“If you don’t know where you are going, you’ll end up someplace else.” ~ Yogi Berra In Australia the expression Sunday Session is most commonly associated with a lazy day of hanging out with your mates, consuming rather a lot of alcohol. Preferably in a beer garden, with some live music and decent food. That […]
Dreams That Come True
“You are the magical fairy that makes things happen in your life. Don’t wait for someone else to make your dreams come true.” ~ Natalie Rivener I’m launching my Year of ME Planner – 2016 tonight, and tomorrow it will go live here on my blog. In reflection, it’s the continuation of my great […]
A Sneak Peek at My Secret Project!
“A goal without a plan is just a wish.” ~ Antoine de Saint-Exupéry I always thought that the first book I brought out into the world would be a story. But it isn’t my story. It’s yours! Here’s the sneak peek I promised you of the project I have been working on. It’s a […]
What Bravery Looks Like
“I don’t like and even resist, being broken wide-open. But, when the contents of my unconscious self spill out of me and I sift through all the disowned parts of who I am… it’s an uncomfortably enlightening and eye-opening experience. It feels a bit like emotional bloodletting. I guess every now and then, I need […]
What Else Can You See?
“To acquire knowledge, one must study; but to acquire wisdom, one must observe.” ~ Marilyn Vos Savant A wise and talented memoirist and creative writing teacher, Beth Kephart, has her students do an exercise where they go out into the world and take ten photographs. The students know they are going to come back […]
Looking Back at Me
“We look back on our life as a thing of broken pieces, because our mistakes and failures are always the first to strike us, and outweigh in our imagination what we have accomplished and attained.” ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Maxims and Reflections It’s odd, this process of writing about yourself. Seldom do we […]
Inside My Story
“Put down everything that comes into your head and then you’re a writer. But an author is one who can judge his own stuff’s worth, without pity, and destroy most of it.” ~ Colette, Casual Chance, 1964 I’m deep into the editing process for my memoir right now. It’s a strange process, crafting your own […]
Poking Bruises
“When we are tired, we are attacked by ideas we conquered long ago.” ~ Friedrich Nietzsche I’m still editing this memoir. Because of that, I did something really dumb. I couldn’t remember a detail about someone’s appearance. An old friend from the past. Turtle. What colour were his eyes? I couldn’t tell in any of […]
Crazy Busy Writing!
“There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.” ~ Ernest Hemingway There’s not much going on at my house right now. Except this. Reading. Underlining. Sighing. Crying. This book is all a pile of crap. Sudden bursts of stompy-footed door slamming and wandering around the paddocks. The […]
We’re nearly at magical 2 Million!
“Sometimes the most scenic roads in life are the detours you didn’t mean to take.” ~ Angela N. Blount, Once Upon an Ever After When I first started blogging, on December 11, 2011, I didn’t expect that anyone would read what I might post. Cauldrons and Cupcakes was an experiment. An online journal in […]
Getting Ready for May 2015
“A lot of things are inherent in life -change, birth, death, aging, illness, accidents, calamities, and losses of all kinds- but these events don’t have to be the cause of ongoing suffering. Yes, these events cause grief and sadness, but grief and sadness pass, like everything else, and are replaced with other experiences. The ego, […]
Getting Ready for April 2015
“And this mess is so big And so deep and so tall, We cannot pick it up. There is no way at all!” ~ Dr. Seuss, The Cat in the Hat “Perpetual devotion to what a man calls his business, is only to be sustained by perpetual neglect of many other things.” ~ Robert Louis Stevenson […]
What It Feels Like to be Hijacked By a New Story
“Don’t bend; don’t water it down; don’t try to make it logical; don’t edit your own soul according to the fashion. Rather, follow your most intense obsessions mercilessly.” ~ Franz Kafka Last year, on one of my retreats, something very interesting happened. Just a passing thing. But it would not let me go. I […]
Shhhh… I’m On Writing Retreat
“The scariest moment is always just before you start.” ~ Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft Shhhh… I’m on writing retreat. Well, writing boot camp, actually. So, hilariously, I’m writing this post to tell you that I have no time to write a post today. Because I’m writing. Me and a […]
Getting Ready for February!
“Unless commitment is made, there are only promises and hopes; but no plans.” ~ Peter F. Drucker “We are made to persist. that’s how we find out who we are.” ~ Tobias Wolff Hello Lovelies! February is nearly upon us, and I promised that I would support you in making the most of this […]
Choosing your Power Word for 2015
“The beginning of wisdom is the definition of terms.” ~ Socrates 2015 is almost upon us, and already I can feel the opportunity and potential transformation that this new year brings. Choosing a power word will help me to focus, and make the most of 2015’s energy. Why a power word? I long ago gave […]
Sowing Seeds
“Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant.” ~ Robert Louis Stevenson Yesterday afternoon the sky over the farm grew heavy and dark. The air was hot and humid, with not a hint of breeze. I had finished a busy day of phone readings and retreat […]
No Blog Due to Dinosaur
I am unable to blog this morning, owing to the fact that I am still in bed, trapped under a blue triceratops. Also, Lyme… Sorry, I’ve had a rotten night. And I have one eye that refuses to cooperate. Normal blogging should resume tomorrow.
Want To Get Your Book Written in November?
“Write it. Just write it. Write it on receipts in the car while you wait for your kid to finish their piano lessons, scribble on napkins at lunch with friends. Type on crappy typewriters or borrow computers if you have to. Fill notebooks with ink. Write inside your head while you’re in traffic and when […]
Why You Need A Tribe
A friend is someone who understands your past, believes in your future, and accepts you just the way you are. ~ Unknown We all need a tribe. A tribe isn’t often the family we are born into. A tribe is a group where we find a spiritual home – a group of people who […]
Write On!
“You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.” ~ Ray Bradbury, Zen in the Art of Writing Over the next four days I’ll be on retreat. Not one I’m running, but one I’m attending. Hopefully I’ll have some phone reception while I’m there, so that I can sneak out a post or […]
That Strange Wise Universe
“All things entail rising and falling timing. You must be able to discern this.“ ~ Miyamoto Musashi Sometimes things don’t go to plan. We’ve had a lot of rain here at the farm. Lots actually. Think floods. Last Saturday, after having been flooded in overnight, the causeway dropped and Ben decided we’d make a run […]
Life on Hold
“Finished crap can be edited. Unfinished greatness languishes forever. The only bad writing is the thing you didn’t write!” ~ Margarita Gakis I’m tweaking the very final edits of my memoir. You know, the one about my time in the Kimberley? So, there’s not much else to report right now until that’s done. That’s […]
The Sound of Rain
“On the fifth day, which was a Sunday, it rained very hard. I like it when it rains hard. It sounds like white noise everywhere, which is like silence but not empty.” ~ Mark Haddon, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time Here at the farm it’s raining. It has been […]
And Then It Was Done…
“When we are motivated by goals that have deep meaning, by dreams that need completion, by pure love that needs expressing, then we truly live.” ~ Greg Anderson Since early this year I’ve been hammering away at a memoir. I started writing it because you, dear readers, suggested that it was the thing you most […]
What My Morning Looks Like
“Each of us is a book waiting to be written, and that book, if written, results in a person explained.” ~ Thomas M. Cirignano, The Constant Outsider: Memoirs of a South Boston Mechanic I woke at four this morning with the ending of my memoir firmly in my head. So I am writing. And writing. […]
Unexpected Treasures from the #Writers Festival
“What a miracle it is that out of these small, flat, rigid squares of paper unfolds world after world after world, worlds that sing to you, comfort and quiet or excite you. Books help us understand who we are and how we are to behave. They show us what community and friendship mean; they show […]
A Busy Weekend of All Things #Books
“What really knocks me out is a book that, when you’re all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it. That doesn’t happen much, though.” ~ J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye […]
Sorry, but I’m #writing
“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.” ~ Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings I’ll keep this short. You see, I’m busy. Writing. Not blog writing. Book writing. Do you know how many words you need for a book? So many words. Not even counting the ones I […]
Why We Need YOUR Voice
“The one thing that you have that nobody else has is you. Your voice, your mind, your story, your vision. So write and draw and build and play and dance and live as only you can.” ~ Neil Gaiman Thanks to you, and to some wise and loving friends, I’ve been pushed to a major […]
Wise Birds Come Visiting
“One day you live somewhere, you call dat country home. Smell like dis place. Earth. Sea. But make you happy again. We send all dem black fella birds remind you your promise. Remind you your story. Then you know it’s time. Time to be dat story. Live dat story in your heart. Live your true […]
OMG! One Million Views!!!
“If one is lucky, a solitary fantasy can totally transform one million realities.” ~ Maya Angelou A little over two years ago I began this blog with a humble post about my recipe for Ice-Cream Plum Pudding. (If you never tried it I do urge you to – it’s delicious!) I truly had no idea that […]
Reminders from my Younger Self
“Stories you read when you’re the right age never quite leave you. You may forget who wrote them or what the story was called. Sometimes you’ll forget precisely what happened, but if a story touches you it will stay with you, haunting the places in your mind that you rarely ever visit.” ~ Neil Gaiman, M is […]
Update from Nurse Bert
“Wounding and healing are not opposites. They’re part of the same thing. It is our wounds that enable us to be compassionate with the wounds of others. It is our limitations that make us kind to the limitations of other people. It is our loneliness that helps us to find other people or to even […]
Who’s your Support Crew in 2014?
“Oh, I get by with a little help from my friends Mm, I get high with a little help from my friends Mm, gonna try with a little help from my friends” ~ John Lennon and Paul McCartney Few of us get there on our own. The journey is always made easier when we have […]
2013 – My Blog in Review
“And it occurred to me that there is no such thing as blogging. There is no such thing as a blogger. Blogging is just writing — writing using a particularly efficient type of publishing technology.” ~ Simon Dumenco It’s hard to believe that two years ago I started my blog with a humble post […]
What’s your Power Word for 2014?
“The beginning of wisdom is the definition of terms.” ~ Socrates I long ago gave away the practice of multiple New Years Resolutions. Just the thought of it overwhelms me. You know; all the things you are going to do, all the things you are no longer going to do – and then dividing those […]
Thank you! We’re Two!!
“I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be.” ~ Douglas Adams, The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul Cauldrons and Cupcakes turns two today. Two years since my first uncertain foray into the world of blogging, with the auspicious post Ice-Cream Plum […]
Life -Disconnected!
“We are creating and encouraging a culture of distraction where we are increasingly disconnected from the people and events around us, and increasingly unable to engage in long-form thinking. People now feel anxious when their brains are unstimulated.” ~ Joe Kraus There was a huge storm here at the farm on Saturday afternoon. The Black Cockatoos […]
The Friends Who Came to Visit
“When we honestly ask ourselves which people in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us […]
NaNoWriMo time…
“There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.” ~ Ernest Hemingway November is National Novel Writing Month, lovingly abbreviated to NaNoWriMo (pronounced nano-ry-moh). It’s a crazy time where writers commit to writing a novel in a month. Well, 50 000 possibly very bad words, but words none-the-less, between […]
The Curious Case of Clothespeg Matching
“Be regular and orderly in your life, so that you may be violent and original in your work.” ~ Gustav Flaubert Something interesting happened yesterday as I was pegging out the washing. Well, interesting to me, anyhow… For all of my life I have shaken out each item, and pegged it neatly by corners or seams. I […]
Create Positive Change Program – Week 5
“Do the difficult things while they are easy and do the great things while they are small. A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.” ~Lao Tzu There’s no point in merely thinking about change. Thinking is an important part of the process, but there is nothing quite so powerful, so […]
Create Positive Change Program – Week 4
“It’s not hard to decide what you want your life to be about. What’s hard, she said, is figuring out what you’re willing to give up in order to do the things you really care about.” ― Shauna Niequist, Bittersweet: Thoughts on Change, Grace, and Learning the Hard Way That’s the thing about change. It requires room. […]
BLoGGing is HArd!
“A challenge only becomes an obstacle when you bow to it.” ~ Ray Davis Blogging ish hard when: Your eyes don’t work Your brain is on vacation you need tozoom the page to stupid percent magnification to see anything the keyboard for your compuzer seems like a monster swapped it for a foreign langwage. But I’m […]
Calling me back…
“When we illuminate the road back to our ancestors, they have a way of reaching out, of manifesting themselves…sometimes even physically.” ~ Raquel Cepeda, Bird of Paradise: How I Became Latina All things going well, I shall be on the road this Sunday, heading out to Longreach in Western Queensland for a few weeks. Ben and […]
Create Positive Change Program – Week 3
“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow […]
Create Positive Change Program – Week 2
“Take the first step in faith. You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.” ~ Martin Luther King, Jr. One of the biggest obstacles to change is that feeling of overwhelm we get when we look at where we are now, and then at the distance between us and our goal/heart’s […]
Excuses for not blogging…
“It is better to offer no excuse than a bad one.” ~ George Washington There’s a reason why I am not blogging today. Honest! Aliens visited my farm and I needed to make them scones and tea… A giant spider invaded my home town via the disused railway line… I got a bit caught up… […]
Create Positive Change Program – Week 1
“For things to change, you have to change.” ~ Jim Rohn, The Art of Exceptional Living There’s change in the air. We’re finally shifting away from those old energies, those old patterns, and into the beginnings of a new space. Change is always a little chaotic, and it can be unsettling and uncomfortable. But change also gives […]
My Lazy Sunday
“A Sunday well-spent brings a week of content.” ~ Proverb I had intended to come up with something fabulous for today’s blog. But the truth is all I can think about is making a pot of tea, cracking my knuckles, and sitting down to work on my pirates and fairies story. It’s one of my favourite things […]
Working to Create Positive Change – An 8 Week Program
“Your life does not get better by chance, it gets better by change.” ~ Jim Rohn We’re living in exciting times – times that are opening us up to great new possibilities and future directions. But how can we make the best of these energies of change that are upon us? Over the next eight […]
Writing Advice that works for Life too!
“Don’t throw it all away, our love, our love. Don’t throw it all away, our love.” ~ The Bee Gees The wonderful thing about good advice is that it’s usually applicable to more than one thing. Yesterday I was reading a great post called 23 Tips from Famous Writers for New and Aspiring Authors. […]
Harry – Cafe Dog!
“Coffee is a language in itself.” ~ Jackie Chan Good Morning! It’s Harry here. Mum is meditating, so I thought I’d save time and write her blog so that we can go to the cafe faster. I love cafes. Ever since I was little I’ve been going. Especially first thing in the morning. So now I’m […]
Don’t Let Anyone Sink Your Ship!
“Dreams are difficult to build and easy to destroy.” ~ Seth Godin There is much truth in that quote. No matter how thick-skinned or emotionally resilient we think we are, our dreams – especially when new and tender – are fragile things. Today I want to remind you how important it is to protect those […]
Who do you tell?
“That is part of the beauty of all literature. You discover that your longings are universal longings, that you’re not lonely and isolated from anyone. You belong.” ~ F. Scott Fitzgerald It’s taken me a long time to begin to share my story… For the longest while I never even thought I would. But then I […]
Life without my computer…
At first I wondered how I would cope, but then this happened… Beautiful book. Cup of tea. Sleep. Visits with friends. Hand-written notes for my cookbook project as I snuggled under a doona on a cold, rainy night. And suddenly Sunday was over… Today I see my Lyme Doctor, obtain a raft of new […]
Blogging is redundant
This is what blogging looks like on a rainy cold morning when the dog ate your computer. Hint: Somewhere under the dog and the blanket is me…. (This post proudly brought to you by i-phone.)
Unforseen Technical Issues
This blog is temporarily out of service due to unforseen technical issues. Live updates are being brought to you via i-phone. A certain dog is in deep, deep trouble…. Again. Normal blogging will resume when new power pack has been sourced. Thank you for your understanding at this difficult time.
The Lady Who Walked Out of My Past
“I sustain myself with the love of family.” ~ Maya Angelou One late afternoon in April this year, the dusky sunset was shimmery and luminous. A light rain fell, misting the cold air and making us hurry to light a fire and get inside where it was warm. That evening the moon rose brightly amid patchy […]
The Patient should be Sleeping
“It is an awful thing to be betrayed by your body. And it’s lonely, because you feel you can’t talk about it. You feel it’s something between you and the body. You feel it’s a battle you will never win . . . and yet you fight it day after day, and it wears you […]
Sex, Drugs and Meditation – A journey to Self!
“I said to my soul, be still and wait without hope, for hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love, for love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith, but the faith and the love are all in the waiting. Wait without thought, for you are not ready […]
‘Mum’s sleeping!’ by Guest Bloggers Bert & Harry
“Sleep is the best meditation.” ~ Dalai Lama Mum’s sleeping. But she hates to miss posting her blog, so we are writing one for her. We’ve had enough of napping! There is a pesky lizard that keeps swimming in our water bowl. This is a picture of him. A naughty bird keeps stealing our biscuits. Here […]
Making My Life Work for Me – Week 5
“Holding on is believing that there’s only a past; letting go is knowing that there’s a future.” ~ Daphne Rose Kingma “There’s an important difference between giving up and letting go.” ~ Jessica Hatchigan Welcome to Week 5 of our six week Making My Life Work for Me Program. (If you’ve only just stumbled upon us, pop […]
Making My Life Work for Me – Week 4
“There is no end to education. It is not that you read a book, pass an examination, and finish with education. The whole of life, from the moment you are born to the moment you die, is a process of learning.”~ Jiddu Krishnamurti “Learn to get in touch with the silence within yourself, and know that […]
Celebrating the triumphs of friends
“I count myself in nothing else so happy As in a soul rememb’ring my good friends.” ~ William Shakespeare Last night I had the pleasure of attending the book launch of Charlotte Nash’s Ryders Ridge, hosted at that bastion of local writing support Avid Reader, in West End, Brisbane. Charlotte is a dear friend, and a […]
Life, blurred.
“I had nothing to offer anybody except my own confusion.” ~ Jack Kerouac Sometimes, life gets smudged around the edges and my crisp lines fuzzle into fluffy lumps of something but I haven’t got the word for it. No words is hard for a writer. Or when you forget the shape of things or what her […]
Making My Life Work for Me – Week 3
“Keep love in your heart. A life without it is like a sunless garden when the flowers are dead.” ~ Oscar Wilde “A loving heart is the beginning of all knowledge.” ~ Thomas Carlyle “Love is life. And if you miss love, you miss life.” ~ Leo Buscaglia Welcome to Week 3 of our six week Making My Life Work for Me […]
Making My Life Work for Me – Week 2
“Never tell a young person that anything cannot be done. God may have been waiting centuries for someone ignorant enough of the impossible to do that very thing.” ~ G. M. Trevelyan “Maybe we should develop a Crayola bomb as our next secret weapon. A happiness weapon. A beauty bomb. And every time a crisis developed, […]
Please Vote for Me and My Blog!
“Friends… they cherish one another’s hopes. They are kind to one another’s dreams.” ~ Henry David Thoreau Hello Lovelies! I have a favour to ask of you. You see, I have entered my little blog, Cauldrons and Cupcakes, in the Australian Writers’ Centre’s Best Australian Blogs 2013 Competition. One of the categories allows people to […]
Making My Life Work for Me – Week 1
“Live with intention. Walk to the edge. Listen hard. Practice wellness. Play with abandon. Laugh. Choose with no regret. Appreciate your friends. Continue to learn. Do what you love. Live as if this is all there is.” ~ Mary Anne Radmacher Welcome to Week 1 of our six week Making My Life Work for Me […]
Making My Life Work for Me! – A 6 Week Journal Program
“I can choose either to be a victim of the world or an adventurer in search of treasure. It’s all a question of how I view my life.” ~ Paulo Coelho I’ve been quite overwhelmed with the flood of messages and emails since yesterday’s post on Remembering to take care of YOU! Seems that many of […]
Do you really need to start with a Grand Gesture?
“You just have to keep on doing what you do. It’s the lesson I get from my husband; he just says, Keep going. Start by starting.”~ Meryl Streep Is there something you really want to do? Is there a dream or a goal, a vision you hold for the future? Maybe you want to be a […]
What my day looks like…
Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz…….. Normal blogging interrupted due to uncontrollable napping.
When the Muse vanishes – thoughts on the loss of creativity
“Creativity is our true nature; blocks are an unnatural thwarting of a process at once as normal and as miraculous as the blossoming of a flower at the end of a slender green stem.” ~ Julia Cameron If you’ve ever had some sort of creative block, where the juices stop flowing and the ideas dry […]
Welcoming 2013
“I have always been delighted at the prospect of a new day, a fresh try, one more start, with perhaps a bit of magic waiting somewhere behind the morning. ” ~ J. B. Priestley I know the calendar says that we’re already into February, but from an energetic point of view today, 2nd February, is really […]
Everyday Blessings
“Sometimes it happens that you become one, in some rare moment. Watch the ocean, the tremendous wildness of it–and suddenly you forget your split, your schizophrenia; you relax. Or, moving in the Himalayas, seeing the virgin snow on the Himalayan peaks, suddenly a coolness surrounds you and you need not be false because there is […]
The Terrible Dream
I’m not usually one for bad dreams. Weird dreams? Sure. And I’ve had more than my fair share of prophetic dreams. But outright scary and disturbing dreams are usually thin on the ground at my house. So what form did last night’s dream take? Well, no-one I loved died, the world didn’t end, aliens didn’t […]
Dragging your tail into 2013? Maybe its not you…
“When you get into a tight place and everything goes against you, till it seems as though you could not hang on a minute longer, never give up then, for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn.” ~ Harriet Beecher Stowe So here we are in 2013. It’s shaping […]
10 Ways To Be Kind to Yourself
“Kindness is the greatest wisdom.” ~ Author Unknown Mostly when we think of kindness, we think of how we can act towards others. But today I want to focus on another equally important type of kindness – that which we extend to ourselves. The beginning of the year is an opportune time for setting up […]
What’s your Power Word for 2013?
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” John 1:1 The New Year – most people try to jam it full of resolutions. All the things you are going to do. All the things you are no longer going to do. It’s become quite vogue-ish to […]
I’m a Star! Blog of the Year Award 2012
I’ve been honoured today with another blogging gong. The lovely Lorna of Lorna’s Tearoom Delights has bestowed upon me the Blog of the Year Award 2012. I do hope you go visit Lorna’s blog – it’s full of deliciousness, and she’s a dear Soul with lots of everyday wisdom and crackingly good photography on her […]
Gifts to Give Yourself this Christmas
“And the Grinch, with his Grinch-feet ice cold in the snow, stood puzzling and puzzling, how could it be so? It came without ribbons. It came without tags. It came without packages, boxes or bags. And he puzzled and puzzled ’till his puzzler was sore. Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn’t before. What if […]
We’re One! My Blog’s First Anniversary ♥
“Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.” – Dr. Seuss Wow. That came around fast. Today marks the first birthday of my blogging career – a whole year of sharing words, images and my crazy life. Who ever knew it could […]
The Excitement of Going Home
“Home is where the heart is.” ~ JOSEPH C. NEAL I’m going home today – home to my own little farm. After too much time in the big city, with bags barely unpacked from my Thailand adventure, I am finally going home. Somehow, when I wasn’t paying attention, Summer arrived. Somehow Christmas snuck up. I’ve been […]
A Room of One’s Own…
Thank you, Virginia, for that most valuable of advice. When I was younger her quote didn’t make much sense – weren’t women independent now, didn’t we have the vote, weren’t we emancipated and equal and couldn’t we Have It All? A room? Goddam it Virginia, I’m a modern woman. I can buy myself a whole […]
The Power of Mentors
“The greatest good you can do for another is not just to share your riches but to reveal to him his own.” – Benjamin Disraeli We all learn by modelling ourselves on others. As babies we mimic our parents, copying everything they do until we learn to do those things for ourselves; facial expressions, gestures, words, […]
A Magical Way to Attract More of What You Want!
Last week I shared a simple but powerful journal exercise with you, designed to help you get clarity about what you REALLY want in life. If you didn’t read it, or need to refresh your memory, here’s the link: Getting to the Heart of things All you needed to do was to write an answer […]
Getting to the Heart of Things
There is a powerful journalling exercise that I use every so often. It is a very simple technique, but it never fails to give me clarity. It also highlights areas of my life that aren’t working, shows me where my resentments and frustrations are, and uncovers my deepest dreams and desires. It works best when […]
Ghostly Messages and Weird Confirmations…
Most of you probably know that I’m a bit of a writing bender right now. I hadn’t expected to embark on a new project; I have two finished manuscripts to edit, workshop notes to write, and some courses to finish. And of course I’ve started on my second novel with my husband. This bender came […]
Pumpkin Soup Recipe and the Writing Disease
If you do not breathe through writing, if you do not cry out in writing, or sing in writing, then don’t write, because our culture has no use for it. ~ Anais Nin You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you. ~ Ray Bradbury There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit […]
Public Service Announcement
Ah-hem… Am I on camera? “Hello.” “This is a Public Service Announcement.” Authorised by me. Bert. Nicole’s Personal Assistant. “Nicole is writing. Not blog writing. Other writing. So we apologise for this interruption to the blogging process. Normal blogging will resume tomorrow.” “We thank you for your co-operation and understanding.” Sigh. Did I do that […]
A little piece of Europe…
“One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things.” – Henry Miller Australia is a long way from anywhere. You don’t just pop across the border to another country on a Sunday drive. You can’t be anywhere else in an hour or two’s plane flight. So when I feel like travelling, I […]
Writing Ourselves into Awareness
“Your visions will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.” ― C.G. Jung Sometimes we get so confused. We run this way and that way – searching for the thing, the answer, the lover, the teacher… We forget to trust ourselves. We forget to […]
Writing Yourself into a Brighter Future
The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams. ~ Eleanor Roosevelt Did you know that thoughts have great power? When we have clear goals and ideas, and attach positive emotion to them, we magnetise these mental images and begin the process of creating them in our reality. (See this post […]
Using your Internal Compass to Navigate Life
At any moment, you have a choice, that either leads you closer to your spirit or further away from it. ~ Thich Nhat Hahn Inside each of us in a compass. Although we can’t see it, it spins and turns in ways we can feel, if only we learn to tune in to it. The […]
My ‘One Lovely Blog’ Award
One of the things I’ve come to love about the blogging community is their generosity of spirit, their ability to connect us, one to another, and the crazy amount of awards that are out there for us to show our gratitude and appreciation to one another. I’ve recently been nominated for the One Lovely Blog […]
In Defence of Fairies
Nothing can be truer than fairy wisdom. It is as true as sunbeams. ~Douglas Jerrold Those of you who know me will also know that I believe in fairies. In fact, you’ll know that I count a fairy as one of my dearest friends. I found myself in an odd position on the weekend. I’m […]
Protecting a Good Idea
We’ve all had them. Ideas that are special to us. Ideas that seem like they could turn into something good given enough time. It might be an idea about creating something or becoming something – but we sense that this idea is special, and has the power to be transformational for us. A good idea […]
When the Muse Whispers in Your Ear…
O! for a muse of fire, that would ascend the brightest heaven of invention. ~ William Shakespeare Inspiration comes to us in many ways, but there is one way almost all creative people have in common – the Muse comes and whispers in your ear. The Muse knows you – she knows your talents and […]