Category Archives: Dreaming

2026: My Year of Emancipation

Freedom is a vibrant palette reflecting our diverse paths to liberty. Blue evokes vast possibilities and openness; white symbolises purity and freedom from oppression. Red captures the revolutionary spirit and the courage required for liberty. Green connects us to nature, representing growth and renewal. Yellow and gold shine with enlightenment and hope, symbolising the joy of living without constraints. Each colour tells a story of the different ways we find and fight for freedom. I took this photo of the sunbird on the protea in Kirstenbosch Gardens, Cape Town – a stolen moment of wild magic in between the hustle.

As the Gemini Full Moon of December 2025 cast its luminous glow, it invited me into a realm of introspection. This celestial event called for solitude, urging me to delve into my inner world and release the burdens quietly draining my spirit. Dreams, rich with symbolism, became portals to understanding, guiding me to let go of what no longer served me.

With Neptune’s direct station in Pisces, a transformative 14-year cycle came to a close, reshaping my inner self and dissolving outdated identities. Emotions surged, dreams intensified, and intuition sharpened, leading me back to the core of my truth. The Sagittarius New Moon also graced the sky in December, acting as a beacon for renewing my daily routines and nurturing my health, balancing service to others with honouring my own needs.

2025 was undeniably my year of Magic. This enchanted word became my guiding star, drawing me into a realm where mystery intertwined with daily life. It was a journey of embracing my roles as a WayFinder and Lightworker, celebrating authenticity and the wild spirit within. Magic was not just about transformation but about healing, tapping into Earth’s energies, and reconnecting with untamed beauty.

Standing on the precipice of 2026, my heart swells with anticipation for a year centred on Freedom and Emancipation. The Keepers of Light Life Path oracle (by Kyle Gray) reading has unveiled a path of profound change and liberation, promising a flourishing professional and public life guided by a redefined sense of purpose and success aligned with my authentic self. This is the year of Expansion of the Heart, where true growth happens in spaces of safety and emotional support, allowing me to redefine belonging and deepen my capacity for love.

Financially, 2026 invites me to reassess my relationship with money, letting go of long-held scarcity mindsets to embrace abundance through joy and passion. It’s a year ripe with opportunities for entrepreneurship and creative endeavours, where prosperity flows dynamically and vibrantly.

In this vibrant realm of existence, where love and acceptance intertwine with each heartbeat, the idea of Earth Angels shines brightly as a symbol of hope and transformation. These radiant souls, driven by a divine mission to spread love and healing, guide us towards spiritual evolution. My journey has been profoundly touched by such an Earth Angel—my Aunty Denise. Though not a blood relative, she embodied the essence of an Earth Angel with her quiet strength and boundless kindness. Her unexpected passing nearly two years ago left a void, yet she gifted me a legacy of love and liberation. In our last moments together, she encouraged me to embrace my wild-hearted odyssey, to dance to the rhythm of my own drum. Her unwavering acceptance and belief in my path have catalysed an enormous change within me, setting me free to explore the world with an open heart. Aunty Denise’s spirit continues to guide me, her indelible mark a testament to the power of Earth Angels in shaping our lives for the better.

As the sacred dance of life calls me to unleash my true self, 2026 becomes a canvas where divine interventions guide each step. I honour my lineage, healing ancestral wounds, and embracing a future rich with purpose and joy. This journey as a Lightworker is illuminated by the lighthouse versus rescue boat analogy. The lighthouse stands tall, offering steady, long-term guidance, empowering others to find their own way, while the rescue boat dives into crises, offering immediate relief but risking burnout and dependency. This year, I embrace my lighthouse phase, a beacon rooted in the wisdom of trust, light, love, rewilding, and magic that has shaped my path.

In numerology, 2026 is a year of new beginnings, a 1 year, and a 10 year. It’s also a Fire Horse year in Chinese astrology, a time of passion and dynamic change. As I embrace the words Freedom, Emancipation, Co-creation, and Beloved, I am ready to dance into this new chapter, guided by intuition and a heart purified by fire. Here’s to a year of becoming, where authenticity and balance reign, and where the wild heart beats ever stronger.

To feel in 2026… one with nature, guided by inner wisdom, held by the land, nourished and inspired, at home in my own skin, drawn to the trees, wild and free.

Toyed around with which word to use:

  • Freedom: Old English meaning exempt from a particular state or condition, evolving from a Proto-Germanic word meaning “beloved” or “at peace,” linked to tribal belonging and protection, linked to words like “friend.”
  • Liberty: Latin meaning free choice, independence, exemption from constraint.
  • Emancipation: Latin meaning to take out of hand, freedom from legal or social bondage, release from restrictions.

In the end, there are aspects of all three words at play this year.

I encountered some profound thoughts recently, and though I am unsure of their origin, I paraphrase them here:

Each family births a soul attuned to the quakes within their lineage. This one dreams in symbols, waking weary from battles unseen by others. She mourns for wounds not of her making but coursing through her veins. She carries more than her own sorrows; she bears echoes, ancestral murmurs, and silent grief buried for ages. Labelled as overly sensitive, too intense, too different, she is heaven's cycle breaker. Born with open eyes, her spirit rejects deceit, her nerves react to manipulation, and her heart refuses to accept dysfunction as normal. She doesn’t turn her back on her family; instead, she saves it by refusing replication. She disrupts, interrupts patterns, and says “no more” when others accept “that’s just the way it is.” She questions the unquestioned, heals the unhealed, and voices the unspoken. And yes—it costs her. Comfort, belonging, and inner peace are the price. Breaking a cycle incurs resistance; inherited pain loyalists label her an enemy. She is blamed for chaos she merely revealed and accused of shattering the already fractured. But here’s the harsh truth—the chosen one is often sacrificed before being revered. She walks in solitude before honour finds her, misunderstood before remembrance. Even those she liberates may never express gratitude. Yet she stands firm, knowing what others don’t—yielding perpetuates the curse. Silence allows the wound to persist. So she becomes the fire, not to destroy her family but to cauterise what has bled for generations. When the smoke clears, the bloodline transforms forever. For once a soul awakens, the spell is irrevocably broken.

Disclaimer: the words above and the resonance described below are not to say I have a terrible family in the here and now. Quite the opposite in fact. I am sharing this part of my story as we all carry ancestral wounds, it is no one’s fault, it just is. I am only now beginning to understand my journey in terms of being the cycle breaker and pattern interrupt for my family and this includes my soul family.

These words resonate deeply! For this Wild Heart, it has been more than just breaking my ancestral cycle of wounds, but also my wider journey and the people I’ve met along the way. I only see it now in hindsight—all those nights crying in a foetal position on floors, body wracked with pain as my heart cried out, “What did I do?” or “Why me?” It has been worth the pain in the end as I have been cracked open to live authentically, and the reward is seeing how the spell has broken for so many around me. This is not me, but the universe working through me. I think back to my lowest moment on a concrete floor of my little Maun home, the energy surrounding me filled with all my broken dreams. A chink of light in the dark spoke gently and softly—be my sunshine. I still wake up each morning with that intent. I certainly do not get it right all the time, but still, I try.

I have been writing and rewriting this post since the 1st of January. Stolen moments to myself in between a horrendous list of have-to’s for work. I feel like I am on the edge of a deep and profound shift personally—a renewed soul calling for me and my Anam Ċara. But drowning in the overwhelm of an unsustainable workload in the here and now. The opposite of work-life balance, living to work has become my norm of late. Actually, perhaps it ever was. The opposite of freedom and emancipation. Perhaps that is why it is so overwhelming at my day job, to teach me just this—let go of the old hustles I felt I needed to earn my place in the world. Surrender to the flow of soul calling, allowing the healthy boundaries to show themselves and settle. Perhaps I needed these last two months to start embodying my word for the year, my year of emancipation taking shape so I could articulate the concept more thoughtfully. Here’s to Freedom.

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 🖤

Reclaiming Wild

Wilderness

Have we forgotten
that wilderness is not a place,
but a pattern of soul
where every tree, every bird and beast
is a soul maker?

Have we forgotten
that wilderness is not a place
but a moving feast of stars,
footprints, scales and beginnings?

Since when
did we become afraid of the night
and that only the bright stars count?
or that our moon is not a moon
unless it is full?

By whose command
were the animals
Through groping fingers,
One for each hand,
Reduced to the big and little five?

Have we forgotten
That every creature is within us
carried by tides
of earthly blood
and that we named them?

Have we forgotten
that wilderness is not a place,
but a season
and that we are in its
final hour?

Ian McCallum

It was a very cold August morning as we set off before sunup on our routine morning drive around the reserve. I grabbed my favourite merino wool blanket scarf at the last minute before the vehicle left base. It was only when we got back to camp I realised the scarf was gone. As the sun rose and the morning warmed up, we all slowly delayered. I had folded up the scarf and tucked in behind me on the seat but it must have slipped out as we negotiated the bumpy dirt tracks of the reserve. It had been a risk to take the scarf along, I knew it at the time.

Two days later, on another morning drive, this time in the middle of my wildlife track and sign test, we rounded a corner and there on the side of the road was my scarf! Not all in one piece though. I had a little help gathering up all the damp scraps of wool, dirt and vegetation encrusted and smelling distinctly wild. Back at base I laid them all out trying to put the wool scarf puzzle back together. Turned out only one small section was missing!

Hyena tracks were all around the scene of the scarf wreckage so the conclusion was that younger members of the reserve’s clan had found my scarf and had a good old play. Some of the holes in bits of scarf look very much like bite marks and the centre of the scarf was ripped by claws.

The pieces of my favourite scarf were carefully packed away as my year of adventure and wandering continued.

As I have settled into my homecoming these past months, I have found time to stitch the hyena-mauled scarf back together. It as been a soulful experience and given me pause to reflect and meditate on Wild, Wildness and Wilderness.

Recently, my mom reminded me about the incredibly inspiring words of Ian McCallum. I started this post with his poem, Wilderness. I can’t express just how much his words resonate with me. I have such a Wild Heart and consider myself a bit of Wildhearted Revolutionary.

In the world of biodiversity conservation, Rewilding has become the latest in a long line of buzz words. We associate this concept as a good thing – a nature-based solution for tackling the environmental and social ills of our time.

But Wild, Wildness and Wilderness are terms very often having negative connotations such inhospitable, lack of discipline or restraint, lack of sound reasoning, neglected or abandoned or a position of disfavour, badlands or wastes.

Today I reclaim 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. I claim my Wildheartedness. I claim my Wildness. I claim back Wilderness for me and all my Soul Tribe.

Stitching my hyena-ripped scarf back together has become a symbol for me of my connection to Wild and Wilderness. My own metaphor for the journey I am on, connecting me to where I have been and where I am now.

A little bit of encouragement today to reclaim your Wildness 🖤

Find your peace in true Wilderness 🖤

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

Dreams Do Come True

Going to start by saying dreams really do come true.

It has been a while since I posted here. In this post from January – Adventure Awaits – I set an intention for 2022, this year of my dreams. Here is what I wrote:

A little post to share some big plans for 2022. It is time to focus on my passion project – Pure Spaces Education. Launched a year ago, my goal this year is to begin the journey from passion project to purposeful career. For more on this please see my latest blog post on the Pure Spaces website – Anticipation. I hope to keep the Pure Spaces blog updated during the year as adventures planned and unplanned unfold. So there won’t be many posts here at this stage. However, I will still keep posting images that inspire me along the way on Instagram @dragonfly.travelling. So please do follow me there for a peek into my 2022 adventures. Adventure awaits and hope floats 💚

I am floored reading all this through again in the context of the last nine months! Let me bring you up to speed…..

The first few months of 2022 turned out incredibly stressful with all my best laid plans for adventuring back to my homeland faced some substantial obstacles. And unlike my usual behaviour I had no plan B. My resilience and sense of hope were certainly tested during this time. But I was following my Dreaming Practice. These dreams for the year and beyond were carefully written and safely stored in my Dream Tin…. And so I tried to keep the faith that I was on the right path.

I arrived back in South Africa at the start of May to an unexpectedly warm welcome from the immigration official that left me sobbing with gratitude and relief. I was welcome home.

Then I went to Durban to meet up with one of the most incredible humans I am honoured to call my friend – Carla Geyser. I am utterly grateful to the Universe for our paths crossing. So much of what has eventuated these past months as dreams come true is due to being part of Carla’s tribe.

We spent all of May on the Rise of the Matriarch expedition, what I am now calling my Magical Month of May. Lots of reflections on this magic on the Pure Spaces blog:

ROTM 2022 – Genuine Connection

ROTM 2022 – Nyalazi Magic

ROTM 2022 – Phinda & Pangolins

ROTM 2022 – Kosi Culture

ROTM 2022 – Tembe Time

ROTM 2022 – Bittersweet Pongola

ROTM 2022 – Bees, Trees & Ellies

ROTM 2022 – Lycaon pictus

ROTM 2022 – Grace of Education

ROTM 2022 – Tracks Less Travelled

ROTM 2022 – Magic Mapungubwe

ROTM 2022 – Limpopo Love

This phenomenal Journey with Purpose was followed by three months completing a wildlife conservation research internship based on Karongwe Private Game Reserve near my Hoedspruit Happy Place.

Much of my reflection about those months at the GVI Limpopo base goes around Coexistence. But there was more to it in the end. This is what I wrote in those last days of the internship in my family and friends update:

What a rollercoaster these past months have been. I was so ready going into this to keep my armour in place. To matter-of-factly get what I needed from this internship and experience. I knew I would struggle with the communal living. I knew I would struggle with constant noise and other people’s energy interfering with my equilibrium. This last bit landed up being even harder than I anticipated. But what I realise now sitting here and reflecting back on the past months is that this place broke me open in a way I have not been exposed, probably since childhood. The most real version of me made a very rare appearance in all its too-muchness, in all its weirdness. I have danced again, I have sung again. I have belly laughed and ugly cried. And, you know what? I am okay. Nobody rejected me, nobody hurt me in my vulnerability. In fact, quite the opposite. I have made soul connections here I certainly did not see coming. Because it seems this particular environment means true colours shine through and true humanity is based on kindness and compassion when we are most raw and most vulnerable. I have learned so much about myself, again. About further developing resilience at your most vulnerable. About genuine connection. A reminder that no matter how much along the path of personal growth and awareness you think you are, the journey is never done.

Not to mention all the absolutely mind-blowing wildlife encounters and pure wild space sojourns I was privileged to experience during this time in lovely Limpopo.

As if this year could not hold more adventure, I then got to spend September on two separate road trips with Anam Cara (soul friends).

The first with an unexpected kindred spirit…. One of those letting it happen moments. We both took a chance on sharing the road from north Kruger to KZN and it turned out to be exactly what each of us needed. Two old souls (and extreme birding nerds 😊) who have finally met in this life…. to be continued…

The second adventure was a long-expected reunion tour to the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park fifteen years later….one of those making it happen moments. We had talked and planned this adventure so many times only to have some reason it could not work, even to the very last minute this time round. But we got there and it was magical and breath-taking in every way. We laughed and cried as we wandered down our memories. We laughed and cried as new memories were made. Our firm friendship established fifteen years ago, confirmed and strengthened by a return to where it all magically started.

Lots of highlights shared on Instagram for both these glorious September Wanderings.

My heart is full. My cup runneth over. All I have related in this post so far speak to Dream 2 – Wellness and Dream 3 – Belonging in my Dream Tin coming true.

I am writing this story in a reflection moment forced on me by those challenges that life throws your way from time to time. But I am grateful to have this time in a peaceful spot in my hometown surrounded by precious family. Remember that whole thing about the balance between making things happen and letting them happen?

And so to Dream 1 – Home. So much of the detail of this dream goes around what I wrote about in my Pure Spaces blog post – Anticipation.

“2022 is about starting the journey of progressing Pure Spaces from passion project to purposeful career. So no more day job for me. Throwing this Big Dream out to the universe.”

That purposeful career I was dreaming of is taking shape right here in Mzansi. From October I will be working for an organisation at the forefront of wildlife conservation in Africa. An organisation I have long admired and fan-girled over. I am beyond thrilled at this opportunity. It means I am directly contributing to the Conservation Collective I have been on the periphery of for so long. It means I get to resettle here in my homeland at the coalface of the boots-on-the-ground wildlife conservation work I have been so passionate about since childhood. It means I get to be close to my tribe of free spirits and Anam Cara so further adventuring can occur. It means my soul soars and my heart sings.

Dreams do come true.

But is it all rosy and easy, this dreaming lark? Most definitely not. There are some things you have to understand going into this practice. I wrote a bit about it in the first blog on Pure Spaces

“In the Okavango I learned about paradox. I learned about unconditional love. I learned that the sweet always comes with the bitter and vice versa. I learned that we cannot have it any other way or we would never grow. It is the Nature of existence.”

I wrote about it again in a recent Instagram post for Heritage Day –

Happy Heritage Day, Mzansi 🖤 Looking through recent pics to choose one for this post I catch my breath and tears well…. I have always felt a deep connection to this land where I was born. My incredibly privileged life’s journey has taken me many places around the world, but to have returned and reconnected with the pure wild spaces of my natural heritage these past months is a gift beyond expression…. the open roads that go ever on, the big skies, the light and colour that shift mood and magic each moment of the day, the unfathomable night sky, the hum of life everywhere you go, abundant birds, bugs and beasties – wild energy prickles all around, beautiful people with open hearts and generous spirits…. the bitterness of the struggle that is living here awakes your soul to the sweetness of what it means to be living in the spirit of Ubuntu…. my free spirit soars here like nowhere else 🖤

I think the Big Dreams we have come with a price. The price is letting go of all you think you can control. The price is vulnerability. The price is being willing to be broken open and your raw humanity exposed. The price is trust in a benevolent universe. All of these only Ego will see as a price. Your heart and soul will see it differently….. growth and connection and freedom…. So if you’re willing to risk it…. Dream 🖤