So this year, I had planned to finish the April A to Z challenge, but alas life steps in sometimes and we need to flow with it.

I have been so busy with my book launch and everything involved in publishing that I did not fill my own cup up. My energy needs replenishing and too much time at the computer has dulled down my shine.

So I decided I had to let go of that which was filling more time than I was able to give it and unfortunately it was this challenge.

Thanks for popping by my challenge. And good luck with your own. If you wish to look at my earlier posts click HERE and check out my challenge from last year where I completed the whole month of April HERE.

Love

Letting go can be hard, hellos are much easier.

I have had my share of hellos and goodbyes in life, from the death of close loved ones to many friendships drifting apart or ending through challenge. I would probably say I tend to embrace relationships changing more gracefully than many because I have had many end. 

So many of us have lived hard lives, often littered with perceived failure, a sense of life rejection and low self worth, but have you discovered your creativity has begun to heal you and made you grow as a person?

I started blogging at my personal blog Kelly Martin Speaks in 2007 where it became an outlet for the shy me who was scared of the world, so shy, so lacking in confidence that words became my saving grace.

Writing became the vessel to which my soul was first expressed.

Today's letter F post for the A to Z challenge may sound a bit depressing, but I promise you it won't be. 

This afternoon I attended my first funeral since my fathers passing in 2002, I did not know what to expect, because I realise I have only attended one funeral and it was of such a close deep relationship like it was of my father that I was a bit apprehensive. However, this time it was beautiful to have the veil lifted from my eyes at a memoriam of love from a family I am not close to, but I have witnessed for many years.

I flow best when I flow from 'feeling'. If I drop into my heart, the emotion, 'what is', writing becomes more fluid and flows with ease.

Over the years I have developed my own way of allowing inspiration to trickle on to the pages of my notebook or out of my fingertips onto the keyboard. 

Words and poetry can be incredibly delicious to me. Some pieces of poetry and songs literally drip off the tongue as they inwardly speak to my soul.

Clouds are a writers daydream, when lost in the mind. Watching clouds can take us back into the creative unconscious, bringing forward creativity and often clarity.

As I wrote my first and my second book, if I ever became stuck with my writing I would simply gaze out of the window and drift off into a serene place, looking at the clouds moving across the sky, sometimes slowly, sometimes hardly moving at all.

Clouds have so many metaphors, and one I love the most  is that clouds are like the thoughts of the mind, we can't grab onto thoughts and neither can we grab onto clouds, but the sky is who we really are, unmoving, unchanging, because everything changing is illusion.  That which changes is not the wholeness of the human being being experienced through this world in physical form.

I walked along by the water today in my local city of Gloucester in the UK. I was having a 'sad' day. I had been immersed in emotion since waking, tears flowing, loneliness heavy in my heart, this deep sore place inside me rupturing to be seen, to be heard.

And so I took myself out for a walk, a long slow walk. So many 'B' words for this day of the challenge, books, belonging, blossoming… and as I sat by the water gazing at families enjoying the sunshine, couples getting all 'kissy kissy', I felt this strong yearning to belong. Belong to what? A family? A couple? A friendship?