With a room and a double bed each, a beautiful, tidy kitchen and dining room, a spacious living room with a big TV, a perfect dog and a perfect cat, a great selection of books, a speaker system right on my working table, it doesn’t get more comfortable than that.

But I believe God has put us up with such abundance and comfort so that we can develop our tolerance and desire for simplicity. “I had an idea, maybe we can go bin-diving”, Ying said. That’s what I’d suggested originally for our pilgrimage 2 years ago, inspired by my friend who did the same on his one-year cycling trip around Europe and myself having done so in uni with some mountaineering friends. She wasn’t so keen on it back then, as our aim was to connect with people, not just to live cheaply.

But now it seemed to serve our purpose well. So I did some research, and decided to ask the grocers nearby whether they have leftover food to rescue instead. “We do Too Good To Go.” And so we started living off £3.5 surprise bags of random unsellable fruits and veggies, as well as free food listings on Olio put up by kind people who get lots of almost expired food that were going to be thrown away. It’s been extremely satisfying to be creative with whatever we’re given, and every meal been extra scrappily delicious.

This brings me to Sean, who I met 4 months ago, on a late March afternoon in Esher, Surrey.

“My day started at 3 o’clock this morning. Chores to do: collecting the bins, get wood, start fire. I start stockpiling wood now for next winter. Winters up here can be quite harsh. Got some jobs coming up, a bit of security work and gardening over there, and I’m starting a business in scrap metal. Learning to strip precious metals down from mobile phones and things. I get to bed about 11 at night. I wake up at 3 naturally. I’m a winter person. I like the cold. The rougher it is, the better I feel.”

Sean, amongst the many things he is, embodies the art of living uncomfortably. Or rather, being mindful of when we get too comfortable in our lives that we start losing touch with our aspirations, and should purposefully make life harder to keep ourselves alert.

There was an abandoned golf course near where we were staying in Esher, a beautiful spot filled with wildlife - grass uncut, dandelion and yarrow everywhere, ornamental and fallen trees decorating the winding slopes. I found it to be a magical place, as if it shouldn’t really exist - too wild to be a proper park, too neat to be abandoned. After a few dog walks up there, I noticed a dark cabin within a circle of various tall trees in the middle of a dip in the hill. No one was there, just a pile of logs in front of it. I wondered if anyone lived in it.

The next time I went, I smelt smoke coming from there, and someone was sitting in front of the fire. So I went and started chatting with him.

His name was Sean, and he lives here while doing security work for this land. I asked him how he came to living here.

“I’ve been here now 3 years. I originally came here in the pandemic, when this golf course only just shut down. I spent a year in Norfolk trying to set roots up, but it just didn’t work there for me. I came back here, then the developers came to see me. They said what are you doing here? I said camping. They said well, sign this contract for us, you can stay until we want you to go, but just do a bit of security work. I said no problem. There used to be a lot of trouble up here, drug dealing, antisocial behaviour…all destructive. Then the dog walkers started coming up here, but they didn’t want anyone up here, so I was ushering everyone off the site. But I negotiated with these people, I said the dog walkers aren’t really harming anyone, they’re just walking dogs. And they said well leave the dog walkers then, and just get all the bad people off. And that’s what I do now.”

I asked him if he’s warm enough sleeping in there.

“I’ve been in the army, I’ve slept under snow and ice. I’m most comfortable in the cold.”

I was intrigued. I told him I’d come back another day and bring my mum to meet him.

“Lovely meeting you Chloe. Looking forward to meeting your mum.”

I asked him if I could take a picture of him.

“Up here, you don’t need to ask permission to do anything.”

A couple days later, I went to his cabin again with Ying and Honey, the dog we were sitting. Thankfully, Sean was to be there that day too.

He said he’d written down in his logbook when we first met, “let’s see if she brings her mum”, and he’s happy I actually did.

I asked him if he would be alright if we sat down for a chat, and that I record it and write about him on our online publication. He said yes.

✦ So how did he come to live like this?

He told Ying what he’d told me last time. Then I asked him how long he’d been in the army for, since I didn’t get to ask last time.

“I was in the army 3 years. I left the army because I didn’t agree with the army. Everything went downhill after that. Really downhill. But I’m here today, I’ve got a smile on my face, like I said I wanna work hard now and just get my own business going, and try and help other people.”

“Was the army the first place where you learnt to live in the wild?” I asked.

“No. I learnt to live like this when I was 11 years old. Up till 11, I used to live in Kingston, at 11 we moved to Chessington and I went to a school called Fleetwood School. Didn’t like it full stop. At that point I couldn’t read, couldn’t write, but I just didn’t like the new school. So I dropped out and I spent from 11 to 12 bunking up every single day, and going up the woodlands. I fell in love with the trees and the plants, and the animals. I didn’t know what they were called, so I just went down to the library and there’s a really nice lady down there, and she used to say, “Yeah take that book but bring it back tomorrow.” And I’d match the leaves in there, learnt how to read, learnt how to spell, I’m self-taught when it comes to reading and writing. I realised there was more to nature, there’s a lot of stuff we can eat. Tried a few bits here and there, poisoned myself so many times it’s unbelievable, and I just fell in love with nature. That’s one of the reasons why I live like this. I could go down to the council now and get a place, but I don’t want nothing on debt. I wanna pay my way in life. I just taught myself how to live off the land, how to snare, how to gut…being in the army was just an added extra. They teach you certain skills. I’ve done advanced survival skills, but most of it I knew anyway.”

It was all starting to make sense - the picture of his life was forming in my mind. What an extraordinary life, then and now.

“I’ve got this place here, but once a week I might go out to Dorking, go out to Guildford, for a walk, and sleep out overnight with just a jacket or sleeping bag - just so I don’t get too comfortable here. Because the problem is that there’s too many comforts here. I’ve got a fire going, I’ve got a warm and dry bed, and you sort of lose touch of what you’re trying to achieve.”

I’m thinking about how even though Sean and I’s degrees of comfort vary very much at this moment, the same rule applies to both of us. I feel humbled by how little he needs to be content, and I learn from him about what I really need and don’t need. I’m inspired by his constant reevaluation of his own comfort and how it’s inhibiting him from thinking clearly, staying on his path, and achieving his goals. It’s funny how we never learn about this. Our comforts create staleness. Staleness creates ample condition for bacterial growth. Which, in turn, leads to death. The worst kind of death - death in life.

Hey! You’ve arrived at the toll booth. 𓁏

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“What if everywhere we go, there are treasures meant for us to hunt?” I shared this realisation with Chloe while sitting in the living room of Gee and Punal’s house in Beckenham, a town south-east of London. We were there to look after a cat called Disco.

It was late April. And it was a moment in the afternoon when I stopped doing anything, just sitting on the sofa and looking around, trying to orient myself, since I had just arrived the night before, and was going to leave two nights later.

This was the first Indian household we have been in in the U.K. The house’s decor was quite different from most English houses, which made me more aware of everything around me. This was the shortest sit for us so far, but we had planned to meet with a friend and finish some work in three days, which also made me alert whether we were in our minds more or in the present moment more, with what was already there for us to tap into.

It was almost a sure thing that wherever we went, there was plenty to discover and learn. If we are always in our minds and trying to get our work done, we might miss the point, though our work is also the key point that shouldn’t be missed.

Since we are moving from place to place, house to house, pretty frequently, if we see every place simply as a working place to work on our project, we might feel pretty exhausted. But if we are more aware of the meaning and purpose of every move, then it can nourish and even transform us. The meaning and the purpose were what I meant by the treasures.

As treasures, they are often hidden, not necessarily lying out in front of our eyes. More as treasures, they often can’t even be seen by our eyes, but by our hearts.

What were the treasures waiting for us to hunt in this flat? No doubt the realisation of the treasure hunting was a treasure itself. Since then, I have seen our move differently than ever, and so has our orientation to each place. There is always a mission hidden behind wherever we go, other than our work.

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My mum and I have been spending almost every day together for more than a year now, living, working, creating. I’m sure that’s not something most people in their 20s get to say, or maybe want to say. Still, you might see beautiful images, videos, and words we share and think it’s all as peaceful and lovely as we project. But it has not been easy.

For some time last year, when we first lived and worked together full-time, we literally argued every other day. I felt judged and surveilled all the time, and she felt she was dealing with an immature child who would explode into tantrums. We could barely do the editing and writing we set out to do because we spent so much time arguing then having to process the argument. At times it felt like an endless cycle of conflict and temporary resolution, and at times it was hard to trust that it was all leading us somewhere.

Funnily enough, even moreso than when we walked on main roads every day and stayed in strangers’ homes, my friends and people around me showed their concern about me spending so much time with my mum, and always urged me to take some alone time, even saying “Are you sure you want to do this?” (I think more people should’ve asked my mum that lol.) I guess we all can imagine and relate to the intensity of being with one’s own family.

But what has always kept us together and so dedicated to our chosen way of living is our shared belief that we are meant to walk this path together, and that we ultimately want the same thing. We want to grow, to cultivate peace, to develop our spiritual practices, to heal. To heal ourselves, to heal each other, to heal our family. We believe that this healing spreads like a ripple, and we see how it affects our loved ones and even strangers we meet. That’s what keeps us going.

Even if at times I think I’d rather be at some festival with my friends, or out there meeting the love of my life, I know that none of that gives me the lasting joy, peace, and purpose if I haven’t learnt how to cultivate true love, joy and peace within myself, and with the one that is in the closest presence to me, and this life I’m living now. It’s a dream life.

About 4 years ago, as I was journaling one day, a song came to me out of the blue. Ive never written a song, or really tried to write a song. But the words came to me, then the melody flowed, and it still remains in my memory to this day. It goes:

“I wanna live alone with my mother
In a house in the middle of nowhere
We’ll have nothing and no one to attend to
Loving together
Breathing together
And being together”

So really, my only task is to remember, remember, remember, that I am living my dream life. That it is an utter privilege to be spending every day with my mum. That I was given exactly the mother that I need. Maybe not the one I thought I wanted, who would pity and comfort me every time I’m sad, but is the greatest teacher one can have. Thich Nhat Hanh once wrote that “A good teacher is to show that everyone has a teacher inside of them”. My mum does exactly that, and it is more valuable, sustainable, and truthful than any comforting I might want in a moment of emotional difficulty. Of course, she will comfort me if that’s what the moment calls for, but more importantly, she teaches me how to find the deep truth within every obstacle, to dive under the waves on the surface and find the treasure at the bottom.

Nowadays, we have learnt to reconcile much more effectively and peacefully. Even as close as we are, as much as we thought we knew each other, it has taken us this long to start communicating more lovingly and mindfully. We still argue, but much less often, and the more important thing is that we have more fun together. We laugh more together, we enjoy our life more together, we appreciate each other more.

This will be our work for the rest of our lives, no matter if we’re living together or apart. And I’m so incredibly privileged, honoured, and fortunate to be doing this work, especially for all those who are not able to do it. So, that being said, Happy Mother’s Day to everyone. To my mum, partner, best friend, teacher, everything. ❤️

Please let us know what you felt or thought in the comments below. ✶

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My family were doing Chinese calligraphy for Lunar New Year. My 4-year-old niece took an interest in the process. She sat on my lap and she took up the brush, and dipped it in ink. She made one thick horizontal stroke on the paper.

“What’s that?”, I asked.

“Mummy snake!”, she said.

She continued making more strokes.

Eventually she started filling up the whole page.

Every child has known God,
Not the God of names,
Not the God of don’ts,
Not the God who ever does Anything weird,
But the God who knows only four words.
And keeps repeating them, saying:
“Come Dance with Me, come dance.”

– Hafiz, “Every Child”

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It takes time.

It takes time to dive from the surface to the deeper and deepest voids.

We are almost always on the surface level when we land in a new place.

The surface level is where the freshness lies, as well as the judgments.

We gain quick excitement. We make quick comments, whether verbally or just in our minds.

Excitement is the expression of our likes. Judgements usually speak about our dislikes. After all, they are ego disguised.

Excitement may not last very long. Judgements may affect and restrict our experiences.

It is okay to stay on the surface level for a while, as we all do. But it is important to be aware of when we do. And if we do, we need to remind ourselves not to stay too long and take the conscious plunge whenever possible.

Meditation, and simply being in silence, can help us take the plunge. We simply need to take one or a few deep breaths before diving.

If we don’t initiate the plunge consciously, it is also possible that we will be pushed under by the divine force at one point. Simply because judgments are not a good shelter for us to stay in for too long, they break and leak when the storm comes. We will be in trouble. And trouble bogs us down, forcing us to reflect.

It takes time to dive, to go down. Until one moment, we see things from a different level, so we see different things and see the same thing differently.

This is the second week after we have settled into a Grade II historical cottage in Esher, Surrey, Colette and Tosh’s home. They’re in their late 50s, probably, and both are in their second marriage. They have four grown-up children altogether, and we were told that they are going to be grandparents very soon.

It was certainly a very cute cottage. When I arrived the first night after a long flight, I was very excited to be welcomed into such a cozy home. The fire was on, the carpet looked 田warm and fresh; the sofas at the inglenook looked very inviting. The next morning, when the sun came out, the lighting in the house was so beautiful and mesmerising. Outside of the house, the lawns, woods, and duck ponds were all just a stone’s throw away.

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I never knew what this Lana Del Rey song title, “Born to Die”, meant. Ever since my mum introduced me to her music when I was a teenager, this paradoxical statement has always sparked my curiosity, as well as frustration. “Why is she being so pessimistic and negative?”, 12-year old me would think. More so, it’s how can we be born to do the thing no one seems to want? How can our purpose of life be death, its complete opposite?

Fast forward to now, I have read many texts and heard many thinkers speak about how life and death are one and inseparable; we cannot truly live without accepting death; death is the only certainty of life, etc. I can seemingly, intellectually grasp the paradoxical nature of reality through my continuous examination of life.

But recently, while I was reading “Earth Pilgrim” by Satish Kumar, Satish shares an anecdote about his mother, who once told him to break open a banyan seed. She asked him what he sees inside. “I see nothing”, young Satish says. His mother replies: “In this seed is the whole of that mighty banyan tree, which is one of the biggest trees in the world. It can have a thousand branches. […] All of that is in this tiny seed. And you say you can’t see anything!”

From his mother, he learnt the mystery and magic of the seed. It goes into the ground and seemingly disappears into the soil, as if it has died. But then one day it sprouts and produces a tree, which produces more seeds, giving birth to thousands of new incarnations. The seed is a symbol of the continuity of life, the process of life. The seed dies to be born anew. From this symbol of the seed, he says:

“It means that death is not the end. Death and birth make up the cycle of life. The seed dying in the ground is giving birth to the tree. So death is valuable, death is important, death is as good as life. Death is as good as birth. Dying is as good as living. We live by dying.”

When I read that last sentence, I suddenly thought, “that’s what ‘Born to Die’ means!” It felt like a mystery that has confused me for half my life had finally been cracked open like the banyan seed. By living, we are in the process of dying. When we see the cyclical nature of life, we realise that our linear thinking about life and death which prompted my teenage reaction of seeing death as negative and Lana Del Rey as pessimistic, creates much fear about death.

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Frieda is an old friend of mine in Hong Kong. Our meeting dates back to when Chloe was studying at the same primary school as Frieda’s daughter, Hiver. We knew each other because we both signed up to lead a girls’ reading club as PTA (Parents and Teachers Association) members. We weren’t that close as parents of our girls until I saw her Facebook post in which she quoted Rabindranath Tagore: “To cherish in our hearts what our hands have lost forever”. I commented that it was one of my favourite quotes, and Tagore had a huge influence on me since I was a teenager. Chloe’s Chinese name is also my homage to him. Frieda then invited me to her home for lunch. She made an exquisite lunch, both gastronomically and aesthetically.

Since then, we had a closer relationship and became more and more open to each other, letting our vulnerabilities be seen and held. In our friendship, she gifted me the beautiful Psalms she always used gracefully as a devout Christian. She also had an accurate and meticulous sense of artistry. She designed a logo for my home kitchen back then, “Ying’s Runaway Kitchen”. The logo was exactly what I imagined it would be. She has the talent and tender power to articulate feelings both in words and in visuals. We cherished each other dearly.

But just like many friendships in my life, we are tight and close for a while, then we drift apart for some reason. I blame this on the fast changes and transitions in each other’s lives, both physically and spiritually.

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“The visit is everything. The presents, money or whatever…the visit is everything.”

This is what one of our pilgrimage hosts, John, told us when talking about visiting his late mum in the nursing home every day.

When I graduated from university, my first job was being a carer, visiting people in their own homes and providing companionship, medication and home help, personal care and more. I was living in Brighton, UK at the time, and one of the clients I remember the most was Margy.

Margy is a beautiful, lovely Christian woman with a presence of light and love. When I met her, I immediately felt tended to, even though I was supposed to be the carer. My colleagues who introduced me to her all spoke of their admiration for her strong and capable nature. Margy has become increasingly blind and hard of hearing in the past decade. When I knew her, she’d already lost almost all her sight, therefore she needed carers to come and help her choose the right clothes, help around the house, write emails through dictation, and various other things, although she remains impressively independent despite such obstacles.

One of the most amazing thing about her is that she continues to learn the piano, practicing almost everyday. You may wonder how she learns without being able to read the score or seeing the keys. I will let her tell you herself later.

I wasn’t assigned to see her very regularly, I mainly went when her regular carers needed cover. I probably only visited her a handful of times. But we bonded over the piano, and she loved to hear me play. I would sometimes play the piece she was learning through sight-reading, or the pieces I still remember. Since I only lived a 20 minute walk away, she always generously told me that I could practice at her home whenever I wanted.

Here is a bit of improvisation I did at Margy’s back then.

She’s a woman of great faith. A devout Christian, one of the most nourishing parts of her life is listening to recordings of sermons and the Bible, sent to her via a service which provides free recordings on a USB to people who have lost their sight. She would order one, and when she’s done with it, she sends it back. When she can get a lift, she will always attend the Sunday service at the church nearby. Her faith is what gets her through this incredibly difficult and transformative period of her life.

Margy’s the only client which I still have personal contact with. So fast-forward to 3 years later, when I found out that my mum and I’s cat-sit in January this year was in Brighton and only a 5-minute walk from her house, I emailed her to see if she would like to meet. (Carers read her emails to her and she dictates her replies.)

She said yes! So we walked to her house one morning, and upon seeing her, I was so happy to see how well she looked. She wore a teal blue jumper, pearl necklace and earrings, and she was gleaming with a wide smile.

We caught up and chatted about what we’ve had going on the past 3 years. Since it was Ying’s first time meeting her, she told the brief story of her amazing life.

She was born in Iran as her father was a missionary there. When she was 4, her family had to make the very difficult decision to move to the U.S. as they sought better education and medical care for her sister who had a lot of allergies. There was a rule at the time that missionaries had to stay in their station for 5 years before they could go back to wherever they came from, but only for 6 months, then they had to go back for another 5 years. So they did not see their father much while they were growing up, as only their mother could move with them.

During her college years in the U.S., she met her husband-to-be, Alan. Originally from Scotland, he studied Mathematics at Cambridge, then got a scholarship to go to Princeton. Margy’s brother also studied there, and they met at a Christian union. Her brother invited Alan back to their house for a meal, and that’s where he and Margy met. She was still in university at the time, and her father insisted that she finishes her studies, so they got married after she graduated.

They moved to the U.K. when her husband taught at Queen Mary in London. After a while, he got an invitation to teach at Sussex University. They thought about it, prayed about it, and decided it was God’s will, and they moved to Brighton. She still lives in the same house that they originally moved into, and had a family in. Now her husband has passed away, and she lives alone in the house. She still keeps close contact with their four sons who visit often, and she also very much enjoys her solitude, her time alone with God.

She started losing her sight about 7 years ago. When I met her, she could still see a bit of light, but now she has completely lost her sight. She told us about her experience of going blind:

And of course, we shared our Chinese tea with her, just like we did with our pilgrimage hosts. But the one difference in our experience, was that we used her sense of touch to show her the brewing process.

At the end, of course I had to fulfil her wish by playing the piano for her. I sightread the piece that she’s learning, “Claire de lune” by Debussy, albeit a bit brokenly. Then I played another Debussy, “La plus que lente”, which I have stored forever in my fingers, that I’ve played for her in the past.

Seeing her stand at the door, listening, brought me right back to 3 years ago. She would always listen so attentively there for a piece, then potter around the kitchen for another piece, and say some kind words after I finish. The piano still had the charming squeaky pedal which I remembered from last time I was there.

Then, by the grace of God, I managed to convince her to play us something. I had never heard her play before. As soon as her hands touched the keys, I was so touched and overjoyed at the same time.

And now, what I promised earlier, Margy’s fascinating learning process for the piano without sight.

Learning the piano has given her something that with practice, she can make progress in, which is very important to her as it is to everyone. But to have the courage to take on such a challenge in the midst of such an intense transition already, and the tenacity to continue practicing for the joy and difficulty of it, to face her destiny with such grace and openness, that’s what makes Margy’s presence so full of light and joy.

When I first met Margy, I still carried the agnostic attitude that I grew up with, and could not really understand Margy’s dedication for her faith. Although I admired her positivity and strength, I did not understand that the source of her power came from her belief and trust in God. Ever since the pilgrimage, having had so many encounters with many faiths, most of all Christians, it opened me up to the potential of religion to be, as it once was and has been despite its darker past, a beautiful connective tissue for individuals and communities to be rooted in divinity. And so I’ve gained a deeper understanding of the role that faith plays in all our lives regardless of our religious beliefs.

When I’ve told Margy’s story to people, most people would say something along the lines of “I could never do that”. On one hand, it is sincere admiration for her dedication, though at times I felt it shrouds the phenomenon in a mystery which discounts the daily work she puts into nurturing her faith, and alienates her as an anomaly gifted with unusual ability to be positive despite hardship, rather than an individual making the continual mindful decision in every moment to walk the spiritual path. I was really glad to be able to have a more insightful perspective into Margy’s life from what I’ve learnt through and after our pilgrimage.

We are all practicing something, whether we’re aware of it or not. We could be practicing being distracted, resentful, or condemnatory; or we could be practicing being present, accepting, and hopeful. By practicing piano, Margy gains response-ability over her life. And I can feel, that as she gets past the drudgery of inputting the data of notes and finger placements into her body, and she starts to flow in one with the music, it is as if God carries her hand over to reach the note she is looking for.

Thank you, Margy, for your forever inspiring presence that touch all who have the fortune of meeting you. ✶

Videos by Chloe Tam ©

We were in Germany this winter. The house we stayed in Biebertal carried a strong character, which was its immense quietude.

I didn’t realise that until the second week. In the first week, we had a friend visit us, and we took some time to adapt to the new place, to set up our rooms and establish our routine, which all distracted my attention.

Then, suddenly, there was a moment one afternoon, when I could finally sit quietly and just be. I realised that I couldn’t hear anything – neither the cars passing by outside nor the birds in the garden. The only sound I could hear was silence.

The first instinct I had was to dive deep into it, as I sensed some invitational energy that drew me in, something to listen to that I could only hear if I was quiet enough. This experience, I tried to put into words later in my journal :

“Silence, the precious silence, it holds the weight of all the words that haven’t yet been said. I cherish it tenderly and carefully in my heart, just like handling the elegant and fragile porcelain in my hand. I’m afraid that the words which come out of my mouth will demean the value of it, and reveal the unrevealable secrets. Therefore, I keep silent until the silence breaks itself. "

I was in awe of this masterpiece of silence for quite a while, feeling that I was sinking deeper and deeper, and the silence became louder and louder. Then all of a sudden, the secret revealed itself: time had disappeared.

When I say time disappeared, it doesn’t mean that time no longer exists, but more like I was inside time, riding on time, together with time. Time is usually seen as something ahead of us, something we have to catch up with. But in silence, time stops for us, and lets us ride on its back and be carried.

Time is the best friend of silence. By connecting deeply with silence, I gained the privilege of knowing the “real” time.

I have been rebelling against the modern way of seeing and defining time, especially since we stayed for five months in an orchard in Ringmer, Lewes, last May.

Looking back, I think it was inevitable. We were in a 3.5-acre orchard, and the caravan we stayed in was right under the sky and surrounded by trees. We had never lived so closely with nature.

In such an environment, when I tried to evaluate my work with a conventional time frame, it felt odd. “How come it took me 4 hours to only plant one bed of wild strawberries ??” “How can we finish thinning the 100 fruit trees in a week?” “I should’ve repotted these bamboos yesterday, but I didn’t have time…” When these thoughts came into my mind, they took away my peace. But when I looked around, everything in nature was happening in its own way, without forcing; it woke me up.

Nature tells time in its own undeniable way, which is different from that of human beings. In other words, nature takes its time; human beings chase time. But the truth is that the more we chase it, the further we are left behind it.

A commonly shared myth was also raised in our conversations several times while working in the orchard: Why does time pass so quickly?

In one of my journals that I wrote in September, I tried to find the answer to it:

“I guess we all think that time is like a straight line, and to lengthen it, the only way is to do more things. The more we do, the more time is fulfilled, and less is wasted. Thus, we make ourselves busy moving from one thing to another. Since quantifying the things we do becomes the measurement of time, we focus less and less on just doing one thing. I stretched time in its width, but at the same time, we lost the depth of experiencing time. Time becomes linear, not an all-rounded experience, which is the main reason for its shortening. "

My solution for keeping time as long as possible was to “dive deep into the void of time, and be one with time.” At the end of my journal, I concluded, “Live the present moment. Live the present moment deeply."

It somehow echoed with my later experience when diving deep into the silence in Biebertal.

What made me more alert to our relationship with time was that whenever we have anxiety, it usually has something to do with time. Since Chloe and I are working together on our project, there is more or less a deadline in our minds which we want to meet. When work is going well, it’s fine. But when we are stuck, or when we didn’t do as much as we planned, the pressure and anxiety would come up and devour us, which is a shared experience amongst many. The anxiety is unpleasant to face, and it is unhealthy. That’s why exploring and finding a new relationship with time became one of my major tasks.

Later, I came across a reel on Instagram, in which Mumbi shares East African people’s concept of time as described by John Mbiti, the Kenyan philosopher and writer. There are two dimensions of time: Sasa, the living present and immediate future; and Zamani, the vast past, holding all history. So time is not a line, but a flow from Sasa into Zamani. What makes it a contrast to the West’s linear concept of time is that there’s no future, and time moves from the present into the past, rather than moving forward into an infinite future.

Another key element is that time isn’t measured abstractly by minutes or hours, but by events, rhythms, and experiences. When Western people see African people sitting under a tree doing nothing, they call it wasting time. But for African people, they are either waiting for time or producing time. Time is not to be spent, saved, lost or wasted, but to be experienced. Events create time, such as seasons, ceremonies, or conversations; those moments produce time. And people produce as much time as they need, while the Western thought of time drives the obsession with progress, development, and a promised future.

My encounter with this ground-breaking concept of time led me into a new chapter of reflection. And the culmination happened in Biebertal, in that house, when the breathtaking silence sucked me in.

The deeper I dug, the more came to me.

At the end of October, after I subscribed to the Anglo-Irish poet David Whyte’s Substack, his poem titled “ Time” granted me not only the spiritual and philosophical perspective but also a very poetic way of relating to time.

David Whyte

Time

Nothing could happen and nothing could be remembered in our lives were it not for that strange multi-dimensional, multi-level quality we reduce to calling time: not the functioning of a single human cell, the vast weather systems passing through our skies nor the surrounding cosmos of our planetary systems…

Read more

2 years ago · 156 likes · 12 comments · David Whyte

After reading the poem, I added two more lines to my journal:

“If we use time to do things that will create long-lasting memories, then time stays. And it stays eternally/forever.”

“How we use time decides how long we can own time, and how long that time will stay with us.”

Now, my memory is going back to the house in Biebertal, to the moment when I met time in deep silence. The dog we were looking after, Koah, was snuggling herself in her small but comfortable crate, in the same room as mine. She was certainly experiencing time fully and was in one with time. Animals are good at that, I believe. At around 6 pm, silence broke when the church bells rang. Then the rolling shutters also fell slowly, automatically at their set time. Koah was used to it. She didn’t move at all. I guess her nap must have transcended the time.

Waking up from the silence, I licked my lips unconsciously. For a moment, I felt that I could taste the silence, which was delicious.

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Sending light and peace to you and your loved ones. ✷

Lots of love,

🚶🏻‍♀️‍➡️Chloe & Ying🚶🏻‍♀️

First of all, let’s explain our name, munü pilgrims.

“munü” comes from Mandarin pinyin.

mu3 / 母 / mother (Ying)

nü3 / 女 / daughter (Chloe)

That’s us!

And what is a pilgrim?

“A pilgrim is a wanderer with a purpose. A pilgrimage can be to a place — that’s the best known kind — but it can also be for a thing. Mine is for peace, and that is why I am a Peace Pilgrim.”

– Peace Pilgrim

“There are two ways to live on planet Earth: one way is to be a tourist and the other is to be a pilgrim. […] As long as you have fear, you cannot be a pilgrim. A pilgrim has to be fearless. You are in the hands of God. You are in the hands of the Universe. You are in the hands of Destiny. You are here to celebrate life.”

– Satish Kumar

“The object of pilgrimage is not rest and recreation – to get away from it all. To set out on a pilgrimage is to throw down a challenge to everyday life.”

– Huston Smith

“At its heart, the journey of each life is a pilgrimage through unforeseen sacred places that enlarge and enrich the soul.”

– John O’Donohue

“In each of us dwells a pilgrim. It is a the part of us that longs to have direct contact with the sacred. We will travel halfway around the world and endure great sacrifice and pain to enter the sanctuary, whether it is a temple, shrine, cemetery, or library. This is the way that is no way, but a practice.”

– Phil Cousineau, Author of “The Art of Pilgrimage”

“I’m a soul in wonder … I’m a soul in wonder… I’m a soul in wonder…”

– Van Morrison

In the winter of 2024-25, we walked 1,000 km for two months across Ireland, Wales, and England.

Rather than retreating into hotel rooms, we knocked on strangers’ doors every night, asking if anyone might offer us a night’s shelter in exchange for our gifts, services, and for connection.

For 62 consecutive nights, someone opened their home to us! We met over 100 incredibly brave, kind, and generous people who welcomed us not just with shelter, but with warmth, curiosity, and open hearts. They reminded us how deeply we all long for connection — and how willing we are to care for one another, if simply given the chance.

Would you say yes if two strangers knocked on your door asking for shelter?

We are now editing a documentary and writing a book about our pilgrimage together. If you would like to know more about our story and project, click below.

Click here!

This Substack is to document our lives as pilgrims of life.

Even though our pilgrimage is over, the spirit of it never ended. We still live our lives by exchanging our skills and services for our basic needs (accommodation, food, etc.), mainly through petsitting and volunteering. We continue to carry the heart of a pilgrim through everything we do – meaning to accept anything we are given and have no expectations. We want to share our different way of life, our creative processes throughout this project, and other insights and musings that have carried us through, as we all walk this journey of life together.

Why subscribe?

You can subscribe for free to see our public posts.

You can also upgrade to paid to:

• See ALL our posts and archive

• Comment on our posts

• Join our community chat!

You will automatically have a 30-day free trial.

☾ Your monthly support at £3.50 would buy us a loaf of bread for the week.

☾ Your yearly support of £35 would cover a week’s groceries for the both of us.

☾ Being a Pilgrim Patron at £100/year would cover so much of our transport expenses.

Too much for you? Don’t worry.

If you cannot afford the subscription, you can get 50% off below. If you need a full scholarship, you can message us a request, and we’ll give you 100% off a whole year, no questions asked. We want our work to be accessible while keeping our readership intentional.

Get 50% off for 1 year

We sincerely hope you will join us no matter your funds, as we appreciate your support in any form. We look forward to being with you through our cherished words.

Sending light and peace to you and your loved ones. ✷

Lots of love,

🚶🏻‍♀️‍➡️Chloe & Ying🚶🏻‍♀️