More than good enough

For a few months now I have been shy to show up on theses pages. I have felt that enough is enough and that I should really snap out of the funk that has settled over me.


Patiently I wait for my mood to pass. Yet, when it does, I'd rather celebrate on a sunlit lawn than risk too much introspection.


Some mornings I wake up feeling sadness and worry rise up from my heart and solar plexus. I get impatient with myself. Enough already. Why am I creating this? Why do I always open a door through which these things can enter?


I also have flashes that right now this is me. This is where I need to love.


And then I go again. Wanting to be happy all the time. Wanting to be the kind of person who is comfortable with others and easy to love.


How to pursue a career filled with others when I long to to hide away from them? Why do people often seem to be paper cut-outs? How do I love myself when I keep on sabotaging myself? How do I make sense of the world when I want to be someone else?


I could have faith in my journey. That showing up and being present is all I need to do right now. There are no guarantees that this is the right way.

The right way might well be found on the other end of a cognitive rainbow. Yet, I am tired of pushing and shoving at myself. Hoping to be loved more once I'm perfect, when it is the imperfect me who needs love. Who deserves unconditional acceptance.



So I will gently hold the places that want to cry. That fear that I am not good enough. That I will never allow myself to fully love. That I might never fulfill my dream.


And whenever I can I will set my spirit free to roam amongst sweet smelling grasses, to follow the wind on its travels and to rest on a fat fluffy cloud.

Interviewed by Julochka

from Moments of Perfect Clarity.


1. What's the best thing about south africa?

The diversity of the people, the landscapes, the animal and the plant-life. A a short drive can take me to a different world. I can sit myself down in any city or suburb and see a wide variety of people and styles passing by. In my classes I interact with students whose lives, backgrounds and outlook differ quite radically from my own. Being allowed into someone else's world and exploring our commonalities and differences is an awe-some experience.



2. What's the worst?

Inequality, violence, uncertainty.


3. You often mention that you've gone back to school--what are you studying and what made you go back to school?

I went back to school to study Psychology but changed my mind midway. I am now majoring in Geography and Anthropology and want to do my post-graduate studies in Environmental Education. I went back to school because I wanted to change myself and the world. For us both to become wiser and more tolerant to the differences within us while preserving and building on what makes us strong and beautiful. I want to help create a future where everyone has the opportunity to be fulfilled rather than consumed by life.


4. You've built a fantastic structure in your yard, was it a nautilus you called it? what is the significant of that name and what are your plans for it? is its construction based on traditional, age-old building methods? (ok, i realize that's more than one question, but this structure fascinates me.)

We called it the Nautilus both because of its snail-like shape and because we like to think of it as an earthship. Our plans are to move into it and to live surrounded by soft, cool, rounded earthen forms rather than harsh, energy consuming, square bricks. We are also working towards establishing an ecovillage, of which the nautilus will form the core, where people working in the city can live in a more sustainable and communal way .



5. When are you going to have another batch of puppies?

No more puppies! The four we have are already more than my two hands can tickle.


If anyone else wants to play
1. Leave me a comment saying, "Interview me."
2. I will respond by emailing you five questions.
3. You can then update your blog with the answers to the questions.
4. You could further include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you can have fun asking them five questions.

Joy finds me

Sitting outside eating cheese-curls
staring at the moon
I feel content.

A cloud draws yellow circles around the moon.
A cheese-curl laughs at its reflection.

A wolfdog runs past a wheelbarrow of orange pumpkins.

The moonlight and dark blue dusk surround us.

Happy accidents

Robin at Bird Tweets has invited a sharing of happy accident photos.


This is something close to my heart as many good things in my life result from happy accidents.


I am striving to make happy accidents my mantra so that I can let go, allowing life to dance and flow through me, filling me with joy and energy.

after your death

reading an email conveying
your best wishes and smile
i find sadness
and a wish


instead of holding back,
scared of the unknown
of not knowing how to act
what to say
of not being enough


could warmth
curiosity and trust
have unfolded more
of you?


or did you need
to fold back
into yourself?

Suddenly I remember to love myself.

Its been a tough year. Struggling with adapting to new ways of being, worrying about money and exams. Becoming more and more aware of the wounds of apartheid within my fellow students, then myself and then my country. Fear caused by ever increasing levels of violence. Academically gaining a better understanding of the dynamics behind violence in a divided country.

Reading about forgiveness, long meditations where I make peace with not knowing what to do, how to act, what I feel. The last rush through exams coupled with a friend's death, a car accident and discussions in which some of my fellow students expressed their deep mistrust and dislike of white people. Marking the essays of my students and reading of their initial impressions and mistrust of me. Getting deeply emotionally involved in group facilitations and loosing my ability to stay neutral.


A deep democracy workshop with a group of facilitators. That which was left unsaid choked the group into silence, yet we all voted, without reservation, that we were not ready to go underneath the waterline and confront what lies there.

Nightmares filled with violence and prosecution. My stomach often churning with anxiety during the day.

Reading more about deep democracy, children's participation in environmental education projects around the world and about the price I pay as a perfectionist, believing there is only a right and a wrong decision and that sacrifice is more important than pleasure.

Going on holiday with F's ex girlfriend and her boyfriend who believes in rationality and science and who deeply mistrusts spirituality and self analysis.

Giggling with my sister, delighting in the luminous beauty of her eyes, swimming in the river, watching the dogs running across a mountaintop with their tongues hanging out.

Loving and appreciating F more as I see him negotiate difficult social terrains with wisdom, vulnerability and compassion, falling asleep listening to the song of the river.

Feeling like shouting in the ex-girlfriends face and pulling her awesomely curly hair.

Driving home for 8 hours, having supper with my parents, getting home and falling into sleep.


Then, suddenly and unexpectedly, I feel a rush of love towards myself. This love is filled with acceptance of what is and who I am. There is also a deep gratefulness towards the me that gets up every morning, hoping that a better world is possible. One filled with love and conversation, change, miracles and creativity, joy and the possibility that today another dream might be fulfilled until one day all will dance with their full potential.

For trying with my whole heart and soul to love myself and life just as it is. For doing everything that I do because a part of me believes I need to.

I look down at my list of to-does and I realise with a childlike glee that cleaning the kitchen and study can wait until tomorrow or even the day after.

Peace is more than the absence of war

I've suddenly realised that rather than stop the war in my head I might replace it with the creativeness of peace.

We are of to the mountains for 10 days. I have so much to share but we have guests here from Germany and the words are hiding behind their mystery.