Sheds and Shedding

There is currently a lot of talk about sheds in our house.

Storage space and creative practice teeter on an unseen metronome of needs. Where do my priorities lie? How do I make space for what is trying to emerge, while finding somewhere to put everything I’ve already gathered?

I wanted to say learnings or offerings, but it’s my current healing story that needs more room.

I have moved back home to Ireland after thirteen years in Sydney. Shifted hemispheres, following a pull that continues to deepen, even if I can’t always make sense of it.

Home has been so welcoming, and a little bewitching.

Friends, family and strangers have warmed me. The familiarity of place, the landscape, the humour, the little exchanges that make me feel recognised and connected. There is so much to be grateful for.

And yet, alongside this warmth, something else has been stirring.

It seems that returning to the most familiar of places can illuminate some of the darkest parts of ourselves. Parts I thought I had outgrown, though maybe I had just intellectually outrun.

There is a Celtic symbol that keeps showing up in my designs, wanting to play with me in a cunning way.

It is the spiral.

When we move, it doesn’t always feel like we’re moving forwards. We spiral, visiting parts of our old selves along the way. I wonder if we can ever really return to the same place, or whether each revolution brings us into contact with another layer of ourselves. The old witnessing new parts to be integrated.

Lately, I’ve found myself somewhere along that spiralling path, verging on paralysis.

At least this time it has nothing to do with the old back injury, although the occasional twinges and bodily restrictions still like to remind me of their existence on a random morning.

Paralysis, slowness and stalling. This is a different kind of slowing.

How can I produce, perform or share anything when there is so much weight moving through me?

This energy seeks a name.

Uncertainty and insecurity reside in the peculiar shame that can arise when life looks full of possibility, yet something inside feels unable to move towards it.

And most confusingly, knowing this doesn’t always help me shift it.

I have slowed.

While this feels disheartening, there’s something here asking for my attention. Or my arttention, as I accidentally wrote recently. An intriguing misspelling that feels rather appropriate.

The slowing has given me time to feel my feet upon the earth, to recognise what is stirring beneath the surface rather than continually attempting to rise above it.

I seek to feel rooted like the trees. To explore my sense of belonging. To return to the basic need for safety.

What does it mean to feel at home within ourselves?

During a recent shamanic drumming ceremony, I received a strong sense that I no longer needed to keep looking backwards.

Let the past go.

Such a simple instruction. It might take a lifetime to achieve.

I have spent so long looking behind me that, when I turn to face forwards, the unknown path seems to hover somewhere overhead, somewhere to the side, elusive and ever-changing.

So now I look for ways to allow myself to discover what might happen next. I seek permission slips to enable the release.

Yet there is a deep grief that holds the key to this.

Thirteen years is a considerable chapter of a life. A whole world of experiences, friendships, familiar streets, places and versions of myself now exist on the opposite side of the planet.

I close a chapter, yet there are unwritten books still asking for attention.

Can we honour what we’ve left behind without remaining tethered to it?

And how do we distinguish between what we need to release and what is simply asking to be remembered?

Some days, I can see the future so clearly.

I envision a beautiful little space, nestled into a garden, where I can offer my healing modalities — intuitive massage, Reiki, and something else that hasn’t quite found its name yet. Some form of creative and spiritual guidance.

A space that feels safe, comfortable and connected to nature.

I have a wee marquee tent, although it too is asking for a little more security, given the temperamental weather here in Cork.

The space could be a room in a shared holistic therapy centre. Or something entirely different could emerge.

A girl can dream, right?

There is something reassuring about being able to imagine this place so vividly, even when the path towards it remains unclear.

For now, I can hold that vision.

With deep listening, I feel the permission to begin before everything is ready.

So I allow myself to share before everything is understood. I continue to create without knowing what it will become. I try to receive without feeling that something must first be proven or earned.

I summon the courage to connect with strangers who hold up mirrors and show me more wisdom than I had known.

How much of our lives do we spend waiting for permission that nobody else is actually withholding?

And how much of what holds us back comes from the stories we’ve quietly built around ourselves?

I have been thinking about the pendulum, too.

The movement between possibility and fear. Expansion and contraction. The desire to be seen and the instinct to retreat.

Some days I feel pulled towards everything I want to create. Other days, the simplest movement forward seems to require an extraordinary amount of energy.

While the pendulum remains in motion, there is magic in the still point from which it hangs.

Today, the sun is shining.

Blue skies have greeted me here in Cork, and we are waiting for a new shed to arrive.

There is something wonderfully practical about making space for things. Measuring dimensions, clearing the ground, deciding what belongs where.

I wish the internal rearrangements were quite so straightforward.

How often have I spent time trying to find somewhere to store what I no longer need to carry?

And is the question really about making more room, or discovering what I’m finally ready to release?

I grant myself grace in honouring how much I have already shed.

I miss strange things that seemed too small, but weighty to bring home. I sense my own betrayal for not seeing it then.

They show me now parts of myself that have been exiled and are invaluable.

I send them a thank you and wish them well.

I look to my feet and appreciate how well they are standing. I feel the walls and ceiling around me and appreciate this security.

I plant new wishes and energy into a new space.

I will continue to spiral with more courage.

I encourage more compassion, more space for healing and creating.

I build a new room to house the discoveries, the rawness and the beauty.

Thank you, wooden beams. You are helping with the healing.