Part I

A favourite little bowl of mine has just been chipped. I notice my immediate reaction is a soft sinking feeling of disappointment, but then I begin to think… Why? It’s still a beautiful little bowl, it just has a chip in it now.

And I begin to wonder when did we start to throw things away (wherever Away is) when they became flawed in their perfection. Not any less functional, but less aesthetically pleasing. When did we begin to find imperfection less beautiful? This is not something I have the answer to, but for me the wondering shifts something. Creates a desire to not let imperfection lessen my perception of value in something still perfectly functional and beautiful.

Just a thought.

Part II

Dinner tonight is just-out-of-the-oven-warm banana cake made with almond meal, coconut oil and maple syrup. (recipe here)

Oh the joy of being a grown up.

A decision to do something with the overripe bananas leads to cake baking. And as the husky notes of Etta James fill the kitchen, I find simple pleasure and presence in easing a warm slice out of the tin (imperfect as it sticks to the base) into a bowl with a dollop of organic apple & cinnamon yoghurt.

 

How did I get to be forty one and need a piece of paper to figure out what I’m feeling and what I need?…

Until very recently, I considered myself a skilled communicator. Most of my training and professional experience is directly related to communication – advocacy, PR, marketing. I love talking with people, I love to write. And yet three weeks ago I spent a weekend learning a process of communication which has left me feeling a mix of things – disconcerted, excited, transformed and empowered.

Non-Violent Communication (the marketer in me at this point mutters ‘terrible name’ – but see below for the reason*) was developed by American psychologist Marshall B. Rosenberg. It is, simply put, a way of communicating from the heart. The foundation of NVC is about connecting with what you’re feeling and what you need, in the present. Doing your best not to get caught up in the stories of the past or assumptions about the future, this is about what are you feeling now and what you need.

Pause for a moment and think about that. No, really, stop. Now. What are you feeling?… Curious, happy, relaxed, tired, edgy, stressed, distracted. What do you need?…Rest, space, fun, competence, understanding, cooperation. Sounds easy doesn’t it?…But I’m finding it surprisingly challenging.

And it’s not just me. There were seven of us participating in the weekend workshop and all of us (in our thirties and forties) in our different ways, successful and accomplished. Yet more than once I caught myself observing, astounded and amused (most of all at myself), a group of highly competent people standing around staring at a piece of paper trying to connect with what it is they were feeling in that moment and what they needed. “I am feeling….hmmmmm….because I need….hmmmm.”

Part of my skill as a communicator is, I suspect, a result of being an only child and only Wellington grandchild of highly articulate and intellectual people. From a very early age I sat at the dinner table and was expected to engage in conversation. But it was conversation of the mind not the heart. This is of course a generalisation, but I find it hard to reflect on thirty plus years of family conversation and remember a time when feelings were at the centre of the table. This was reinforced by my formal education at a highly academic school and then a law degree. I am trained to use an analytical, judgmental and strategic mind to communicate. I am not trained, not practiced, in communicating from the heart.

If feelings and needs are the foundation of NVC, empathy is the core. For this is not just about connecting with my own feelings and needs but those of the people I’m communicating with. During conflict, I’m learning to listen to – without judgment – what my colleague, partner or friend is feeling and needing. Without getting caught up in blame and shame and responsibility.

The trouble is that having opened the door to a heart based process of communication, I find it impossible to close, let alone pretend I haven’t seen it. Now, just a few weeks into practicing a new way of communicating, I find myself in the middle of conflict suddenly and acutely aware of how much I’m caught up in my own story. The story of long playing family dynamics or assumptions about how the other person is going to behave based on past experience, rather than what we’re both feeling in the present, what we both need.

It’s not quite that simple of course. This feels like and in fact is, learning a new language. I’m still unskilled at connecting with my own feelings and even more unskilled at connecting with my needs. Partly because I am a caregiver by nature and nurture (my pattern is to care for others first and not connect with and take care of my own needs) but mostly because this is not the way we’re trained to communicate with ourselves and with each other.

By the way, if this all sounds too woo-woo for you, bear in mind that Marshall Rosenberg has used this process working in conflict ridden places around the globe, include Nigeria, Israel and Palestine, Afghanistan, Bosnia and the list goes on. This is a powerful and well-used tool. If you’re interested you can read about some of his work here.

I’ve talked (ok, probably raved a little) about NVC since its crossed my path, but honestly this stuff is GOOD. One of the things that seems to capture the imagination of those who’ve been on the receiving end of my enthusiasm is the notion that what you say to me – particularly in conflict – is not necessarily what I hear you say. So often I translate what you say to me through the story I’m caught up in at that moment and my assumptions about you. Harsh but true. There is considerable benefit in simply asking someone who is reacting emotionally/negatively to what you’re saying by asking them gently if they would tell you what they heard you say. You might just be surprised…

Look, I could go on. But let me finish with this. I feel (huh) given my background in communications that I can say without hesitation this is one of the most powerful tools I’ve encountered.  I can share with you how revealing it is to sit quietly next to the lovely man I share my life with, after a night of lying awake struggling to connect with what I’m feeling and what I need, and be able to say to him “in this moment, this is what I’m feeling, this is what I need” and have that simply heard and responded to with his own feelings and needs. Without judgement, without blame, without expectation.

I’m excited by the potential, at home, at work, at play.

Watch this space.

P.S. Our NVC teacher was fantastic. If you’re interested in learning more, email me at tink@onemeall.org and we’ll hatch a plan.

* Marshall was inspired by the writings and actions of nonviolence activists like Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. Apparently the word nonviolence is the closest literal translation that Gandhi found to the Sanskrit word ahimsa. Although in English this word appears as a negation, in Sanskrit naming a concept or quality through negation instead of directly is sometimes a way of suggesting it is too great to be named. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Many years ago, I worked in international animal welfare. In choosing photos for marketing campaigns we came up with the ‘nose scratch factor’ – show the photo to someone and if they almost immediately went ‘aww’ and reached out to scratch the nose of the animal on the photograph, we had a winner.

I’m endeavoring to do a similar thing with photos of food. But instead of scratching it, I want you to eat. Even better than that would be if you were inspired to cook it and eat it. No, wait, even better would be if you could grow part of it and eat it.

I love food. For me it is a constant connection to nature. A way of connecting with people. One of my favourite quotes is from Hippocrates who said ‘Let food be thy medicine and let thy medicine be food’. I get that. I know, simply from my own experience, that what I eat plays a major role in how healthy I am.

Over the last year, a number of possibilities for Peka Peka have begun to emerge and one of them (rapidly becoming a probability) is a food forest. My imagination has been captured by the idea of growing a forest of food. The kind of food Hippocrates had in mind. Yummy stuff but also healing stuff. This also speaks loudly to me of biomimicry, of learning from Nature. When asking myself ‘how would Nature grow food?’, acre after acre of the same crop sprayed within an inch of its life (and ours) with pesticide is not what springs to mind.

I could go on. And on. Food, it would seem, is one of the main ways I connect dots. But instead, I’m going to leave you with a recipe for this evening’s ridiculously simple, delicious and nutritious meal. Taking a photo of it prompted me to write this post, as I realised that if I really do want you to make it and eat it, a ‘how to’ would probably help…

Smoked fish with brown rice and sea vegetables.

Ingredients

1 cup of organic brown rice

180 grams of smoked fish (The Smokehouse produce is gorgeous)

1 tablespoon of miso paste (if you haven’t tried it, I highly recommend Urban Hippie miso)

a small handful of wakame (I use Pacific Harvest)

another small handful of karengo (also Pacific Harvest)

sesame oil

a lemon

a drizzle of hot sauce (if you like)

Method

Let the smoked fish warm to room temperature while the rice is cooking, it’s much tastier warmed up a little. When the rice is ready, take two small soup bowls adding half a tablespoon of miso to each, along with half a cup of boiling water. When the miso has dissolved add half of the wakame to each bowl, sit back and watch as it unfolds into beautiful deep green fronds. Or not. If you want to keep busy, find two slightly larger bowls and add as much brown rice as you like, flake half the smoked fish into each, divide the karengo between the two servings along with most of the wakame from the miso, leaving just enough to perk up the miso!

The final touches are simply to squeeze half a lemon over each serving, drizzle some sesame oil, add a touch of hot sauce if want it a little bit spicy and Bob’s your Uncle…While this isn’t a super quick meal because the rice takes 20-30 minutes to cook, the rest of it takes 5 minutes or less. At which point you can happily sit down with miso soup and a bowl of rice-y goodness to follow.

 

One of the most effective pieces of advice I’ve encountered in recent years has been from the late Sir Paul Callaghan. A friend who knew him well said that one of the best things you could say about Sir Paul was that he was the most Paul Callaghan he could be. His words struck a deep chord. We live in turbulent times and many people I know are challenged by how to find their purpose, be of service and make the world a better place. I whole heartedly believe that one of the best things you can do, and be, is the most you.

At forty, I’ve had my fair share of life experience. But in many respects I’ve done what the system expected. Achieved well at school, went onto university, followed a career path, at least for a while…But this path does not necessarily, in fact often doesn’t, allow much room for your true, full self to step out of the wings and onto the stage. My conscious journey  in this respect began with the decision to explore a business idea, reduce my paid working hours and follow my nose. My nose hasn’t led me in a particularly linear direction I have to say. I’ve had to stop and have conversations with it occasionally, asking if it knows where it’s going. Sometimes it doesn’t, instead quietly it asks me to trust. Have faith. Have fun. Become increasingly comfortable with the unknown.

Chiaroscuro is an art term referring to the use of light and dark to achieve a heightened illusion of depth. If I imagine a painting of myself, being the most Tink I can be means exploring not just how light is used, but dark. What lies in the shadow, where is the contrast.

I’ve spent a good part of today feeling out of sorts. There were moments in which I wasn’t sure whether I felt weepy or snappy. I sat in a meeting this afternoon and there was too much information. I wanted to go home and run along the beach in the howling wind. Or lie in a warm bath. Or eat dark chocolate. Or do all three.

The actual writing part 1 of the story of Frank was remarkably effortless, the words flowed, but its been a long time in the making. The hitting the publish button was the hard part. Reaching out with this stuff still doesn’t come easily. And the effort of it has left me depleted. In addition, I then spent yesterday morning facilitating the handover from one of Mum’s new carers to another. I’m told that this is the hardest stage of dementia. Mum knows something is seriously wrong. She wants to know what we can do to fix it. I have to gently tell her that we can’t.

Becoming the most Tink I can be also means become familiar with who I am, and how I am, when I’m out of balance. When I’m tired, stretched to thin, depleted. The shadow side of the luminous me is the one inclined to retreat, feel overwhelmed with responsibility, alone, under-resourced. If I’m in my element connecting, this part of me wants to disconnect. This journey of figuring out how I can be the most me I can be is learning that sometimes when I’m in this space, the very best thing I can do is the last thing I feel like doing – connect, reach out. But sometimes, what is most nourishing are the things I really want to do. Have a glass of red wine and dark chocolate. Soak in bath. Curl my toes into sand. Watch a movie and escape.

But I don’t always know. I don’t always get it right and redress the balance. Sometimes I get it wrong. I snap. And snarl a little. And weep, sometimes a lot. And that’s okay too.

“There is strong shadow where there is much light.” Johann, Wolfgang von Goethe.

In the wake of posting part 1 of this story, I ‘ve received some lovely feedback and engaged in thought-provoking  conversations.  I concluded one email to a friend with the words below and tonight they seem fitting words with which to conclude…

“…in the face of Mum’s deterioration and climate change etc etc etc to convince me of how much I want to live my life with light and joy and love and belly-aching laughter. To be kind to animals, play with children, stop and have conversations with old people. Be silly. Be brave. Be vulnerable. The hardest part at the moment with Mum is seeing her aware of how much she has f….. up. So much regret. So many opportunities not taken, possibilities not explored. One of the best things I can do to help her story seem less of a tragedy is being the most me, the most Tink, I can be.”

How can you be more fully you? What are those facets of yourself you’ve yet to explore, step into, reveal? Who are you, and how are you, when you’re out of balance? What is the shadow that creates light?… Food for thought I hope.

 

 

 

In three weeks, I’ll have been at Peka Peka for one year. This is a little of what I’ve learned.

Go barefoot. I have between 100,00-200,000 exteroceptors (a sensory nerve ending stimulated by the immediate external environment) in each of my feet and they love being bare. Preferably on the sand or grass, and if it’s the latter, dewy is even better. If you’re not willing to take my word for it, here is an article on the benefits of being barefoot.

Sleep is the bomb. Most of us don’t get nearly enough, particularly the early ‘core sleep’, quality is apparently just as important as quantity. You hear people say they get used to sleep deprivation, actually the vast majority of us don’t. After a year of raising two high energy puppies who for the first 6 months woke at least once during the night needing  to pee, I have considerably more sympathy for new parents. Sleep is an enormously important ingredient in our recipe for self-healing, lack of it can make us more anxious, affect food choices and lead to disease. Again, if you won’t take my word for it, click here and here.

The trick to not feeling overwhelmed by a large house (never owned a house before and this one is 300 sqm) and 12 acres of land with 2 acres of garden (never had a garden before) is to not feel overwhelmed. Occasionally this is easier said than done, but it turns out that step 1 is to make a conscious decision not to feel overwhelmed. Step 2 is to break it down into steps. And realise that I don’t have to deal with all the weeds in one day. Or even one week.

I’m considerably more handy than I thought. I’m not one for reading instruction manuals. I bave spent my adult life thus far considering myself far from handy. But it’s amazing what you can do when you have to. When no-one else is around to fix things. Or they are, but it’s your responsibility. At 11pm two days before Christmas, wickedly tired, I downloaded the manual for my dishwasher, disassembled and reassembled part of it in order to fix the fact it wasn’t cleaning properly.

I love it here. Recently, I read an excellent blogpost by Umair Haique on How to Let Your Purpose Find You. His advice is to be uncool enough to love.

“In our overly numb culture of icy cool, when we do feel something, we so often feel the opposite of love: hate, anger, fear, and envy. And those can give you drive. But drive isn’t purpose — drive is a fury to be slaked, an ambition to be achieved. Purpose is love, not just little-l love, but Big Love, the grand affair that defines a life — first between you and your better, fuller, truer, worthier self; and then between your that self and the world.”

This place found me. I fit in. It’s not that I don’t or haven’t fitted in, in other places. But this one is different. An essential element of practicing biomimicry (an ’emerging discipline of an ancient practice’) is understanding that we are a part of Nature. And we need to learn how to fit in again. I’m learning that here. Learning to listen to the pohutukawas breathe as they sit in a circle surrounding the house. I watch the hawks swoop leisurely up and up and up on currents of air and in some strange inexplicable way, a part of myself takes flight too. I’m learning to listen, observe, take baby steps in order to connect with an inherent wisdom we’ve somehow, mostly, forgotten. But with the help of the 100,000 exteroceptors in my feet, I’m beginning to remember.

I’m making up for nearly five months of no blog posts, so in addition to How the mulch stole my purpose, posted this evening, here is the first in a series of guest posts from people I feel very lucky to be connected to. The first is Sam Rye. Sam is a Connector at Bucky Box & Enspiral, dabbles in communications and is an ‘excited-amateur’ when it comes to photography. Sam has played a key role in helping me establish the seed group of New Zealand regional biomimicry network here at Peka Peka, in fact his support has been invaluable. So, without further ado, I’ll pass you onto the wonderful Sam and his wonderful world…

I feel very lucky to be part of a small group with big plans.

About two years ago I was introduced to the wonderful Tink through a mutual friend. We both liked coffee, called ourselves connectors (in the absence of knowing how to describe our ability to make ideas, people & resource smoosh together at the right time), and seemed to have a bit of a reverence for the natural world.

We kept in touch, carried on drinking coffee, and after awhile we kept circulating around this idea of Biomimicry. We knew other people who were interested, and we convinced Tink to take us out for a stroll to introduce us to the skills she’d picked up in Costa Rica at the Biomimicry Institute training she’d attended.

Biomimicry (from bios, meaning life, and mimesis, meaning to imitate) is a new discipline that studies nature’s best ideas and then imitates these designs and processes to solve human problems. Studying a leaf to invent a better solar cell is an example. I think of it as “innovation inspired by nature.”

We began gathering at Tink’s beautiful home in Peka Peka, where a sense of perspective pervades your thoughts at every turn, and time seems elastic.  Slowly these have built over the last few months, and it’s become a monthly gathering with people ebbing in and out depending on their availability, but always with biomimicry on the table as the reason – that and the chance to break bread and share a meal.

Sunday was our last gathering before Christmas, where a small but perfectly formed group came together to spend a day dabbling with the process of the early stages of design challenges where we identified a function (e.g. temperature regulation), and then spent some time thinking about examples in nature that we knew of, as well as seeking out new ones around us.  Peering closely at leaves, watching the soft yet abrasive tongues of the dogs, observing the root structures across rocky forest floors, and breaking down seed pods to understand their biology.  As you might be able to tell – I am extremely happy in this space.

We progressed onto the most pressing and interesting design challenge – the future of Tink’s place in Peka Peka.  With a vision of creating a world class biomimicry experience where people could come together to engage in cross-disciplinary workshops to create, challenge and invent, we roamed the perimeter observing slopes, microclimates, water flow, and a host of other elements which we aim to map for future sessions of visioning & design.

Coming together at the end of the day, we threw around ideas and feelings of what this place meant to us, what it held in possibility and perspective.  I tried to explain the magnetism I feel toward Kapiti Island – how it’s presence is always with me, and whether it’s the seismic lines from the South Island which run through the area, or whether there’s ‘something else’ at play. I realised quickly that I don’t have the language for this, I never grew up with people talking about the Land, energy, or anything remotely spiritual. I grew up in London, a predominantly built environment, in a society which largely shunned the non-Scientific.  Having spent a lot of time in areas with virgin or mostly intact ecosystems, I’ve become intrigued in what I don’t know – not taxonomy or scientific explanations, so much as that which I have no language for. I’m lucky that some people I know here are open to talking about that, and I am slowly indulging in seeking out and listening to some gems of ‘indigenous wisdom’ – to people who’ve lived & survived with the land or those that have listened to stories passed down.

I headed back to Paekakariki with a warm & tired glow, and after the previous day’s allergic reaction to our Christmas tree (who knew pine trees & pine nuts would give similar reactions?), I just hoped to get some wedding planning done and enjoy the sunshine.  Still, a further bout of hay fever began to take hold, so I figured it was time for some saline therapy before bed. I threw on my togs and took to the beach.

I arrived as the sun blazed it’s final golden rays out across the water to the beach, the sea wall, and glinted back off the windows of houses along the parade.

The water was luke warm – not so cold as to make me recoil as I waded in and dived under the quicksilver waves. I swam out away from the shore, loving the opportunity to be suspended in the gentle lilt of the Tasman Sea.

The sun, still a bright orange, flamed back at me as a paddleboarder made their way across the near horizon.

As the golds slowly gave way to myriad hues of yellows, oranges, greens, reds and pinks, the South Island silhouetted against the sunset, and Kapiti Island slunk low in the waters out to the west.

Fire seemingly burned in the clouds, and I couldn’t help but be grateful this is the special place I call home.

Recently I found myself oddly disconnected from part of my purpose, connecting. I can’t emphasise enough how much I love connecting, with people and places and information. Not long ago I asked fellow connectors to suggest a title for my LinkedIn page as I was stumped and suggestions included ‘serial connector’ and ‘sustainable dot-joiner’. And yet suddenly, there I was one morning, sitting at the kitchen table thinking about two upcoming events in Wellington (my home town = perfect opportunities to connect) which normally would have me fizzing with excitement. But there was not a single fizz in sight.

Not even a bubble.

The thought of engaging in conversation, absorbing new information, connecting dots, left me, if not cold, then most certainly luke warm. Because what I really wanted to do was put mulch on the garden.

Gardening and I are newly acquainted. My grandmother was an exceptional and devoted gardener but until very recently, it appeared to have skipped not just one but two generations. Initially it was a case of being thrown in the deep end i.e. finding myself in possession of 12 acres. I was not a little daunted and I can’t say I was in my element dealing with weeds. But then I discovered mulch.

Not long after moving here, the wonderful Kath Irvine from the Edible Backyard came to visit and her advice was to spend time clearing out, sheltering from the south and opening it up to the north, before I really considered planting anything other than herbs. So a few months later, Bruce, the arborist followed in her footsteps and consequently I now have two enormous piles of mulch.

They took me by surprise, these piles of mulch. I didn’t expect to like them so much. Big mounds of plant matter which look like Autumn and smell like Spring. I had no idea I would lose myself in the process of pulling up weeds or weed mat, piling in deep dark rich organic soil and then inch upon inch, wheelbarrows full, of mulch.

The sense of satisfaction is almost visceral. I have an active mind, I find it hard not to think, but something about mulch makes me want to not think and instead, just Be. Present. To stop and smell the lemon blossom, to put my face up to the sun, drink in its warmth and for a few full moments  absorb its light as much as it’s warmth.

Synchronistically, my infatuation with mulch has  happened at the same time as I’ve been sitting with the question ‘What does it really mean to Be In Nature?’ For two reasons, one is that the recently founded Biomimicry Aotearoa network is now based (at least initially) at Peka Peka and the philosophy at the centre of practice of biomimicry is reconnecting with Nature. Secondly, in the process of testing a series of retreats/workshops here, it increasingly feels to me as if key aspect of the offering is being in nature, being a part of it.  I want to learn how to facilitate that, amplify it. And while no doubt some desk research and learning from knowledgeable people will follow, at the moment I’m simply trying to feel it.

While preparing for the last biomimicry workshop of the year, I listened to a lecture by Dayna Baumeister (one of the co-founders of Biomimicry 3.8) in which she describes biomimicry as ‘an emerging discipline of an ancient practice’. Spending time with my hands gathering mulch and my feet in the Earth feels like the beginning of remembering an ancient practice.

So yes, the mulch stole my purpose. For a few days it stopped me from connecting with people and information and new places, but then it gave me my purpose back. Enriched, enlivened, restored. As we wind down for the Christmas holidays, I hope you have space to disconnect from the busyness and business of your life and that you spend some time with your ‘mulch’, whatever that might be.

 

Once upon a time…

…nearly twenty years ago, a young law student named Tink sat in a boring law lecture. Or at least she found it boring, most likely there were others who found commerical law highly engaging, but Tink didn’t. Instead she sat sketching on a piece of A4 paper, trying to capture an image held in her mind’s eye of a series of buildings wrapped around a hillside overlooking the ocean. In her mind, or rather somewhere in her soul, the sense of this place was vivid, it seemed to call out across time and space but the details were indistinct.

For years the piece of paper sat folded up in a box of  journals that Tink stored in her parents’ garage when she moved to Sydney. Sadly, her father tended towards shock-&-awe cleaning sessions so although she’d scrawled all over the box  ‘Please do not throw out. Please do not throw out. Please do not throw out’, he threw it out. Yet while the piece of paper disappeared, the image in her mind did not. And occasionally it would surface again leaving Tink to wonder if the place existed, where, when.

Many years later, back in New Zealand, Tink found herself traveling on a weekly basis up and down the Kapiti Coast in the course of developing a project. At the time, she was living in a rented space and occasionally she turned her mind to putting down roots. The round trip would take her two and a half hours and without being entirely conscious of it, she began to pay attention – almost peripherally – to the landscape she drove through.

It didn’t take long for Tink to became aware of a stretch of land which seemed to sparkle in a way nowhere else did. Driving north between Waikanae and Otaki, through Peka Peka, the land rises surprisingly steeply away from the coast up into peaks covered in pine trees. For some reason she became increasingly drawn not just to the stretch of land but a particular road. It was as if there was an insistent little elf perched under the street sign on the edge of the highway beckoning to her. Eventually she relented and one day flicked on the indicator, drove across the railway lines and headed up Hadfield Rd.

Reaching the top, Tink wanted to turn right, but couldn’t – either direction led into private driveways – so she simply turned the car around, parked and instantly felt a kind of ‘voooooooomphhh’. A sweeping in and a landing. The sound a big bird makes when its wings fold in and it touches down. She sat there for minutes, looking down over rolling green paddocks, sand dunes, out onto the ocean, across to Kapiti Island and she thought ‘One day, one day, I would like to live here’. Yet having no idea how that would be, could be, possible.

Nearly three years later finds Tink living in her grandmother’s house. The family had kept in on while Mary, the matriarch, lived with advanced Alzheimers’ in residential care. The big old home was a a useful base for visiting relatives but when she died they all began to consider its fate and Tink began to consider her next move. Having never seriously looked at real estate before, late one night as the old wooden house shuddered in a Winterly gale she sat up in bed, idly googled realestate.co.nz and searched for Peka Peka. Somewhat to her surprise, the results included a place in Hadfield Rd. She sat with that for a while.

As Spring began to blossom, she searched again and found the place still on the market. This time she thought ‘Maybe, just maybe, I should go and have a look’ and as Spring became Summer, Tink drove up Hadfield Rd again, this time allowing the car to turn right at the top. At the end of the driveway, slowly drawing to a halt in front of the house, she found the location of the image she’d captured on a piece of paper in a commercial law class nearly twenty years before. A house on a piece of land which wraps around the hills of Peka Peka.

The late summer breeze rustled the scarlet petals of the bougainvillea as Tink moved in to the house on the hill accompanied by a puppy called Audrey, Andre & Claude the cats and a big vision. Melissa from the Powa Centre followed a week later. The two women had begun a dialogue about a shared vision for a well-being centre in central Wellington several months earlier and in the course of many conversations they’d become friends, soul-sistahs. And they began to realise that not only did they share a vision that related to ‘work’ but a much more holistic one relating to how they would like to live. A way of sharing resources, of enjoying the company of animals yet retaining the freedom to travel and of experiencing a much closer connection to Nature.  Of building something.

Sitting in that lecture theatre all those years ago…

…I really couldn’t make sense of the image I tried to sketch. The structures seemed to incorporate more than one house and extended beyond the residential. Now, as I walk along the beach looking back up at the hills or through the paddocks below the house, that original image is coming into clearer and clearer focus. It is beginning to make a great deal more sense.

My vision for this space, in years to come, is to develop it into something akin to a tiny – very cool – village. A place which includes not only homes to others who want to live much more sustainably, but an innovation space, a retreat, a place to practice biomimicry, embodied practices, grow food, somewhere dots both big and small can be connected. A place of healing.

In my bones, I feel that this is a place for people to gather and out of the space in between us I know that more of the detail will emerge and become manifest. Monthly biomimcry meet-ups now take place here. We’ve already trialled a retreat. As of this morning, there is a very large piece of paper on the kitchen table with a basic outline of the land and some tentative sketches of what might emerge. So we shall see…

It is said that all good stories have a beginning, middle and end…

But ‘so we shall see…’ is not how this one ends. Quite the reverse. In my heart, I know this is the beginning of something wonderful and powerful. A book full of stories and not just mine. So please, come back and visit. If this story resonates with you in anyway, I would love to hear from you. And watch this space. I’ll continue to share how the image of structures wrapping their way around a Peka Peka hill moves from a piece of paper into a world of many more dimensions.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’m in Sydney. And I’ve had my faith in humanity (which I lost very briefly) restored by a delightful Christian Lebanese taxi driver and shoes made from recycled materials.

Sydney and I have a complex relationship. I lived here for 5 years. Of my time in this city I have some very happy memories but also some very sad ones.  This is a stunningly beautiful place, but it can be tough. It felt like a rat race in 1998 when I moved here, but by crikey, it feels even more like one now. Has it changed? Have I? Or have we both?

I spent the first day or so back here – some would say misguidedly –  in the middle of the CBD shopping. Having been told that the new Westfield has the most amazing food hall, I headed in that direction.

Four hours later, having wound my way around close to one hundred stores in just two very large shopping centres, I was well and truly experiencing sensory overload. They say we’re exposed to over 3000 marketing messages a day,  it felt like my experience exceeded that by far. BUY BUY BUY BUY BUY. Every single store designed to lure you in. But the weird thing was that in the middle of it all, the majority of retail assistants simply didn’t seem to care.

I went in search of shoes and found myself in Camper in the Queen Victoria building. Spotting a pair I liked the look of, I asked the girls where they were made. In China, they replied. Not having an issue with the fact that product is made in China but possibly the process, I asked about Camper’s sustainability practices. They had no idea. Their website couldn’t tell me anything either. So no shoes from Camper. Having somewhat over ambitiously arrived with only a carry-on sized bag, I went in search of a fold down, extra bag. Cue Crumpler. Again, made in China. Again, no idea how. Beside Crumpler is a clothing store called Alastair Chung. Full of sumptious cashmere clothes and horn jewellery on sale. ‘It’s on sale’, a voice said from behind me. Turning to ask the woman where the horn is from, she replied slightly crossly  ‘I don’t know.’ Then thinking about it for a nano-second longer, she said ‘All over’. Oh good.

With my whole food salad leaking beetroot juice tucked under my arm, I headed back to Bec’s home in Greenwich. As I sat on the train, frowning, I suggested to the Universe that I could really, really, do with something to restore my faith in humankind.

Fifteen minutes later, I was sitting at the table feeling very grateful for my privileged position of being on holiday in Sydney eating scrumptious food staying with beloved friends and yet still feeling almost acutely disenchanted with the human race. But – and let me assure you I’m aware of the irony here – I was determined to find some gorgeous new shoes, I let my fingers do the walking and with wry amusement discovered a store just up the road. 106 Alexander – has a passion for a design and a philosophy for sustainability. I could see from their website that they stock Terra Plana, shoes made from recycled materials by a company which is committed to sustainability. A quick phone called confirmed they had the particular shoes I was after (heavens knows why I wasn’t this strategic in the first place) in my size.

Twenty minutes later, I bundled my self and my suitcase (I was changing accommodation and heading to Bondi) into a cab and zipped into Crow’s Nest to collect the shoes. The taxi driver, determining that I was going further afield than the shoe shop agreed to wait without charging me and as we talked on the way to Bondi, he told me his story. A Christian Lebanese man, his wife comes from the north of Lebanon, he himself, hails from further south. He would love to go back as his father is old, but he says it is not safe. I mentioned that my Aunt’s brother-in-law is from Lebanon and recently she and my Uncle visited them and walked through the ancient Cedars.

“I went back there” he said “some years ago when it was safe and visited the Cedars for the first time. I’d never been up north before. And the very first thing that came into my head when I saw them was if there is a God this is where he lives. Nature.”

And just like that, my faith in humanity was restored.

Yes, I was pleased to get new shoes, knowing they were produced with sustainability in mind. But it was hearing someone speak from his heart, of the beauty of nature, that touched mine.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. If they’re correct, I hope these pictures paint a story of a peaceful Sunday at Peka Peka. Harvesting from an abundant lime tree. Hangin’ out with with happy dogs. Basking in soft autumn light. Sitting quietly observing a sleeping dragon as the sun sets.