Not many days left in 2015 …. what a year it has been!
I have not only experienced many joys but also incredible deep grief and loss this year. After returning from an extended period travelling overseas, it is time for me to re-group, re-ground and distill what is important for me in my life… and see how my life will unfold from here.
I started the year with passion and commitment and dedication to a project that sadly didn’t eventuate. I had the best birthday ever!!! and turning 53 in 2015 with all the ‘8’s I thought was going to be the beginning of a truly remarkable year where I could flourish and do something I am gifted in and that I love. I was mistaken.
Making a decision to let that go has been the most easy decision I have ever had to make; because it was made with Love and honouring…. yet one which has brought with it more grief than I have ever experienced… nor could have imagined… and with that decision the loss of my best friend and Soulmate.
For those who have been part of my Blog readership over the years, you are accustomed to my open honesty, and rather than portraying a ‘happy, happy’ summary of who I am and my year, I prefer to just share myself in authenticity.
Many times throughout the year I have often found it difficult to get up in the mornings and complete anything for the day…and wondered when my tears would ever stop. I was harsh on myself and did not allow myself to grieve for the losses I experienced and it was only when I was gentle with myself and acknowledged my grief that I began to be able to function again; and although the grief has not diminished and I can still feel it in my chest, I am able to co-exist with it and become functioning and productive.
In September I forced myself to pack my bags to travel to Greenland and I opened myself to listening to the healing voice of the landscape. I know I have connected with incredibly powerful images from my experience in Greenland and am now working toward an installation exhibition in New York.
I felt like I didn’t have enough time home before our planned travels to Bhutan and India and although absolutely wonderful; we cut our journey short so we could both return home and re-group.
I have lost a lot of weight and muscle condition on our travels through Asia, so I needed to return to recommence my training to climb the Orsono volcano for my birthday next year in February.
I will also be travelling to Antarctica again with a girlfriend and my photography group with John Paul Caponigro; and then in the middle of the year driving Penny from Peking to Paris with Max… then returning to Bhutan and walking with my girlfriend through Bhutan for 3 weeks in November.
2015 has been the most challenging and honestly horrible year of my life… speckled with wonderful joys though… and incredible experiences. This IS life. Not always peachy…but it is real…the reality of MY life… and through my Blog and journal my endeavour is to reveal just some of the ‘real’ of my life.
Many of you are inspired by my incredibly privileged life, which it is; and I wanted to share with you that I like yourself and everyone else on the planet – have some shadows in my experience which I have to face and learn to deal with. I am sharing with you now how difficult my life has been this year – not for pity; because it is a consequence of the accumulation of my own choices…… but rather I am sharing so that for those who also have tears every night before you go to sleep… that with courage it is also possible to continue and find things to flourish with and feel a sense of fulfillment with…as I am endeavouring to do.
I have made a commitment to myself to honour myself through my nutrition and health; my daily practices of meditation and prayer; my continued honouring of my gifts and connection with the Divine; and my openhearted lovingness for not only others, but myself as well.
I have received and been quite overwhelmed and humbled by so many emails over the past months on how my experience and meeting with others has enriched their lives…and what they have seen in me, when I have not seen that even within myself. For those who have written and shared that with me, I want to thank you again; thank you, thank you…. for your own open-heartedness has supported and encouraged me in ways more than you will ever imagine.
