February 5th 2026 Life Serving Life-serving Is this activity or habit life-serving? Do my cells vibrate with happiness and joy when I do this? Is my nutrition life serving? Are my relationships life-serving? Do they nourish me, grow me, mature me, ask me to rise to the better version of me? Is my work life-serving? Do I feel that I add more than I take? Am I serving the lives of others in my work? Am I surrounded by people who hold each other up? Is my current thinking life-serving? Or am I...
2 days ago • 1 min read
February 4th 2026 Economic Statecraft Economic Statecraft Sounds exotic. Smart. But it is essentially bullying and blackmail. The use of financial and currency levers to get what you want, with the precessional effect being increasing hunger, homelessness and bankruptcy for the majority. (https://syntropic.world/imagine-if-our-goals-are-not-the-point-the-principle-of-precession/) We watch as blunt instruments such as tariffs are wielded. Countries with governments that do not bend the knee to...
3 days ago • 1 min read
February 3rd 2026 Its relational Its relational It is easy to disregard the stranger. To ignore their pain and circumstances. It is easy to buy meat from a factory farm when it is wrapped in plastic on the supermarket shelf. Forgetting the animal. Last week, as I hand-fed my chicken Stephanie, who, for some unknown reason, was unable to walk, yet very alive from the body up, I came to love and appreciate her fighting spirit. She wanted to live, against all odds, even being attacked by a giant...
4 days ago • 1 min read
February 2nd 2026 Worth living and dying for Worth living and dying for On Saturday, the 31st of January, we held a small memorial service for my father and his wife, both of them passing within 39 days of each other. I spent 45 minutes writing a beautiful piece about this, intending to post it in Beauty of Beginnings. Through all of these last few months of intensity, I have been plagued by endless technical issues. Just as I finished this piece, the application quit suddenly, and all of my...
5 days ago • 1 min read
January 30th 2026 Normal Normal What is normal, I ask myself? Is there such a thing? When we were younger, we took more risks. As we age, this little rock of fear finds its way into our architecture. We don’t jump. Climb. Learn a new skill. Or throw caution to the wind. Normal is a rollercoaster. The beauty of age is that most people who make it past five decades have the scars of life. We know that life serves up horror, hardship, breakdown, injustice, cruelty. Often all on the same plate at...
8 days ago • 1 min read
January 29th 2026 The waters of our soul The waters of our soul The ocean never lies One day calm The next enraged Home to a world of worlds Pretty, then deadly She will embrace you, swallow you or spit you out And in her depths, currents move That few see For her surface entrances The Ocean never lies She is the waters of our soul. Written June 18th 2012 Photo Taken January 29th, 2020, Article published January 29th 2026 Were you forwarded this email? Get on the list. To ONLY receive Beauty...
9 days ago • 1 min read
January 28th 2026 Happiness and despair, complementary pairs Happiness and despair, complementary pairs Much has been written about happiness in recent times. While I am a fan of being happy, why place the search for happiness at the centre of our existence? For one to know true happiness, one must also know the depths of despair. Yet we avoid despair, and when we are in despair, we see ourselves as if we have a nasty disease. Yet it is through the lens of sadness and despair that we find...
10 days ago • 1 min read
January 27th 2026 Crying over a chicken Crying over a chicken I am howling with grief as I write this. We had to euthanise little Stephanie, the chicken. She was such a fighter. One of her legs did not work, for a reason not known to us. We hand-fed her for nearly a week. And still she persisted. Even after being attacked by a huge goanna. The shock would have killed most animals of her size. I am aware that my grief is a flood of tears from all the grief of these past two months. I watched...
11 days ago • 1 min read
January 26th 2026 There is too much to take in There is too much to take in My heart is broken. There is too much to take in. In random order… The recent death of my father and his wife and all that comes with that. The terrible murders of two people in Minnesota and the knife-edge that exists politically, where people are goaded by the government to incitement to riot, as a desired outcome. Today in Australia, some call it Australia Day. Others call it invasion day, as on the day in 1788,...
12 days ago • 1 min read