♥kindred spirits, ♡Anne of Green Gables & how imagination can shape who we become…

♥LOVE NOTE  – Tuesday 23rd October, 2012

Hello dear Friends♥

My deep gratitude to my wonderful, patient and loyal readers as it’s been a long time since I’ve posted!

What absolutely amazes and delights me is that many are continuing to visit my blog every day while I have been away. And I’m so heartened that people are finding value in the posts long after I’ve written them!

So what have I been up to?

Apart from the rest of my regular schedule it’s been round the clock
w-r-i-t-i-n-g,
w-r-i-t-i-n-g,
and yet more w-r-i-t-i-n-g ………to launch our new ♡Love Life Retreats and the new website: http://www.LoveLifeRetreat.com.au

Please visit to have a look at the RETREATS and it would be a special privilege to welcome you as a participant one day.

On top of this we took a 4 day trip to Sydney this last weekend for another intense and inspiring Business Blueprint conference. Whew! Busy times!

So given that we are at this very crucial time in our ♡LOVE LIFE RETREATS launch it is pretty amazing I did what I did on the Sunday afternoon of October 14th.

And it is something that I very, very, very, very rarely do.

I sat and watched TV for 4 hours!!!!

YES I did!!!

♡Shelton put it on briefly while he was having a snack and taking a break…..and noticed that the movie ♡Anne of Green Gables: The Sequel was about to start.

Knowing my absolute adoration for the ♡Anne stories of course he had to tell me it was on!!

And of course I had to watch it!!

Again! We both did.

We both ended up crying our eyes out when at the end Anne and Gilbert admitted their ♡LOVE and soul connection and commitment and agreed to wait for each other.

How heart-opening and heart-filling anything to do with ♡Anne of Green Gables is for me…..and it feels like it has been this way forever for me.

Wondering whether there are any other devoted “♡Anne” readers out there?

For the non-readers of “♡Anne”,  ♡Anne of Green Gables (1908) is a bestselling novel by Canadian author ♡Lucy Maud Montgomery.  The story is about a young orphan girl, ♡Anne Shirley, who is mistakenly sent to a middle-aged brother and sister, Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert, when they decide to take on an orphan boy as help for their farm. Green Gables is the house and farm where they live on the picturesque Prince Edward Island.

♡Anne (with a head of blazing red hair): “Red hair is my life long sorrow……” and
“It would be so much easier to be good if one’s hair was handsome auburn, don’t you think?”
….She is a dreamer with an extremely vivid imagination which seems endless…….and a love for beauty, the romantic, poetic and dramatic and is an eternal optimist…………as well as being impulsive with a fiery spirit and ‘a positive genius’ for getting into scrapes.

Anne: “.…have you ever noticed one encouraging thing about me, Marilla? I never make the same mistake twice”.
Marilla: “I don’t know as that’s much benefit when you’re always making new ones.”

Anne of Green Gables recounts Anne’s adventures as she charms her way into the hearts of Marilla and Matthew and her new community from about the ages of 11 – 16….. Because of the popularity of her first book, Montgomery went on to write a series of sequels which continues the story of Anne’s growing up years through to her children having children.

The movie Anne of Green Gables: The Sequel is about the time when she is in her late teens to early twenties when Anne accepts a teaching position at a girls boarding school in a town dominated by a rich and belligerent Pringle family who are determined to make her life miserable.

Anne’s connection to all things beautiful and natural so feeds my soul. She connects to everything around her in a deeply personal way.

“But where on earth is the sense of naming a geranium?” says Marilla.

“Oh, I like things to have handles even if they are only geraniums. It makes them seem more like people. How do you know but that it hurts a geranium’s feelings just to be called a geranium and nothing else? You wouldn’t like to be called nothing but a woman all the time. Yes, I shall call it Bonny. I named that cherry-tree outside my bedroom window this morning. I called it Snow Queen because it was so white. Of course, it won’t always be in blossom, but one can imagine that it is, can’t one?”

There is the Haunted Wood,  The Lake of Shining Waters, Lover’s Lane, The White Way of Delight, Idlewild,  Willowmere, kindred spirits, bosom buddies and many other heart touching beautiful scenarios and stories…

Some favourite Quotes for me that describe her style of wisdom and living are –

“It’s been my experience that you can nearly always enjoy things if you make up your mind firmly that you will.”

“Kindred spirits are not so scarce as I used to think. It’s splendid to find out there are so many of them in the world.”

“Some people go through life trying to find out what the world holds for them only to find out too late that it’s what they bring to the world that really counts.”

With my heart and soul warmed and drying my tears I went out for a quick walk after it finished where I reflected on my relationship with the “Anne” books. My first book,  Anne of Green Gables 1908 was given to me by my mother when I was about 11-12 years old. It was the book she had when she was a girl, which I still have as well as the whole series of all the original books. My well-worn, browning and tattered copy was published in 1927 and I’m realizing it is one of the most important connections I have to my mother. It was a very important and one of the few things that I shared with her. My mother continued giving them to me throughout my teen years so it felt a bit like we grew up together…. Anne of Avonlea, Anne of the Island, Anne’s House of Dreams, Chronicles of Avonlea, Further Chronicles of Avonlea, The Golden Road, Kilmeny of the Orchard, Rainbow Valley, Rilla of Ingleside, The Story Girl…….♡♥♡

What I realized is that ♡Anne became like a best friend to me or to use her word – a kindred spirit…… ♡Anne’s love of all things natural and seeing beauty all around her and having a vivid and romantic imagination has long been my way and I have often wondered where I learnt that…

It is not the environment that was in my childhood home which was full of much struggle and pain with my father being sick for many years and dying when I was 11. No-one I knew in real life thought like her…..It feels to me like ♡Anne taught it to me or at least validated and inspired and modelled that way of living and ♡LOVE for me…..perhaps igniting a spark that was in me from birth.

This so fascinates me as one of the things that we teach is the importance of the environment that is surrounding us as we are growing up in shaping who we become. It feels really special to note and to teach that we can create the environment we want to live in by using our imagination….

In 2003 it was such a treat to travel with my daughter ♡Freea to visit the enchanting Prince Edward Island and the National Park that was established near Mongomery’s home in Cavendish in honour of her works. It is as beautiful and magical an area as is described in the books and for me it felt just like being “at home”…….It was amazing how many places that are written about in the books have been created/restored so accurately and lovingly ……in fact as I write I’m remembering I have many wonderful photos of our trip there that I haven’t seen in a loooooong time that I will go on a hunt for.

Montgomery’s books became a success worldwide. Every year, thousands of tourists,  especially Japanese “make a pilgrimage” to visit the green-gabled Victorian farmhouse on  Prince Edward Island …. There I learnt the remarkable and stunning fact that these heritage sites rate very high on the list of Canada’s top tourist attractions….so amazing that books written for girls about an orphan girl’s life can become a national ‘export’ and top attraction! Another factor that leads me to having such high regard for Montgomery’s writings. It inspires me that everything is possible.

Question for you: Think about what and who shaped you? Either real life or fictional.

♥MIRRORING PRACTICE: Share about this with another and have them ♥MIRROR you for a minimum of 5 minutes and then swap, or write about it in your journal.

May your imagination be carrying you to places of beauty and delight and feelings of gladness to be alive…..Blessings and LOVE, Susie♥