I’m back

Holy Shit!

Has it really been a year and a half since my last journal entry on 5 June, 2008? Yep. Just shy of the mark by only two weeks.

Well, I’m back. Welcome home.

My shadow precedes me as I walk through the gate.

In the intervening 18 months since the last entry I spent six of them travelling around the world, installed and de-installed after a month’s exhibition a 6 metre/ 20 foot tall one ton sculpture in Denmark that took four full months to carve at Windgrove before shipping, heart-breakingly separated from my partner Sally, lost my confidence and sense of purpose, charged into my early childhood behavioral patterns through therapy sessions,got back into Buddhist mindfulness meditation, kayaked in northern Minnesota’s Boundary Waters, hugged several gigantic red wood trees in California, spent three nude weeks at the Harbin hot springs resort, walked with poet David Whyte in England’s Lake District, studied a full month with Thomas Moore, Jules Cashford and Fritjof Capra at Schumacher College, undertook an eight day silent retreat at Spirit Rock Meditation Center, nourished my soul, reconnected with scores of friends in Germany, France, England and America, swam with the wild dolphins in Hawaii and, above all else, kept the faith that one day I would find more light in the day than darkness.

That’s it in a very tiny one sentence nutshell. Over the coming months I will tease out the above as well as keeping my readers informed of the daily happenings at Windgrove.

Past regular readers will notice that today’s blog has a new look and layout. My webmaster Allan Moult has spent the past three days here at Windgrove working with me in setting up the new look blog site. Moving all the earlier material over from Expression Engine to the new blogging platform Word Press will take time. Just to move one previous entry over to the new site takes approximately 5 to 10 minutes depending on the number of photos and the formatting of the writing. As there were 300 previous entries from five years of writing, this process will take a few weeks. So, bear with me while I slowly bring the past journal entries over to this new site.

Although there are bittersweet moments in rereading each previous entry that has a photo of Sally in it, and there are many that do, there is a lesson here in letting go with compassion and kindness rather than trying to block out the past through forgetfulness.

Actually, it fits right in with most of the philosophy of this blog: Life is a mixture of bliss and torment. It is a worthy pursuit to walk this human path with a generosity of spirit endeavoring to spread happiness to all beings. May we never stray too far off.