Suddenly I see

After being absent for many days,
today I find myself hunting for words.
My thoughts scatter in different directions.
Which one should I bound after?

If I quietly wait next to a clear stream
the thirsty ones might find me.

On entering my favorite field
I find one of three rocks tucked away behind tall grasses.

I loose my ankle in cold water. It has been raining a lot.
Puddles hide underneath tufts of bright green grass.
I laugh with all that surrounds me.

Last week I was not here.
I sit here, one week ago, my heart feels broken.
I am fighting with F. I am unlovable, unlikable, lost.
Huddled in this sacred space I allow myself to cry.

Why keep going when I no longer want to try?

Then I remember.

I turn inwards
into a space that is always lonely, always scared
I allow a bit of warm autumn sunlight, a small purple flower
and a gentle enclosing to enter with me.

Together we turn around another

into a new life. I am all around me.

Today I am here. In a field full of sunshine and dancing clouds.
A eagle circles above, preceded by a flock of gulls
My dogs splash through the grasses.

At home awaits an autumn harvest.
Pumpkins, beans and glowing red tomatoes.

a silent day

Another moment in time.

I back with a head and heart full of new discoveries.


However, at present my life seems to be a never ending cycle of rushing to the next appointment.


I still miss Mithril. My heart is slowly surrendering to the unknown. A part of me fiercely resents this.


In Capetown I learned that people do not have to instantly like me. Admitting that I needed my facilitator to like me was far more traumatic than sharing deep and interesting feelings. Her feedback, that friendship grows over time, often with people we do not immediately feel drawn to, shifted something in my world.


The last three evenings was spent with a healer who trained in India. Inside something feels more solid. At the same time my heart feels light and floaty. He mentioned that although I not often aware of it, because I am so caught up in my mind, my intuition is very strong. Letting go of control I can allow this intuition to find its voice.


Looking through my journal I found this piece of writing.


The secret life of the heart exists outside of the mind. Its singing cannot be contained in the short enclosing sounds and structures of a language influenced by culture and conditioning. However, its song can soften the edges of language, sweeping it along, twirling it around and making it catch its breath for just a moment.



I wish I had the time to allow my words to ebb and flow with the beating of my heart.


I will visit as soon as I find another opening in time to slip through.

gone fishing

currently in cape town doing some deep democracy training.

deeply confused.

my head is running ahead of/ away from my heart.

i'm here until 15 february.

till then i miss you.

when the heart opens

yesterday fey, arjun, shanti and i walk through our favourite field.


letting go of understanding, mithril's memory pierces my heart. the sweet sharp ache reminds me that i might never again meet him as a huge white smiling bundle of fluff.


suddenly a field of yellow flowers. i sit down. my heart contracts around each precious memory.


the aperture of my heart opens into each moment. a small cream and red bug sits on a smaller cream and red flower. a swallow's wing turns golden yellow against a rain washed blue sky. a tree breathes. tiny seeds dance across the wind and through the afternoon sun.


in that moment when nothing makes sense, everything makes sense.


the love of all who allow my tears to fall gently holds me. i gently hold the part of me that needs to know.

thank you all*

Goodbye Mithril

Once, not long ago on Monday, I still had a dog named Mithril.


He had the softest, brightest fur which he often covered in mud.


His tail had three white hairs right at the tip. These always reminded me of the story of a Japanese woman having to pull a hair from the breast of a wild bear in order to tame her husband's anger.


He also had gentle yet inquisitive brown eyes.


He loved to nibble my hand while I scratched his stomach and he groaned in his sleep.


I love him very much and I cannot believe that I will never see him run and pounce through a grass field again.


I will never again see him waiting for me in the driveway and leaping around in joy when he recognises my car.


I will never again see him pulling his paws up and offering me the soft white gray fur on his breast.


I can't believe that he is just suddenly gone.


I miss you Mithril


I pray that I may meet you again soon and I thank you for bouncing through my life.


Another Mithril song.

Who am I?

I don't know who I am.


Sinking into meditation I often encounter sadness, resistance and not knowing. Walking through a field I often encounter a deep joy when seeing wind move through grasses and in a tree filled with yellow flowers, highlighted against the colour of a thunderstorm.


Resting in meditation I sometimes feel myself open towards myself, towards the world, towards a gentle acceptance of the unknown. Or I get interrupted by a phone call from an unknown number and find myself closing off from myself. I feel that I cannot relax, cannot unfurl, until I know that which I am not sure of.


I know who I hope to be. I know who I do not want to be. Yet, I suspect that I exist neither between these two states or as a result of them.


I exist in each moment as a result of conditioning, thoughts, actions, expectations, observations, hormones, feelings, wants, not wants, acceptance and love. Yet there is also the me that surrounds all these things, watching. What about the me who experiences beauty from a place that is open and free? The me who allows myself to rest in the awareness that each experience is but a small part of my all? The me that pushes towards a yearning which I do not understand? The me that builds barriers to protect me from a threat that I cannot name?


Every day I am blind. I don't know where life starts and I begin, I don't know where I come from or where I am going. Everyday I see the beauty which surrounds me, new aspects of myself and those I love. I feel this love in my heart. It feels real. I feel a fear of loosing it all, of loosing myself, in my solar plexus. It feels real.


I cannot say who I am. Yet, I also know that I am a woman of thirty seven who wears jeans most every day. Who has gone back to University, who walks her dogs through a field filled with pale green grasses, who loves to dance, who fights with her partner, who discovers how to love her partner more, who laughs with her partner while fooling around. A woman who is restarting her yoga practice, who wants to drive to her Nia class and also wants to stay curled up with a book while it rains outside. A woman who reads Georgette Heyer when she also wants to read about children's participation in environmental projects, wild witching, literature and the environment, deep democracy, links between democracy and the environment, a mink who escapes from captivity and the last bit of a Erica Young novel.


A woman who needs a job, who worries where the money will come from, who mourns the disappearance of species and quiet fields and who fears calls from unknown numbers that leave no messages. A woman whose car takes too long to start and whose office is filled with the peace of things her heart can rest on. A woman who took too much drugs in her youth, who hurt those closest to her and who finds it difficult to trust. A woman whose live is changed by reading about a death and who suddenly sees the spaciousness of being present to each moment. A woman who strives for perfection, a woman who is able to see the joy in surrendering to chaos.


A woman who is trying to arrange a year and a future filled with things that will grow her closer to the person she wants to be. A person who she does not know and cannot define. A person that might never be defined because she is fluidly moving through and into her past, present and future. And maybe this is the way I want it.