“Look at a tree, a flower, a plant. Let your awareness rest upon it. How still they are, how deeply rooted in Being. Allow nature to teach you stillness.” — Eckhart Tolle, Stillness Speaks When you start thinking in iambic pentameter, it’s a sign you need to go outside and get some air. This week we … Read More
Making space to create.
“In the creative state a man is taken out of himself. He lets down as it were a bucket into his subconscious, and draws up something which is normally beyond his reach. He mixes this thing with his normal experiences and out of the mixture he makes a work of art.” — E. M. Forster … Read More
“To know you very happy”: Adventures in learning Mandarin.
“Writing cannot express all words, words cannot encompass all ideas.” — Confucius Life on a student budget these days means I’m not getting out and about as much as I normally would. “Where are you going next?” people often ask, or maybe, “When’s the next trip planned for?” I know these are natural questions to … Read More
Moving at my own momentum.
“Get a bicycle. You will not regret it if you live.” — Mark Twain When driving around the North Island of New Zealand last year, I spent a night on the Coromandel Peninsula in a hostel not far from the famous Hot Water Beach. That night I got to know three Germans (well, two Germans … Read More
Travel photo essay: Feira dos Passaros.
“God loved the birds and invented trees. Man loved the birds and invented cages.” — Jacques Deval I hadn’t been looking for a market. Indeed, on such a lazy Sunday morning in Porto, Portugal, I hadn’t been looking for anything much at all–but isn’t that when the great finds always happen? From the bus on … Read More
Travel photo of the day: Prisms in Porto.
“Derive happiness in oneself from a good day’s work, from illuminating the fog that surrounds us.” — Henri Matisse It’s funny the things that remain with us after we leave a place. After a weekend in Porto, Portugal, I’m left with the usual roundup of activities to look back on–the four-hour bike ride along the coast to … Read More
Travel photo essay: Street art in Sasseri.
“Imagine a city where graffiti wasn’t illegal, a city where everybody could draw whatever they liked. Where every street was awash with a million colours and little phrases. Where standing at a bus stop was never boring…Imagine a city like that and stop leaning against the wall – it’s wet.” — Banksy, Wall and Piece … Read More
Let it be Sardinia.
“Where then? Spain or Sardinia. Spain or Sardinia. Sardinia, which is like nowhere. Sardinia which has no history, no date, no race, no offering. Let it be Sardinia.” — D.H. Lawrence, Sea and Sardinia Right after my flatmate Claire and I first booked our flights to Sardinia, I typed something, who knows what, into Google, and whatever it … Read More