Woop woop… woop woop…. There’s an African Hoopoe calling from a nearby tree this morning . A Southern Masked Weaver is finding grass to weave his nest as spring sets in properly here in the Southern Hemisphere. There’s also a Bokmakierie, Cape Robin-Chat and a White-bellied Sunbird adding their voices to the morning’s soundscape.
I’m in a leafy suburb of my hometown, Jozie (Johannesburg), with some unexpected reflection time.
I have been hurtling from adventure to adventure since I arrived back in magical Mzansi in May living the year of my dreams. Now I can feel the Universe’s rhythms slowing my pace. Time to start resettling.
Reading back through my Anticipation post from January, I am overwhelmed with Gratitude for all that I worked so hard to Make happen playing out in the most incredible way imaginable. However, even more overwhelming has been what I Let happen along the way…. The unexpected adventures and unlooked-for soul connections have left an indelible mark on my Soul… a beautiful tattoo on my heart that speaks to my Word for the Year…. Trust.
The concept of a Word for the Year is something I learned this year from one of those unlooked-for soul connections I mentioned. We were swapping stories as we sat round the fire at Kosi Bay way back in May on the Rise of the Matriarch expedition, and Erin asked each of us what our Word for the Year was. A true expedition moment as each of us shared the Word that came to each of us….. tribal bonds cemented that night, for sure!
In her beautiful style, Erin recently posted these words about Tapping into Trust:
Trust is such a beautiful thing. We earn it from others and we give it to those who have in some way shown you that they deserve to have yours. It can be fragile and sometimes difficult to hand over, when we give trust, we let people in. We say, “Ok, I will let you see this part of me”, and we hand it over with hope, that it should never be broken.
We have to allow trust to bloom in so many spaces and places in our lives. But the most important trust, is the trust we place in ourselves. Trusting yourself is following your God given navigational system through life. It’s the quiet voice that says yes, no, go slow, jump! I think we know when we are not trusting ourselves fully, it’s that uncomfortable niggly feeling!
Trust can be hard, but oh so freeing too! Trust yourself, trust that everything will be ok in the end, that you will find a way, that you will make the right decisions, that you are so capable of making everything you desire yours. Trust that what is meant for you will never miss you and trust that what is not, will find a way to leave. And when it does, you circle back to trust 🖤
Ooooh, that is good!
One of my adventures this September has been a long-awaited reunion tour back to the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park. Fifteen years ago, I lived and worked there. The experience was so seminal. It broke me. It renewed me. It forever changed me. I wrote about this in my first blog post – Pure Spaces. The idea for Pure Spaces began there. I had no idea then what it would really be. But I never let go of this particular dream and in fifteen years, magic has happened.
What a gift to return to the Kalahari! And with another of my Anam Cara, Kerryn. We met in the Kgalagadi all those years ago and have remained friends. We have shared each other’s ups and downs even when we have lived on opposite sides of the planet.
For a while there we did not think we would get it right, our reunion tour…. And I think we both wondered if it would still hold the same magic for us. That it did! Such an awesome wander down our memories – the bitter and the sweet. Living in the Kalahari has its share of both. I think that’s what makes it such a shaping experience.
Those big rosy skies at dawn and dusk, the bright orangey red sand of the dunes, the white dust from the Calcrete outcrops, the prickly dry heat shimmer, the cold night air that moves right through you, the Camel Thorn trees abundant with Sociable Weavers and Crimson-breasted Shrikes or a Pygmy Falcon. The wild, wild, wildness of it all is breath-taking. There are no words that can really capture being in this Pure Space.
Now we have new memories to inspire us for the next part of our life’s adventure. Our Kgalagadi cup has been filled once again.
And it all comes down to Trust. Trust in a benevolent Universe…. Or as Erin so eloquently puts it, “following your God given navigational system through life.”
So my next Trust Adventure is the resettling part I alluded to earlier in this post. I wrote this in that Anticipation post in January:
2022 is about starting the journey of progressing Pure Spaces from passion project to purposeful career. So no more day job for me. Throwing this Big Dream out to the universe, immersing myself in volunteer work in my happy place and then….
The ‘and then…..” part has turned out to be some wonderful collaboration projects as a freelancer and now landing a job with an incredible organisation at the forefront of wildlife conservation in Africa. My dream of having a more direct involvement in a Conservation Collective I have been in awe of for so long has come true. I am beyond excited to begin this next chapter…..
It seems poetic to me to have all this on the horizon in the same year as being able to visit the Pure Space where it all began fifteen years ago….. the Universe’s poetry. My heart is full. My cup runneth over 🖤