Report from Greco
The blogs below follow the story of the magic of Mandala from Ali's sharing on Facebook. A modern-day quest, from hearing the call to Corfu to the latest unfolding of happenings at Mandala. Trusting, quirky, and collective, the following excerpts give a flavour of who showed up over a timeline of transformation.
Report from Greco – December 2024
I’m back in Corfu now after a week in UK, which always feels too short. The intimacy of friendships and family gatherings and of course The Sex Lectures offer a sense of home and belonging. A chance to have expression of my other life, complementary and different. The Sex Lecs felt like it had a new gravitas and the room was so packed. I saw the Hockney immersive, which was an hour of colour and aliveness.
So the latest Report from Greco in the period before the Manchester escape, saw Caroline Huyshe and I working on our to do lists and working out how to chop wood and deal with water. Low on wood and high on water, at one point the waste water from the reverse osmosis system was coming back up the plug hole. It’s pretty wonderful that the previous owner Benjamin Heath lives nearby and came to the rescue
We’re still ecstatic dancing inside at the tree temple at Soundgarden, and having walks and coffees at the beach. The colours of autumn are breathtaking, and the olives are falling into the nets to be gathered for oil and soap. We shared gratitudes at Thanksgiving with Sumeru and Leena Horner and Anne K Scott, and discovered the walk down the donkey trail from Krini to Agios Giorgios.
Claudia van de Kamp is working magic in orange, pink and blue. I still have silks, artefacts and textiles from previous incarnations of being a nomad in Asia in my younger days, so it’s great to have the space to display beautiful things collected over decades.
And hallelujah of all hallelujahs, a Frenchman has arrived from La Source in France, courtesy of Kalyani Ma Mukti and Nick Hudis, to begin to tackle the shutters. Earlier reports of 56 were exaggerated, we figure there’s 28. In various states of peel-y green (or artistry depending on whether you chat to Zoe Belton). The winter thunderstorms appear sporadically and noisily. Lemons and oranges fall from the trees, I worry about new cracks appearing in the olive press and try not to look too closely though we had new lintels created.
Sometimes I wish I had a chunk of money to do/fix things quickly, and then I remember how the financial imperative and debt has brought so many kind people to help and share the house. The divine Christina Dorothea Peetza has moved in and so the three of us form a new constellation on the ever turning carousel.
I love how during the summer, without any advertising the house was mostly full, most of the time. Good friends and humans taking refuge, and bringing their presence words and gifts. And and the end of my first season, while I may still not have a business plan or profit, there’s still been an incredible simplicity, structure and possibility underpinning the breakeven. I’m looking forward to a quiet period and and getting on with stuff with fewer distractions. We still have a couple of guest bedrooms so come if you want to work on something and the promise of warmer sunnier days than UK. Yesterday it was 17' just saying. Bring a project and hot water bottle.
Report from Greco – September 2024
I have a week in the house to myself, time to write for 25 days and shift and lift. We’ve cleared the olive press and brought the rugs inside, it's time to light the fire in the evenings and notice mould, falling masonry, new cracks in walls and how to use all the ripening lemons and oranges on the trees. Anyone know how to make marmalade?
There’s been a glut of visitors since I came back in August, and having this little breather after the intensity and joy of collective living feels right. A week ago we were still naked on the beach with Sian, Sara, Becky, Derek and Paul. Lisa dropped in for 3 nights too.
All around the neighbours are collecting olives and there’s a rhythm that I’m just beginning to get a glimpse of. Now it’s time to order wood.
Earlier this summer the posse included Marcus, Caroline and Rebecca and guests from retreats at Buddha Hall. We gathered and we connected, I got a new indoor table. Claudia has started painting warmth into the walls in the Corfiot colours of pink and orange. We’re colouring the for white yoga bnb in, wall by wall (ignoring the mould at the back of the cupboards for now). Though Archan and the damp rods, which sounds like an 80’s pop group, might solve the problem. I’m learning about lime plaster too. Managing buildings was never on my cv - though there’s a level of trust here that someone will show up and all I have to do is hold the vision and the space for 56 shutters to turn blue.
Marcus did an amazing job of cutting back the garden, creating space and light. A bougainvillea fell off the olive press wall, filling the garden and now it’s been made into a dead hedge. It was so great to have a practical right-hand man nudging me to buy a fig, a banana tree, a couple of vines, a plumbago and a cherry. Let’s see whether my loving neglect can allow them to flourish. It feels long term to plant trees and its only when I imagine living here forever that all the dreams of making a stunning artists residency feel possible. As they say in Greece ‘siga siga’ - slowly slowly.
My job title from Artemisia is the “keeper of the nexus point”. I had to look it up too. Nexus points are "places where destiny and opportunity collide where God's call and man's courage and will intersect, and transformation happens beyond". A tree of life showed up from a mysterious source, left outside which somehow seems apt as I hear of folx meeting back in UK after they’ve left here. I love that so much.
Oh and I went to Paros to work on a Surrender workshop with Pete Lawrence and Eva Weaver where amongst other things I led naked yoga and bossed people around. It was extraordinarily liberating taking the meaner sister of the Madame on holiday. Especially fun when I haven’t been on a yoga mat for years, dredging up a intimate mix of devotion and humiliation. You’ll have to pm me for the picture as I don’t want to upset the censors. I’ll write elsewhere about the foot washing, silk pajama folding, & the glee and freedom of letting go of my usual ‘diplomacy and humour’. It was like taking a little bottle stopper of niceness & an unrealised pressure valve out.
I came back to Mandala to a heart-opening Kundalini class in the olive press, with harp, yogis in white, and another long time since I’ve attempted fire breath.
Life is sweet and contrasting and it makes me smile at the wonder of it all. I’m reclaiming myself. When I was younger, I always knew I’d live abroad when I was older. I just had no idea it’d be this wonderful. Or there would be so many shutters.
Report from Greco – June 2024
Sometimes we make each others dreams happen and June has been a bit like that. A few things have happened this month that feel like they were imagined into being. I love how a thought turns into a good idea sometimes. I know in embodiment and mindfulness circles the mind gets a bad rap generally, & having a creative hothouse for a head is both blessing and a curse, there’s never an uninterrupted lunch.
Taking The Sex Lectures to Berlin was one of those dreams and being part of Seani Wild Love and Stefanie O'Connor's Taboo Fest was a real honour. Hosting The Sex Lectures and a workshop barefoot in a tent in a field was a first. Listening to Dorte Holbek, Steve Shiva, Stefanie, Kirstine Weaver, Bear Phillips and Mistress Psyche, range around the topics of taboo, risk and potential for freedom & wonder. How dangerous this stuff is, making activists of us all, activists for love, connection and kindness. Special appreciations to Stefanie for Heaven and Liquid Love, and Kirstine for being the best roomie, navigating the Berlin transport to get us to the Museum of Asian Art and Vabali, beginning and ending our trip in breathtaking beauty.
Back at Mandala, aka the house we’re all building, has been full of the good folx taking refuge, doing work, being on holiday, joining Evolve. There was a naked moment on the beach with Lex Ryder, Jem Ayres, Clare Downie, Pen Élopée and Adam Bauer that felt like a brilliant moment of hopes fulfilled. The mantra singer I met ten years ago on a beach in Thailand, materialised in Arillas, offering devotional singing with Lieke Wouters in private concert at Mandala and a more public offering at Soundgarden. Extraordinary Artemisia de Vine has just departed, offering her unique and specialist take on The Erotic Mind, being looked after by stars and nymphs as the earthly things rearranged themselves. We also had Inga Kaskelyte, cranio -sacral healer staying, so the therapy space is inaugurated. Anne K Scott is here, Verity Harrison and Amelie made a brief and welcome visit and Zinzi and Laura Marianne Pickerill on the way. Though today I have a rare moment of quiet and the house to myself, time to get out the secateurs and rationalize the excess of plant milks.
Dreams have a timeline & I sense the difference between dreams and destiny. Mandala chose me, I still don’t know why. Yet being a chess pieces of greek gods is so far a wonderful thing. I’m imagining them laughing up there while I’m scratching my head down here in the right place right time square. Where I continue to shrug and ask. "Would you be willing?", as friends fold laundry, bring & share food, decorate the olive press, burn charcoal & gopal, make beds, light candles, sing mantras, make other new friends, meeting at the beach as the circles of love widen and multiply. And it’s also about paying 3 years of water bills, getting the car serviced, watering and weeding. And endless laundry. The mundane and sublime taking it in turns in the carousel of life.
Either way it’s paradise.
Evolve was such a pleasure. To sit in amidst olives trees in Soundgarden for a week to go through a process of feeling & expressing what our hearts want to create next is a beautiful privilege. While there’s no need to work out the how just yet, I heard the words “create beauty in paragraphs”. I hosted a dinner with the theme “Pleasure is Enough,’ asking can pleasure be a guide to decision making from the heart. It feels permissive and offers direction, I got to wonder aloud where conscious sexuality work helps; when the world looks like it’s going to hell in a handcart and we think we’re in the Age of Aquarius, is it just an indulgence?
I’ll finish this report from Greco with a quote by Maria Popova, “A person is not a potted plant of predetermined personality but a garden abloom with the consequences of chance and choice that have made them who they are, resting upon an immense seed vault of dormant potentialities. At any given moment, any seed can sprout — whether by conscious cultivation or the tectonic tilling of some great upheaval or the composting of old habits and patterns of behavior that fertilize a new way of being. Nothing saves us from the tragedy of ossifying more surely than a devotion to regularly turning over the soil of personhood so that new expressions of the soul can come abloom.”
Report from Greco – May 2024
It's time for an update isn’t it? I started writing this two weeks ago and so much happened since. Arillas is gorgeous now, warm breezes, mid twenties temps, greenness in the landscape, watery-light nights and I’m loving going back to the same places with different people time after time. The walk to the shrine past Akirotiri, Porto Timoni, Saturday night discourse at beautiful Buddha Hall, Ina’s is open again, the jaw-dropping views at Panorama and Anafoufou. My sister, Annie Bayliss came to stay, so did my friend who offered the loan that saved the day and my 87-year-old mum came too…seeing the house they’ve heard so much of at last, having lunch together in the garden that none of us might have imagined was very precious. We did a big shop with yoga mats and more stripy colourful carpets, blue towels, chopping boards and who knows what else - my little car boot was full and I’m grateful for efficient shopping.
Sometimes it's a whirl of activity, other times peace descends. There’s an art to collective living, of looking after each other, folding laundry, slutty washing up, cooking eggs, having a kitty, clearing the compost and chucking water on the garden. An art not to me being bossy, to each being aware of our limits, of taking quiet time and not forgetting to eat. The long table is installed in the olive press and Aingeala De Búrca and I went back to 29 mins of writing. We have coffee in new blue cups and Zoe Belton is colouring things beautiful in the courtyard as the big old brown kitchen table and repurposed shelves turn fifty shades of blue. Artemisia de Vine is coaching & communing with the spirits of the land, driving the squeaky bends like a slow pro. Zoe chopping beautiful salads besides being a set designer, Aingeala practising violin scales and me getting distracted from reading Sex Bod reports by weeding. It’s the art of timing work with collective contribution and enjoyment of each other while taking space to create and keep life & biz going.
Shumba and I offered our first event together in the olive press, Connect and Consent, an interesting collaboration of tantra teacher & tantric heretic, meshing of consent, Ruby May's Connection Game, violin music, candlelight. It’s the first time I’ve shared my work in Arillas and as ever it’s an experiment. When I remember I have a decade here, the pressure to discover what I’m here to do falls away. I’m pretty sure it’s not laundry, though clean sheets are a vital part of the ecstasy.
And then a group arrived with Greg Muller, stress testing the house, filling it with colour, purpose, life and learning, walking each day to prep for the camino, a cacao ceremony, dinners and beach time. It was going smoothly till a fuse fuse box melted and the septic tank guy wouldn’t come. A tricky 24 hrs of tension was resolved by the magician electrician in the group Christian Gaffney, and paying water bills from 5 years ago to get a code to clear the pooh. Ah, such magical glamour is evidently how we roll. Before the group came, I had a moment of ‘never again’ with the pressure to get things ready. Yet being part of it and being grateful for how it came together allows me to trust more. With the calming presence of Claudia van de Kamp housekeeping & painting the therapy space, this time feels like a gift. Of having friends visit and the house beautifully piecing together.
Wise Madhuri, who knows a thing or two about Human Design, once told me that everything for me should always be friends or friends of friends and I like that. Besides saving me time trying to impress strangers on Instagram, I love the warmth of the connections and the spaces between decisions.
Maybe one day I’m going to have to make a mailing list but that’s another can kicked a little further down the road. There’s quite a heap of cans and slowly I pick them up. They’re alongside the plates and business plans I drop. Doing less is appealing, so is drinking more Campari at sunset with Sian Johnson & Paul Sperring. Makes mental note to self.
Next stop is Berlin for some relaxation, where The Sex Lectures is the geeky spot at the magical picnic of wonders that is TabooFest. Then back for Evolve the gathering, Anne K. Scott and Taylor Roark are here. And so we roll on in the gap year of discovery of edges, and exploration of blue possibilities.
Report from Greco – March 2024
The early spring report from Greco has more blue skies, warm temperatures, and guests, writing and creating. It’s quiet time and while rest is a lovely concept, a word I can spell yet rarely do, focus can still happen. The hermit had to come out of hibernation for the arrival of Amanda Saxby, Paul Sperring, Clare Downie, Derek Sankar & Sacha Leah Binah. Hermit to houseful which included a birthday trip to Porto Timoni for Clare, taking friends to the places I already love, with a bit of shared weeding and house-holding thrown in.
The day water came in through one of the ceilings was a little worrying though Benjamin Heath the previous owner showed up and showed me where the pipes and bends live above the ceiling in my studio. House management is a mystery. That day, I counted 7 people helped - Kostas calling the phone company, a guy coming to improve the internet, Ben clearing clogged u-bends, a plumber coming to install the heater (still not quite complete but no drips), Derek to have dinner with and John Knight and Jonathan Wurr holding space for me to be overwhelmed in. Some days are harder than others to do this and yet what’s obvious I’m always supported. The divine masculine is alive and kicking in very practical ways.
Alongside this, the 29 days writers ticked along, showing up for daily practice, establishing words, scenes, paragraphs, habits and discipline. Collaborating with the Muse of Nathalie Dewalhens is always fun. I may not have reached my 29k target, yet I still have 25k words more to play with than if I hadn’t shown up. Now it’s time to make sense and potential.
I’m glad February was a little hiatus. A little busy. But a little hiatus.
Report from Greco – October 2023
The magic of Mandala House continues and while there’s no real rhythm to the days yet, there’s a beautiful chaos and melting pot of people and possibilities. With so many ideas to sift through about making the house more beautiful and comfortable, I feel like the carousel whirl can begin to slow down a little soon.
This week in the house we have Mark Charlton gardening, dancing and cooking and asking me if we have miso. Pete Lawrence is here from Paros, in service to what wants to be created, urging me to words, websites and all manner of wonderful ways of seeing what’s here to be explored. And taking amazing photos. Funny how just as I was getting disillusioned with the divine masculine, two showed up at once. With Anne K Scott, my coach and friend, we go down to the elegant white spaciousness of the Horizon Hotel for imagination coaching and financial dreaming and then Eva Weaver is here expanding time and planning next year's Writing from the Body retreat.
The desks are in situ in the olive press and morning pages are written with a view of layers of mists as the sun rises.
Throw in ecstatic dance, shared meals, lighting candles for a sound immersion, Osho tarot, restorative yoga, and afternoons naked at the beach, some sense is emerging of how connections shift and change and the constancy need only be in the safety and beauty of the house that holds us all. It’s moving breathtakingly fast at times and the question arises for all of us of how to find time to write and reflect, work in other realms & find private time and space.
And we know it’s all only possible one thing at a time, to appreciate what and who is here, to meet life as it happens, to be surprised and awed, to enjoy the late afternoon moments of heat, sunlight on the water, winding roads through the olive trees for croissants from the bakery at Kavadades, cocktails at Ina’s and the high view from Afionas as the sun finally drops into the night sea.
Report from Greco – February 2024
It’s gentle and sunny in my first winter in Corfu. Quiet and reflective, the house to myself at last, with enough here to not need to join everything, I thought I might. I may make a women’s circle one week, but for now ecstatic dance and family constellations are drawing me. And the occasional walk. Last month I discovered Porto Timoni which is jaw-dropping in January and rammed in July.
The blue skies, warm temperatures and sunshine make me happy, simply happy. When warmer outside than in, I work at the big table in the garden. With its near views of the avocado tree and spiky palm, and the greenery and noise of the neighbouring houses and returning birds, it's peaceful. The upstairs bedrooms and Namaste studio are empty for a while. Knowing that guests and friends will come soon enough, that I’m here for at least a decade, instils a calm to the original feeling of “I Must Do Something”, make a website, sort out groups & deposits, buy a sofa and fridge.
So there’s a natural rhythm that must have overtaken me, a quiet voice letting me know that house paint & shopping can wait till March and a working party will probably happen in April. It’s quite something to know that this house was built in 1776 so even if I do nothing this year, it’ll be alright. Probably. Though the alarming dripping from the heater under the sink caused a flurry of concern and there's water for the un-rained on garden each morning. Another thing for the fixing list.
I’m not a naturally chilled person, so is this what letting go feels like? Who knows? I’m the wrong person to ask.
I’m focusing on writing for February. And the book that remains unpublished is saying ‘it’s time’. Time to withdraw a while, to say sweetly “ask me again in March” and to hear the same from others. Thank you for your No. There’s a steady group in the 29 days of writing, our words and word counts, poems and practice, building connection, columns and momentum. It’s satisfying when an idea comes together, when creativity pops up above the ‘no-one’s interested in what you think’ parapet. It's day 8 and I’ve written 8631 words according to the spreadsheet that I'd be quite willing to let Domme me, yet life and to do lists and things like water heaters are interfering with the afternoon pitching plan. Bah. Maybe that's March then.
All roads lead to writing. Derek Sankar gave me some wild archetype cards for my 60th birthday and we sit together on Zoom sometimes and do reads with each other. I pulled The Vow last week and felt a shudder of a shift. The Vow is about a pact made. What did I bargain for the heart of Mandala? Creativity and following a divine intelligence.
The focus on ‘sex education‘ in the last decade is quieted, yet remains, humming along, a low beat in the background that pops up in a warm hug, Sexological Bodywork training, a sensual bliss descending in ecstatic dance, or the reveries of turning a bend and the light in the olive trees. A gasp of noticing beauty. This time has been a quiet delight of blue skies and sunshine. Most days I still get the gratitude of ‘I live here now’ especially driving alongside the harbour on the route into Corfu Town, the big blue skies and far horizon, though I haven't left the house enough this week, apart from to go to get a bill cancelled.
It’s ok to be quiet and reflective. It’s what was needed. To wait, to respond to life and to what comes. It's enough, looking into screens in shared working zooms making our to-do lists happen, writing, occasionally making a proposal for a summer group. It’s enough. Knowing that life happens when it happens, that others too are gently stirring to action. That the diary will fill. Maybe there is no rush to tie things down immediately. Life is long.
Report from Greco – January 2023
Although I’ve felt on mute for a while, this morning I woke up to a wonderful email from my brilliant lawyer that says my residency visa is ready. Wooooh, that completes a long process, I’m going to pick it up tomorrow and that’s exciting me beyond all reason. Deep breath out. My European renaissance soul is singing and my inner rebel 7w8 is putting two fingers up to the stupidity and sadness I felt at Brexit. My mind is fast-forwarding to hanging out in gorgeous spots in Europe more often and not counting 90-day parcels.
And I also quietly didn’t say that in November, my house in Hebden Bridge finally sold to a wonderful buyer. So with that small sigh of relief comes a big wave of appreciation for the patience, shared vision and trust in the process. I felt and feel the love and belief of so many. It was a daunting process at times, a lot of nerves were held. And now I’m minding the gap between what is still owed and the luxury of creative freedom. What’s clear is what worked isn’t going to come close to being what’s needed for the future. 'Tis big to buy a house in a foreign country, leaving a life of 15 years behind, and begin anew, and yet on some levels, I don’t feel scared by destiny, though I’m sometimes overwhelmed by buildings and business structures. Maybe they’re just different strata of fear?
I can’t do this alone. I could never do this alone. What’s obvious Mandala needs a team - co-owners, fixers, gardeners, cooks, paying guests, bean-counters, painters, cleaners and creators if it’s going to be refuge, intentional community, healing, holiday & events space. I watched Swimmers while I was back in UK in November, a deeply moving film, so I’m aware of how privileged I’ve been to walse into Greece with a wad of cash (not mine) and be given access to sun, beauty and comfort. While magic undoubtedly happened, it’s humbling. 82% was about right. So now, how to use this privilege wisely?
Where do we begin? Here.
I like it here. This first winter is filled with weekly ecstatic dance followed by coffee at the beach, walks on the cliff, the fire is cosy, and on sunny days there’s warm watery beauty between the thunderstorms. Mandala attracts interesting people for sure. At the moment the house is blessed by Kostas, a disillusioned university professor turned surfer, taking a break from the inconvenience of van life and a volunteer called Mathilde who’s transforming the garden, rustling trees and cacti, stopping up mouse runs, making fermented kumquat preserve and generally being an ace right-hand woman. She’s off to work with refugees on Lesbos next month and there’ll be a gap. And 28 shutters and a house to paint. If you’re handy with a roller or paintbrush and you want workaway time, the Madame is all ears.
I’ve always had a sense of creating an arty, writerly, connecting, gathering place so I’m wondering how to do that. The heart of Mandala is dedicated to creativity and love and that’s the head-scratching next steps, of translating everyday destiny into a lived reality. Somehow in small steps, new ideas and possibilities are emerging. Interesting people are asking to come and stay. So, before publishing a website or on Airbnb, I want to stack the house in favour of friends, and people coming to Buddha Hall, Evolve or Agape Zoe first.
I do ask myself if I can really run a business like this. Why not? Who else is going to decide?!
Report from Greco – August 2023
Back to “Reach for what you cannot.”
I have big news and it’s only now that I’ve come into some sense of feeling the smile return to the edges of my mouth. I think I’ve been in slight shock at what I’ve done, which has muted me for a while. And I’ve been a busy bee at home. The news bulletin is I bought Mandala on 5th July. And I have an offer on my house.
Between those two small sentences is a bigger story that once I write it, will allow for the sense of wonder, miracle, and mystery of the unfolding. Yet I confess living with the pressure & the seeming mountains of doubt and debt, took the edge off. Though the process had so many moments of grace - perhaps the funniest bit was handing over packs of cash to beautiful lawyers and notaries - three muses in action, poring over topography and contracts. We did it!
Then I left Corfu 2 days later to come home for The Sex Lectures and teaching on the Sexological Bodywork embodiment week at Hebden Bridge Town Hall. It was so fantastic, and it absolutely rekindled my admiration and wonder for that modality.
I met my first tantra teacher a couple of weeks ago and I thought she said ‘Debt is grounding.’ Actually, she’d said, 'Doubt is grounding'. While doubt is good for humility, my first hearing was better, as it kickstarted my practical creativity which has felt shut down in the face of finding more loans, belief, stoicism and acceptance. So while my secret inner masochist has had a little field day, it’s time for the joy and expansion to begin. Hurrah.
My heart lifts every time someone suggests a great idea to bring to Mandala.
I can’t quite breathe a long out-breath yet - there’s the thought of leaving my home with my green valley view of 15 years, so a bit more packing and maybe an overdue cry. I am moving to Corfu on 28th August. It’s sinking in slowly. And I can’t wait to see you there.
Soon there’s going to be time for reflection, I’m already seeing the help at every step of the way. I’m feeling totally blessed by all the ways I’ve been supported financially, emotionally, and practically. Feeling not alone in this is such a gift.
So it turns out 82% belief in magic might be enough with all the prayers, spells, cash, cleansing, candle lighting, Osho tarot, pendulum guidance & good vibes, Greek lawyers, estate agents, and generous, loving friends. There are so many ways of holding the vision of creating.
Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. I'm in awe. Or I will be when I have a chance to pause and take it all in. And fall in love with the place brick by brick.
It’ll all be alright. Probably.
Report from Greco – May 2023
With apologies to Nikos Kazantzakis for the quote. “Reach what you cannot.”
I’m posting a picture of me here from last summer to remind myself of the flow and beauty of my time and missing flights and to know that this is still possible and miracles happen. And some bluebells, as I’m back in Hebden Bridge and enjoying the woods
Just before I left, I saw a notary or two on Tuesday and signed another document for the golden visa. So we have something decided. We’re going to the wire for 1 June and loans are being made into euros, which feels like the biggest risk I’ve ever taken. The deal is almost struck and yet my house isn’t sold, though a new estate agent is coming tomorrow (so perhaps let’s redouble our efforts on the sex magic, wanking, healing, praying, and miracles.)
I confess I wonder whether it is naive or dumb to believe we can pull this off, of not wanting this to fail is so strong AND I don’t have a plan b. The people I’m buying it from are so patient and graceful, and we all want this to happen. So far, every obstacle has had a solution. It’s too hard to walk away from what I sense is my destiny. Though it gets me questioning our magical thinking. Is 82% woo-woo enough when the rest of me is freaking out. That 18% - what to do?
Yet it feels natural, I love it already, there’s a sweetness to the spiritual guests on retreats at Corfu Buddha Hall and my friends Anne, Taylor and Priya arrived here to create Evolve in June. And we had a biodanza event in the olive press space, with so much love & colour, which I hope will be the first of many creative collaborations. I like who I’ve met and the 45 min walk up and down the hill into Arrillas seeing the spring flowers in the verges. And I had a moment of peace and wonder on an artist’s balcony overlooking the olive groves and shining sea, I could have cried at the beauty.
Osho discourses, a birthday Campari at sunset with Priya, sunset at 7th Heaven, and the beginning of falling in love with Mandala House.
My time In Magoulades is often characterised by washing and wrestling with double duvet covers that are bigger than me, next to the scent of orange blossom For an avowed anti-domesticate it’s not without irony. Soon no one will need a duvet. What’s an equivalent of "chop wood, carry water?"
