Not in Africa anymore!! Wide blue skies and red earth has given way to arctic winds from the Russian Steppes, or so I hear, as London shivers under grey snow-filled skies. But I haven’t been happier, walking the city streets, stopping in bookstores and cafe’s to watch the world go by. I can do this life, I really can. J calls to tell me the long rains haven’t yet arrived and the weather is hot, the coffee sun-scorched; my dogs wait in heaps on the shady veranda, sleeping away the days until my return and I think, another week and I’ll be ready to go home. ~ eliza ~

~ wandering inwardly and outwardly searching for clues on how to love without maps (not everyone comes with instructions) having murmuring conversations with intuition and poking sticks at the importance of ‘trust’ and then I circle back rhythmically to love and realize that I have to love everyone in my life exactly where they are and this, this, honestly, well, it makes me feel whole.  Because I am so good at that.  (You know, loving everyone exactly where they are).  ~ madelyn ~

I have become a keeper of chickens, a caretaker of fowl. I recognise their family groupings and to whom each little yellow chick belongs. Their constant chirping and chatter accompanies my day as they bask in the sun under my window. I try to protect them from mongeese at night, silent and sly creatures that catch the unwary, and soaring sparrowhawks during the day. It’s a tough job and I wonder at what point they went from being farmyard fowl I didn’t pay much mind to, to little feathered companions with curiously  different personalities – eliza

Oh this light! Come see these tiny angels of light with me!Shining things gliding into morning prettiness. Lilac and citrine gold bellowings.  Elphantine joy, music cavorting in my studio, coffee of course. (a tad strong, a dash of cinnamon, organic cream) I am helpless in the chirping velocity of it all. 

Hereupon I utter proclamations of devout gratitude in a singly aria. Very occasionally I am prone to this behavior.  (everyone is still sleeping, only the dogs as my  witness for all this beautiful nonsense of Sunday morning) ~ Madelyn ~

“She stood
in the storm,
and when the
wind did not
blow her away,
She adjusted
her sails”
— Elizabeth Edwards

Ah, where was I?  (a breeze slipped through my room and I was off) Oh yes! My mini manifesto for 2013:  This year I look forward to living ever more wholeheartedly.  I shall be generous and uninhibited in expressing my love freely with an abundance of soul!  This is exactly what I am going to do.

~  xo ~ Madelyn ~

As if Christmas had come early, Kilimanjaro this morning wore a new ice cap, a crown on its snowy head. It took a moment for my sleep-fuddled brain to make sense of this, really quite an impossibility for something so astonishing to happen just overnight. And so it revealed itself as a blanket of cloud, perfectly positioned over the peak. After about an hour, it moved off and the Kilimanjaro I knew was restored – eliza

‘as for me, I have – or see myself as having a lovely nose, bright, warm eyes, (with an abundance of laugh lines) expressive hands and exquisite toes.  I am generous with my love, hopeless at counting or reading maps, happy meanderingalong the sea or atop mountains, a rustless heart, enthusiastic about dogs and Ireland and thunderstorms, also a dabbler in birds, photography, writing…sparkling in my journals, an inspector of night stars,  an adoring mother, persistent, disorganized, huge of appetite for anything lemony (pie, squares, cake,) a passionate yet saccharine poet, always besotted with camping, night fires and morning coffee.   I laugh a lot, my life is fuller than ever and I am convinced that love – is – everywhere.‘ ~ madelyn ~

Sleepless on Kilimanjaro…since 4am; now surveying a cluttered desk trying to start one of many projects, but lacking the enthusiasm to get beyond turning the computer on. Gorgeous light beckons and I think today is a day best spent out of here – eliza

I have been on such a reading bender ~ completely devouring books  whilst sipping my green drinks (kale, cucumber, a handful of mint, lemon, turmeric) Here is something quite beautiful ….

”he allowed her to laugh in his face the moment he began explaining yet again that foxes at night have mauve eyes, and spiders glitter on the earth like stars.’

exquisite, yes?  ~ from Eucalyptus by Murray Bail

~ Madelyn ~

The coffee bushes in flower after the first rains. Such a beautiful sight, but so brief; they flower overnight but by the next day the blooms have completely disappeared. Did you imagine you saw them? – eliza

We moved this weekend.  My spirit is colossal and I am positively meteoric with joy because I do believe this house and I are going to create magic together, yes indeed.  If my plants are happy then I just know that things are on the upswing. If you come visit me I will bake you a rosemary pound cake. With pear and pecans no less. ~ Madelyn ~

Waiting for the winds to blow, down off Kilimanjaro where nature has defined a line between her peaks and out over the Steppe; channeled by tall trees on each side and picking up speed as it goes. Opening all the doors wide feels like good karma. I am reluctant to get in its way and want to let it go wildly through and out the other side. I hope that with each gust the things that have haunted this last month, stress and sadness, will be blown far away – eliza

‘Whistler, Sunday  October 28, 2012′   These playful petals pirouette onto the river, skimming the jadeite surface on tiny lemon drop feet.  (I make my wish.)  ~ madelyn ~

So familiar this sight, the long red road leading up into the windswept foothills of our farm.  I heard a jackal call this morning, early, just before dawn. An eerie sound that startled me from sleep, skin prickling in the darkness as I tried to place the sound.  Walked with the dogs at sunrise looking for tracks, but theirs soon muddied whatever wild nocturnal visitors had been there before – eliza

In the spirit of all that is wild and untamed,  flop down into the abundance of a marvelous greeeeeeeen.  And there, set your soul adrift. ~ Madelyn ~

Every day we leave our footprints in this red red soil as the coffee grows up around us. Everything is slowly turning the same shade of Kilimanjaro red: dogs, cats and even the chickens. It’s probably a good thing that I’m not the sort of person to be too upset to see that slowly and surely the inside of the house, the furniture, the hanging clothes, my piano keys…well they’re all going red too – eliza

This is view of the most lovely window in my room at Croydon Hall where I stayed whilst teaching at the Wild Soul retreat.   Curvingly magnificent, leaping mirthful air, a keen bright day. I couldn’t wait for the Wild Soul retreat to begin and that very afternoon I made a pot of Asam tea in my room and  wrote in my journal, my pen skimming the pages so quickly as if I was talking rapidly outloud with excitement. ~ Madelyn ~

Our magpie love of treasures, little pieces carried half-way around the world and never left behind; trunks of books, so many books, each with stories behind the stories and memories of the first time read – eliza

As the evening approached I built a fire in my living room (now part studio as well ) piling the hearth with juniper and apple branches.  I felt a beautiful stir of awe, and my soul seemed to leave my body as I entered a dream space elsewhere whilst working on a dream/life/legacy map at my studio desk.  Reimaginings worked their way from various collage elements before me ~  a magical and generous alchemy of creating a vision for my life entwined within a graceful dance of what is ‘written in the stars’.  Time flew, dusk fell, and I emerged to hear myself singing. ~ Madelyn ~