Follow your compass
The pillars we come back to that guide our days.
Welcome to Splendid to be.
Love letters that celebrate the many little measures of slow, simple and seasonal living, from my heart, home and garden to you.
In my last letter I shared this image from an old journal. It is a compass I created that guides our days. Over the years I’ve added two more points, so our compass looks more like a flower now.
Art. Nature. Music. Books. Food. Community.
These six pillars are what our family culture revolves around.
They are the things we invest our time and money in.
Success to us looks like spending a day hanging out in our garden, reading from a book or ten, listening to or making up songs, putting our hands to a creative task, eating fresh, seasonal food we’ve had a hand in growing ourselves and sharing abundantly with the people we love.
We want for nothing more than this.
Our values are simple and they guide us when we feel lost. If a feeling of overwhelming is bubbling we can look to these six subjects for comfort. They are what we come back to, to guide our days.
Use our hands. Go outside. Listen intently. Imagine. Nourish. Connect.
Art
Art is putting pen to paper or fingers to keys. It is scribbling, colouring, collaging, painting and drawing. It is knitting, sewing and crocheting. It is cooking and baking. It is planting a garden and flower picking. It is making a mess, lots of messes. It is performing and watching others perform. It is dancing. It is playing.
Nature
Nature is observing life happening all around us. It is the birds that visit our garden daily. The bees, the bugs and all our other local wildlife. It is planting a seed and watching it grow. It is longingly admiring the changing of the seasons and being grateful for every kind. It is bushwalks. It is picnics. It is beach days and puddle hunts. It is going outside, every day, no matter the weather.
Music
Music is Daddy. It is listening to his creations, dancing to his concerts, playing his piano, or guitars or ukulele. It is Disney soundtracks on car trips. It is ABC Classic FM on slow days at home. It is our record collection. It is a toy xylophone banged over and over, or a recorder blasting us awake. It is lullabies sung to calm and rock to dance like wild animals.
Books
Books are our constant. They are in every room of the house. Cook books, garden books, art books, fiction books, picture books, comic books, photo books and library books. Oh so many library books. Books are heard in our heads as we flick through the pages sitting in our favourite chair or lying on the floor. Books enchant our minds as they are read aloud to one another. Books are reached for first thing in the early morning dawn when the rest of the house is still sleeping. Books are the last thing we all hold close before we drift off to sleep. Our days are filled with magical stories, interesting facts and fascinating lives. Books fill our lives with wonder.
Food
Food is so much more than just sustenance. It is one of life’s greatest pleasures. As a hospitality professional and backyard farmer, it is both my career and my hobby. It is an orchard full of fruit giving trees. It is freshly laid eggs collected from our chicken coop. It is the perennial herbs which we can rely on for flavour. It is the tomatoes we pick in summer, the pumpkins we harvest in autumn, the kale we munch on through winter and the peas we pod in spring. It is the smell of a just baked loaf of bread. It is homemade pizzas every Friday night. It is my husband’s delicious preserves. It is frozen smoothie pops on a hot day. Food is medicine. Food is life.
Community
Community is a feeling of belonging. Of being held in the company of people who care. It is the kindly neighbour and her two dogs we wave to as they pass our house on their daily walk. It is friends who live only streets away that drop by for a play and cup of tea. It is the librarians who love a good bookish chat. It is our big, beautiful group of co-op kids and parents who get together every week to explore our bountiful region. It is our extended family who help ease the load of raising small humans. It is our farm school friends. It is our ballet class buddies. It is our work wives and musical mates.
Art, nature, music, books, food and community are what make us happy and these things costs very little.
A simple, happy life is achievable when you know what truly matters to you.
Our compass is a representation of our family. What guides yours?
Thank you for reading my musings on the many little measures that add up to a slower, simpler more seasonally attuned life.
I hope my words help gently guide and encourage you on your own journey.
My writing is free to read, and always will be, so don’t be shy about subscribing and connecting with me.