So more rehearsals, more recording and writing and music making . The last few weeks have been a bit of shake up. So I have needed to try and adjust a bit. its a delicate balance between doing too little and doing too much. being busy means not being depressed but often a small set back triggers the manic stuff. Doing too little and I get really low and don’t want to do anything. Its really hard at times to get it right ,and keep a look out for the warning signs, to avoid running aground.

Obligatory new tune below. It was going to be a song but I seem to have been a bit dumbstruck recently one way and another. My tendency to catastrophise is stil very much there, so at present I am just going forward and accepting that something may well happen that is unavoidable and hiding under the duvet is not actually the best coping strategy as avoiding life is not great for my mental health either.

Here is a picture of me lurking in a folk band at Watford Folk Club recently.
Jonathan Bickley, Richard Milo Downs, (me) Diana Stone, Phil Beavis, Bill Nimmo at Watford Folk Club performing Jon’s songs as the Invisible folk club band.

I have been out playing a fair recently compared to the previous couple of years which is a nice surprise in the post covid and everything else that has happened years.

The world is very much in turmoil at the time of writing so:

While often attributed to St. Francis of Assisi, the Peace Prayer wasn’t written by the saint. However, it remains a popular traditional prayer.

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace:
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy.

O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console,
to be understood as to understand,
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
Amen.