Month: April 2024

Just Keen to be Kinda Grouchy – It’s Tradition

Birthdays are definitely not my fave. Well, mine is not. Other people who like their birthday are pretty cute and it is lovely to see people happy, as joy is fleeting for all of us. Glimmers of hope and contentedness are really important and I eat them up whenever they present themselves. My birthday though. Just ick.

My poor, lovely, dedicated, doting, adoring, beautiful wife Damon is confused and uncomfortable watching me do my annual dance of moody mumbling and feeling angry and sorry for myself on the 28th of April.

Last year we got stuck in a fierce storm with sideways rain and huge gusts of wind on a four hour walk in a national park in Tasmania. That whole scene suited my mood and being out in the forest with wombats and wild weather was actually really great.

Getting older is also something I consider quite fantastic. The number of fucks given about what people think of me or do with their own lives is pretty minimal. I still have the time, energy and inclination to champion and cheer for brave, lovely, wonderful humans I am lucky enough to have crossed paths with. Generally though, I really prefer to be left the fuck alone the majority of the time. People are lovely, but complicated and difficult and I don’t understand most people or what they do or why they do it.

So moving into this my 46th year, I am poised on the precipice of some pretty major decisions that are being made without my input, guidance or approval. That’s probably the case for most humans in the Western world. SO much shit is just completely out of our control. That means it is important and empowering to own and manage the shit we do have control over.

For me, it is to whom and how I devote time and energy. Turns out, I really like seeing people evolve and be brave and feel empowered. I also like getting the fuck out of their way and letting them shine. This year, I particularly like giving people money or opportunities for doing brave and creative stuff. That manifests in art or endeavours we purchase, fund, pay for or commission. It has also culminated in creative competitions we fund, projects and improvements on the farm and doing our level best to be fair and reasonable with our contractors and employees, and any range of anonymous support we give to friends and strangers as we meander through our lives. I can’t fix the world, but I can encourage people to be brave enough to fly or fail and cheer them on and hold them gently when they get the wobbles while they are in my orbit.

I have also learned, the hard way, that trying to help or sticking my neck out can backfire spectacularly and it is not my job to make people be better or kinder and I cannot rescue anyone. People have to rescue themselves. I can be supportive and gentle in people’s most vulnerable moments if I am in their orbit, and it is an honour and privilege to try to be that softness in a very tough world to some people at some points. But, it’s forever nagging at me in moments of kindness and vulnerability that I’ve been the bitten hand that feeds far too many horrible humans. So, mostly I try my best and keep myself to myself and that’s working out pretty well.

I like me. I am funny, loyal, adventurous, encouraging and try to be honest with myself and others. And generally, I do my level best to not be a nasty, evil, opportunistic or greedy piece of shit in a world where horribleness seems to be thriving. The world makes me sad and tired a lot. But there’s also so much magic and mayhem and wonder and I am here for all of that. But I need long and luxurious periods without having to deal with people because people have been plenty awful in my experience, and I don’t have the bandwidth to fuck around and find out anymore.

So today, all I care to do is meander around the city of Sydney, as this is where we chose to come to hide away as tourists for my 46th birthday.

Also, today we have chosen three more spot prizes for the creative content competition we launched at the beginning of April. Honouring the submissions and sharing the top ten is something that is turning out to be a mountain of work, and it is yet to be determined if it is a worthy endeavour that we intend to grow/continue next year.

I need to launch and protect my plans for the Persephone Foundation, which will be a fully self-funded attempt to empower and encourage women to sparkle and Love themselves through this crazy fucked up ride that is life. Not a charity, but a legacy. And a continuation of work I have been doing and flying or failing at for as long as I can remember. I have a compulsion to help. But the need for self preservation can make helping a complicated and harrowing proposition at times – well at least for me.

Who knows how many more turns around the sun any of us have left? Indeed who even knows what tomorrow has in store for us as individuals or humanity in general! I am tired just thinking about all the things that are wrong with me and the world right now, but absolutely amped to be alive and living, breathing, laughing, crying, failing, trying, traveling, eating, meeting and just all the magical and mundane things that make up my incredible life. Therein lies the great paradox of my existence presently – which may partly explain my fascination with the Greek Goddess Persephone. Dragged to the underworld by her overly enthusiastic Uncle Hades, Persephone lived both between the underworld and the light as the Goddess of Harvest and Fertility. Half the time she lived in light and abundance, the rest of the time she spent with the dead. Somehow she made both these existences work for her and ended up being greatly loved and appreciated within the Greek Mytholical canon. Quite a paradoxical figure indeed.

I’m not actually comparing myself with Persephone, but I can relate. Indeed so many times, including 8 years ago, and then again 6 years ago on this exact day, my only wish was to disappear in very real and permanent terms. I smiled through incredible and relentless pain and suffering and lived a life posting highlight reels and great pictures of my completely fucking broken damned self. I was openly and readily available to be thrown under any bus and exploited by any opportunistic piece of shit who crossed my path. Seeing the best in everyone and desperately seeking validation broke me and I’ll never feel safe or trust anyone the way I once did after being kicked so many times when I was down.

But I got back up. And I hope the same for everyone and anyone else. Not just people I like, I seriously wish growth and greatness for people who have pissed me off. Just need the to be a safe and considerable distance from me and my safe and happy life while they learn their lessons and grow into better people. Nobody gets a second chance to truly piss me off. But I don’t wish anyone harm and I’ll never engage in revenge or enjoy another person’s suffering. Wait… sometimes when karma hits someone who has been a proper piece of shit, it does feel pretty okay from a safe distance to see that all happen. Nothing too nasty though.

Today, I am just so grateful to be free from the relentless sadness of trying my best to protect and please a pack of truly awful people who ought to have appreciated and protected me. Today toxic people and situations are kicked to the curb and not many people have access to me and that has allowed me to feel safe and empowered. I don’t know where you are while you read this, but if you are good, keep that shit up. If you are struggling, keep going. I don’t know much, but I do know that everything, even incredible pain does end, and being on the other side of suffering, whatever the cause, is a bittersweet but brilliant peace. I wish you peace and glimmers of hope and joy today and every day. And I wish the same for my imperfect but optimistic and ageing self. And like Persephone, whether you feel you are in a cycle of being in the underworld or the light – may you make that work and take what you need to be the best version of you you can be.

Thanks for reading.

The Oracle Knows

The concept of God or the Universe is given different words and paradigms by different people and spiritual paths.  I refer to the cosmic and connected sentience and balance as the Oracle.  My spiritual path is, and probably always has been witchcraft.  All that means is I honour and acknolwdge the natural world and believe we are all connected in the web of life.  If I harm anything I am harming myself.  If I help I am helping myself.  There’s far more meaningful and nuanced aspects to this journey, but I feel that’s a pretty good summary for now.

Unforunately, for me and so many people, helping has appeared to backfire disastrously. Holding out many a ladder and lifting a lot of people up in the past didn’t always turn out as planned.  Some of them kicked me square in the cunt and left me wounded and angry and wondering how anyone could be so mercenary and cruel.  

But every single situation like that has somehow left me later realizing my feet were firmly on safe and secure ground.  The Oracle’s lessons aren’t always fun or fair, but often feel very helpful when time and healing have allowed me to process situations.  From that vantage and a very safe and large distance, I’ve seen many perpetrators struggle and suffer in circles of greed and self-sabotage.  We’re all given choices, and greedy, cruel, callous, mercenary people may appear to do alright, but they take what they want and they will be forced to pay eventually.

I just want to be a consistently good person with an acutely well calibrated moral compass.  My spiritual journey as a practicing witch helps me with that, but it definitely does not define me as some people’s religions do.

Today was filled with glimmers and magic and goddess ferocity.  The Oracle blesses me with days like today.

Where to begin?

Penny has been working with us for a good many months now, and is our first official full time team member.  We’ve had our bumps and wobbles, but all in all we’re on an excellent path together and the mahi (that means work for my non-kiwi readers) she has done has transformed the farm.  

Penny is a qualified Rongoa practitioner.  We are working together to get her practice up and running and lift her to the entrepreneurial goddess level she really does have every inch of capacity to be.  She is smart, intuitive, creative, fierce, and has been knocked around enough to know exactly what is what.  Like every woman in my life, she hasn’t yet fully stepped into her own power.  Confidence is an issue for most of us, and it is my absolute modus operandi to change that, for myself and my coven.  This is our time to shine.  We gotta step into the “fuck around and find out” phase and know that we are fierce and powerful and our work and contributions have real and meaningful worth.  It is a journey we are on together.

I’ve also just returned from Rakiura.  It is a the anchor in the Maori creationist legends.  As any Kiwi knows, Maui and his brothers were in their great waka (canoe) when they fished up the North Island of Aotearoa, and the anchor to that vessel is/was Rakiura.  

We are drawn to that magical little island every year.  Granted, so are about 40,000 other people, most of whom do the three day Rakiura trek.  Maybe one day we will do that.  I kinda doubt it though.  

We first arrived there around this time of year, back in 2019 or 2020?  The place got into our bones.  There is no room for pretentiousness or flexing, it is a rough and wild and incredibly unique place where manuhiri (visitors) have to figure out the nuances and be chill or you’ll have a pretty shitty time there.  If you want five-star obsequiousness, just stay away.  Rakiura residents do not kiss anyone’s ass.  Fucking great actually.

We literally stumbled across a local who would end up becoming a very close friend on our second trip to the island some years ago.  She’s an artist and a goddess and a really great mom.  I just found out this visit that her mother was called back to the great unknown where we are all beckoned to from the moment we arrive.  She left quite suddenly only a few years ago in the month of April.  I can tell you with certaintly that her mother’s energy and Love led me down that road and to her gallery.  While I can’t quantify or qualify that statement, I know that divine feminine energy landed us there.  We needed to meet and are both much better off because we did.  I might share more of that magical story another day, but I will leave that vague and mysterious.

And last, but not least, I finished today’s divine feminine reinforcing journey with a totally impromptu dinner with my Megan.  This is a woman I met at the hair-dresser some number of years back.  I pointed her to my blog, and over the course of a few weeks, we became online then IRL friends.  

These days, her and the irrepressible Hannah are the two women I see the most as we have a habit of making each other a priority.  It was all very organic an holistic in its evolution.  I have known Hannah rather peripherally since the mid 1990’s.  Megan joined us for something at some point and the three of us were a strangely lovely fit.  You’d never think that we would be on the surface.  But all three of us are deeply disappointed with most people and prefer to slay all day and then retreat to the safety of our own four walls and be left well and truly the fuck alone.  Yet, together we seems to lift each other up.  It is safe, it is authentic and it is easy.  

So, Megan had a great week a couple of weeks ago and it all came crashing down and her perky has pissed off.  She reached out, and all other things were not as important as us catching up for a good old bitch and a moan pretty much immediately.  So off to dinner we went.  Damon joined us at the very end so we had a solid hour to ourselves which was lovely and we laughed and laughed as we always do.  Damon is often/always allowed at girl time as he is an honourary goddess and my beautiful wife.   

Damon and I also have a shared best friend who has an anaphylactic allergy to the spotlight and attention.  She knows who she is, and we three are destined to grow old dottering around making the world a slightly better place together.  She already has a solid strategy she’s been perfecting and that will be rolled out in the years ahead.  I won’t tell you her name, as she doesn’t like people talking about her, but she knows who she is.  

The whole day has also been punctuated with a running dialogue between Auriga and me on the dms. We met when Mel and I facilitated a break out group at a UN women’s leadership thing. And I popped in to be reminded that Emma was in England having a magic time. And Karen is coming for coffee on Friday morning. All wonderful witchy women, and a handful of many fierce fabulous goddesses I am blessed to know and trust.

So that was my Tuesday the 16th of April 2024.  Surrounded by fierce feminine energy and protection and lifted to a lovely level of feeling like I am finally safe and on the right path.

Whatever kind of day/week/month/year you are having, I hope you hold on tight and know that darkness fades and light and clarity come when we are kind and consistent.  It doesn’t feel like it sometimes.  

But the Oracle knows.

Thanks for reading.

Rakiura Reflections

This is our fourth, possibly fifth visit to New Zealand’s most remote and Southern island.  A village called Oban sits nestled in Paterson inlet on a beach/bay called Half Moon bay.  There’s about 400 permanent residents on the island, and they definitely all know each other.  That number would include the semi-seasonal travelers who come here to work with RealNZ tour company or score am job at the South Seas hotel for a season.

We brought my youngest son Jamie with us this time.  He will be ten in a couple of weeks. He’s had significantly reduced screen time and a marked increase in time with nature and playing happily on his own at the beach.  This a safe and lovely island where nobody drives more than 50km per hour and people look out for eachother, so we’ve felt confident allowing Jamie to venture down to the beach on his own to build his fortresses along the shoreline.  

This is a wild and often windy/grey island.  It is as far South as you can go in the archipelago of Aotearoa, but still two or more degrees closer to the equator than the vast majority of my country of birth, Canada.  Canada exists almost exclusively above the 49th parallel.  Being here has whet my appetite to disappear into the Canadian Tundra or melt away into obscurity in the Maritimes maybe.  We’d planned to purchase a plot of land and do a biodiversity/eco-tourism project in alignment with the work we are doing in Matkaana. Alas that plot seems to have been sold before we were in a position to purchase, so the oracle is steering our sites North rather than here it seems. And that’s okay. 

We will likely always return to this island regardless of having a project here or not.

The silence and birdsong here is somehow addictive.  The sound of wild kiwi and ruru at night is flanked by the sound of waves lapping on the shore, raindrops in the forest canopy, and deafening silence devoid of human technologies whirring or intrusiveness.  It sends you a little loopy at first, and then there’s a clarity that comes on the third or fourth day here, and the prospect of returning to my high-flying and undeniably stressful existence quite frankly pisses me off.

I like the quiet.  I like being far away from the people and things that annoy me.  Birdsong and crystal clear water feels much better to my weary soul than forecasts, projections, people (including myself) missing deadlines and not hitting targets, or boring insecure assholes showing ineptitude and hubris.  I am so sick of all that shit.  

Lately, I find people are mostly incredibly disappointing.  I’d say that the exceptions to this are my large community of kind and curious people, and of course, the team we have working at the farm.  Our farm team are a motley but magnificent crew indeed.  We’ve seen so much growth across the infrastructure, eco-tourism offering and plantings.  Growing confidence and competencies among the individuals who are involved has also been a joy to behold.  That includes me.  I have a heap to learn about regenerative agriculture and Rongoa still, but it has been an honour and privilege to get this far over the past five years.  I cannot understand why more teams can’t manage to be as clearly meaningfully impactful on other projects.  People seem unwilling to look at themselves or share spotlights, and that seems to be where the trouble lies. Just an observation…

So, back here to Rakliura and the present moment as I write this blog.

As is often the case when we travel the South Island, Damon is related to some of the residents here.  Although not as strong a connection as happens on the West Coast, where even the name Birchfield strikes fear or excitement into the hearts of many local who realizes you are related.  The Birchfield clan are quite famous, or infamous, depending on who you ask.  

Here, however, we are wedded to this island through my father-in-law’s elegant and very charming wife Jen.  Jen’s daughter was adopted, as it was a time when that is what you did if you were a young unwed mother, and she was welcomed into the Leask family fold as a baby and spent a lot of her childhood here in Rakiura in Leask bay.  Jen is incredibly close to her daughter who I believe lives in Invercargill and still has firm ties to the island.  

Aotearoa.  None degrees of separation it seems.  We are all very much connected.

After many visits to the island I have only one true friend here.  An elegant, kind, brilliant artist named Rebecca.  She’s very Southern in her humility and pragmatic approach. Fierce but gentle is the sense that I get, and a very talented artist as well. She has a beautiful family and a very lucky husband.  I finally met him this visit which was a lovely added bonus to our trip.  

What a different life they lead in a village of 400 people on Rakiura. They fish and forage and grow and preserve and are undoubtedly causing a fraction of the carbon footprint our international adventures are polluting this already stretched to her limit planet. They are closer to nature and the ocean and probably better humans compared to the busy, bustling, frequent flying life Damon and I whip around living.  My annual visit to see Rebecca is always a highlight of my year.  I’m not recruiting for any more friends, but feel quite lucky to count her among the few that I have and cherish.

Our time here is drawing to a close and we are heading back to Invercargill on a 8:30am flight tomorrow morning.  

Mixed feelings.  I feel we need to put together a decent post about the weird things that happen in our heads when we are here, and the amazing natural encounters we keep returning to the island to enjoy.  

But for now will just post this pithy little reflection on our time here.

Hope you are having a lovely week, whatever you are up to.  

Thanks for reading.

Take Your Stephanie To Work Tuesday

Heading up to the farm shortly and meeting my darling daughter and her very unproblematic and pleasant partner there. We shall turn over the tent and do some gardening. It’s looking great up there. I’ll try and do a little video, not that much (any) of my content ever blows up or even makes it to most people’s feeds these days (thanks boring pay to play algorithms… fuckers…)

It’s going to be a busy month. I’ve been doing my best to mo the shit out of the kids when they are with us, and for the most part these efforts have been noticed and appreciated. My daughter is particularly pleased with me momming the fuck up and being a consistent and authentic force in her whirlwind busy life. That girl is a force of nature. She works nearly full time and pulls top grades while maintaining what appears to be a healthy functional first romantic relationship and close social ties. Basically, the girl has eclipsed her mother as a functioning human on most measures and that’s fine by me. Very proud of our brilliantly bossy princess. She suffers no fools and knows what she wants. I only figured that shit out after 40. Sigh.

Darling daughter and the rest of the kids are due back at the city house for their fortnightly rotation with Damon and I from Saturday this weekend. We, however, will be in the South Island with Jamie for his annual adventure into nature.

So my fierce and fabulous stepdaughter Niko will be moving in with the big kids from the weekend through until the Friday we return from our South Island adventures.

Today, though, it is all about Steph.

We are going to garden and enjoy the farm. I will share our adventures probably.