Monthly Archives:

April 2019

dailyconnectionwithnature Europe nature vanlife

Waving goodbye to Crete

April 9, 2019

Tomorrow we leave Crete. It’s been a life-changing, healing winter here. I’ll be sad to wave goodbye to this magical island but we’ll return in a few years I’m sure. Slowing down and hibernating overwinter has allowed me to notice how the sunset moves along that far horizon from left to right as the days roll by; I’ve become aware that the tides are higher and wilder here around the new moon, and have had time to marvel as bright…

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creating dailyconnectionwithnature poetry

Homecoming

April 8, 2019

homecoming: I am done with narrowing potential / gifting ‘I should’ to the water I watch the bubbles leave her mouth as she is swallowed / when the sun is liquid in the sky I am sanddunes, granular / when rainclouds enfold, I expand into the water-cycle / this is what prevents grief from hardening into arrogance // shape-shifting I lay claim to no form (I am every form) / this is how I return / as the sun sets…

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On Vanlife & Sapiens

April 7, 2019

Living a transient life in a van can change a person, but I suppose it depends how much change is invited. The conscious decision to sell all of our possessions that wouldn’t fit in the van as we transitioned to a nomadic lifestyle was part of the catalyst for an evolution of self. I’m not sure this can fully manifest if you’re holding onto stuff, literally and figuratively. This experience has already encouraged self-learning in so many ways that could…

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Dharma

April 5, 2019

When my mental landscape shifted dramatically some years ago I had to be outside as much as possible, immersing in nature. This was the strangest experience because I wasn’t brought up with the outdoors. My family cannot name all the birds and trees, I had no concept of the cycles of the moon and felt no great desire to spend long periods of time alone in nature. When that changed and the natural world exploded into life I felt compelled…

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creating Europe vanlife

Giving thanks

April 4, 2019

Thinking today about gratitude. About truly looking at what is around me and showing appreciation for these things. The guy who lives in this van pictured came here with his elderly dog so that she’d have somewhere beautiful to see out her final days. She died recently and we were all devastated. Life is such a transient, ephemeral thing – as beautiful as we make her. If you’d have said ten years ago (when first taking the plunge into being…

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creating Europe poetry politics

Conflicted

April 2, 2019

Writing a lot of political poems at the moment. At least the current situation offers plenty of creative fodder – depressingly huge amounts of it. conflicted: you offered purpose when I was lost / taught me to dream as cloud formations / enduring incessant rain, I grew tall in the form of pine & when harsh / words & arid ground gripped at feet I became an olive branch // together we mapped landscapes / unfolded across mountains that shifted…

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creating feature poetry

Successes & failures

April 1, 2019

Been thinking a lot about what it means to be an artist these days. What is expected of us, how we are supposed to be in the world, and maybe it could be said that being creative is freedom, but this can sometimes manifest in people thinking they have a right to decide how or what you should create. I had some early lessons in this, as I’ve said in a previous post, when I found the courage to evolve…

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