Find out date - 2025
I started this post in a thunderstorm. Bright sun is tomorrow. End of season days are like that. Paul Sperring and Nathalie crossed over briefly after meeting online for years. Our experiment with a first writers group at Mandala House came to fruition. I’m quietly thrilled. We shared writing with courage, sunsets and appreciation. And on Saturday night an impromptu Salon to launch Nath’s book Berlin Bar Stories, a sophisticated mosaic trauma-drama-sexy novel with, I might say, phenomenal s*x-in-club scenes. It’s so pleasing when glimmers of a long held dream come together.
Kirsty, Aisling, Christina, Sangeeta, John, Sara, Pete, Clare, John, Firdoz, Becky, Fenella, Thomas and Eva all visited, we’ve had gatherings at the big blue table and clay at the beach. Marcus, garden saviour, chopped back avocado trees and created space. Cecilia looked after us and fell more in love with Mr Friskas.
I also went on two retreats for the first time in years. The Embodied Sexuality Lab , open floor was a dream of Tamara’s, and a pleasure to crew for. Bringing together dance and sexuality is synthesis I’ve always wondered about. A different modality tackling similar topics of shame, regulation, homologues, boundaries etc which I love. And then an Art, Breathwork and Yoga retreat with Birgit. Learning about contrast, colour and form changed the way I paint, so going back to intuitive painting with Philip saw a shift that I’m excited to develop.
Ayelet’s art therapy continues to be supported as we work with meditation, collage, and intention. Heidi and Kian complete the guests for the season. I ran out of beans on a workshop idea of Write in the Morning, Sell it in the Afternoon, so that one will have to wait. Though Heidi and I may trial this, alongside Kian and I working on the Sexological Bodywork curriculum for the next few days.
I don’t think I’ve had a day to myself in an empty house since 27th August apart from a short weekend. Collective living has been full on. Full of friends, occasional air bnb guests and the short workshops. We did a few this year, each one small and special. In June, Living the Wheel with Sian Johnson, and Evolve with Anne Scott and Leena. In Power, Pleasure and Play. With Kirstine Weaver as my kinky ally, and two participants we could go into it, tackling the unspoken. Like anything there’s a liberation in expressing the hidden, facing it with compassion, creativity and determination. It felt transformative, taking each of us each to places we couldn’t go alone.
There’s much cause for celebration for making it through this hectic summer, and I’m looking forward to closing the gates in November and appreciating peace, solitude and some reflection time. A chance to catch up on a sense of whether the costs stopped outweighing the income, though a new water emergency means a new bathroom. What’s that thing about ripping up notes under a warm shower? This time we had steam first, then water through my ceiling. Again. Cecilia is a calm head in a deluge. And a chef. I love another multi-tasking allrounder around.
As the cafes close the last warm days are a privilege, with a little more headspace and time to appreciate the big skies, sunsets and the last grapefruit tequila margaritas with Taylor and Heidi at Ina’s.
