Finding True North: a festival for the likeminded

We are off on a break, sans digital devices and surrounded by trees. I can’t wait. At the same time, this weekend, a happy group of likeminded people are heading to Cockatoo Island in Sydney to enjoy a whole lot of yoga, meditation, music and mindful living at the Wanderlust Festival.

While this is new to me, it sounds like just my kind of event. It even reminds you to Find True North!

The good news is, Wanderlust festivals are held all over the world. So, if it’s your kind of event too, take a look see. And enjoy your week.

Wanderlust

[n] a strong or irresistible desire to
Travel • Practice Yoga • Listen to Music
Eat Well • Be Green • Appreciate Art
and create a community around mindful living

FIND YOUR TRUE NORTH IN 2015

Image borrowed from the Festival. Thank you – have a great event!

On suffering

Too much darkness in the world. Too much sadness, too much loss. Too much tragedy, pain, hurt and sorrow. Too much shame, damage, and misery.

Too many tears, fears, and anguish. Too much.

Just too much.

To those who are suffering, there are thoughts of love — from the greatest and smallest places, the strongest, and most gentle of minds. There are wishes for you, for peace and rest, healing and calm. For serenity and joy.

This is a week of tragedy. The terrible tragedies of each and every day, and the national tragedies we experience together, and hope never to see again. Some are shared widely, with noise, damaging fury and tears, some are tightly guarded, held in quiet, personal, agonising silence.

To those who suffer, today and tomorrow, to those who live with pain, hurt or with sorrowful memories that will never fade — in small ways, and in large — we are with you.

We are with you.

Now. Always.

Ever.

Penning the dragon, when life explodes.

It’s Christmas. And, like many of us, it’s a time of year that fills my soul with quiet sense of warmth and happiness.

Location, location. Finding your spiritual home.

Some years back a friend posed this question: you live where you live. But in all the places you’ve been and the homes you’ve enjoyed, where, on our earth, is your spiritual home?

A warmth of gratitude and beauty

Some truly touching thoughts on the beauty of life and gratitude, to warm your day.

Enjoy.

A week of underachieving: 4 ways to ease the mind

We all have them. Frantic weeks, weeks with illness, weeks with visitors, or too many activities to attend, schedule, manage. Weeks with broken toys and chewed books to repair. Weeks with calls to make, family to see and urgent tasks. Sometimes weeks with all of these at once.

Every now and then life just piles up and you realise that your To Do list is more overwhelming than soothing in its sense of order, your personal butler is still a lottery win away and there’s no babysitter who can magically take the small folk off to the park for say…six hours, to help you whittle the list down to a manageable size.

And this is where we are this week. Because this week, I fought the battle with my To Do list, and, by all accounts, I lost.

How home made glue helps lift a mood

Today I made a collage. I could slick that up as a vision board or something a tad more glamorous, but there it is really: a collage.

Creating memories. One photo at a time.

I recently watched this great TED talk on the power and value in creating memories. It’s something dear to all of us.

 

What do you do to create yours?

The restorative power of silence

I recently read an article about a celebrity who enjoyed hiking. In. silence.

A somewhat surprised tone came through the piece that she hiked, in nature… without. an. ipod.

Well, indeed.

Daydreaming: 3 reasons to wander

At around the age of seven I was a happy, daily, daydreamer. More often in the world of stories from beloved novels, or playing out some grand adventure of exploring, mystery solving or creativity, my daydreams were a colourful, happy place. Over time, they slowly abated, and when the minutiae of life took over, it seems they were gradually put to bed.

It was only this morning, when some time alone led to my mind wandering that I pulled up and noticed the happy place in which I’d been: smack bang in the middle of a restful, energising, fabulously creative daydream. And the fact that I noticed this, and remembered all those dreams of the past, made me wonder: what happened to all that daydreaming? Where did it go?