I have a friend that I'm collaborating with on a lot of projects at the moment. And because I'm seeing so much of her, I'm getting to observe more closely the way she lives her life. And it's delightful. She kind of cloud-hops. She'll step out with abandon into the clear blue sky, eyes dancing with amusement Read More...
‘Yes, sir, I can boogie…’
October 30th, 2012 by Tonya
Apologies if I've been silent for a while. It's not because things have been quiet for me and there's been nothing to write about. Infact, just the opposite! It's actually been one of my most overwhelmingly busy periods for some time. Overwhelming in a good way, of course! And I don't think it would probably have even been overwhelming if everything that I was being overwhelmed by hadn't been so beyond my previous experience, ie (more Read More...
Bye bye, blackbird
June 7th, 2012 by Tonya
I’ve been experiencing an enhanced connection with our feathered friends in the past few weeks. Birds, that is. When I've been out and about, they've sometimes been hopping up close to me and watching me intently. I've sensed a kind of energetic 'openness' (more...)
Walking into the fire
June 4th, 2012 by Tonya
On the co-counselling course that I was running last week, the group asked me a question that really captured my imagination. We'd been doing some 'emotional training', accessing and exploring some core human emotions (fear, anger, sadness, joy...) and, to get a handle on these emotions and the subtleties that lay between them, we'd been using an 'emotional map' which I'd discovered a few days earlier in Gretchen Pyves' Co-Counselling Manual: 2nd Edition (1994) (which I've reproduced below) Read More...
We have not come to take prisoners
April 29th, 2012 by Tonya
(It seems to be poetry season this month at little white feather. This tender poem by Sufi poet Hafiz I discovered this morning) We have not come here to take prisoners But to surrender ever more deeply to freedom and joy. We have not come into this exquisite world to hold ourselves hostage from love Read More...
Life is beautiful – a reminder
April 24th, 2012 by Tonya
I was browsing the shelves of a bookshop a couple of weeks ago (the friend I was due to meet, a wonderful guy who's been connecting and supporting people in the local area for years, had been held up - and I had a few minutes to spare). First, my eyes fell on a beautiful card with vibrant pink cherry blossom on it Read More...
What’s your ‘five-a-day’?
April 23rd, 2012 by Tonya
I set the group that gathered for the Joy Club last week some 'homework'. What was it? To discover their wellbeing 'five-a-day'. Now, we've all heard of the 'five-a-day' concept – at least you will have if you've lived in the UK in the past few years. It's a simple and popular device that the powers that be have been using to get us to eat more of the things that will keep us healthy: so a handful of dried mango pieces is, say, one of your five-a-day, where a salad - full of freshly sprouted mung beans (one point), tomatoes (another point) and lettuce (one point) might be three Read More...
What would it take for you to slow down?
April 3rd, 2012 by Tonya
What would it take for you to slow down, To slow down enough to hear your own heart beat Or to feel the air caress your nostrils on its inward journey to your lungs? What would it take for you to slow down enough to hear the earth breathe? To feel the way a camellia feels when she's weighted down with freshly fallen rain? From this place, I can feel the joy of all existence Read More...
