Beneath the Dirt

Christmas and New Year holidays is my favourite time of the year, completion and renewal. This New Years Eve, as well as welcoming a new year, we are heralding the beginning of a new decade. Before I pull the party popper to cheer for the end of the old and the beginning of the new, I want to pay tribute to the last ten years. 2010 - Leave the things that do not bring you joy. 2011 - Trust your intuition. 2012 - Celebrate the here and now. 2013 - Let the light in your heart illuminate the darkness in your mind. 2014 - Be strong for yourself and those you love. 2015 - Make the most of what you have and what you know. 2016 - Live, laugh, love and create with passion and dedication. 2017 - Travel as far as you can go. 2018 - Live life with those who love and value you. 2019 - Pieces fall into place. Pray, Ask and Receive. While I was out walking today on this rough, beaten track in my local park I saw patches of grass scattered over this rocky, dusty path and this is what came into my heart. Nature fights back. Whatever is man-made, nature will find its way through cracks in the cement, weeds will pop up between bricks and whatever is left unattended nature will show up. A slow and steady conqueror bringing green lushness to the very thing that squashed it. The moral of this story is that if you give things some time, new things will grow in our lives. So often when we are in a state of mind where all we see is dust, dirt and rock - we forget that beneath the dirt there is grass growing, life thriving and growing and all that is needed is care, water and sunshine. I wonder what that rough, rocky track will look like in six months to a year? What will it look like in a decade? Perhaps the dirt and rocks will be buried beneath even grass and flowers? This brings to mind a song by John Denver called The Flower that Shattered the Stone. A phrase I heard so often when I was growing up by a lot of different people was: 'It's a hard world out there, you have to be hard.' These past ten years have taught me that this world is a beautiful place despite the shit that goes on in it, that it is experiences, feelings and mind-sets that colour our reality with the paints we choose. True, you can't go through life passive and all martyr-like, but we need to remember that it is gentleness and softness that holds more power than rock and stone. A rock will only ever stay in one place unless it is moved, water flows over rock rounding sharp edges and grass grows beneath and over rock and given time plants break apart the rock. It just takes time. With the time that we have in 2020, 8,760 hours of it - I hope that you will chase the people who make you happy, the things that make you passionate and that whatever challenges come knocking on your door, that you will be able to complete them to the best of your ability and send them off as a stronger and more knowledgeable person than you were before. I hope you will know and be shown kindness and love, most importantly, that you will give it. And on those days when you feel like you have had enough, that you feel scared and that things are not going the way they should, have courage and be strong because beneath the dirt, that is where you will find your treasure. Happy New Year, sweethearts. All my love, Sarah x