Category Archives: Creativity

Beginnings, Creativity, Dreaming, Grace, Gratitude, Reflection, Ritual, Storytelling

2024 – My Year of Wild

‘Maybe the journey isn’t so much about becoming anything. Maybe it is about un-becoming everything that isn’t really you.’

Paul Coehlo

It started a couple of years ago and a deal made with the benevolent Universe that I would learn to Trust my intuition. It would be a journey to recognising and reconnecting with that calm, clear voice of authentic Me as separate from ego. But what a journey it has been! My Year of Trust in 2022 brought me dreams come true and an indelible lesson in how to balance what I can make happen and what I invite to let happen.

2023 has been My Year of Light and Love, the next steps on my growth journey. To find balance in how I love, but also to embrace the ‘who I am inside’ and finally allow her to be loved just as she is – Sunshine Reflected. Another incredible year of synergy and alignment and abundance, living my Dream Life. Choosing the way of love over fear always.

In this Love Lightly space, I found a muse with grace and wisdom beyond his years. He has a mind and heart wide open, paying close attention to each one of my details knowing how to take me to my very limits. He has actual depth and insight, resilient, and with a bite that keeps the world in check. So I have finally started writing the book I somehow knew was always in me. I am being pushed creatively and that is showing up in my art too.

At this time of reflection and setting intention for the coming year, some words are showing up in my journalling repeatedly….

If you have read any of my other writing, you will know that I have a firm belief in the energy that connects All that is. I have found that tapping into this energy at a cosmic level is what drives intuition and instinct. Overwhelmingly this energy is good and benevolent, in my experience. So part of my reflection time involves looking for guidance and wisdom from Nature and Universe:

The tree wisdom card I pulled from my oracle deck as I thought about my word for 2024 was the energy of Regeneration from Yew.

I used the wonderful energy of the recent full moon in Cancer on 26 December as a focus for this end of year reflection. The last full moon of 2023 brought an invitation to come back to our hearts as we prioritise nurturing ourselves to become the safe space we long for.

Venus is in Sagittarius at the moment until 23 January, with a clear energetic shift that inspires a celebratory approach to life, love and relationships, moving closer to authentic self. Sagittarius inspires us to recover our connection to our authentic, undomesticated self, to Natural Laws, and to our intuition, being drawn to freedom, authenticity and honesty. During the upcoming days, chances to recognise how freedom and connection aren’t mutually exclusive, discovering how to nurture both the need for intimacy and the desire for independent exploration of life.

A few months ago, I wrote about Reclaiming Wild, all about taking back the concepts of  Wild, Wildness and Wilderness as part of my Soul’s vocabulary – a way of expressing true nature-connectedness, a pattern of my Soul, my Soul Maker and the season I now find myself in living my Dream Life.

What a lovely concoction of Cosmic and Nature energy to feed mind and heart and set intention!

So, on the foundation of two previous words for the year, a journey back to authentic Me has begun. A reclaiming of Wild and Untamed Me, a fully reconnected back to Nature version of Me. Embracing my Wild Heart. Empowering a balanced sacred-feminine, divine-masculine essence of Me. So I am better able to live wholeheartedly and fulfill my Great Purpose.

Me empowered, rewilded, reclaiming my Wildness means pure space is open for empowering Other, empowering Wilderness. I hope by reclaiming my internal Wild, I will be more in tune with Nature. This spiritual rewilding enabling me to better serve the Conservation Collective I am part of. This Collective is all about the job of physical rewilding as a Nature-based Solution for the environmental and social ills of our time.

Rewilding. It is messy and real and imperfect. A bit like Nature really – wild, messy and full of imperfection but Nature knows how to embrace her magic. Understanding more deeply what it means to be human, to be beautifully imperfect, to be wonderfully lost at times. I am excited about embracing my magic and my happy wanderer ways in 2024 – My Year of Wild 🖤

Africa, Blessings, Creativity, Dreaming, Grace, Gratitude, Joy, Mindfulness, New Year, Reflection, Ritual

Light

My Word for the Year is Light

Me

Last year my Word for Year was Trust. As I reflect back on the year just gone, I am grateful to my dear friend, Erin, for introducing me to this concept of a Word for the Year. It was like carrying a talisman in my pocket all year long reminding me of the intentions I had set at the start of the year and to remain courageous on the journey. And what a year it turned out to be…

Now it is time for a new word, to set fresh intentions and continue to dream big.

This is not the first time Light has resonated with me as a significant word. Quite a while back now while grieving the loss of broken dreams and at a very low point in my life, in a moment of stillness in my grief, I had a vision of sorts that part of my life’s purpose was to Be Light, to Be Sunshine. Sounds odd, I know, which is why I dismissed it as a crazy thought in the midst of my brokenness. Now, I am beginning to see this vision of sorts playing out in my life anyway.

Last year the incredible Shan came into my life. The concept of Light came back to me in a big way then as I wrote her story. Especially in the context of the Viktor E. Frankl quote:

What is to give light must first endure burning.

Viktor E. Frankl

The healing journey of my heart has been a long one and there was much to relearn. I say relearn because I believe our hearts and souls understand a lot of the world as children but somehow growing to adulthood means we lose that intuitive knowledge. I had to relearn to Trust my connection to the Universe. I had to relearn how to Dream big again. I had to relearn that Hope floats.

I had to understand that for every Big Dream there is also the bitter and the shadow. That is the trick of life’s journey. To live Wholeheartedly you have to embrace the sadness, the loss, the pain as well as the joy, the abundance and the freedom. Life brings both. To learn to sit with shadow without it swallowing you whole is the key. To learn the infinite Joy that comes from Gratitude….. this is the Light that shines the way when you are in shadow, guiding you as you navigate life’s journey.

So now I need to be Light. I need to be Sunshine. I need to be Light for all mine, for all who cross my path…. this is my purpose….. a guiding Light, working with the Universe, shining light into dark corners even if just to bring a moment of comfort.

To continue to find those Pure Spaces and hold them open for my heart to find rest and all those who are with me, those I carry close in my heart.

So my Word for the Year is Light.

Me

Light is sunshine, starlight, moonlight…. all that connects me to the Cosmos.

Light is connected to fire, connected with cleansing, honing and purifying that happens with burning…. somehow I find comfort in this idea.

Light is about colour. The rainbow of colours through the prism. This year is about living life in full colour just like the colours of my art…. the creative process that sparks pure joy for me.

Light is also the absence of heavy. This year is about embracing all that is light and bright, spontaneous moments of joy…. truly living wild-hearted.

Light is connected to Love. I will love wholeheartedly but lightly…. a free-spirited love that is about holding unconditional love space loosely. Ready to hold it tightly when needed. Ready to let it go if or when its season has ended.

Light is connected to Being, to spirit and soul. This year is about being in the moment, about being fully present to shine all the more brightly.

Light is about the positive energy of a bright aura…. the energy of hope, love and gratitude…..

Wishing you all Love and Light

✨
Creativity, Current Events, Education, Extraordinary Voices, Nature, Storytelling, Values

A Future For Us All

Take 15 minutes of your life to watch the video – A Future For Us All. Then reflect on how you can add to this all-important conversation in your sphere of influence.

Sir Ken Robinson’s work continues to shape and inspire my teaching practice as well as my personal journey to Finding My Element.

For a bit more about this giant whose shoulders we stand on, you can read my blog post from a couple of years ago at the sad time of his passing.

It is so great to see Sir Ken’s daughter, Kate, taking care of his legacy and continuing this great work.

I hope you find as much encouragement as I do from hearing Sir Ken articulate his inspired thinking around personal growth as well as his call for humanity to Unite and make the world a better place.

Continue to rest in peace, Sir Ken…. thank you for giving those left behind direction in this journey towards a future for All 🖤

Advent, Blessings, Christmas, Creativity, Dreaming, Family, Food, Gratitude, Holidays, New Year, Reflection, Traditions

2021 Wrapped Up

Closing out this year with Hope. My gratitude app tells me I have been grateful daily for just over two years. The number one thing I have been grateful for over this time has been Hope. That I can still feel Hope-Full.

I am also grateful that I finally created a family recipe book. Something I have been meaning to do for years now. Compiling all the family favourites from over the years, along with family photos to create a little piece of treasured family history, was soothing to the soul.

So thankful, as ever, for my precious family both near and far for all they are and all they do. I am truly in awe of being related to such incredible humans.

Another grateful moment from this year is my Pelo Tales Heart Art Fundraiser having raised a little money already. This one is ongoing so if you want to know more and find out how you could contribute, then head to Pure Spaces Education.

I am thankful for this weird ‘gap year’ in my career working with a wonderful team of teachers and friends. Bittersweet moving on, again.

Also thankful for not losing touch with the dream team forced to go our separate ways in 2020…. still keeping it real!

And finally… grateful, hopeful and excited about new adventures, new collaborations and new friends in 2022! Can’t wait to see where Pure Spaces Education takes me…

But before all that…. grateful for time to rest this holiday season 🖤

Africa, Creativity, Grace, Gratitude, Nature, Storytelling, Sustainability, Travel, Wildlife Conservation

Pelo Tales: Lilac Sky Ellie

This is Solomon, a charming elderly elephant who frequented our little island in the heart of the Okavango Delta. He especially liked when the Marula fruit were ripe. I had three Marula trees on three sides of my house so Solomon would often spend the night carefully collecting as many fallen Marula as possible. Then he would shake the trees for more and finally have a short nap leaning against a termite mound until the first lilac streaks of dawn stole across the sky 🖤