September. And keep hope as always that IT will all be OK. xxx
Oh Sally, please give your daughter a huge hug from your hill top kindred sister in France, I pray she will be recovered fast with but a fleeting memory of hospital beds and operations.
As I sit here at my desk in a sweltering heat that stifles and suffocates by night almost as efficiently as it does by day, huge fat rain drops are beginning to fall, I can tell by the way the drops are already slowing that by the time I have finished typing my reply it will be over.
Thank goodness your hill is safe from wildfires, it is almost too much to imagine England being at risk too but I know it is, I feel so scared for everyone right now, but for the moment, here, we are clear of both smoke and fire for today.
What a way to spend summer sweet soul... thank the gods for birds to keep us smiling , especially magpies who seem to have a permanent death threat over their heads where I live. I don't try to understand why...
I will keep you posted on whatever adventure awaits me come September, for now you take very good care of you and your loved ones — stay safe dear one, smile lots even if the day doesn't demand a smile! xx
Dear Sally, I am so glad for you that you have coal tits! Aren't they just the sweetest tiniest feathered dreams ever!
But, before anything and everything, I am praying you are safe on your beautiful hill. that it is far enough from wild fires to not have to worry any more than is necessary? Meaning I wish you didn't have to worry at all but if you do I hope it's no more than might be considered normal in summer... if indeed worrying about fire is normal at all?
The goats... don't, it is just too sad and the truth about goat farming here, worse, so maybe I will just stop right there.
I am trying to accept being posted to another school.without asking myself over and over, what did I do wrong, why are they doing this, nothing is broken? Then, am I still capable of undertaking this work and all my confidence becomes a mire of self questioning. I am trying to be brave, not resolute, not yet, there is still time to reverse the decision but I accept that if this change must be then I will work with it, not against it. Maybe it will be serendipitous... I live in hope of miracles and magic!
I am sitting at my desk as I type to you and although it is still very early in the evening, there is a family of blue tits flitting back and forth chattering to each other over the elder in search of the hippest berries... they are a delight to watch and listen to as they rip a mouthful then decide they are not ripe enough, I wish I could learn blue-tit!
Love right back dear Sally, please be safe, I am praying for clouds of rain to stop over Spain for at least a week! xxx