New collaborative piece with @wolfmumma. I have such huge respect for this artist. Her work speaks to the darkness in me, and of our infinite potential to overcome. There is no self-flagellation here, instead she uses art to draw out the shadows we all contain. I respect her bravery & honesty. Her surreal (self)portraits echo those of Frida Kahlo, in that they are an exquisite representation of the pain of growth as we learn to trust, to explore ourselves blindfolded,…
We stayed in a campsite this weekend for the first time this year (and only the third time in eighteen months). It’s great in some ways, but I’m starting to realise how many of the things our culture considers essential are not so. They’re part of the system that tells us we need these things instead of dreams. I saw an advert the other day for a house with four bedrooms and four bathrooms. Four bathrooms? Have we really begun…
Maybe we are our memories, but we are not the inanimate objects our culture teaches us to imbue with these micro-histories. If part of the role of poetry & storytelling is to keep alive memories & ideas then perhaps this explains why they feel sidelined to ‘entertainment’ in our capitalist society. Who needs an abstract poem when we have a tangible object to hold and store, and eventually forget about? Living in a tiny space forces us to think differently…
Last spring I spent time with one of my favorite plant people, Mark Watson (link to his blog here). It’s going to take years for some of the things he taught to fully permeate into my life and a huge part of this is taking it slow, learning to move with the cycles of the seasons; knowing that it’s ok to forget some things and then relearn them; to accept that this kind of learning is a lifetime’s work and…
Went swimming with swans for the first time today (can’t believe it took coming to Slovenia for this to happen!). At first I was a bit nervous especially as some swans seemed slightly confrontational. Sitting on the jetty I calmed the heart by swirling hands and feet in the icy river. As soon as the swans realised I was getting in the water their attitude change from one of ‘stay away’ to reserved curiosity. As I swam in circles, more…
We built the van interior ourselves over the summer/autumn of 2017 and hit the road full-time at the end of that November. Andy’s a designer so he was able to draw up detailed plans. We watched endless YouTube videos of other people’s builds from across the world so that we could get a feel for what would work for us. We’d also converted a VWT5 the year before for holidays which gave us a good idea of the space we…
Thinking about commitment & individualism: being committed to your tribe (human or animal) asks a lot. The world tells us to follow our dreams, & I believe we should, but what if that conflicts with our commitments? More & more I read the advice to cut free & do whatever we want, but how does that marry with the rise in lonely people? Just living with dogs is a commitment that means we can’t go off when we want. We…
All these tumbling blue Slovenian rivers remind me of a poem, Elemental, from the Rebel Sun poetry collection. Ah the trees here in Slovenia in spring! So many bright & beautiful beech trees. Pure radiance. The relationship between tree & water is nothing short of magic: a large, mature tree can lift between 50-100 gallons of water from the ground and discharge it into the air in a day. They literally create their own temperate climate. This blows my mind.…