My dear sweet Parisian cat, Avedon, put his head out the door of our Greek village house and looked down at the ground beneath his feet, left to right like he was watching a game of tennis and then raising his nose towards the sky with eyes wide open like saucers. 

After ten years of living exclusively in a Parisian apartment with no garden or balcony, his senses were overloaded with sweet scents of Spring and new information. His eyes were trying to take it all in, his soul appeared like it was ‘rewilding’, running the tape of innate data that had been stored and passed on from his cat ancestors and giving it an update.

Watching Avedon’s ‘rewilding’ is not that dissimilar to mine over the past twenty years, reconnecting to nature, the wild within and without, and listening to my needs and wants and respecting them.

When we reconnect to our instincts, curiosity, intuition, joy,  and the natural world, it’s a sort of homecoming to ourselves, a solid place of contentment where you get your North Star back. 

When the sights and smells, the birds chirping and the wind blowing were too much for him, he would dart back inside to the safety of the house to regroup before he would race back outdoors for another look and whiff of this new world. He just couldn’t take his eyes off it!

It took about 15 minutes of racing backwards and forwards before he had the courage to take one step out of the door frame and onto the ground outside. Neil Armstrong once said: “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind,” and Avedon’s version is something like “one small step for a cat, one quantum leap for a Parisian cat!”

We have come so far as human beings but is it too far? Are we too disconnected from a natural way of living and the innate knowledge of Mother Nature? Are we too disconnected from what brings us joy and too focused on what everyone else is doing or thinks to respect our innate nature?

Living on a steady diet of technology, processed food, mass media, OGM’s, pharmaceuticals, and throw in two years of isolation from each other, cancellation of rituals such as weddings, funerals, celebrations of births, birthday parties and anniversaries, and cultural events, we all need a little ‘rewilding’. 

Just like my cat, I believe our instincts are always there, even if they haven’t been called upon in a while, they just need to be reignited. 

Like all things, we need a balance in the way we live, we need love, care, kindness, community, meaning, and sometimes, like Avedon, we need to roll around in the mud! We need to use technology and not let technology use us.

If you’ve lost your focus, your world feels like it’s lacking something and you aren’t sure what it is, you may need just to ‘rewild’ a little.

Here are some suggestions on how you can start ‘rewilding’:

• Limiting technology
• A walk in the woods 
• A conversation with someone you care about
• Giving and receiving 
• Eating natural food that doesn’t come out of a box or packet
• Spending time simply being instead of inaction
• Planting a garden
• Respecting our natural world and seeing its power 
• Learning the names of plants in your local area
• Getting quiet and listening to your voice
• Recognising your needs and wants 
• Plant a herb garden
• Respecting your natural rhythms 
• Seeing a Naturopath and learning more about natural health
• Allowing yourself to do things that feel good

Like Avedon, once you get in touch with your instincts and Mother Nature and start hearing your voice, you just want to keep going there, to that place where you feel good. 

Our beautiful Parisian cat loves rolling in the dirt, smelling the flowers and plants and chasing bugs, lying in the sun with his eyes closed like all his dreams have come true at once, when night comes it’s hard to convince him to come inside, we see just a silhouette of a cat on the rooftops rediscovering the joy and wonder of the natural world.

Sending love,

Carla x

Dear Lovelies, my dream was worth fighting for. I just ripped off the bandaid on a cold Parisian winter’s day and took a huge step into a dream I have held close to my heart for years. 

The above inspiration board was shared at the Get Published workshop I did in 2017 in Sydney. I was illustrating to the participants how I continue to reconnect to things that are important to me that I want to realise sometime in the future and how I physically make a board with those images on it to help me bring it to life.

You will see on my inspiration board that there is a vegetable garden, creativity, friends, cats, creative workshops, my family, me wandering down a set of stairs in a Greek village, hubby and me, beaches, simplicity, beauty, and photography. 

There were days when I thought this vision would never happen. Sometimes life felt like it just kept throwing obstacles in my way and delays would crop up out of the blue. It is only with time and perspective when I look back that those obstacles were valuable healing pieces that needed attending to before I could get to the good stuff.

I never gave up, I knew this dream was worth fighting for, I held onto it in my heart and kept working towards it, one small step at a time. My husband and I wanted different things, he loves the big smoke and I am a country girl at heart who loves to get her hands dirty. We had so many discussions about where to move to that we even ended up on the therapist’s couch needing a third person to help us decide. We were sent off to do research, we had to do a creative project, and when I looked at mine (2019), it included Italy and many other things, a slight variation on the above. 

Then Covid stormed through our lives and made me ask deeper questions and gave me insights. One of those was that I was no longer willing to wait for us to come to a decision. If we couldn’t decide then I was willing to start taking steps on my own and we would find a way to make it work as we went. 

The imperfect plan. A chance arose to stay in my friend’s Greek village house last year for 3 months and I jumped at it. Nothing like a dose of reality to see if the dream stands up.

I found myself on my own in a Greek village and the women opened their doors and hearts to me and I was the happiest gal on the planet tending a swathe of cats who needed tender loving care. I rescued kittens and took them home, I swam, I created a photography project, I worked with my beautiful groups online and I adored hearing the goats’ bells tinkling as I puffed my way uphill to feed the cats in the morning, never tiring of the sight of the sea in the distance.  

I fell in love with life, I could participate in things that were real (sometimes too real), I could contribute with my hands and heart and I loved being in Mother Nature every day. Watching the sun rise and set, swimming in the sea, and picking flowers from the garden brought me great peace. 

When I left to go back to the city, I cried, sobbed like a child as I dragged my bags unceremoniously through the stone streets. Beautiful Bridget of @Venicebybridget once told me when she left Venice for New York a couple of years back that she vowed, ‘The next time I go to Venice, I’ll be moving there.’ I made the same promise to myself! 

I cried when the plane took off, I felt the strong presence of my father and I knew without proof that this dream was worth fighting for.

Today I write this with a scented jar of jonquils on the table, cats sleeping in front of the fire in my friend’s beautiful home with the sounds of wind chimes singing in the garden. My friends will be back to claim their home soon and we’ve started planning and renovating a house of our own.

Hubby’s coming too, at his pace and his way. Our plan isn’t perfect; in fact, we are calling it an adventure, not a plan. We trust it will work out and are willing to let it unfold as we go. 

Don’t let life pass you by. You’ve been through a lot in the last two years and creating a life you love is worth fighting for. It’s worth getting up every day and taking one small step in that direction, it’s worth believing you too can have change and are worthy of it. And I can promise you when you sit in that life one day it’s worth it.

The world needs more people like you to step into a life of joy, meaning, and creativity that makes your heart sing, and if your heart’s singing you can be guaranteed that the world around you will be affected in the most beautiful way. 

2022 is the year to pay close attention to your dreams and not let life just happen to you, instead, make sure YOU guide your life. What’s your heart’s desire?

Never give up on your dreams. 

Love and light,

Carla x