Discover : Returning to Wonder Sign off 2025: Relishing wintery wonder, sharing Yeats' poem, and anticipating January's emergence.

I’m Suzanne—a mum, occupational therapist, and long-time listener to the quiet wisdom that families carry. Lead Together is a space where parents lead, services follow, and your vision for your child’s life is honoured from the start. You are the expert. I’m here to walk beside you.

Dear fellow parent,

As we rush towards Christmas, I don’t know about you but I am longing now for quieting. The last crumbs of mince pie cling to plates, and the sky is a shade of blue that only winter knows.

This is where our compass rests on D — Discover, the week when we stop trying to create magic and start noticing that it’s already here.

Every tiny bulb of Christmas lights, every spark in a child’s eyes, every candle on a cold sill feels like proof that wonder keeps sneaking back no matter how busy we become.

Hmmm, I now see wonder as not a luxury; it’s the world reminding us of relationship. The light string only shines when every bulb is connected. We’re like that too.

Our belonging is the current that carries joy from one life to another.

So this week, notice the flickers: the quick laughter at the table, the neighbour waving in the rain, the sound of wrapping paper that evokes wonder in your child’s eyes. That’s the hum of connection at work.

That’s wonder, doing its quiet job.

This week I want to offer a poem from William Butler Yeats:

“The Lake Isle of Innisfree” by William Butler Yeats (1890)

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,

And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;

Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honeybee,

And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,

Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;T

here midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,

And evening full of the linnet’s wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day

I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;

While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,

I hear it in the deep heart’s core.

When you read this:

What parts of your inner system longs to “arise and go now”?

Which part hears the call to stillness, to simplicity, to a quiet cabin in the “bee-loud glade”?

And what part says, Not yet! Not while the dishes pile and the inbox dings and the children bounce like wild sheep!?

This week, let them both be heard. Let the one who longs for Innisfree whisper to the one who keeps you surviving “the pavements grey”. Maybe they can light a candle together. Or look out the window and remember the lake that lives in your "deep heart’s core."

A Glimpse Ahead:

I am answering the call to take a rest. This will be the last newsletter of 2025. I have enjoyed sharing time with you over the last months and am glad that you have stayed.

On the 23rd January we’ll circle back to the “L” in our L-E-A-D framework: Lean In — listening to the first stirrings of Emergence as January’s light returns.

Before you close this email, take a breath for yourself,

and a breath for your child—not the child of plans or performance,

but the one who still sees shapes in the clouds.

May wonder find you even in the washing-up.

May you remember that belonging hums louder than perfection.

And may the ladybird, hiding in the holly leaves, dream of summer fields, reminding us that every ending already holds a beginning.

Take all of the care,

Suzanne

You're receiving this because you're part of Lead Together—a slow, relational space for parents nurturing children with developmental differences.

On my website www.leadtogether.ie you will find the services I offer and also a place that holds all of the newsletters.

If this newsletter supported you in some small way, you might consider sharing it with another parent who’s walking a similar path.

If this newsletter no longer serves you, you can unsubscribe anytime—no hard feelings, no pressure. You know your own rhythm. I trust it.