Author: Sandra

Letter to Christmas Malady

Sandra Love Letters , ,

Xmas Heart Bauble

Dear Christmas Malady

So we here we are and as I write this I have a pounding headache, I’m oh so tired and my muscles ache… Basically I’m suffering from a seasonal condition called C.A.D… Christmas Affective Disorder…

Every where I go, I meet people who are similarly afflicted – sniffing and croaking and bravely battling against Christmas maladies, afflictions, conditions, illnesses, or what ever label you choose to stick on them…

So this is Sickmas and what have we done to deserve this disease?  Why is this when now should be the time to rest and rejoice and yet our bodies rebel and implode instead?

So many Christmases I have spent with a box of tissues by my elbow, with antibiotics, paracetamol and a ready cupboard full of medicines, that I wonder what provokes this, and why it is such a part of the common Christmas experience of so many fellow sufferers..?

Could it be the mystery of the change of season?  Winter comes in, bringing chill and ice and fog… does it permeate the bodies of creatures – even human ones, who should slow down and find a form of hibernation, instead of speeding and shopping and labouring and living too hard for the time of year?

Without realising it, thinking we are modern and hardy and masters of the planet, we are still prone to the time of year… so as the seasons slow, so should we too??  In many ways we do… I have endless conversations with female friends about how the cold and dark inspire us to stay indoors more; to love the cosiness of winter clothes – to retreat to our caves until the spring sunshine beckons us outdoors again.

And it is as if we are attacked with illnesses – the viruses and germs coercing with nature to force us to slow down and lie down, swaddled in blankets – to take seasonal care of ourselves.  It is as if our bodies allow the onslaught so that we store and nurture our energy for the new year to come.

Yet here is the thing… Christmas for so many of us means to speed up, to run around, to work at playing… To travel; to shovel food and drink of Christmas excess into our bodies… To please, to chatter, to try, to cook, to wrap, to run, to share, to please…

And ‘to please’ turns to disease… Otherwise known as dis-ease – an unbalance, a causal effect wreaked on our systems, as we humans ignore nature’s balance.  Yet as earth’s children and creatures we must survive – we cannot stop completely, we must keep the wheels of the world turning and feed the body; and so in our 20th Century brains, we would not reckon on being slaves to the rhythms of season and solstice.

Yet our ancestors knew.  Our pagan parents knew when the solstice turned the tide towards longer and lighter days; and this feasting time began back then – not as the Mass of Christ, but a feast of celebration for the end of the dark winter era; of moving back towards the light, of quickening and growth and the start of a new cycle of seasons…

And our bodies still have this history imprinted in them – we respond to moon and weather – whether consciously or not, and so Sickmas is a reminder of this natural fact.

And could Christmas, itself, make us sick??  Could it be that all this expectation and energy expended into a seasonal and universal mass celebration turns in on itself and attacks us when we are wintered down?

Or is it simply that we know that there is a ‘slow’ (time) coming, that we can be ill and therefore still, and so let the latent stress and illness that has been lurking and kept at bay by busyness, creep out into the open, presenting itself to be healed and cosseted and given its’ due attention?

I believe that it is all of these things and that the knowing or not, probably does not make an iota of difference, quite literally to how we feel.  That is the mystery of malady…

So the Solstice is turning now and as the lengthening day light calls us to a new year, let’s choose comfort and healing and cosiness, choose them over the rat race and speed and effort and electric light.

And in accepting and surrendering to this so called seasonal ‘suffering’, most of all, let’s accept ourselves and not dwell with the devil of disease, but simply be, and to simply let our hearts accept the message that the season and our bodies are telling us… that it is time to slow and to heal and most of all to love… as well as to celebrate.

Yours with sweet surrender

       Sandra

PS: To admit to a Christmas Cliché – the published version of my Peachey Letters will  make you feel better and be a perfect present too, ALL year round… A collection of the Letters from this blog have been gathered together, along with new material, into book form.  It makes the perfect present, for you, family and friends… You can buy Peachey Letters – Love Letters to Life on my website here or from Amazon (in Paperback and Kindle), and from all good book websites around the world…

Letter to December

Sandra Love Letters ,

Dear December

Here you are… the clock and the calendar have ticked and clicked around to you yet again…

My December is the feeling of Christmas coming – a slow and relentlessly gorgeous anticipation of celebration, of receiving and of feasting.  Then there is the savoured future joy of family and friends coming together; of anticipated gifting and unwelcomed bloating.

That is December in my head and heart; and then there is the external twelfth month landscape too.  Sunlight and chill combine to crisp refreshment of the senses – the cold stinging us into action, so we must dance and cush through our outdoor chores to return as quickly as we can to the internal warmth and comfort of anti-cold, back to our own warm and cosy indoor comforts.

December’s outdoor world is alternatively gloomy and sunny.  I dive into the lush, sunny, crisply cold days. These days are meant for walking, and I devour them with all my senses – frost under foot, slickly wet autumnal leaves carpeting the ground, a lack of smell sense, bare and beautiful trees; ice skimming and then thickening the surfaces of puddles and ponds, widening as the thermometer dips…

These are my December days and as we troll down to the end of the year, the dark nights deepen and thicken and deprive us of daylight.  On past winter days I have risen in the dark, worked in caves of chores and returned back to my lair, hidden in the same darkness – a kind of celestial vampire, never seeing, and so starved of the sun.

Then somehow we contrive to bring the outside be-wintered December into our interiors.  Chopping down and dragging in fir trees or counterfeiting them with tinsel or plastic representations of their tree selves.  Then we spray and scatter pretended snow and bring in boughs of holly and mistletoe – the forgotten ghosts of our pagan past.

So my indoor world transforms to Christmas land with decorations collected over decades and added into every single year.  Boxes brought down from the dark attic, waiting their turn, and when opened, bringing with them joyous shocks of remembrance – a year of Christmas stored in the glistening darkness, germinated and then liberated to live in the Christmas light for a few shiny, glamorous weeks.  Then the cards trickle in and are displayed – from colleagues, cohorts and friends; from long lost cousins and nearly long lost friends of decades gone.

I love the preparations… I take and make them languorously and slowly, relishing the joy of Christmas transformation, dining and dancing, of presents wrapped to be deliciously unwrapped.  To choose the present that will delight the gifted one, that will make them pause and smile.  There are Christmas decisions to be made – whether to take the time trodden path of tradition or to spice it up with modernity; then again to take and shake all the elements together to make it MY chosen Christmas, a blend of me and of history?

My December is flavoured with gluttony and gastronomy.  Spices tingle and warm through mulled wine, mince pies and other wintery delicacies.  Chocolates rustle, jostle and abound.  Spirits chink in glasses and some seem reserved solely for Chringle tide – port and advocaat stay firmly at the back of my drunken cupboard for 11 months of the year, and then in December are opened, poured and appreciated in their own spiritual season.

December is winter through and through.  The distinct and distant possibility of snow can transform our outdoor world and seize up the systems of transport and safety – slipping us up, or blanketing our dull world with white ethereal beauty.

December is light and shade.  A tingled anticipation or a mangled realisation of misplaced expectation.  Expectation or negative association can be heavy and brutal, so consciously choose delicious anticipation and feel and fly through your own December.

So December is a choice, a feeling, a flux of emotions.  Choose wisely and craft your Christmas to you.  For all that your December is, I wish you joy of it, to love and revel in the now of it.

So dream your December, deem your December; live it and love it.

And so Dear December, another end here begins…

Yours, again and again

            Sandra x

PS: All the letters published before this one, have now – with added material, been turned into a book, which you can buy just about any where in the world. With new and remembered material, they come together to show me and you, that life is worth living, loving and celebrating… It has been featured in the national press and received amazing reviews… Buy it in Paperback from any well known book site or in Kindle on Amazon. 

Peachey Speeches

Sandra Love Letters , ,

Dear Everyone

As more and more people get to hear about my book, I am starting to be asked to talk about it – at networking meetings, conferences, etc.  Even as a seasoned speaker, this has felt like a real vulnerability, so it seems that to get over the fear I just have to do more of it!!

So, when I reached that special moment in any book’s life – seeing proposed designs, I thought I would do some market research – as that very same week I got to speak, in front of nearly 200 women…

I had 2 designs to chose from and decided to share them with the IGNITE! 2012 conference, where I was speaking about the book.  So – the cover has been chosen and now the designers are working on the interior designs – these are very exciting times and I can’t wait to see the book, in the flesh for the very first time!

The book is now taking on a life of its’ own and has its’ very own social media prescence!  You can follow it on Twitter @PeacheyLetters or Facebook at Peachey Letters Book Circle.

As a book of Love Letters, publication is set for 14 February 2013, yet if you buy your copies in advance, you will get them postage free, at a reduced price and signed by the author – check out the pre-publication offer here…

I’m getting lots of ideas for more letters too, and would love to know if YOU have any ideas – just pop on a comment below.

With warm regards

     Sandra

Sandra Peachey – Author: Peachey Letters (:-))

That’s me on stage at IGNITE! 2012

The first Book Reviews are in…

Sandra Love Letters , , ,

The first reviews for the book ‘Peachey Letters – Love Letters to Life’, are in …

I love, love, love your book … you are such a talented and humerous writer, the combination of which make your book such an enjoyable and delightful read … You have given birth to a beautiful unique gift… it now has it’s own journey to take and who knows which people’s lives it will touch…
~ Liz Ivory – Co Founder of Broadband Consciousness

Sandra Peachey has produced a fascinating book of heartfelt letters … As a reader it invokes a desire to start writing my own letters to experience the flow of exploration and insight, as well as drawing together my own life story … Congratulations to Sandra for a heartfelt, moving and insightful read.
~ Sue Maggott – ‘Inspirational Poetry’

A M A Z I N G ………. this is such a wonderful, moving, heartfelt read, it is absolutely compelling. What I love about it most is your raw honesty and how I was able to relate to so much of what you describe …Your ability to communicate what you feel and who you really are is wonderful …You convey so much about the artist you are – beautifully creative, sensitive, a deep thinker and a beautiful soul that cares so much about life and the people in it. AWESOME, truly AWESOME.
~ Sarah Christie – Owner, ‘Effective Outcomes’

Oh my – for me it’s the ‘Letter To The Juice’. Joyful Juicing and bellisimo Bellini’s! Wonderful “bespoke cocktail” and setting delicious Peachey intentions. Mmmm, my mouth waters and spirit wants to drink up her fill! Thank you Sandie, simply beautiful and mouth wateringly wonderful.
~ Lynn Burns – Founder of ‘Suddenly Single Money’

An amazing book in which Sandra shares her thoughts and feelings in a way that will touch so many. Heartfelt and inspiring – a book that helps us think about what we have, what we want and what’s truly important in our lives. Beautifully crafted – this book will help you not only learn more about Sandra, but also more about yourself. You’ll laugh, cry, learn and be entertained.
~ Susan Brookes-Morris

I found the book brave and liberating and it has certainly made me feel grateful and reflective of all in my life past, present and future. Also, in such an instant, technological, fast moving, instant gratification, social media dominated society – the power of a letter has never been so strong as after reading your book.
~ Tara Fennessy

The book is a lovely gift to your self or for a friend to share, in many of life’s highs and lows with a modern twist! Sandra weaves her magic spell and takes you on an emotional journey to release joy and tears in equal measures while you read her delicious letters. Be prepared to open your heart (have tissues by your side) as you make each rite of passage with her and enjoy the surprises along the way!
~ Gill Potter – Author of Sacred Paths Entwined www.joyfulsteps.com

It is delightful, especially from an autobiographical standpoint…and the pictures make it fun too!! What a great idea for a book….letters. I really appreciated the personal ones to your Mother and Father, and to Love … This is YOUR song and it is lovely.
~ Gigi Delmonico

Written with aching honesty and uncontrived eloquence, Sandra Peachey has beautifully captured the art of questioning, understanding and appreciating our journey through this thing we call life.
~ Isabel Gainford – Visual & Verbal Branding Specialist

Your book is phenomenal. I’m so jealous that I didn’t write it! It has every ingredient for success and I felt just about every emotion there is on reading it.
~ Janice Bradbury

Get Your Own Signed Copy:
Just click the link to find out more and order your copies here…

Blog Becomes Book!!

Sandra Love Letters , , ,

Dear Peachey Reader

I’m very excited … what started as my own creative challenge, has turned me into my own best coach and then a writer … and so, of its’ own momentum – Blog becomes Book and you can buy your own copies now!

The reaction to my Peachey Letters has blown me away and I am delighted that Blogger becomes Author: with my ‘Love Letters to Life’ ready to be published in time for Valentines Day 2013.

The Blog comes with my compliments and you will find that by taking this a step further and investing in the book, that the content is expanded, it is added to and then wrapped in a gorgeous Peachey structure that brings it all together – elaborates on it and turns it into a satisfying whole and a perfect Peachey read.

It will be your very own volume of Peachey happiness, love and learning, both for you and as a gift to friends and family, and for any one in your life who would love their own example of emotional voyaging, of life affirming exploration and all round gorgeous Peacheyness.

I have a special pre-order offer for all readers of this Blog …

Before it is listed on Amazon and in all good book stores, pre-order your books NOW and they will be with you in time for Valentines Day… and not only THAT, but they will come to you FREE of postage costs and signed by the author (within the UK – asked for postage costs outside the British Isles)!!

This offer holds until 19 January, 2013, when postage costs (approximate £3.90 for the UK) will be added and the cover price may increase too … so pre-order YOUR Peachey copies now …

Click here to purchase your copies.

With gratitude and warm Peachey wishes …

        Sandra Peachey

Author: Peachey Days – Love Letters to Life

More Peachey Feedback on My Love Letters to Life …

Sandra Love Letters , , ,

As my original challenge – to write a love letter to life, every day in February 2012 – passed, I found myself wanting to add more letters … in fact it was more of a compulsion – the Letters decided they wanted to be created!  I continue to be blessed with amazing feedback; and the encouragement I have received means that the Peachey Letters Blog, will soon become a book … In the meantime, please continue to read the letters, with my best wishes and compliments.  And here I would like to share some of the most recent feedback that the Letters have received …

Lindsay Burton:

Sorry to hear about your mum. A heartfelt letter beautifully written.

Gill Potter:

Made me laugh – love your daftness and your love.

Mary Joyce:

This is truly beautiful. Thank you for sharing your thoughts Sandra.

Keith Higham:

Just read your “To Celebration” letter and frankly I am amazed!!  Where have you been hiding this talent??

Vaibhav – India:

Dear Sandra/Sandie, Most of us if not all get a defining moment in life. That powerful momentary permutation. My moment was when I read your beautiful letters today. What vivid pictures your words paint. It is never easy to put your feelings into words. Your deep feelings and gut reactions bubble up naturally seemingly beyond translation. Your words have become the sparkle in my eyes and the sun that shines through the window every morning beckoning me to wake, I love your writing. I always have, and I always will.

Greg C:

Wonderful memories that made my eyes leak, a lot!  Thank you for reminding me of my own Dad, and Mum, both long gone but never forgotten.

Caroline Ashby:

Absolutely love this post, Sandie. It may be entitled ‘Letter to Daftness’, but there is so much insight and wisdom in it.

David W:

Rarely have I read such exquisite passion, such positivity, such zest for life has I have in your love letters. You express yourself so well, as you find just the right words for thoughts, feelings and experiences that so many of us find impossible to capture, or even know exist. You have THE GIFT. The gift of self expression. And you have imagination too. A mind able to fly and to dream. To truly know, to see in your mind’s eye, how beautiful things could be… if only… Yet, even in this imperfect world… a world fall of faults, pain, failings, evil and just plain indifference, you still see and appreciate the beauty. The beauty that most of us miss as we hurry along the road, immersed in our thoughts about later… or before… the past, or the future… never the now!

You’re clearly a woman of many facets, each revealed like a sparkling ray of light as it passes through a crystal… Not just any crystal, but a diamond. A diamond’s beauty is revealed through the working of the stone. Life has done its work on you, shaping you through both the pleasure and the pain. The beauty was always there, as it is in all of us, but it doesn’t shine out from all of us. In choosing to shine, you give the rest of us permission to shine also. Permission to cast off that which does not serve us and to embrace true joy, through deciding to follow our hearts and our passion.

Lucie Bradbury

Wow! Beyond words, your writing is wonderful, your insights an inspiration, the gift of a Goddess & an honesty that is humbling … Your bravery is bold & simply brilliant. Thank you.

Nadine Honeybourne:

Awesome Sandra and my heart and love go out to you. Your letter helped me move on from something too around … last year … “it was as it was meant to be”… so thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Harriet Stack:

Very moving, sending you love and thank you for sharing this.

Anne Mulliner:

Wow – so beautiful, thank you Sandie – it connected with me on so many levels.

Thank you – everyone, for your heartfelt and gorgeous comments … they mean more to me than you will ever know; and sometimes, when it seems like a self indulgent thing I am doing – writing these posts, I read your comments and I return again to my Peachey Letters…  Sandra Peachey – Blogger and Author

PS: And now these letters are published, I can greedily read the book too, follow this link to know more…

Letter to Daftness

Aside Sandra Love Letters , , , ,

Dear Daftness

That alliteration is a great start to a letter … It is easing me in gently, with a smile, as I start to contemplate you … Dear Daftness …

Close family and friends know I have a certain delightfully, or dangerously daft quality; and to the world at large I often try to cap it or limit how much I show of it … It’s there though, part of who I am and what I do …

The thing with me is, that I love to present a professional and polished gloss to the world … Yet, so often, I’m daft … And that’s not a criticism of myself – it’s a simple description … And growing older and wiser (as well as dafter …) I’ve learnt more and more that it’s OK to show these true colours, and embrace them, and let the world see them; and then the world can decide to shirk me for it, love me for it or indeed not give a damn about my daftness … so there it is, in all it’s daft technicolour glory …

So Daftness is … being forgetful, being late, being trivial, being accident prone, being indecisive, being wantonly childish, losing self control. Sometimes it is so much me that it feels like my own brand of alien significance – defining me, slowing me down, making me cry with frustration or laugh with the Peachey familiarity of it … Daftness …

And I wonder what the reader will think – those that know me in body and place … Is that the me they recognise ..? And for some it may be a shock that I believe this of myself, and others will smile in recognition … and for others again, it may just open more doors onto their own knowing of me … and for others still, who know me from these letters alone – mere anecdote …

Now, I have consciously drawn into my orbit those that I can SAFELY be daft with … Because sometimes, believe you me, I have been vilified for it and lost jobs and people in my life because of it … Yet it is ME … imprinted in my DNA, I simply can’t change it … Though if I try hard … I can manage it and have done a damn good job of presenting my ‘got together’ professional face to the world; but that can be hard work sometimes … and more often than not – my inner clown will trip me up or show me up, and the spotlight shakes the real me out into the open.

So, true to Peachey form, at times I am good with the daft, and at times I truly hate it.  And though I KNEW that being daft and proud is all good, I probably never really GOT that, until these last few weeks since my mother’s passing … She died 2 weeks ago and so at times my brain is the consistency of a marshmallow, and I can feel like a little lost orphan, and ‘doing’ or deciding what to do with a day is difficult; and ‘being’, and being in certain places is really hard work; and patience is thin and energy is low, and the daftness quotient goes through the rude roof.

At times too, I’m on top of the world and out there in it – being amazing … it is indeed weird to be me right now … My mother passing has somehow bought out some of the worse in me and all of the best me of me, and made me ‘more so’ – in just about EVERY way.

So Love is a complicated and many splintered thing, and this is, of course, a Love Letter to Daftness.  I’m definitely more daft right now… but you know what?  I’ve realised that it is all good; I’ve decided to give in to it and to embrace it. I know that being daft is perfect for me right now and I’m going with the daft flow.  I’m being vulnerable, I’m being selfish, I’m being real.  I give permission to the daft and I welcome it.  It’s like a soft blanket of sweet childishness. Being daft right now means I have a freedom when it comes to taking care of myself, or telling others what I want, and to do as much or as little of what I feel capable of doing and giving right now …

And in this state of being, work has not been a priority, but then the world turns in such a way that without even trying, I am suddenly given new opportunities and new clients … And even in these strange and newly motherless times – when I speak and when I coach, I forego ‘daft’ and create magic instead …

So being soft and being daft has allowed friends and strangers to care for me and support me even more than they have before.  And from surrendering in this way, I’ve gained so much.  I’ve grown so much.  And who knows, I may just stay openly daft, to everyone, for ever …  Or the hard shell, with the cracks in it, may return … Yet somehow I predict that there will be more raw, deft daftness; more freedom and more expansion of my soul … Yes – after the daftness comes the light and so it is that I have moved from one four lettered word – d a f t to another – l o v e.

Now both daftness and love define me – and so it is that I have written yet another Peachey Letter to Love.

Yours beguilingly, blondely and daftly

              S xx

PS: Daftness, love, creativity, caring… it’s all in the book version of Peachey Letters – follow this link to find out more…

Letter to Loss

Sandra Love Letters , , ,

22 July 2012

Dear Loss

How complicated you are – you heinous thing – that thing which I have felt so much of in my life.  And yet I call this a ‘love’ letter … So, Dear Loss, let me explain, expand and elaborate …

I woke up this morning with a sense of creeping dread.  My mother died 6 days ago and in another 4 days comes her funeral.  My mother’s funeral … As my senses came to, on the morning of this day, I was permeated with the weight of horror and fear.  And then the vile bile of anger took me over …

Yes, anger pushed its’ fist into my heart, because I invited people to join me at my mother’s service and there is, so far, silence … apparently no one is coming … Then that evil, chiding voice says to me “So … those people who share your happy existence don’t give a damn about your sad times – your life is clearly a sham …”

Now in my innermost and knowing self, I realise that this voice takes over and holds you in it’s terrible thrall, especially at times like this; and it takes you down a long tunnel, where you stumble, blindly in the darkness and you cannot see what you actually have – which is – in day light reality – so very much …

The fact is, if I really choose to count, there are two particular people who it is my dearest wish be there on that Farewell Funeral Day – those being my brother and my mother’s best friend.  And of course, there will be more: friends, family, my mother’s circle … Some to bid farewell and some come to support me. And suddenly it comes back to me, in clear consciousness, what I always knew – that ten people or one hundred – if for no other reason than that is how it is, they will be the perfect ones to be there …

My own sense of significance and drama had briefly demanded more attention … Yet my mother’s passing will be marked, as we – the living – need to demarcate such turning points in our lives – to focus our loss on, and provide the means to say farewell, so we can move onwards in our own living time.  And for me the most impelling cause for a funeral is to celebrate a life having been lived, a life which has been part of your life.  There are many ancient reasons why, even in this electronic and eclectic modern age, we practice such ceremonies around birth, marriage and death …

This limbo between time from death to funeral is extreme and emotional, it has shifted the axis of my world – so my demons come out to dance on my dreams and dine on my exposed flesh.  I name and recognise these satanic creatures, and then I choose instead, to dance with the angels.

You see there I was with the expectation of attention and response.  Yet I know that there are many reasons why people do not reply and do not come, and how I feel about this is my own business – it is purely my own response to what I have put out there (which is after all an invitation, not a demand) and is in no way provoked by any one else.  And then I know that so often I have a choice about how I can feel … so having wallowed in my fear and anger, I have now let it go.  It is part of my process of processing what has happened; and now, at this time of writing, I am in a quiet space of reflection and acceptance that it will all be as it should.  This newer, positive sense comes from the pure me, the one who chooses the path of light, not the tunnel.  And verily, the dark demon of negativity still grabs me and tries to drag me down that tunnel; but I know, always, there is light at the end of it.

And we all do what we can, with what we’ve got … I had thunderbolt moment about this when someone called me to offer her support and condolences … she is going through her own very tough times at the moment, and she recalled all the offers people give at these trying times … to be there if asked … to do anything for you – if asked; and the thing is, usually no one does ask …  Well now, she said, she had decided to do SOMETHING … as much as she could manage right then, which was to offer me ‘a cuddle and cuppa’.  And I was so touched and it was a wake up call for me … me, who so many times has said, ‘just let me know if you want anything’ and then leaves it at intention … because I don’t want to intrude, or I’m busy, or my own life takes over or it’s not a priority.

And all these things are valid in their season … but may be, just may be, we could just all pause and wonder what we can do ‘beyond the words’, beyond our own small worlds, at times like these; and if that is sending our love and good wishes, then good … Yet, just for now, please support me in expanding my own horizons by considering the possibility of doing a thing, of actually paying it forward, as well as sending out a possible promise …

And I have received many such treasures in this limbo time … so much love, so much support, hugs, dinners, biscuits, transport, company and conversations.  And people have created time and space to be with me … So there it all is, in reality – all in balance; and yet, still – so fleetingly, I felt neglected – when really, I am getting exactly the attention that I need … And I want to say thank you to everyone who has given to me in any and every way, in these few last days.  I receive what you gift, so very gratefully.

So the emotional complications of my personality unfurl some more: triggered and exaggerated by sudden loss.  I kick over the implications, then I cuddle them. I give breath to the evil and the enervating, then I can reconcile the consequences and realise that these leanings are my lessons.

It comes down to this … This is a love letter to loss.  And it is a love letter in the sense that I appreciate and celebrate how this whole experience has ‘opened me out’, and how such trying times can, if we choose, alter us in positive and unimaginable ways.  And having started with anger and tears, I realise now, with humility and clarity, just how much I actually have – even when this weird day started with me swimming through the lake of my loss. And this letter may be the ramblings of a grieving child or it will be what ever it will be to its reader and what ever that is, I am good with it …

Then this letter starts to wind down … and one of the many reasons it is addressed to ‘Loss’ is that my inner poet loves the alliteration of all the Ls in a ‘Love Letter to Loss’ …

And so it is now, that I go from loss to love.  I end this letter with a salutation to loss and all the unbidden treasures that it has given me.  I do not in all honesty welcome it, yet I do intend to learn from it.  And last of all, and most of all, I raise my glass – every time: to Love …

Yours trustingly,

     Sandra

PS: Thank you for sharing this letter with me.  My mother passed away on 16 July 2012.  She was diagnosed with a condition called Parkinson’s Disease and if you could donate something to the organisation that funds research and support for this disorder, I would be very grateful for yet more gifts bestowed …  You can give online here …

Letter to Gill Potter at the Book Launch of Sacred Paths Entwined

Sandra Love Letters , , , ,

4 July 2012 – Glasgow, Scotland.

Dear Gill

Wow! Lots of emotions have gathered as I shared your book launch with you … joy … pride … excitement … and so many more …

Here follows what is both a Love Letter to your book and the speech I gave on the night …

Good evening everyone and welcome to the  Launch of Gill Potter’s life changing book ‘Sacred Paths Entwined’.  My name is Sandra Peachey and it is my joy and privilege to introduce you to both the author and the book this evening.

Now I have a habit of writing ‘Love Letters to Life’, to analyse, celebrate and give gratitude for the most inspirational and amazing things in my life and THIS is my love letter to Gill Potter and her book …

This evening is a beginning, in so many ways … Of many new chapters, of lives changed, of destinies realised and released. The first of many new creations, of new connections, of lives changed inexorably and for ever – starting here in this sacred space; this delicious pre-ordained bringing together of all of us, on this night of nights.

So … Sacred Paths Entwined … The very thing that brings us all together – to our destiny, and soul to soul – whether the reasons be known or unknown, through kin, friendship or fate … We might say in the grand scheme of things, that all these are one and the same – when we see, know and understand the phenomena, the very formula, of Sacred Paths Entwined.

That I am here with all of you tonight in this room, is, most definitely, a step on my own sacred path. That Gill and I are in each other’s lives, is to us, no singular or random coincidence; it is a step on a sacred path, a joining together – for many reasons, brought together as we are by many golden connections and coincidences, and bought together for reasons constantly revealed to us and yet, not yet all known to us still. Sacred Paths Entwined …

Now in terms of earthly time and space, ours is a short acquaintance, yet it is one one packed with so much meaning for us … at a time of great transitions and steppings up and steppings out, in our separate and in our twinned lives.

In MY working life, I am many things that you may recognise the labels of … I am Leader, coach, entrepreneur, mentor, trainer and latterly too, also walking the path of author.  Yet I am so many other characteristics, skills, aptitudes and stories too; and that is the glorious complexity of all of our lives and ‘Sacred Paths Entwined’ reveals how all these should and could come together if we have the knowledge and the courage to follow our own sacred path.

So … here we are – Gillian and Sandra … how did we 2 souls come together in earthly ways??? Although I live in the centre of England, we actually met here in Scotland, in Edinburgh in fact, around about a year and a bit ago, at a Damsels in Success event.  Damsels’ is a women’s self development community which had just launched on an unsuspecting Scotland. As a leader in that community, I was there to support the launch of a new group and Gill was there to find out more … She was following a calling as it happens, and also her natural, questing curiosity; and so it was that I found myself at her elbow – whispering and laughing and coaching and gently cajoling her to come and join the special sisterhood of which I was part. And so it was that we became sister members of the Damsels in Success community. She in Scotland, and me way back down south in Sassenach land.

And we didn’t meet or talk or connect again until many months later … I’m vague on all the timings and facts, whereas Gill will relate and remember them all with perfect memory and detail … Aligned as they are in the stars and in our traversing of this particular planet.

So, now, moving on through time and happenstance, we had moved from being distant sister members of Damsels in Success, to becoming sister leaders, each of our own group. Gill here in Glasgow and me in Burton on Trent.

So, as the first ever appointed Damsels leader, I was asked by Lucie Bradbury, Founder of Damsels in Success, to be Gill’s mentor – to support and coach her, to care for in her new leadership role.  Gill told me early on that I went above and beyond the job description, yet we realised as we travelled our piece of the path together, that it has been my calling to be who I am in her life story and what I am to her and she has always rewarded me, in so many ways, for the things that I have given, even though at times it does not seem like a fair exchange, yet we know that all will be balanced on our sacred paths entwined.

And it has been a truly gorgeous and ripe association … I have had the joy and the privilege of supporting her and encouraging her and answering her questions and listening to her learnings and her loathings and her lovings – walking with her on this living path, in this earthly plane of being, off and on, from where we met, to where we are now and of course, onwards into our futures.  And as is the way the Universe works, it was pre-ordained for us, that mentor becomes mentored, becomes gifted with the talents of her loving charge and becomes friend. Sacred Paths Entwined.

Gill came into my orbit, has spent time in my home and in my heart, as a sister spirit.  Now Gill is a friend to me, a guide to me, an inspiration to me and so so many other things … And she has given me one of her greatest gifts – to cast my own Sacred Contract with her. And that was pre-ordained too, because quite simply, when she presented me with this opportunity, I resisted for a while, as it was time to walk my own path then and to ride some bumpy beasts on the back of life.  And when the time was right, as I kept stepping along my own sacred path, suddenly it was clear to me that the time was right and we came together, to reveal and then to activate my own Sacred Contract: my divinely pre-ordained purpose, to be shown to and shared with the world.  Elucidating my qualities and my character, understanding my traits and my trials. Shining the light on my own shining being and opening my self out to be my purpose, to live the dreams I was born with and nurtured for and so secretly harboured, as they were part of my soul, my life, my very love.  Sacred Paths Entwined.

And Damsels in Success was the vehicle that bought us together and was the catalyst for so many things and still so it was that other things were in the Universal store for Gill and she passed the leadership of her gorgeous Glasgow group to me, as it became so blindingly clear that her own shining purpose was finding yet another alchemical way of becoming breath, of becoming book: Sacred Paths Entwined.  This book wherein lies the golden threads of her life, her purpose, her god given gifts, her life’s learnings: all bound together, all encapsulated to share, to bare, to teach, to inspire. Sacred Paths Entwined.

This book fascinates and touches on so many levels … Gill shares her story, her history. She takes us on the voyage of her life and at times there is terror and there is pain; and then too … there is poetry, there is redemption, there is healing; there is learning and knowing and growing into her sacred self.  Sacred Paths Entwined.

Then there is teaching, there is wisdom: with this book, our minds and our hearts expand, as our soul takes flight. This volume gives us a sacred structure, to guide us to walk, run or take what ever means belongs to us, as pure individuals, to see, to take and to follow our very own sacred path.

With this book share the story, see who YOU are in the stars; learn yourself, know how to cast your contract and live your joyful purpose. It is all here in these pages, in Gill’s Magnum Opus – which is, quite literally, and in every way, her true life’s work!

And so it is my turn now to step out of the spotlight and to say: Ladies and gentlemen, it is my privilege, honour and absolute joy, to introduce you to: Archetypal Consultant, Astrologer AND Author of Sacred Paths Entwined: Gill Potter!!!

And that, my wise Celt, is my ‘Love Letter’ to you and your book …

With much love

    Sandie xx

PS: To find out more about Gill’s book, click here and now Peachey Letter has become a book too – follow this link to know more…

Gill & Me
celebrate ‘Sacred Paths Entwined’

For more pictures, click here …

Letter 28: To Celebration

Aside Sandra Love Letters , , ,

28 February 2012

Dear Celebration

You I have always loved … in quietness, in gratitude, in the multitude of a crowd, in the pleasure of a twosome, in a knot of girl friends … on the sofa alone, on a Friday evening, celebrating the end of the week, with a curry, with wine and my favourite TV programme on standby …

I love the very thought of celebration – the preparation, the joy of creating an occasion to come; a coming together to love, to laugh, to eat, to dance, to watch, to share … to whatever it is that that we are celebrating.  You I have always loved …

As a child I remember a Smartie covered birthday cake with particular joy … Ah that ritual too, that we teach to our young: to bring the cake to you – the celebrated one, to blow out the candles to applause; to wish, to laugh – then be sang ‘Happy Birthday’ to … How many billions of times has that celebration song been sung?  Sung to so many ages, to so many shining faces reflected in the candle light?  All those songs, smiles and candles coming together, across so many years, across so many corners of the globe, sang to babies, sang to oldies, sang to tag and celebrate special tide marked years in our own creation – this birthday ritual is a celebration of life that we are all part of, in unison … And a cup cake with one pink candle in it is a celebration and your favourite slice of Victoria Sponge on an ‘un-special’ week day is a savoured celebration too.

And I cannot always wait to be the subject of the celebration, so I seek to create my own festivities – I mark the days, I make the arrangements. My natural born impatience never lets me miss this, even if sometimes it is just quietly with my family, as sometimes, even I, who loves the limelight – shuns the limelight; and so it is perfect for me that my family are there – as they were always there, reflecting me and celebrating and demarcating my existence in their existence.  It is a family ritual, in our tiny genetic family of three, that we always come together on these birth day anniversaries.

Lest I neglect you dear friend, I seek to embrace you at all times, to see your possibilities in the every day, in the simplest of coming togethers.  And if not cake, then food is so often part of even these tiny rituals.  To treat – to eat out. To be cooked for and treasured.  To create a meal for those who come into the orbit of my home – to celebrate them, to nourish them, to bring them to me.  To always celebrate.

So celebration is gratitude too: savouring a little carnival moment, raising my vibration with the gifts of all I have, all I am and all I do; and joining in with the gala days, hours and seconds of those around me, in body and electronically.  I love to ‘ye-ay’ and ‘hurrah’ and employ the exclamation marks of joy!!  I end every day with a litany of all I have to be grateful for – the situations, the gifts, the people, the compliments, the lessons learnt, the sunshine, the rain and sometimes the pain that shapes me to here, to now, to this single point of celebration, this current breath, this life that is the celebration of my own creation.

I choose to think in terms of celebration: to relish it, to seek it, to see its’ possibilities.  I choose to create celebrations tiny and celebrations huge and the panoply of all in between too.  I want to see celebration in my every day existence … and when my head seeks to chide and criticise (and it does all that still – so often), then I can pause and say to myself – what am I grateful for right now, what can I chose to celebrate in this moment, on this day? And so often the chiding demons continue to conceal, and so I continue to count my blessings and this is how I move, I vote to change those dark criticisms into enlightened celebrations …

As a coach too, for me, my role is to celebrate those who come to me for direction, for support, for illumination.  And I will shine the light on their gifts and gratitudes and remind them just how amazing they truly are too, these celebratory creations sent to me.  Every coaching in itself is an act of celebration and for that I speak as someone who is still coached myself; so in turn I turn to those who show me that my reflection is praise and that I am understood and hurrahed and of course celebrated into different, more difficult directions when warranted too.  So some celebrations are sometimes tougher roads to travel, yet always worth it when you know that celebration enervates, raises and ultimately gains you to glory.

YOU I have always loved Celebration, and all my ‘Love Letters to Life’ are celebrant acts: they all bring you along, weave you in and out of the silken fabric of my being, of my creations … all of which, in turn, are of course, celebrations.

This then is the ending of my celebration of Celebration …

       Ye-ay, hurrah, woo hoo and lots of love to you!

S xxx

PS: To celebrate the success of this blog, it has now been turned into a book…  Follow this link to find out more…