Over this long weekend, I made some space to "slow down the room" and did some lovely baking, singing along to some gorgeous music and just really relaxing and getting totally into it.  It was lovely to be so unhurried and creative, and for me, it is one way of getting in touch with myself.  You don't always need to meditate, to slow down your heart rate and your mind!

I have managed to sort out a whole lot of my old recipes and it has been magical discovering some of these old gems and making them again.  My best friend from school is Cypriot and every now and then her mom used to spoil us with those delicious Greek biscuits, Kourabeides - the ones dusted in icing sugar - and we used to go up to the far end of the field and just revel in the deliciousness of these melt-in-your-mouth biscuits.  When we were in our last year of high school, her mom gave us a lesson in how to make them and I wrote it down word for word, being very green in the baking and cooking department!  I only plucked up the courage to make them years later and every time I make them and read the recipe in my original green ink, I think of the excitement of the two of us, opening the lunchbox to these little moon shaped gems!

Thank you Mrs Economou for the wonderful memories and the perfect accompaniment to my cup of tea this week.

I went to an amazing art exhibition at artSPACE in Durban today. Roz Cryer amazed us with her magnificent work, titled “Body, Vessel, Archetype.” It was really inspiring and her work beautiful.
Her centre-piece attraction, which blew me away, was a cleverly put- together-display with a very powerful quote and message.  WOW! Profound.

Note the cracks in the vessels

Note the tea light in the above picture on the left and see how the ceramic vessel pieces get smaller and smaller and the pile gets smaller and smaller ending in ceramic dust at the end!  So clever!

I really, really, really do like this picture and quote.  It resonates deeply with the work we are doing in the Artist's Way ...

My cousin posted this poem on my FB page and I really like it.  It reminds me of our Embody Course with Angela Deutschmann at the magnificent Boondocks Mountain Lodge ...

Come dance with me!

We have come to be danced
Not the pretty dance
Not the pretty pretty, pick me, pick me dance
But the claw our way back into the belly
Of the sacred, sensual animal dance
The unhinged, unplugged, cat is out of its box dance

The holding the precious moment in the palms
of our hands and feet dance.

We have come to be danced
Not the jiffy booby, shake your booty for him dance
But the wring the sadness from our skin dance
The blow the chip off our shoulder dance.
The slap the apology from our posture dance.

We have come to be danced
Not the monkey see, monkey do dance
One two dance like you
One two three, dance like me dance
But the grave robber, tomb stalker
Tearing scabs and scars open dance
The rub the rhythm raw against our soul dance.

We have come to be danced
Not the nice, invisible, self-conscious shuffle
But the matted hair flying, voodoo mama shaman shaking ancient bones dance
The strip us from our casings, return our wings
sharpen our claws and tongues dance
The shed dead cells and slip into the luminous skin of love dance.

We have come to be danced
Not the hold our breath and wallow in the shallow end of the floor dance but the meeting of the trinity: the body, breath and beat dance

The shout hallelujah from the top of our thighs dance
The mother may I? Yes you may take ten giant leaps dance
The olly olly oxen free free free dance
The everyone can come to our heaven dance.

We have come to be danced
Where the kingdoms collide
In the cathedral of flesh
To burn back into the light
To unravel, to play, to fly, to pray
To root in skin sanctuary
We have come to be danced! We have come.”

~ by Jewel Mathieson 

On rainy cold days like today - this is what is needed with a good book and duvet ... hmmm ...