Mid-winter 

 

Sunrise from our east window and Moon-setting from our west window

Winter of the Soul?

 I was recently paging through the website of  Báyò Akómoláfé... It is easy in our cold, wet, mid-winter days, where the daily news is constantly met with a knot in my stomach, for a winter of the soul to set in. Báyò offers a fresh approach... something to ponder on:

 ‘I am quite confident that even as the oceans boil, and the hurricanes beat violently against our once safe shores, and the air sweats with the heat of impending doom, and our fists protest the denial of climate justice, that there is a path to take that has nothing to do with victory or defeat: a place we do not yet know the coordinates to; a question we do not yet know how to ask. The point of the departed arrow is not merely to pierce the bullseye and carry the trophy: the point of the arrow is to sing the wind and remake the world in the brevity of flight. There are things we must do, sayings we must say, thoughts we must think, that look nothing like the images of success that have so thoroughly possessed our visions of justice. May this new decade be remembered as the decade of the strange path, of the third way, of the broken binary, of the traversal disruption, the kairotic moment, the posthuman movement for emancipation, the gift of disorientation that opened up new places of power, and of slow limbs.

May this decade bring more than just solutions, more than just a future - may it bring words we don't know yet, and temporalities we have not yet inhabited. May we be slower than speed could calculate, and swifter than the pull of the gravity of words can incarcerate. And may we be visited so thoroughly, and met in wild places so overwhelmingly, that we are left undone. Ready for composting. Ready for the impossible. Welcome to the decade of the fugitive.

And from his Course page … These offerings are an embodiment of what I sense is some of my deepest work – to open up new places of power and responsivity; to make space for the otherwise; to help in the partial recuperation of our vital connections with land, place and people; and, to live a small, intimate life. 

May these words bring you inspiration and nourishment at this mid-winter time... even if you live in the mid-summer of the north... 

How to Love 9 page poster

 

How to Love Course

Beginning Tuesday 14 April 2026 

 This course will embrace into one integrated whole, all my learning I have done with Tessabella over the years - How to Love, Listening to Connect, Mental Health, Boys Born Anxious. I will also draw on the Enabling Life course I did over the last three years, and on aspects of my learning and life experience with my previous KalloSophia courses.   

 

  

Christmas in Summer

 

Christmas Greetings 

 

 

 

As the wind blows in the sunny days here in the south of the country,

So the rains in the northern parts bring about the rising floods.

Holiday-making throughout the country

Laughter, hiking, swimming, kiting

And, of course, eating. 

The country revels...

Some, in their modest ways

Others excessively.

Let us remember that it is the time to practice loving too

That Christmas is about reaching out...

Remembering

Building joy together.  

The purpose of it all. 

 

Upcoming How to Love Course click: HOW TO LOVE 

Active Practical Love Initiative international website for general information 

CLICK HERE

 

 

Holding Hands into the Future

 

Taking a Deep Breath

  Nine months since I last posted ... each day presenting us all with new experiences, new events, mighty shocks, new sadness, searching questions, fresh insights, special friends

 and also, new healing...

 

And on the West Coast, just north of Cape Town, we are blessed with one of the most beautiful Springs ever...what a display of new life, colour, bounty, and all in the flash of a wand ... like the Earth's Phoenix rising. From one day of no colour to a sparkling rainbow blanket. Moods lift, smiles return, hope and gladness are tangible. 

 

As I take a deep breath of joy and delight as the season turns, 

I ask myself...

 Where is my turning, and what brings about my blossoming? 

 

And the gentle Spring breeze whispers:

 'By holding hands with others ...'

 

I will be starting two new How to Love courses in April next year (Click on Upcoming Courses tab above for more details... poster to follow). And I might also offer a Story and Art workshop and a Geometry workshop in between. 

I will let you know. 

 

I think of you all in your such individual lives, and I am so glad 

to be in touch with you all again. 

 

   

Summer is here - I think!

 

In between the Winds

A scorching hot Christmas with hardly a breeze, the next day a first lie in the sun, dip in the sea, and now howling winds, and rain predicted tonight! 

We are having a summer holiday at home... we are loving the visitors, the light and also profound conversations, catching up on long awaited writing, READING... and just sitting in the evenings looking at our gentle Christmas displays, lit by candlelight, and pondering the riddles of the universe.

When my children were little I made a small nativity set out of felt, with real wooden camels for the kings, bought in Egypt, a variety of animals and straw stars for the Christmas trees. It was very much a Shepherds Christmas scene ... humble devotion. It was much loved. Then, when we left McGregor just over two years ago I gave it all to the school's Grade 1 & 2 teacher - it was nearly 40 years old. It felt that we had come to an end of an era.  

Since then I have been gently looking for a replacement, knowing that the right one would turn up... and it did... a week before this Christmas. We were in what has become a favourite stationery shop, looking for something else, and there it was... a beautifully crafted set, aesthetic, serene, contemplative... this time a kingly Christmas scene - royal, wise and beautiful. We loved it immediately.

It has a perfect home in our lounge. And now I am pondering... what are the winds of change that have moved us from being 'shepherds' to being 'kings'?

 

Just over a week ago, I ran a star paper-folding workshop in our double garage, one half of which is being converted to a studio for Michael. I invited four ladies from our complex, and amid much snacking, talking and laughing we created two stars each... now proudly displayed in windows in our respective apartments. Click on the Gallery tab above to see a collage of our time together.

This past year Michael has been writing his 3rd book, which will be published in the new year. I have been mainly running my 'How to Love' courses, and attending a 3-year online course given by Proteus with Al Kaplan and Sue Davidoff. It is called 'Enabling Life' - based on their practice of delicate activism - it has truly been life-giving to me. 

Apart from my 'How to Love' Courses, we are not planning far ahead... we are now being a bit spontaneous about our offerings - I will keep you informed. 

A reminder that my next 'How to Love' online course will begin on Tuesday 8 July 2025... a two hour once a month course for 12 months. I am also contemplating offering another one, at different time. Please let me know if you would like to attend at a different time.   

Wishing you all a rejuvenating time, whether in the warm sun, or cold snow and rain, and may 2025 hold many beautiful surprises for you.

With our love,

Briar and Michael

 

   

Spring is coming...

 Change

In this changing season from a long, cold, wet and stormy Winter, and the tentative signs of Spring ... the smell of jasmine in the air, a yellow hue on the fields, small little pockets of white daisies, even with some orange loners inbetween... there is both joy, and sadness. 

For me, it is the joy of the light in the quiet blue vault of a cloudless sky, the brightness of the braking wave, the sparkle on the wings of hundreds of seagulls as they fly from north to south in the early morning. It is also so many other things... colour returning, less clothes, less heating, more laughter, movement, and people to greet. We recently chatted with the beach cleaners as they cleaned away the huge deposits of red bait from a churning full-moon sea. They pointed to another group following behind them, who would clean the mountains of tangled kelp that had been washed right up to the road, even blocking our normal access for our morning walk. This would be used for making toiletries. 

And the sadness? Leaving behind the cosy early evenings of reading, conversation, mending, and the moments of silence and aloneness, concentration and writing, the soups and the stews, the often empty streets, and beaches. Getting so many tasks done and ticked off my lists - and then the panic that I had hoped to do so much more ...

Change... how have I changed this Winter... how will I change in Spring? How about you?

In our How to Love courses, in person and online, amidst the laughter, the tears, the concentration, the letting go, the struggles, the successes ... change is happening too ...

 

 

 Autumn thoughts

Today is a gentle Autumn day...

 

It is a day with a soft feel

Where the ripples on the sea are hardly there

And the breeze teases my hair with light fingers 

It brings on a quiet smile...

The sand is wide and still 

The sky is touched with comforting clouds

It is a day where I can stand 

And look ... forever.  

.......................................................

Dear KalloSophia Friends,

It is time now to give you the details of my two How to Love courses, which both start in June. These courses come at a time when our hearts are battered by the world around us. 

We can be part of the solution... we can bring more love into the world.

It is the greatest deed, with the greatest potential.

Let us hold hands and act delicately.