Monthly Archives:

July 2021

creating poetry

Empty your mind

July 10, 2021

Been thinking of this older poem lately. It’s from the Prophecy: conversations with my Self, pamphlet. Available now as free download from my webshop. Text reads: On knowledgeto speak simply is to think simply is to be simple: clarityto speak with complexity is to think with complexity is to be complex:foggyempty minds perceive vastness imagine the greatness of the universe hear the voices of the trees……

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family

On being a good ancestor

July 10, 2021

This amazing mama turned twenty five yesterday. Here’s my daughter Rhi, with her daughter Hilda. So much love for this woman for having the strength to walk her own path. My heart is so big with love. Ancestry is the strangest thing – something I’ve always considered as being on the receiving end of, not the one who is the actual ancestor ?. It’s the most bizarre and wonderful experience that maybe stretches your vision quite a bit, like a…

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dailyconnectionwithnature feature nature Outdoors slowlivingactivism

Learning to know the trees

July 8, 2021

Long summer evenings are light as butterfly wings. Even late in the day, the sun rides high in an impossibly blue sky. The trees here do not know me, but there is time, and the will to bring my open heart so that a dialogue might begin. I’ve had difficult first meetings with some trees (Ae forest) but then in later days had some of the most spiritual experiences of my life in those very same places. Those of us…

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Cymraeg food

siopa yn Gymraeg (yn yr Alba)

July 7, 2021

Dyma’r siop ffrwythau a llysiau yn Dumfries lle mae bobl yn siarad Cymraeg (mae’r dyn yn dod o Ynys Môn). Rili anhygoel i sgwrs efo nhw! ??????? No only did I get to practice my (horribly rusty) Cymraeg in this local shop in Dumfries, we bought a heap of delicious fruit and veg. Happy days.…

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dailyconnectionwithnature feature nature Outdoors slowlivingactivism travel

Keeping the trees alive

July 7, 2021

Visiting some forests is the most difficult thing. Over a decade ago we rode through Ae forest and it was the first time I felt a genuine hatred from the trees towards humans. It’s not something I’d experienced before and it horrified me, that we’d farmed these beautiful beings to the point that they felt this way towards us. Part of the promise I made to myself with this OUTSIDER blog was that I’d speak honestly about my experiences. Part…

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travel vanlife

Admiring the view

July 2, 2021

We woke in a glorious bird-song-filled forest this morning but there wasn’t any 4G so, after a walk, drove about 1km to get in range – this is the truth of a mobile life. Any life can be portrayed as idyllic through these curious squares, but the reality tends to be somewhere closer to the mundane that we care to admit. I suppose what matters is creating the life that best fits your personality, your flow, and way of being…

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creating family feature food vanlife

Give me…

July 1, 2021

Give me filthy-faced grandchildren slurping fat cherries with thick dirt slicked beneath fingernails.  Give me time spooling generously out across a long summer evening of push-bike races & hen chases & lazy hounds’s sleepy faces.  Give me bowls of fragrant lemon & fresh coriander rice, earth-dark kidney beans spiced with the stomach-deep-warmth of cumin & paprika; lip-smacking bursts of tiny-fresh tomatoes with diced, sharp-tongued red onion & a bright cider vinegar tumbled into bowls along with juicy-sweet pan-charred peppers demanding…

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