carly macaulay

free range kids, free range eggs

There is nothing simpler and nicer than wandering outside and collecting the eggs to then cook them up immediately for breakfast. If you have ever had eggs like this you will understand what I’m taking about..

ingredients: sourdough bread , free range fresh eggs, organic butter, organic baby asparagus spears, 1 avocado, juice of a lemon, olive oil, sea salt and cracked pepper, a couple of free range kids

method: Heat a non stick grill pan on low, put on a small pot of water for the asparagus. With a glass cut holes into the centre of the sourdough, lightly butter on both sides and put aside. Gently snip with fingers the ends off the asparagus and place into the water when it comes to the boil. Blanch for 2-3 minutes, then remove and run under cold water to stop the cooking process. Slice the avocado all the way around and remove the seed. Scoop the flesh out into a bowl and add the juice of half a lemon and season. Mash with a fork and set aside. Lightly oil the grill pan and turn the heat up to a medium heat then add the sourdough slices, as many as you can fit onto the pan. While toasting lightly season with salt and cracked pepper. Allow to toast for a minute or so then begin cracking your eggs into the holes of the bread. Allow the bread to cook to a buttery golden brown before flipping over to cook the other side. The second side will take less time than the first. Try not to over cook the eggs. When nicely toasted, take out of the pan and set aside on a board. While the grill pan is still hot add a little more olive oil and add the asparagus, gently sear for a minute, lightly season with salt. Serve the asparagus spears on the toasts, and add a spoonful of the avocado mixture to the plates. Give thanks and enjoy!

Why i want a Wife

In August 1970, a woman named Judy Syfers stood before a crowd gathered in San Francisco and read a humorous essay she wrote entitled ” Why I want a Wife”. The crowd was gathered to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the 19th amendment, giving women the right to vote. In 1971 it was published in an important anthology of feminist works, ‘Notes from the third Year’.

I belong to that classification of people known as wives.I am a wife. And, not altogether incidentally, I am a mother.

Not too long ago a male friend of mine appeared on the scene fresh from a recent divorce. He had one child, who is, of course, with his ex-wife. He is looking for another wife. As I thought about him while I was ironing one evening, it suddenly occurred to me that I too, would like to have a wife. Why do I want a wife?

I would like to go back to schools that I can become economically independent, support myself, and, if need be, support those dependent upon me. I want a wife who will work and send me to school. And while I going to school, I want a wife to take care of my children. I want a wife to keep track of the children’s doctor and dentist appointments. And to keep track of mine, too. I want a wife to make sure my children eat properly and are kept clean. I want a wife who will wash the children’s clothes and keep them mended. I want a wife who is a good nurturant attendant to my children, who arranges for their schooling, makes sure they have adequate social life with their peers, takes them to the park, the zoo, etc. I want a wife who takes care of the children when they are sick, arranges to be around when the children need special care, because, of course, I cannot miss classes at school. My wife must arrange to lose time at work and not lose the job. it may mean a small cut in my wife’s income from time to time, but I guess I can tolerate that. Needless to say, my wife will arrange and pay for the care of the children while my wife is working.

I want a wife who will take care of my physical needs. I want a wife who will keep my house clean. A wife who will pick up after my children, a wife who will pick up after me. I want a wife who will keep my clothes clean, ironed,mended,replaced when need be, and who will see to it that my personal things are kept in their proper place so that I can find what I need the minute I need it. I want a wife who cooks the meals, a wife who is a good cook. I want a wife who will plan the menus, do the necessary grocery shopping, prepare the meals, serve them pleasantly, and then do the cleaning up while I do my studying. i want a wife to go along when our family takes vacation so that someone can continue to care for me and my children when I need a rest and change of scene.

I want a wife who will not bother me rambling complaints about a wife’s duties. But I want a wife who will listen to me when I feel the need to explain a rather difficult point I have come across in my course studies. And I want a wife who will type my papers for me when I have written them.

If, by chance, I find another person more suitable as a wife than the wife I already have, I want the liberty to replace my present wife with another one. Naturally, I will expect a fresh, new life; my wife will take the children and be solely responsible for them so that I am left free.

When i am through with school and have a job, i want my wife to quit working and remain at home so that my wife can more fully and completely take care of a wife’s duties.

My God, who wouldn’t want a wife?

when a daughter of my closest friend gave me this piece to read i did so lightheartedly thinking in the beginning how truthfully funny it was.. however the further i read, the humour was lost to how implicitly relevant this piece is to the women of today. How do we change the story? How do we teach our sons and daughters differently, to expect different and fairer for themselves when all they see are mothers taking care of them, taking care of all that needs to be done for their lives to feel secure and loved as children? How do i show my daughters that their lives are abundantly worth everything and that they need not lose themselves to the children they bear and the husbands they marry, when it is all they have ever witnessed and not by their mother’s choosing? This piece was written in 1970, it could have been written today, i could have written it, for myself.

again, its been some time since i have been able to really Be here. Life, seems to be keeping me from myself. To have a moment now is rare, so rare that I become bewildered in the space and often lose the moment altogether. It’s not really how i want to be living. It’s not how i saw my life playing out. I’ve done a lot of starting over in my young life, and it seems i am here now starting over again, having to in vision new dreams, new hopes for us. I’m wanting this part to be over, the part where you move from one life to the other. The part where things fall apart, children lose their grounding, teenagers lose themselves even more so in the things that don’t matter, nevertheless matter the world to them. I am wanting the deep-seated sadness to finish now, to finally leave me free from the thoughts of what my life should have looked like. I am wanting to see what it looks like from here, i am wanting new spaces and to see myself healed and well and most of all happy. I’m tired about talking about how tired i am, and become afraid about how long i can keep moving at this pace, taking care of others, too tired at the end of the day to take care of myself. I know change is emanate, i know something is going to have to give. I know the time is near where i am going to have to scoop up my super heroes into my arms and begin to fly again.

walt whitman

I celebrate myself And what i assume you shall assume,For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.

-Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass

A Room of One’s Own

So long as you write what you wish to write, that is all that matters; and whether it matters for ages or only for hours, nobody can say. But to sacrifice a hair of the head of your vision, a shade of its colour, in deference to some Headmaster with a silver pot in his hand or to some professor with a measuring-rod up his sleeve, is the most abject treachery, and the sacrifice of wealth and charity which used to be said to be the greatest of human disasters, a mere flea-bite in comparison.

Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own

the journey

One day you finally knew

what you had to do, and began,

though the voices around you

kept shouting

their bad advice—

though the whole house began to tremble

and you felt the old tug

at your ankles.

‘Mend my life!’

each voice cried.

But you didn’t stop.

You knew what you had to do,

though the wind pried

with its stiff fingers

at the very foundations—

through their melancholy

was terrible.It was already late

enough, and a wild night,

and the road full of fallen

branches and stones.

But little by little,

as you left their voices behind,

the stars began to burn

though the sheets of clouds,

and there was a new voice,

which you slowly

recognised as your own,

that kept you company

as you strode deeper and deeper

into the world,

determined to do

the only thing you could do–determined to save

the only life you could save.

-Mary Oliver

the mother, 1949

“there has been an enormous amount of talk about the sacred rights of women, but being a mother is not how women gained the right to vote; the unwed mother is still scorned; it is only in marriage that the mother is glorified- in other words, as long as she is subordinate to the husband. As long as he is the economic head of the family, even though it is she who cares for the children, they depend far more on him than on her. This is why, as has been seen, the mother’s relationship with her children is deeply influenced by the one she maintains with her husband. So conjugal relations, homemaking and motherhood form a whole in which all the parts are determinant; tenderly united to her husband, the wife (mother) can cheerfully carry out the duties of the home; happy with her children, she will be understanding of her husband. But this harmony is not easy to attain, for the different functions assigned to the wife(mother) conflict with each other. Women magazines amply advise the housewife on the art of maintaining her sexual attraction while doing the dishes, of remaining elegant throughout pregnancy, of reconciling flirtation, motherhood and economy; but if she conscientiously follows their advice, she will soon be overwhelmed and disfigured by care; it is very difficult to remain desirable with chapped hands and a body deformed by pregnancies; this is why women in love often feel resentment of the children who ruin her seduction and deprive her of her husbands caresses; if she is, by contrast, deeply maternal, she is jealous of the man who also claims the children as his. But then, the perfect homemaker, as has been seen, contradicts the movement of life: The child is the enemy of waxed floors. Maternal love is often lost in the reprimands and outbursts that underlie the concern for a well-kept home. It is not surprising that the woman torn between these contradictions often spends her day in a state of nervousness and bitterness; she always loses on some level, and her gains are precarious, they do not count as any sure success. She can never save herself by her work alone; it keeps her occupied, but does not constitute her justification: her justification rests on outside freedoms. The wife (mother) shut up in her home cannot establish her existence on her own; she does not have the means to affirm herself in her singularity: and this singularity is consequently not acknowledged.”

Simone de Beauvoir, the Second Sex 1949

Today, I am learning to graciously open my hands and accept what falls before me. I am trying on receiving for a while. this is a new place, a foreign way of being for me. i am having to draw on great courage and humble myself in what is required in order to keep moving forward. it has compelled me to look more closely, at underlying truths i have held for myself and my very worth. Why the very task of an offering is so tremendously difficult for me to embrace i am yet to really understand. Why i have put others, known and unknown above and before my own needs for my entire life also is yet to be clear,but now; now life has deemed it is necessary to be on the receiving end for a while. I graciously will allow others to embrace the act of giving, for i understand without one there simply is no other. If I’m not able to receive well when i most need it, then i am denying someone else the opportunity to give and if i was to be denied every time i felt compelled to give in some way of myself to someone who needed something, i would most definitely be devastated by the declination. I have no doubt that as life keeps circling, the time will come once again when i will be able to give back what has come forth for me. For now though, from the depths of my heart i say thank you world, from myself and my children.

pecan pie

Where you’ve been is part of where you should be and it’s the experience you need to go where you will go.

Sister Joan Chittister

pecan pie

ingredients for the sweet pastry:125grams unsalted butter softened, 1free range egg,90 grams icing sugar,30grams ground almonds, 250grams plain flour

ingredients for the filling: 3 free range eggs, 150ml pure maple syrup,80grames brown sugar,50grams butter,195grams roughly chopped pecans

method for the pastry: place softened butter,egg,icing sugar and ground almonds in a mixing bowl with a paddle attachment and beat until combined and smooth. Gradually add the flour and stop mixing as soon as mixture is combined. wrap dough in plastic film and refrigerate for an hour or over night.

method for the filling: pre heat oven to 200°C. Over a low heat melt butter with maple syrup and brown sugar. Remove from the heat and whisk in the eggs and stir through chopped pecans,put to the side to cool slightly while you prepare the base. Roll out the pastry to 3mm thick and wide enough to cover the base and sides of a greased pie pan. Lightly bake for 10 minutes. Remove from the oven and pour in the pecan filling and return to the oven to bake for a further 20 minutes or until centre is just set. Allow to cool slightly before serving with a dollop of thick cream.

pastry addapted from Manu Feildel

if i were sitting with you, teaching you how to gain access to your own unconscious companions, I would symbolically take you by the hand and say, “Follow me, because i know how to find them .” I know how they disguise themselves in your psyche and spirit and how they hide themselves in the events of your life.. When I look at someones face, i look beyond that face and into the cellular memory in my heart that says, “Finally you and I have met again. And now we must find out why.” To sense an archetypal thread connecting you to another person is to connect with a soul agreement that has finally manifested in time and space.

-Caroline Myss, Sacred Contracts

Remember if you want to make progress on this path and ascend to the places you have longed for, the important thing is not to think much but to love much and so to do whatever best awakens you to love.

-Mirabai Starr, St Tereasa of Avila

“we all begin the process before we are ready, before we are strong enough, before we know enough; we begin a dialogue with thoughts and feelings that both tickle and thunder within us. We respond before we know how to speak the language, before we know all the answers, and before we know exactly to whom we are speaking.”
― Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Women Who Run With the Wolves

She asks now not for guarantees or assurances of things to be alright. She asks now not for anything to make sense or even to play out in any particular way. She no longer needs all the right answers or to even really understand why life seems to be so much harder now, even though she’s older. When all she ever really imagined was it getting easier. All she is wanting now, is the courage to simply be still, with it all. If she can accept everything her life is presenting, without the need to change or move anything, if she can truly be alright with the uncertainties and resist the need to give into bitterness or regret or blame of another, then maybe, just maybe, she will be able to move a little closer, sink a little deeper, towards her centre, towards a new truth for herself. Maybe then she will see that all that has ever happened to her in her life, has really happened for her. She will understand that she is the creator of her story, that she has always been the one painting the picture. And if, she can bring herself to move though this, with love as her centre then maybe life will begin to flow differently for her. Maybe she will finally be able to be, the love she so deserves.

Today

dreaming of far away places in unfamiliar lands..

April

April.

April

April has been, trying ever so hard to purposely slow down, about creating new humble spaces for babies and chickens, challenging teenagers on their ideas about doing when all I am wanting is in the not doing. it has been about getting clear and being still, still enough to hear my own inner voice. It’s been about watching the worry, leaning away instead of falling into it. It’s been about knowing that whatever is playing out in this moment will eventually move on if i allow myself to let it go. Im letting go of a lot lately. We have created great spaces for celebrating birthdays and explored new places, we spent more time in the garden, more time just being with life. April has been a time for new growth. I am grounded and for now i’m comfortable in the not knowing of what lies ahead. I understand now, that everything is as it should be, that life is merely unfolding..

sacred spaces sacred prayer

The figure symbolizes my spiritual nature or God life This means that a wonderful pose of life has been shown me The beautiful poise of life assumes a unique pattern as my love enshrined in a rhythm of spiritual beauty moves and sweeps through mountains deserts rocks water birds and animals Everything God created everywhere at one time This my life has wholeness of meaning because of my inner most experience I have come face to face with those – beautiful life principles Jesus spoke of and which are

The light of the world, William Ricketts 1898-1993