Following on from yesterday – a poem on connecting with summer trees. There’s a winter tree connection poem also up on the OUTSIDER blog – both are in The Slow-Time Traveller poetry pamphlet (link in bio).…
It’s the strangest thing, finding your way in the world, and I’ve written before about the many circular or dead-end paths encountered on this journey of self-discovery. During early sessions of studying Kung Fu (in my late 20s), I couldn’t get my head around the feeling I was a blackboard being wiped clean in order for a new text to be written across me. I didn’t then have the self-knowing to understand this was not the kind of teaching I…
I felt thoroughly sick riding past this yesterday. Listening to that machine chew through all this life just so we can devour more stuff. It forced me to think about a couple of things – firstly the technology that allows our massive consumption as a species. I’m not saying we shouldn’t use wood-based products, that is part of the cycle of life, but what really struck me is how much wood ends up in recycling or landfill when what we…
There’s a long herstory of emotional neglect and abuse running throughout my matrilineal ancestry. It’s not something that was acknowledged or even understood when I was a child. You just grow up thinking that whatever circumstances you’re born into are completely normal because you don’t know any different. Reaching middle years has been a huge turning point, like I’ve climbed that ancestral massif and, turning to view the ascent, I clearly see the carnage strewn across the landscapes of past…
An interesting conversation growing from my recently published novel, The Madness of Sara Mansfield (link in bio), is people wanting to discuss why I’ve put it out as Copyleft.I love this. I love that people are thinking about the implications, and want to talk to me about it. The main response I get is people worrying that I’ve spent six years writing a book only to leave it wide open to interpretation, that someone else could take the book and…
Figuring out the language of my body is a lifetime’s work. Does anybody else feel they’re balancing so many elements – like keeping a very long line of plates spinning? And I drop them, sometimes a lot of them, even if less often these days. I write often about self-directed learning because this is the pathway into understanding that resonates most strongly, especially so with my body.Maybe this is a ridiculous approach because there’s so much to learn from others.…
I’m so proud of this hound. Otherwise know as: Bonnie, Bonnie-boo, Bonneroo, Bonners, Bonnington-bean, princess-Bonbon-of-the-waves, Madame Bonnington, beanie-boo, string-bean, baby-boo and also Bon-Bon, but sometimes Bonnieeeeee! She’s doing so well with her positive reinforcement training. It’s changing her every day. And although we’re not the most diligent with learning all the new tricks, we’ve got so good with this when Bonnie sees a new hound. Our biggest problem these days tends to be other dog owners whose dogs aren’t on…
After waiting for what felt like an eternity, yesterday evening, along with torrential rain, arrived the softest wave in the sea, just enough to power a surfboard (or maybe not even that). We thundered out like children, arms splashing, legs kicking, to sit in a gently undulating, receding tide beneath a blue-grey meadow of cloud, board-tips pointing skyward like errant compass needles. At the farthest curve of the shore, a city skyscape etched itself charcoal grey against a soft rose…
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Why I don’t love a pruned hedge
June 16, 2021
Hello friends,I’m aware that some people get a bit upset about my original use of grammar and punctuation. This is absolutely okay. I’m not the writer for everybody and I fully embrace that. However, instead of presuming that my writing is inferior because I don’t follow the rules, I wonder if they might consider the fact that writing this way is an act of rebellion – a way for me to fully embody this wild and natural world that inspires…
A friend sent me these pics yesterday – memories of Switzerland last August. This hike was sublime! Up above Lac de Louvie, then a 2,500m descent in glorious sunshine. My heart felt so big, and at this point my body felt so strong. 25km in about 11hrs and oh! this middle aged soul feels younger every year I take a step into myself and away from self-sabotaging behaviours. …