Three weeks ago I adopted a dog called Riva, the grandfather of my border collie puppy Audrey. I certainly hadn’t intended to get another dog quite so soon, but when I visited the puppies, I mentioned to the breeder that I’d like to get a second dog at some stage and she told me that after many years of breeding collies she’d decided to stop and would reluctantly need to re-home a few, specifically those with easy temperaments.

I fell in love with Riva immediately. It seems that everyone does. Even people who aren’t really dog people. Even people who are afraid of dogs. There is just something about him. He is such a gentle soul. Although only 5 years old, because he’s grey and I usually introduce him to people as Audrey’s grand-dad, people immediately assume he’s old. And there is something vulnerable about him. Maybe because he’s been suffering from the canine version of a nervous breakdown.

Due to his exceptional temperament, the breeder assumed he’d come up and settle in over the weekend. However he arrived in the back of a horse-truck, straight off the ferry, traumatised. And until yesterday, I’d been seriously considering – on a daily basis – sending him back, because it just seemed as if it would be the best thing for him. He was spending most of his time in his crate. He startled at every noise. 99% of the time he’d cling to me, a shadow at my side, then very occasionally, terrifyingly, he’d run. Once he miraculously made it safely across State Highway One. A couple of times at night, taking him outside on the lead, I had a sense that if I let him off he’d try and run back to Nelson.

His not coping, has taken the breeder completely by surprise. She’d been so very sad to send him away, she loved him dearly, but she genuinely thought that because he’s such a social dog, moving up here would be easy and the best thing for him. Neither of us anticipated his reaction. Over the last few weeks, he’s seemed so unclear about where he is and who he is. The look in his eyes has reminded me of family members lost in dementia, the fear of being disconnected from yourself.

I’ve wondered, at times, what I was doing wrong. Unable to figure it out, as life here is pretty idyllic for canine friends. Acres to run around in, company, frequent runs on the beach, meaty bones, a cat that actually likes to be chased. It never occurred to me that I might be giving him too much space to run around in, too much freedom, too little structure.

Earlier this week a dog whisperer came to visit and he gently suggested that for a week or so, it might be a good idea to walk Riva around the boundary on a lead at least once a day. Let him get used to his new territory. Walk and feed him at the same time everyday. Allow him to retreat to his safe space, his crate, when he needs to. Take it slowly and gently.

I’ve only just remembered that for two weeks after I moved here, I’d walk around the boundary every morning and evening. Get a sense of the place. Find my rhythm. Find my space. It was at least a fortnight before I went for a run on the beach.

I’m not sure whether it was simply two days of more structure, or maybe after 3 and a bit weeks he’s finally starting to settle in. Maybe it’s the Australian  Bush Remedy – Emergency Essence – he is an Australia pup after all…But last night he padded into the kitchen with a completely different look in his eye. He seemed, suddenly, present. While his body has been here for 3 weeks, it’s as if his spirit has just caught up with him and structure has, I’ve absolutely no doubt, has made a huge difference.

So often, it seems to me, we forget that we’re animals. Human animals with big brains and wondrous technology at our fingertips, but still animals. We’re much more instinctive than we give ourselves credit for. We’re considerably more attuned to our environment and the creatures we share it with than we realise. Adopting Riva has been a challenging but valuable lesson in how we as fellow critters, respond and adapt to change. A reminder that when we move, when significant things change  – homes, jobs, relationships – a little bit of structure can go a long way.

 

I watched an old dog on the beach yesterday.

The morning was an absolute pearler. Clear blue sky, warm, calm waters. Children were making sandcastles, horses were being exercised, families out fishing. And I was attempting to tire out Audrey the 4 month old border collie puppy. As we walked my attention was caught by an old golden retriever ambling slowly down across the sand dunes. I used to work in animal welfare so I know I’m not supposed to anthropomorphize, but it seemed to me that as he did, he was smiling a wistful smile.

As I watched, he got half way down to the water, paused and sniffed the air. Then he spotted Audrey frolicking in the shallows with her slightly too big stick and stopped. He stood there for  a noticeably long time, just watching her. And there was something about his gaze that made me think he was remembering being a boisterous young puppy, bounding in and out of the water. There was something so poignant in that moment, that I found myself smiling and welling up at the same time.

As I watched, the old fella walked slowly onto the wet sand and rolled onto his back, scratching deliciously from side to side, wagging his tail. Then, rising a little unsteadily to his feet, he made his way into the shallows for a few moments, where once he again he stopped and sniffed the sea air. Eventually he turned and ambled back up onto the soft dry sand to meet up with his human companion. She saw me watching her dog and smiled.

Prior to this encounter, I’d been thinking about events of the past week and looking ahead to the next. Analysing and planning. Crossing things off ‘to do’ lists, making new ones. But something about this wistful little experience, brought me gently but very firmly into the present. If an old dog can stop, sniff the sea air, simply enjoy the sun on his face and sand beneath his paws, then so, too, can I.

 

This evening I met with two of my favourite people, Elizabeth (known as Loo) Connor and Elf Eldridge. Both science communicators, I catch up with them each month for three reasons. The first, quite simply, is I like them. The second is that they make me think AND they capture my imagination. The third is that they provide me with new dots. Because while I’m in my element connecting dots, I’m beginning to understand that to do it to the best of my ability, I need new ones. And one of the best ways to do that is by spending time in the realm of the stuff I don’t know I don’t know.

So I meet Loo & Elf at Duke Carvell’s No. 6 Swan Lane Emporium and we’re greeted by Enzo with the magnifient moustache. A moustache, he tells us tonight, that he keeps because it makes his patrons smile. In spite of the fact that its absence would mean not having to make toast soldiers in the morning.

Eschewing the wine list in favour of Enzo’s excellent recommendation, I savour a glass of pinot grigio as Loo, Elf and I talk about all sorts of things. Or more accurately, I ask questions and they talk. About the definition of Science. The transit of Venus. How the legendary molecular biologist Francis Crick apparently first perceived the double-helix shape while on LSD. The natural curiosity of bacteria. Outer space. Inner space. Yes, all sorts of things. And I feel not only my mind expand but my heart because these two very, very bright young science communicators also care deeply about the world.

Eventually I leave No. 6 Swan Lane Emporium and make my way slowly, thoughtfully, home.

It’s been a while since I last wrote a post for this blogsite and talked about polyurethane padding in bras. In the interim I’ve moved house and found home. A home which is part beach-house, part farm house. A long rambling place where bouganvillea blooms and the two goats I’ve inherited bleat about the absence of more interesting food to forage. A space from which to find new dots and connect them. A space from which to venture out into the realm of the unknown.

Just a shortish post tonight, as I dip my toes back into the waters of personal storytelling with a few new sparkling dots tucked into my bag of fairy dust.

Sleep beckons, but before I go, a question…Do you know something now that you didn’t know a day ago?… Just asking.

Sweet dreams all.

 

There are places I visit in my mind, when I am awake and when I dream. There is one in particular that I go to when I have a solution to seek, a question to answer, a puzzle piece to find. I tend to use the word apothecary to describe this place, but there are also aspects that remind me of a laboratory or a rambling old kitchen in a country home.

I usually find myself standing in front of a wooden bench covered with ingredients. Glass and crystal bottles and vials of minerals, elements and herbs. On the other side of the bench, is a large window looking out into a garden with an old oak tree. Sometimes it’s daytime but recently it’s been night and I work and play under the light of a full, bright moon.

The last few times I’ve visited the apothecary, I’ve sat at the bench staring at a crystal vial containing an elixir. It appears to be more gaseous than liquid and while initially it was green and gold, lately it’s been the colour of the aura of the moon. Paradoxically, even though I’ve made it, I’ve been sitting there wondering ‘What is it made of? What is it for? Who is it for?’

For nearly 20 years, I’ve held a vision of a 3 storied building which caters for the whole person, mind body and spirit. A space that integrates food, community, design, creative & collaborative innovation, embodied practices, a spa, a library, an emporium. Essentially it is a place of and for well-being.

My journey towards this place has been long, non-linear and at times, frankly, lonely. And yet now, collaborating with Melissa Billington on the realisation of a vision that combines the evolution of her yoga studio and the 3 storied building, the path is shared and the non-linear nature is making more and more sense.

But a big vision has a shadow side sketched with impossibility, fear and doubt. Most people Melissa and I have shared our vision with draw back, eyes wide and doubtful and say ‘Wow, that’s a REALLY big vision. How are going to make that happen?…’

While we’re working on the answer to that question, developing the structure and the business model which will allow the vision to be realised organically, it can be hard not to maintain a strong purposeful stride when faced by naysayers. But a wise man once told me recently that faith is the magic element in realising visions.

Carl Sagan, the late astronomer, said that  “we are all star stuff‘”. By this he meant that nearly every atom inside our bodies was once inside a star, nearly every atom from which we are made was once inside our star, the Sun. And if I stop for a moment and consider the impossibility of each of us being here on this pale blue dot on a spiraling arm of the Milky Way, then my vision of a 3 storied building instantly feels a great deal more possible.

What is this elixir made of? I think the shimmering elixir the colour of moonlight is made of faith and the stuff of stars. What is it for? It’s for doubt and fearful warnings of impossibility. Who is it for? Well yes, this elixir is for me, but an elixir of faith is for us all. For all the dreams and visions you hold, that pave the way forward to a much more sustainable, harmonious and interconnected future.

And so tonight as you go to sleep and find your way to the magical place in which you seek solutions, look out for your crystal vial. Keep hold of your vision, take note of your dreams and remember that you too are made of stardust.

 

 

An introduction to Biomimicry: The Art & Science of Emulating Nature

with

Tink Stephenson

If you would like to understand

how a kingfisher inspires a bullet train,

how a butterfly inspires a pigment free fibre,

how a beetle inspires an innovative way of capturing water,

how a whale inspires a wind turbine,

and a redwood forest inspires a new way of doing business,

then please join us at…

Powa Centre, Level 1, 1 Marion Street, Wellington

26 August 2011, 7.00-8.30pm

$10 tickets also include chai, brownie and popcorn.

If you could RSVP to tink@onemeall.org by Friday 19 August so we can make sure that we have plenty of popcorn that would be super. However if you’d like to play it by ear and turn up at the last minute,we’ll be delighted to see you.

Here’s the thing. I’m just a little bit angry. Which appears to be not uncommon at the moment. Obviously there are a few people in London, who are more than a little bit angry.

Perhaps it’s Mercury in retrograde. Perhaps it’s the massive solar flares full of magnetic energy that we’ve been whopped by in the last week. Perhaps it’s fear. Perhaps it’s a deep-seated recognition that the bigger system we’re a part of is no longer working for us.

With respect to that system, I’ve had a number of conversations with people recently circling around the idea that one of – if not the – biggest flaw in our System, is our disconnection from Nature. We live in a world dominated by science and capitalism, we’ve acquired a massive amount of information and knowledge. But we lack wisdom. Because we also live in a world in which the economy does not appear to understand (although it knows) that it is entirely dependent on ecosystem services. We live in an era of spiraling rates of depression, anxiety and addiction. We live in a world, where in the middle of the London riots a kid tried to mug a woman for her iPhone but then turned away because it was only 3G.

How then, in an age in which we’re witnessing the exponential growth of information technology, can we reconnect with Nature?

How, I’ve been wondering, if there is no way we can stop science and technology (and of course there are so many reasons why we shouldn’t) could we create an app to facilitate our reconnection with Nature and ourselves?

It would appear, that I’ve completed missed the point.

Because I am the best app I’ll ever have.

Thanks to my friend Nick Potter  (if you haven’t checked out his blog Re-Be I suggest you do), I’ve discovered a recent article by Soren Gordhamer (organiser of Wisdom 2.0) in the Huffington Post entitled – wait for it  – The Most Important App You Will Ever Have. Which is about, you guessed it, the realisation people are experiencing ‘that no matter how great a technological device we buy or how great our network is, the real source of potential is in ourselves’.

So why am I angry? Because, while I’m mindful and eat well and walk in nature or practice yoga everyday, I spend way too much time in front of a computer (quite possibly the definition of stupid is that I know that and here I am). I’m angry because I look around me at this remarkable, brilliant, stunningly beautiful world full of natural systems our lives are dependent on and we’re systematically destroying it.

And yet I’m essentially optimistic. My hope is based on many, many wonderful, smart, generous people I know who are working towards an era of a more enlightened way of doing and being. But I still have my moments. This app of mine is human afterall. And in these moments,wherever possible, my response is to go outside. Without my iPod, so that I actually engage with the world around me.

So here’s my suggestion.

If you can, please, right now, back away from your computer…Go on,  you know you can do it.

Then take your most important-beautiful-full-of-potential app and get the f*@k outside.

 

 

A week ago, I had a very vivid dream about being in Sydney on holiday. On my way back ‘home’, I jumped off a bus without my handbag. My immediate response, realising that I was now without proof of my identity and money, was to panic. However surprisingly quickly, the panic was replaced by a sense of knowing that I would just have to get home using my own inner resources.

Which begs the questions, what are my inner resources? When am I resource-full?

In the wake of Amy Winehouse’s tragic demise, one of the most insightful pieces I read was the blog post by Russell Brand. He knew Amy. He also suffers from addiction. And these words in particular, have  continued to resonate long after I read them:

“All addicts, regardless of the substance or their social status share a consistent and obvious symptom; they’re not quite present when you talk to them. They communicate to you through a barely discernible but un-ignorable veil. Whether a homeless smack head troubling you for 50p for a cup of tea or a coked-up, pinstriped exec foaming off about his “speedboat” there is a toxic aura that prevents connection. They have about them the air of elsewhere, that they’re looking through you to somewhere else they’d rather be. And of course they are.”

That ‘un-ignorable veil’, the alienation from self, the lack of connection to others, are qualities any of us who know someone with addiction issues recognize. And yet, how often are are we all, to a certain extent, veiled?

Recently a friend and I discovered that we go to the same osteopath. After hooting with laughter at our shared experiences of fantastic conversations with this osteopath, we began to talk about what makes him such a great practitioner. And we came to the conclusion (at least, our conclusion) that it’s not just the osteopathy, but his ability to be – without exception – completely present. Present and connected. Not just with his patients but the world around him.

In a world of overwhelm and overconsumption of increasingly scare resources, I can’t help but sense that it’s becoming increasingly important to know and understand yourself. To know what your inner resources are, so that when the external ones fall away – for whatever reason – you can rely on them. To cultivate and nurture the ability to be present and connected to yourself and the world around you.

In your daily life, how often are you truly  present and connected?

If you found yourself in a foreign country, without a piece of paper proving your identity and a wallet full of cards and money, what would you rely on? What are your inner resources?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Today, my grandmother’s funeral. Below is the eulogy I gave.

Mary Leslie Maunsell, daughter of Beresford and Peggy, was born in Masterton on the 28^th April 1919. By all accounts her early, rural life at Tinui and Rathkeale with her brother Jock and sisters Shelagh and Ann was very happy.  She went to school at St Matthews and then onto Woodford House in Hawkes Bay. However when Granny was still at school, her mother, whom she was very close to, had an operation that went badly wrong and she tragically died, when Granny was 19.

A year or so later she met my grandfather Bob at a party. Granny was shy and apparently Bob came across her sitting quietly talking to a cat. He’d recently returned from reading law at Cambridge and she found him irresistible in his RNZAF uniform. One of the things Granny often talked about was that while Bob courted her, he would fly low over Rathkeale and drop flowers and bottles of French perfume onto the garden below.

They married in April 1941 and had three children Julian, Diana and Celia. They were married, for 64 years, until Bob passed away in 2003.

As we sat talking about Granny & Bob earlier this week, my aunt Celia said that they were so happy at the end.  And that she came across them one day, sitting quietly side by side on a sofa, Bob gently stroking Granny’s hand.

Although this is not to say that they didn’t know exactly how to wind each other up. One of Bob’s favourite tricks to play on Granny was during the summertime when the doors were open. Granny would be in full gardening mode and Bob would press *23 (or whatever the code was) to get the phone to ring. He’d then go back to his chair and sit there grinning while Granny huffed and puffed her way up to the house.

While my grandmother had a basic education and led a simple life, without great adventures and grand achievements, she was far from a simple woman. Granny had a keen, inquisitive mind and she sought to understand the nature of human existence and experience. The bookshelves at Mariri Rd are full of books on meditation, psychology, bio-chemistry, yoga and health. Her faith was deep and she explored a number of religions.

Granny was a wonderful cook and her understanding of beautiful fresh ingredients has shaped my approach to food. She created a magnificent vegetable garden and while none of the family can remember her ever buying vegetables, most of us remember sneaking down and pulling scrumptious baby carrots out of the earth.

Granny was a gifted, soulful pianist and for as long as she could, she played everyday. She skied, was a champion golfer and a keen, if not intrepid, swimmer. It would be 10 degrees outside and there she’d be, in her bathing suit at Balina Bay, crouched down at the edge of the water, eyes closed as she splashed salty water on her face and inhaled the scent of the sea before she walked unhesitatingly into the ocean.

And yet the thing we all remember most about Granny, was her presence. Lovely, gracious, peaceful and wonderfully kind. As Simon, my uncle, says “With Mary there was never an awkward moment”. She was a very good conversationalist and utterly non-judgmental.

It seems to me, looking back over her life that while Granny may not have achieved remarkable things, she was a remarkable woman.

As we sat talking the other night, Celia told us that late in her life Granny spoke emphatically of a top secret mission she carried out in Egypt in her youth. Galloping on a white stallion out towards the pyramids. And while this is highly unlikely (although, I might add, that she was in Egypt for a week or so when she was 19) to me this image somehow evokes a vivid sense of Granny’s spirit. Beautiful, adventurous, whole-hearted.

One of the things she often said to her children and grandchildren was “close your eyes and imagine yourself surrounded by pure white light”. Remembering this over the last few days leads me to finish with a farewell blessing attributed appropriately, to both the Irish and Kundalini yoga…

May the long time sun

Shine upon you,

All love surround you,

And the pure light within you

Guide your way on.

 

Farewell Granny.