I’ve spent the last few days dreaming near ancient rock. It can change you, you know? Or can solidify a position within that was hiding beneath the waters of consciousness. A friend said a while ago, ‘Instagram isn’t an airport, you don’t need to announce your departure’ ? and I love that because it’s so true. But I feel I wanted to write something this morning before deleting the app from my phone this evening. I love Instagram, its blend…
I’ve really enjoyed cooking again lately. Slow travelling in the van, finding lovely local farm shops and parking in new locations inspires me. It’s not something I particularly push, more that the urge to cook comes and goes.Something that’s been slow-flowing in the deep waters of this Self is the need to understand why I do certain things, and why I can find some healthy habits difficult to maintain.I suppose where I’m at is the belief that when the internal…
When I’m away from people the world makes sense. I can walk or cycle these rolling hills with a glorious heartfull of belonging. Every atom of this beautiful earth is deeply sacred so that I can simply exist in these spaces and just breathe.Still, the need to connect, to understand and be understood is a deeply human attribute that I also possess.People give me intense anxiety, but I’m learning to work with it, to slowly feel my way into being…
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…
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…
The first time I came across the word ‘autodidact’ was in Sartre’s Nausea. I fell in love with this word because it explained how I prefer to exist in the world. What I remember of this novel (last read about fifteen years ago so forgive me), is that this was a way of creating meaning in an otherwise chaotic and absurd world and oh! That sang to my heart. Any way of existing taken to the extreme is likely to…
When we first moved into the van nearly four years ago we wanted to get away from everyone and everything for a while, just to reset ourselves and maybe recalibrate our place in the world. As much as I needed those long months of solitude, I’ve emerged from that cave happier, and feeling more confident around people. I’m not sure this is something that’s evident from the outside because I was so good at masking, but now I’m building a…
Finding my own successes
June 5, 2021I’ve been talking a lot about what makes a successful life these past few years. I think this is because I came to realise we have very narrow parameters around what we consider success that often focusses on our earning or networking capacity. I had a very chaotic childhood. I’m not saying this to invite pity, but to offer a brief context. So success to me has been learning about stability, about how relationships work and how to form authentic…
A friend said to me recently, ‘You don’t have to grieve standing still’ and oh my I felt that deep in my bones. I’ve been focusing on building an internal success paradigm that doesn’t rely on external validation. It’s one where I give myself credit for overcoming smaller fears, where I celebrate every time I genuinely strengthen a connection instead of shutting it down, when I step into my power instead of giving it away.None of these things are particularly…
We met on MayDay seventeen years ago. It’s the strangest thing, colliding with one person who changes the entire trajectory of your life. These past 3yrs in the van, I’ve been thinking a lot about what makes a successful life. Previously, I’d chased all those things I was told would make me successful, while working to help others achieve success. Until I began to ask the question ‘what does success mean?’. Ah. Epiphany. Much of what I learned about success…