I reckon it would be near impossible to be unaware of the solar eclipse on August 12th. The morning after, my social media was inundated with various images and videos illustrating one of the most awesome acts of Mother Nature. And alongside this eclipse, the stories that have been unfolding in the sky are simply put, epic. So much so that it seems to mirror the “epicness” of life here on Earth. From wildfires and droughts to the state of politics, so much is going on in this world (too much to go into right now!!). As a follower of astrology, I have been listening to the messages contained in this ancient study passed on to us from our elders. I have been aware of some of these unfoldings, but, even with a basic knowledge of it all, I am overwhelmed by it all. My tiny mind tries to fathom the grandness of these symbolic happenings, of the unfolding of life. At times I get a zoomed-out perspective of it all, where I begin to sense some of the messages that are being sent to us here on earth during these times. Are these from the angels, from the higher planes, the celestial beings, our ancestors beyond the veil? When these moments happen, I get so excited and inspired. I feel myself lighting up within, like a child, full of the awe and wonder of life. I become overwhelmed by its beauty and majestic power. These awakenings are such a gift. I am so thankful that I can sit with them and listen to their energy moving through me. I seriously hope that somehow these messages will filter into my album!

In the extreme heat of this summer, I am also very grateful to live seaside. Every day I visit Mother Sea and converse with her, a practice I’ve maintained since my mother passed away in March. Today I immersed myself in her twice. She was brimming and surging, so full of life. Her high tide was voluptuous! It was her response to yesterday’s dance between the sun and the moon. I imagined the way she moved my body was a ritual, as if she was baptising me. I felt her powerful responses caress, push and pull at my body. Sublime and magical. Afterwards I sat on the beach processing this ritual. Eventually the conversation with my friend naturally flowed to talking about both of our mothers who had passed away earlier this year. I began to speak of how my mother’s love now feels more potent to me than it ever was whilst she lived on this earthly plain. I can feel her love everywhere since her passing. I have spent many hours conjuring up memories of our earthly time together, wondering about how close we were, or if we were at all. With more thought, I am unsure that my birth mother ever really understood me. A complex awakening.

As an artist, I have chosen to live an open and honest existence to all of my feelings, good and bad. I have worked hard to build courage and strength so as not to be afraid to look into the shadows of my life, of my ancestors’ lives, and all of what I have inherited. I am not afraid to talk openly about Mother Sea, celestial skies and the power of astrology and many other ‘taboo’ subjects. These stories are my ultimate teachers. This is something I know for a fact that my mother refused to acknowledge. She kept an extremely tight lid on this jar, for fear of the horrors that lay in these shadows. She shut it down, and in time it sadly shut her down… first her sense of freedom and then in time, it literally took away her voice. She died this year, but in hindsight she died to me many years before when we failed to communicate openly. I wonder how much truth we ever really shared beyond the surface existence. And I can now say with confidence that from childhood to now, we struggled to connect. As a vocalist, I communicate with my body, my instrument. I have grown to listen to the cues and clues it tells me so that together we can deliver the stories of creation that I witness. This voice and this body- we were born from my mother’s body, and yet sadly we did not see eye to eye. My sensitivities and my freedom of expression irritated her and possibly embarrassed her. How many times did she tell me to get thicker skin and to stop having a “pity party”? Despite her loss in not understanding me, thankfully I always knew that this was her problem, not mine. I am so grateful to have found the courage to confidently communicate and learn from life and thus pave my own creative way.

The beautiful part of this story is now that Mum has passed onto the other side of the veil, I finally can truly feel the enormity of her love. This love that has been in my cellular body since I was created and born. For 9 months she carried this love and gifted me a life, born of celestial energy, of all the stars. So now Mum has ascended and is with the stars. She is everywhere. She is in the light, the land and the shadows. A beautiful example of this is I know her messages are carried on the wind by the bees that visit me. For the day after my Mum died, I walked to the park and for half of the journey there, a bee rested on my heart. I just knew it was my Mum’s energy/love resting with me, letting me know that she was with me, watching over my heart. And even just last night before the eclipse, a bee came and said hello, and I acknowledged Mum again before it moved on with its busy work of transmitting messages of love to all the other souls on the beach. Interestingly, since having these encounters with bees, I have learnt that there is a Celtic tradition of “telling the bees” when someone has passed away. The Celts believed bees could help carry messages from this world to the world of the dead, serving as conduits between humans and their dearly departed. Also in British tradition, it is stated that if there were any major changes in the family, these must be communicated to the bees in the hive. So if the Beekeeper were to pass away, it was customary to cover the hive in a black veil and to notify the bees that their caretaker had passed on. Otherwise, the bees might up and disappear, leaving the surviving family bee-less and honey-less. Some people even believed the bees would die of grief if not properly notified. And in ancient Egypt, bees were seen as symbols of royalty and were also a part of everyday life; Honey, beeswax, and other hive products were commonly placed inside tombs, and often honey was used in embalming and beeswax to seal sarcophagi. Some believed the human soul took the form of a bee once they passed away. They also believed the voices of souls sounded like the hum of bees. As an animist, I can totally identify with all of these notions. I see it all around me.

Remembering my mother down by the edge of the sea today, post solar eclipse, and talking about her and the bees, has stirred up some very deep responses in my body. So I have stopped and noted them. After lunch, I came across a video of 2 women dressed as angels in a hospice, singing a heavenly song by the bedside of a dying person. Suddenly I found the floodgates to my heart open and my whole being became aware of the beautiful power of universal love that is swimming all around us, reminding me that the love of my mother is everywhere. I can see it in acts of kindness, the vibrations within a song sung, in the sound of the wind moving through the trees, in the life surging through tidal seas, in the awesomeness of a solar eclipse and the eternal mysteries and messages transmitted from our starry skies. Today’s simultaneous awareness of the shadow of loss and the presence of infinite love was profoundly moving. Like the moon taking away the light of the world for a second and then instantly having it come back… this powerful play between the shadow and the light moved through me. I did not fight off the tears. I cried it out and gave thanks to ALL of life.

“Those that have the “knowing” draw their magic from these old lands, and its ancient places, gathering power or life force (also known as “sprowl” here in the South West) by building relationship with the spirits of place and nature.” - Danu Forest

It has been just over a month since my Mum passed away. It’s been a turbulent ride through this grieving period of letting go of one life and moving into a new phase - a real marker of a definitive change in my life that resonates deeply inside of my body. It’s like a rough metal ball moving up and down my spine, rolling around, trying to find a way through - and out. At times, it stops in a pocket in my back or my hip, mostly my hips, aka, the seat of emotions, waiting impatiently to be allowed to roll down my legs and out of my body. And then, as to be expected, it moved up into my throat with fierce and accurately aimed action. It embedded itself deeply into the source of my expression and burned, crying out for me to release it. I tried to wash it away with saltwater, but it resisted, then rolled away from my attempts to suppress it and heal it. Upwards it rolled into my head and settled there for three days, stubbornly perched behind my eyes, brooding. Now that I am healing, I can look back without pain and see that it was, in fact, a fire that seared and cauterised the scar tissue at the source of all of my tears, which had been bruising me so brutally… A process that stopped me in my tracks. I listened. Then it strangely rolled upwards to my scalp, where every follicle of hair ached. It was so weird and beautiful. I began to understand what was happening.

The next day, the sun came out, and I lay in the park with my shoes off, staring at the bluest skies, watching all of the frenzy of Spring. As I lay in the meadow of golden dandelions, in the distance, I could see the sea calling me back to her. The last time I was there, I sobbed. So “slowly, slowly” I said, I will come back… With another day of sun, I fully knew the ball of grief and pain was disintegrating and beginning to become tiny fragments circulating through my entire body; dispersing and dissolving. These tiny fragments were searching for ways to release themselves from my body and into the earth. Energy was vehemently moving - and releasing. Like magic.

When I finally made the glorious return to the sea, she was alight, sparkling and joyous. I took off my shoes and raised my skirt to my hips and walked into her. The bracing cold gripped me, and Mother Sea’s hands held my feet and ankles with love. so heavenly. My heart felt lighter. She gifted me hope as I grounded into the edges of the seabed floor like a form of rebirth. By connecting to the sea energy, I was beginning to find my own footing as a motherless child. It dawned on me that I was beginning to bond with my ‘new’ earthly mother, the one who will now be my witness and guide for the rest of my own life, Earth. For the love I lost with the passing of my birth mother, it really left me with a deep sense of lack of grounding. But now that my ameliorating has begun, the once-gaping space in my soul, heart and body is being shown the way back into my other birth rite, my relationship to nature. With deep reverence and grace, I am incredibly grateful for this awareness I have now. Her presence is holy and divine to me.

Now I will walk, skip, run, swim, ride, drive, rail and fly upon her and around her. I see her. I feel her. I love, respect and honour her. And for all the other sentient beings that I meet on my journeys, near and far, I look forward to sharing environmental love with them, communing. I am thankful to have two tours coming up where I will have the chance to see so much and to meet so many people. April, May, June - I will be sharing creative energy around the UK and North America with the stellar artists and activists, Rún and Witch Club Satan, as well as headline shows on the West Coast of the USA. I will be joined on all of these adventures by, , who will conjure up the visual magic! Oh, what a gift!!

So dear reader, if we pass in the street, or meet at a show, please come and say hi. I truly believe that creativity and community, in this day and age, mean more to us all than ever before. Together, we can let music and art remind us that we are all part of the one family of humanity, nestled here on Earth. Let’s gather. Let’s sprowl. Let’s light the fires.

Much love,

Penelope

UK 2026 tour with Rún

23 Apr - Cottiers Theatre - Glasgow, UK - TICKETS *

24 Apr - Liverpool - Quarry - TICKETS *

25 Apr - Newcastle - The Lubber Fiend - TICKETS *

26 Apr - Leicester - Firebug - TICKETS *

28 Apr - Brighton - Green Door Store - TICKETS *

29 Apr - Bristol - Strange Brew - TICKETS *

North America tour 2026 - * supporting WITCH CLUB SATAN

27 May - Underground Arts - Philadelphia, PA - TICKETS *

30 May - Théâtre Fairmount - Montreal, QC - TICKETS *

31 May - Sonia - Cambridge, MA - TICKETS *

02 Jun - Baltimore Soundstage - Baltimore, MD - TICKETS *

03 Jun - Bowery Ballroom - NYC, NY - TICKETS *

05 Jun - Preserving Underground - Pittsburgh, PA - TICKETS *

06 Jun - El Club - Detroit, MI - TICKETS *

US tour 2026 - Headlining

07 Jun - Sleeping Village - Chicago, IL - TICKETS

08 Jun - Cactus Club - Milwaukee, WI - TICKETS

11 Jun - Vera Project - Seattle, WA - TICKETS

12 Jun - Jack London Revue - Portland OR - TICKETS

14 Jun - 4 Star Theatre - San Francisco, CA - TICKETS

15 Jun - 2220 Arts - Los Angeles, CA - TICKETS

Six days ago, my mother passed away. Nothing can prepare you for this moment. It feels like a piece of me left my body when I heard the news. It literally took my breath away. It has happened. Mum is no longer here on earth with me. I am only here because of her birthing me into this life. And as my body continues to process the news, I keep saying over and over, “It’s so weird.” How can she not be here? Despite living on the other side of the planet from Mum for most of my adult life, she has always been with me. Now she is suddenly, though not unexpectely, gone. Not on earth with me anymore. Unbelievably sad…. and very weird.

What I would love the world to know about my mum… She was all of these words and so much more:

Loving. Brave. Honest . Beautiful. Creative. Joyous. Kind. Caring. Giving. Spirited. Loyal. Proud. Determined. Strong. Fierce. & Stylish (very)

Mum’s spirit taught me never to give up - just keep going. Her quiet strength and determination as she navigated living with Parkinson’s Disease for 40 years. Sally was always striving towards the light, love, hope and joy.

The silver lining is knowing that she has definitely moved on to a place of peace. She was tenacious to the end. A fierce warrior woman, she fought the good fight all the way to the finish line. Her body held so much pain, but she refused to give in to it.

Sally Anne was a very proud family woman - she loved her mother deeply, and her sisters and brothers too. Her own family and home that she built with my father was a beautiful representation of her creative, honest, loving spirit… from sewing matching outfits for all of her daughters; to making quilts, curtains, pillowcases (so many cushions!) for decorating her home; she always made sure she had on her own best outfit when leaving the house; her hair and nails were done; earrings, rings and necklaces in place and adorning her; and tonnes (!!) of perfume - of and of course her latest handbag - she always shined brightly. Sally sure loved to shop! Funny, that is one thing I did not inherit from her!

My father is bereft but coping. He misses his Sally Anne “The Sunshine Queen”. But he, too, knows that she is now resting in peace. After being her carer for the past 20 years, helping her to navigate the progression of her illness, he was loyal, caring and loving. I can only begin to comprehend how it feels to be alone after 62 years together—such a hole in his heart. I am calling him often and trying to help fill it with as much love as possible to help ease his pain.

Mum’s spirit/love lives on in my father, her 3 daughters, her 6 grandchildren & the 1 great grandchild who will be here on earth with us all soon. (I like to imagine she’s stopping in and saying hello to the little angel before she flies on)

Eternal thanks, Mum, for teaching me so much, for sharing all your stories with me, and for being my leader in honesty, pure love and strength.

May the memory of your smile continue to light up every room I walk through.

RIP Sally Anne Trappes

23.7.1941 - 10.3.2026

Surrounded by clear skies and a clear heart, I can now meditate on what has passed in this Year of the Snake. The two words that sum it up: ‘gratitude’ and ‘community’.

I am beyond thankful for everything that has happened in the great uncoiling of 2025. My album ‘A Requiem’ was released in April. The events leading up to that peak moment and those that precipitated it were immensely epic. So epic that in order to take stock of it all, I just spent thirty minutes going through my calendar to see exactly what I was doing each week! It was such a busy and beautiful blur of activity. So many blessings of creative energy were inexhaustibly flowing through me and all around me. It was like the floodgates of my life had opened. It really was “Everything, Everywhere All At Once”. Glorious and crazy. As my shadow self became my daily companion, I uncovered the darkest aspects of my life, and as I decoded it all, everything began to become clearer. All things became possible. I see the power of words, comprehending the notion of spells and spelling. The more I sang at each show on tour, the more I found love in the audience and felt a kinship with fellow artists. It was a ‘becoming’. I now feel like an open vessel to the unlimited potentials, more aware of the interconnection of everything. I surrendered to the flow in 2025. What a gift the universe returned!

Looking closely at all of the events of the year, the one common thread was community. My album ‘A Requiem’ brought me to places and people where I could connect on and off stage with so many amazing humans. Together we laughed - and cried. Together, we bonded over all of the intensity of the year, shedding hate, grief, and fears. We all bolstered each other with what I call ‘violent hope’. Whether artists, crew, or fans, the strength we shared in these difficult times was beyond beautiful. A wave of communal grief, yes, but, at the same time, a torrential wave of hope and warmth, together in strength for the coming chapters…

I’m curious and excited to see how these events will evolve in the coming season of 2026. For now, I continue to hibernate and rest from the emotional shedding. I am a seed in the dark and cold earth, sleeping and drawing powers into my body and in my dreams, I am regularly being visited by bears, birds, lions and celestial beings.

To the incredible humans who left their mark on my heart this year. Eternal thanks.

Here are just a few, as there were too many to mention….

Agnes Haus - Magi of videos and live visuals. You brought my dreams & visions to life and helped me to actualise all of this on so many levels.

Klara Schumann - subliminal cellist on most of my shows throughout the year.

Stephen Mallinder - asked the best questions as host of the Q & A event for A Requiem at John Marchant Gallery… and now an amazing neighbour and friend.

Midwife & Viva Melinkolya - the best lifelong connective chats at one of the best festivals, Roadburn

Maxine Peake and Kate Dickie - It means so much to have you both in the Sleep video, documented there forever. so grateful!

The Smote family - consistent warmth throughout the year - that Supersonic early morning hours after party was epic! (big shout-out to Supersonic Festival / Lisa & Co.)

Dina Litovsky - captured my soul via remote photography. Pure magic. (thanks Philip Sherborne)

Anna Helena McClean - voice teacher / conjurer - foundational stuff

Abbie Sundholm (Melbourne cellist) & Peter Hollo - (Sydney cellist) & Luke Da Zilva - Australian tour love!

Lacy Barry - artist extraordinaire and witch sister

The Bundner Rigi family - pure connection of creative community within nature

Witch Club Satan family - witch sisters - from Supersonic Festival to Stockholm - all the love and power! Here’s to more!

ØXN & One Leg One Eye - xo!!

Kat Pihil - April tour magic with vocals, keys and drums.

Fever Ray & Martin Falke - meeting you both was a total dream!

Masma Dream World & Golem Mecanique - October tour rituals - the coven expanded further!

Swamp Bookings - the connector of the dots!

One Little Independent Records - the most amazing family - so much support! Eternal thx

Chloe Trappes - my light, my love - forever encouraging me to rise

And 2 incredible humans I said goodbye to:

David Lynch - you left this plane at the beginning of the year - you opened the vortex - then, now and forever.

Keith McIvor (JD Twitch) - you left this plane on my birthday - you were the music - you always believed in me and many others & will never be forgotten.

As the darker months close in on us here in the UK, on Samhain, in a powerful liminal state, I released a new 7-track EP, Æternum, a spiritual accompaniment to my 2025 album ‘A Requiem’. I love these artifacts of sound so very much. The vinyl is sold out, but you can listen wherever you listen to music.

I am always practising GRATITUDE - my word of the year! When “A Requiem” was released in April and then touring around the UK, Australia and Europe, the act of sharing became a rare, fragile and ceremonial gift that incited more deep gratitude within. What started as a personal journey became broader, less personal, more political and spiritual. As the days of 2025 flew by at lightning speed, a truth became clearer to me: “A Requiem” is for everyone. Each show became about sharing and honouring our collective grief and our violent hope for a better future as our world around us is potentially collapsing. Connecting with people on this level was a gift. Together we communed and acknowledged the darkness, sharing our fears and our hopes for our planet.

Each show was intense, visceral, physical - channelling ancestors, accessing angels and fighting with demons. Ceremony. Ritual. Almost “Theatre Macabre”. Waking at 4 am to get to the airport a few nights in a row - with little sleep - nearly broke me, but on the midpoint of the tour, I was granted a dream to perform in a cave. As an animist and pagan, this is something I have been hoping to do for a lot of years. The magic of the Grottes of Basque - where the greater coven of life came into focus - was the most profound setting and bolstered my spirit, giving me strength. The history of the region and its tales of indigenous peoples and their dedication to the earth, despite all of their suffering at the hands of the Christian Inquisition, were so incredibly inspiring. Oh, what they must have endured! Their energy was within the walls and crevices of the cave and embedded itself inside of me. I have since honoured it and carried it into all of my performances. These ancestors gave me strength. I began to dedicate every show around Europe to the children of Gaza. And together we cried out for forgiveness. To everyone that I met around Europe, from Basque Country to Barcelona to Porto to Paris and beyond, thank you for showing up and supporting this energy and sharing with me so much.

I also need to mention that the beginning of the second half of A Requiem’s journey was launched at Supersonic Festival in Birmingham. That weekend was euphoric - when the sense of community within fellow music makers and fans together became so beautifully clear to me. Every single person I met filled my heart with joy, reminding me of the power that we all have when we gather together around the vibrations of music. All the sounds that inspire us to be better humans, to express our love, our rage, our hope and our grief. It set the stage for the rest of the tour and became the spirit & the backbone of my tour. It kept me going when the exhaustion was real after nearly a week of only a few hours of sleep.

And then real life happened. In September, my dear friend Keith McIvor passed away. It was a profound loss. My foundations were shaken. A Requiem began to feel too immediate. This was the person who released my first solo album, Penelope One, when no one else would take a chance. This human was my musical ‘father’ and suddenly he was gone. It was shocking. Keith was special. He brought so many together via his love for music. With his record label Optimo Music and as one half of Optimo Espacio, he created a universe for so many around the world where they could express themselves via the dancefloor or by sharing the work of artists on his labels. He gave artists a home to release their music, fully supported in whatever they created. Keith saw no barriers between genres - only the beauty within the music. His loss has reverberated throughout the music community over the past few weeks, and just days ago, I was fortunate enough to join some of his nearest and dearest in Glasgow for his memorial service. Witnessing a room full to the brim with love and palpable grief was extremely powerful. As a community, we all honoured a human who has inspired so many through his love of music. Infinitely beautiful. Keith’s passing has only highlighted to me the power of music and the community that gathers around the vibrations of love, all the hope and all the beauty. I’m deeply honoured to have worked with Keith. He shone a light on the power of the greater community.

I now have only two more shows left… Firstly, inside Cottiers Theatre in Glasgow on 19th November : TICKETS HERE. This will be a special show as I return to Scotland, the place where I wrote ‘A Requiem’. It feels fitting for it to be the second last show of my tour for this year, and it will be dedicated to Keith. I hope folks in Scotland can join me as we shine a light on the precious gift of life and give thanks for the love, as we collectively grieve the loss of our loved ones. It will be a ceremonial gathering for a beautiful future. I will also be sharing the night with the amazing Irish band Rún. I met them at Supersonic festival, and I’m thrilled that they will be joining me as together we celebrate the darkness… the cycles of life. and the eventual light.

My final show of the year will be in London on the 29th of November at St Matthias Church : TICKETS HERE . It will be a beautiful celebration, closing out the year at the “headquarters” of this country that I have made my home. It will be in honour of all that has happened through the year, through my music, and through my life. I’m so grateful to be able to share so much with you all, and I hope that we can all celebrate together after the show! Sophia Hansen-Knarhoi (a fellow Australian ) will be the support for this show. She has created such amazing music, and I can’t wait to see her perform.

Both of these shows will be intimate but in majestic chapels with limited capacity, and will be in the full ceremonial Requiem format with a cellist and percussionist - plus we will perform 3 songs from Æternum for the 1st time. Together, we will deliver a deeper message of communion as we complete the circle of 2025. I won’t be revisiting this show in the future, so please don’t wait to see it another time.

Yes, this year has been tumultuous and emotionally difficult for so many, with the people in power becoming more fascist, with war raging in numerous countries, with genocide in Palestine, thousands of children being murdered, families being destroyed, societies being torn apart by greed, hatred and discrimination. In all this chaos, I’m thankful for the music. To all the people who have gathered with me around this energy and who have come to my shows, thank you. Together we commune in love via the power of collective vibration. We will rise!

p.s.

In case I don’t get a chance to write again before the new year…. which is highly likely as I am already planning my deep hibernation….

My partial 2025 gratitude list:

OLI Team - you are family! Your support means everything.

Agnes Haus - for seeing what I see… for helping me to build a universe that draws focus on the hidden worlds within. For creating a visual that is a perfect match.

Olga and Ricky as Swamp - for finding the hidden spaces to perform, and being lovely to work with.

To my Aussie family - Peter Knight, Abby Sundborn, Lawrence English, Luke Da Zilva, and Peter Hollo who brought me home in July

Stephen Mallinder - for the perfect questions and undying encouragement as we dissected ‘A Requiem’ in discussion at John Marchant Gallery, Brighton. And to John for being the consummate host and a great friend.

Witch Club Satan- sharing our evening together in Stockholm was just a taste of a universe that yearns to be explored. The combination of our worlds was near perfection. I hope with all my heart that we can explore the beauty in the shadows and our fierce love for life together again soon.

Masma Dream World - for your profound mother love & femme support, your joy, your power and presence. Witnessing your ritual was life changing.

Golem Mechanique - you showed me such strength in the shadows. Meditative and melancholic… your show allowed me time to truly be & to acknowledge what was moving through my body, mind and spirit. Connecting with you was proof of the power of the coven.

Sara Zozoya - your generosity, curiosity and giant heart were truly beautiful, and I’m so glad we met in beautiful San Sebastian

Elisa Begni - so much beauty, joy and community within your show and our inspiring conversations after the show in Milan. Viva Italia!

Klara Schumann and Kat Pihl for being the best bandmates this year!!!

To all the promoters who put the shows together and to all my old and new friends who came to share these shows with me, thank you! to anyone I have forgotten, thank you too!

Love and Peace,

Penelope

I am just back from a barefoot stroll along a shaded grassy path that passes pine trees that whisper in the wind, ferns that encase tiny rock caves that I imagine are inhabited by Swiss fairies… all along the way collecting wild flowers and grasses to decorate and purify my studio. I have only 2 days left… I have brought the outside beauty in… I am trying to capture as much of the energy of the Alps as possible before I have to leave.

Today I situated myself on a grassy knoll, next to the little chapel, surrounded by local cows with their neck bells laboriously creating the erratic animist music, their sound guided by their primal feeding patterns, their itching and their laconic walking. Now and then, they would stop the busy work of chewing grass and look up at me and stare me down to see if I was a threat - or perhaps some kind of gothic apparition seated quietly on the grass in all black clothing - silhouetted against the deep summer green. My feet were surrounded by an array of purple, yellow and white wildflowers, with the odd bee or butterfly doing the last of this summer's pollination work. It was glorious! After joining the cows for lunch, eventually I surrendered to my need to lie down on the grass and stare into the gigantic white clouds shapeshifting with the contours of the stone and air of the mountains. Pure heaven.

I walked barefoot back at the ‘homestead’ of Bündner Rigi after this magical lunchtime adventure… and I am now sitting at my desk with its most awe-inspiring view. I have yet to make any music today, but I will. I think this is because I am still vibrating from last night's performance outside on the terrace. I’m finding it difficult to want to break the spell that the show had created within me and all around me. I feel that if I create new sounds, then I will disturb the magic that is still reverberating for me all around the valley. I don’t want to change the frequency yet. I am letting the crickets and cows hold the space. This mountain is powerful. I sense the closeness of the sky deities. Their presence is in the breeze, the mist and haze. They linger in the air…I love how my eyes are constantly being drawn upwards. I relish in my study of examining all the contours of the horizon line of mountains that form a 360-degree view around me. The giants and giantesses within these mountains embrace me and comfort me. I think everyone in this place feels it too.

As my show unfolded last night, the light of the sun completely disappeared and was replaced by perfect strikes of lightning that filled the vastness of the valley behind me. It was the ultimate backdrop to A Requiem. Mother Nature ensured that everyone in the audience would be able to disappear into the shadows of the night. Each lighting strike grabbed us further into the drones, the hums and my wails to the sky. I beckoned everyone to join me. We gathered. And then just before the last song, Thou Art Mortal, the clouds began to cry…. Gentle raindrops fell on me, and I listened to the call to finish - to sound off in Gaelic with all things watery. We became one with the water. And I gave thanks to the celestial beings that joined us and cried amidst us.

Afterwards came the bonding, that moment when all hearts are open, and each person who had gathered around the communal vibration senses that it is still hanging in the air. Humans become moths gathering around a fire - the electricity in the air after the storm has passed. They came to me with sparkling eyes and shared with me their stories of where the music had taken them. We connected deeply. It was incredibly special and so very pure. As English is not the first language sopken here, words were not capable of expressing the fluttering of response to what they had just witnessed. The mysterious and perfectly matching lightning show had cast a spell… they were enraptured, and I was truly grateful to have been the conduit to the spirits of this place. I delivered my message. But it was nature who captured all of our hearts and souls and wrapped us in the faith of our collective spirit.

Post-script…

Bündner Rigi is a creative haven in the heavens of Switzerland. I’m incredibly lucky to be here on a residency, and last night I performed for the brave souls of Switzerland who love to hike up 1,620 meters!! The Inn was built in 1902, and you can feel that the walls have stories embedded within. I was told that this place once hosted events for protestant and catholic friends from the valley to be able to meet up. They would travel up in a horse and carriage in their hundreds so that they could freely be beyond society's expectations and celebrate life. I love this aspect of punk history in this place!

( photo at Roadburn Festival by Marco Manzi )

Now edging into a summer shadowed by war and political chaos, I am desperately trying to keep my heart full with visions all around me - the blue skies (when they actually do happen here in the UK they are glorious!), the fresh green of new leaves, and an ever expanding feast of flowers that meet each day with only the hope that they will be pollinated. These simple but most beautiful visions of nature keep me grounded, remind me that everything evolves, grows and dies, and then cycles back again and again throughout the world, throughout time.

It really is an honour to be able to have the peace of mind to be aware of this and the freedom to be creating art during these times. I fend off heartbreak and rage every time I pick up my phone. There is a part of me that wants to look away, but as a human, I know that this is not the time for any form of ignorance. Even if it is to avoid the hatred that is knocking at your sense of self every day. So, as my primal urge, like everyone’s, is to search for the love and happiness of life, I now make it my mission to help wherever I can. For now, it is to repost every bit of news that is shocking and every inspiring protest. We must not turn away. We must keep voicing our love for humanity. For people like me who are in a place of privilege, it is our duty. Every living being on this planet deserves the right to live their life in peace, working within to be happy. The chaos is overwhelming. The suffering is extreme. But the love that is rising, the awareness of injustice is palpable, and the prayers/thoughts for hope and peace are far louder and larger than any fascist fear-based hatred. For fear of some kind of lack in one's life is all that creates a divide within a person's heart. Perhaps it was being born into a war zone, literally, or the war zone was the dynamic between your parents and their parents and so on. Love struggles to live in such barren worlds, with no water or sunshine for these flowers to bloom. But the wheel will turn.

I feel like it is some kind of duty to keep performing and giving back to the world, fighting for love and peace, by sharing my energy with audiences. Such a minuscule act in a vast and troubled world, but it is my tool. I look at my fellow artists doing the same, speaking out, ensuring that their voices within their art forms are shared with love and hope, and I am thankful for their courage. The battle is fear versus love. I know where I stand. I know the fears I have personally faced, the generational traumas of domestic violence, micro-wars hidden inside my DNA… I have looked them in the eye and said “NO” to fear-based thinking. Daily, I practice accessing my hope, my light, my happiness, my peace… it is a constant struggle. But I do this in the hope that these lessons will channel through my voice and my music and hopefully inspire folks of all ages not to give up on the act of creation. Honouring the act of creation is honouring the gift of life that our mothers carried and nurtured within their bodies for us to be born. Creation is a vital necessity for life to exist. All life on our planet. The great unfolding of all life… the passion of the universe. We are creation.

The capitalist society definitely does not encourage this in anyone. It is fear-based and full of greed. A fear of a lack of abundance, a desire to always think that you need more. A numbing of the mind and heart as you purchase another dress or pair of sneakers. The retail ru sh. The desire to be King or Queen of the crop. Fear that if you don’t look the part you will be dropped, etc… All of these external appearances, all the finger pointing at others, blaming them, distracting us from our need to find our inner peace. The external greed and the puppet masters of this greed, the billionaires, all holding on to their control of us, just for some kind of petty power over others… these rich people hoarding their gains, wanting more and more and not caring about the others with little. This false happiness eats at the world, the environment, and the heart of happiness. Of course, this external greed tries to push the arts over the cliff. The thought of anyone having an independent sense of expression, a sense of their own joy, is a threat to the system that encourages you to buy your happiness. Capitalism doesn’t want you to rebel against the need to buy. It doesn’t want you to express your truth, find your happiness, or find your self-love.

As we sit at the edge of a cruel capitalist descent, I will keep looking up and out, my tenacity and determination to continue just grows and grows like life itself.

I will fight against the system that doesn’t encourage people to look within and find themselves, their identities, express their joy and their pain.

I will create. I will share. I will love, and I insist that I will go in peace.

It’s funny how time moves, fluctuates and flows. Sometimes you feel stuck like, absolutely nothing is happening and other times it is like everything is happening all at once. The past 2 months have been an absolute flurry of activity, productivity, planning, chaos, laughter, learning and building to today. Release day. My album ‘A Requiem’ is officially out today! I often cite that releasing albums reminds me of preparing to give birth. So much to do and a definitive date where life will change and evolve and come into a new chapter. I remember running around in the 9th month of my pregnancy preparing my ‘nest’, my mind, my soul for what was coming. Birthing a human is obviously a huge thing, bigger than an album, but not everyone goes through this experience… but many do ‘birth’ a creative project and the process is not too dissimilar. Chaos and joy. Excitement and nerves. Labour and love.

It requires fierce vulnerability to create. It also can not be done completely alone. It is a massive undertaking to birth a life. We all know this in our bones as we were all born from our mother and all of her hard work and everyone that helped her. This is the greater act of creation, of life. The gestation of this creative venture, ‘A Requiem’, has been a long one and was very much marked by big changes in my life. (I certainly know how to make things feel epic for myself!! ) Working with such heavy subject matters such as generational trauma, sitting with them and studying them for months afterwards, has been intense and still is. However the most beautiful realisation has come from this vulnerability. Surrendering control of ‘my story’ and inviting people into the private world of this ‘birth’ so that collectively there is help and together we share love for the world. Everyone who listens to an album, who connects with it, helps it come out into the world in any way possible are ‘creative birth’ doula’s that guide the art form through the world. As an artist the sharing of the process is such a gift. The material in A Requeim is extremely personal but I know it is more than ‘me’ and it has been a community of beautiful souls by my side, sharing this journey, this birth. All of us coming together to create.

Today I want to give all my love and thanks to one particular human who has been working closely with me for the past year on this album, . Together we have created a visual story to accompany the album. Their vision has been beyond magical! Words will never do justice to explain the process and my eternal gratitude goes out into the universe and all the way back to them! Collaborations are so very special and together we challenged each other to rise and it has been like nothing else before in my life. Additionally, I also have a new set of wonderful friends at my label, One Little Independent, who have instilled so much hope and given so much trust. Their energies remind me of the greater sense of our beautiful collective in life, and together we humans join forces to create. It takes a village, right?

The interconnectedness of all of life is mirrored in a creative moment. My heart brims with joy and eternal gratitude to the community at large behind this moment of creative release. The processes that have led to the release of A Requiem today has taught me so much but the most important thing that resonates within me, and that is COMMUNITY. Connecting with other humans, sharing collective experiences, primal emotions, fears, loves, dreams and nightmares…. We are all in this together more than we know. We are like a mycelium network. We breathe the same air and live on the same planet. We are connected. We all know that one day we will die and that everything has a life cycle. Holding each other in this knowledge of the cycles of life, supporting each other through this awareness, the birthing pains of life, is a beautiful thing.

I have spoken to many people about this album and the acceptance of our own impermanence and the bonding over this has been very special. Sharing my stories about working with my shadow self and my demons has only led me to look to the light more and more as I know that it is the light that casts the shadow.

I know this all sounds like I’m giving a speech here but I can’t stress it enough, this moment in time for me is more about connectivity. And with such chaos in the world we need to know that we are not alone, that we are here for each other. Together let’s focus on the light, examine our shadows, talk about the trauma, and hold each other close in this ever-evolving life. Give only love, fight off the fear and give thanks for the past, the present and honouring the emerging flow of life. Together we surrender to the collective heart. Onwards and upwards.

Much love and light,

Penelope

Baking my own bread can be profound. Today the silent preparation became a meditative moment and the word ‘mothering’ kept coming to mind, like a mantra. I realised the simple act of baking my own special vegan and gluten-free bread, that I know my system will allow me to process and nourish myself with, is my own simple/radical act of mothering myself.

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about what it means to mother, to be a mother, or not to be a mother, and how we have the power to “re-parent” ourselves in this life should we want to. Everyone is born of a mother who nourished us during the nine months of gestation. This act is one of the most beautiful human acts of creation. We all stem from this energy. I am eternally thankful to my mother for allowing her body to be my home for the first stage of my life…with all her Spirit and love, she brought me into this world.

In contrast to the gift of life, after I was born, I had a somewhat-problematic upbringing. Despite everything that my parents did for me, I now understand that not every mothering/parenting experience is perfect. In the case of my parents, they carried emotional and psychological baggage from troubled childhoods and also tales of trouble from their ancestors. These inherited stories made it difficult for them to be pure of heart. But the demands of any given day can sometimes mean we make mistakes and in the end we’re all just human beings trying to do our best in this life that we are given.

Now that I’m past the age of being physically capable of becoming a mother again, I now realise that this stage of life is permitting me to take time to mother myself. The act of mothering myself is allowing me to be truly honest and to access my own personal powers, to nourish my body as if I was in utero. I choose what I know is good for me and my development. I nourish myself with foods that my system needs, I exercise, I am reading and absorbing as much information as I can find that answers my intellect's calling. I am learning as much as I can about all aspects of myself as if I’m a little child again. Rebuilding. Every time I learn something new I feel the wonder of my childhood come back to the surface of my existence. I hold myself dearly and honestly. I mother me and I nourish every aspect of what is unfolding within me and around me. I’m so very grateful for this awareness and these opportunities.

I hope that somehow, somewhere, anywhere, these sparks of my own personal ‘enlightenment’ that I’m experiencing can somehow lead to an electrical current that goes out into the ether, into ears or the eyes of the spirit of anyone who has a little bit of time to dedicate to read this note. A scattering of energy that perhaps will be absorbed and processed and nourished by others. It’s okay if only five people have a similar response because these five people will have their moment too and send their energetic response out into the world and then another five people and so on into infinity. We will think about our mothers. We will be mothered. It is good to remember and give thanks for the gift of life and what our mothers and fathers did for us, or for where they fell short and neglected our real needs. My mother couldn’t access the necessary emotions I required as a child because her family neglected to show her unconditional love. But now I know that I can mother myself and allow myself to be a happy and healthy child.

When we take charge of the love we need, we will continue to grow in these chaotic times. It is our birthright to feel nourished in the most honest way so that we can access our dreams. As our hope is carried across the seas, collectively we can unite, creating sparks of magic that will begin to light up the skies. An army of light and love and hope.

p.s.

…additionally should you want to join me in my radical baking routine…here’s the recipe :

Penelope’s Seed Bread

• 1 cup of sunflower seeds

• ½ cup of pumpkin seeds

• ½ cup of mixed seeds (your hearts desire)

• ¼ cup of chia seeds

• ¼ cup of ground flax

• ¼ cup of psyllium husk powder

• 1 tsp of salt

• 1 + ¼ cup water

• ¼ cup of tahini

Mix the dry ingredients in one bowl.

Whisk tahini into water in another bowl.

Combine both bowls and add to a bread loaf tin and bake at 175 C for 50mins.

After it cools outside of the tin for about 15 minutes, you can then enjoy delicious and nutritious grain-free seed bread 🖤

(image by Agnes Haus)

The simple answer for me is art. Art in all of its forms. Creative energy. For me, I simply must keep pushing outward into the stars, travelling with the speed of light with all the force of the Big Bang. I feel in my bones that there is simply no other way for me to survive this new paradigm. There are so many terrible things going on in our world and it is heartbreaking to watch how a few lost souls can wield such abhorrent power over others. Their power of persuasion is frightful. It repulses me to the core of my being. The tenebrous shadow being cast has sent my gaze hurtling upwards to the skies. I am slowly becoming a novice Nephrologist, Astronomist or better still, Astrologist, or simply just a Mystic as there must be a greater meaning to all of what is happening right now. I want hope. We all need hope. For me, hope has become a violent desire churning deep inside my whole being, longing for the light of our stars.

(image by Agnes Haus)

Last week I released my third single, ‘Red Dove’, from my forthcoming album, ‘A Requiem’. The timing for this single felt uncanny. The song was inspired by an armageddon dream where the world was burning and I turned and looked to see a solitary boy holding a red dove. I awoke and wrote it down. Who did the boy represent? What did the red dove mean? In time it grew into a song and the key lyric “wash it down with violent hope” which now feels somewhat precognitive. Around the same time Werner Herzog’s “Bells From The Deep” appeared in my world. The investigation of Russian mysticism and the individuals in this documentary were haunting my mind, colliding with the eerie dream images of Red Dove. I instantly knew that the sorcerer and his followers were exactly what I wanted to pay homage to in the video for the song. Then came bringing all of my madcap ideas to the table with Agnes Haus who (thankfully) deeply understands how my brain operates and together we created the video for Red Dove.

The Red Dove “a-hah” moment came from a deep dive inside my mind. Dreams and reality had collided. It was that moment when the big fish came to the surface.

(image by Agnes Haus)

And as the late and eternally great David Lynch said:

“Ideas are like fish. If you want to catch little fish, you can stay in the shallow water. But if you want to catch the big fish, you've got to go deeper. Down deep, the fish are more powerful and more pure.”

(image by Agnes Haus)

Before time slips, I must express a belated response to the passing of our dear David Lynch. For 13 days I have been processing the impact he had on my life and so many of my friends and family across the world. Watching the torrent of love pour out across social media from those who knew him closely, who worked with him, and who were inspired by him has been profoundly beautiful. All of his knowledge & experience within his creative life, the information he shared on how to navigate the highs and lows, dominated my social media feed and took me away from the dire state of politics. Even in death, he is a blessing! His passing has demonstrated that he is indeed still the maestro of shadow and light. From the other side, he is still encouraging us all to work through it and to look to the light! It’s extraordinary that his death is showing us some perfect lessons that we all need right now. With a very wary eye on politics and other headlines, I refuse to let them take my focus away from my work, my mission and my love for this life.

(image by Sandro )

The last note that I must make about Lynch and ‘Red Dove’ and all of its violent hope is the ultimate gift that Lynch shared with us that can be our tool, our weapon, to navigate the armageddon… Meditation. It wasn’t a secret that Lynch was a meditator. He had been a public spokesperson for the practice for many years. Personally, I have gone in and out of this practice over the years. Life has always been doing a good job of distracting me. But I am now coming to a point in my life where I feel that meditation is exactly what I have been needing all along. I have a busy mind. The world has become a manifestation of this. Some mornings when the coffee kicks in I feel like I have a million ideas all bubbling to the surface at once, making my “to-do lists” a bit manic some days. I work fast and furiously from coffee to afternoon tea. Then everything gets caught up in and of itself. Thankfully many objectives are achieved but there’s always a slight sense of burnout. My afternoons are an elusive time for work. I now realise that this is my point to pause, reflect, breathe, calm down and get outside of my mind. I stop being busy and I stop being “I”… a quiet meditation after lunch to come to terms with letting go, surrendering to that moment and realising that there is so much beyond me and my immediate world. I begin to realise that all that busy work is for this moment when ‘I’ fall away and let go. It is a pure gift when I realise that everything I am doing is actually for everyone.

With violent hope, may our collective consciousness be focused on peace, love and happiness for everyone…. Everyone…

And lastly I want to leave you with this profound excerpt from Guerillere Talks by Vivienne Dick from 1978… we too can all stand with this young woman’s passion for life!

“I want… my whole life to… I want to empty my whole life in front of everybody so it gets out of my body, I want, I want to explode it. “

Bluntly, November and December took me deep into the house of Hades - the underworld was very much in the forefront of my mind. The inner reflection was shockingly blinding. Perhaps that was the collision of a summer and a winter solstice that I had just passed through, referenced in my last post? I arrived home in time to madly shop for gifts, mostly for my daughter who celebrates her birthday on December 25th. Then came her arrival into town, like a beacon of light - as she was the day we birthed her life together on the day she was born. And the blast of her ‘love rays’ was like a personal volcanic eruption, turning everything in on itself. The positive energy moved freely through my body, mind and spirit. It was like being tossed in the surf or blown away by salty sea winds, depending on what hemisphere I was in at the time. Upside down and yet completely the right side up. Pure joy and infinite love collided with the shadows of loss. Sleep begged me to rest and then fully eluded me as I struggled to string complete sentences together. Jet lag with both grief and love was brutal and beautiful. I survived. My daughter’s presence lifted me up high, as her birth into my life has always done. The purest gift. I paused and gave thanks and came out the other side. Now refreshed, energised and ready for whatever the great unfolding has for me next.

My personal oddyssey feels like some kind of personal mirror to what we have all been going through this year. Chaos and beauty. Love and loss. Perhaps this is literally written in the stars. And even if this rocky path continues to exist for us all, I deeply feel the vibration of hope and the strength returning. Everything is expanding outwards. We are certainly hurtling through space. The constellations are encouraging us to let go. We surrender to the flow. And as we move forward into 2025, my intention is to make ‘loving kindness’ my priority every day, to myself and my greater community, as I honour the creative force that gives me this gift of life. It is a miracle to be here and I give eternal thanks for feeling everything, the pain and the joy. Here’s to embracing the Great Mystery with all of our excitement for the evolution of our dreams. Happy New Year to everyone!

The pure act of balancing all the turmoil has been a real kind of adult reckoning. For me, it feels like I am leaving home all over again, solo. The new year will be arriving with a slightly weightier sense of being but a greater sense of individual freedom. When I first moved overseas in my early 20s, my parents were very much a permanent part of my life, as if they would be there forever. I listened to their advice. I was still very much their child. Now that they are both in their final stages of life, all of this is falling away. I am not sure I will see them again. It is a strange scary, yet lovely sensation. Now there is no one to catch me if I fall, and yet, I have an eerie sense of liberation within my heart. For the first time in my life, I feel the most honest with myself. As sad as it is to know that they will soon leave this earthly plane, both of my parents have been problematic for me with their conservative outlook on life. Unlike many rebellious souls who run from such clutches and never look back, I have always had this uncanny and uncomfortable draw - back into the fray of family - to conform. They’ve always been on the ‘edge’ of understanding me, but openly critical of my life choices. They were proud of me, but lacked faith in my decisions which had become a heavy anchor that slowed a lot of my creative development - causing my to be a ‘late bloomer’.

Today is my last day in Australia for some time. I don’t know when I will be back as the family obligation to be in Australia is gone. The anchor is lifted. The light here has peaked on this summer solstice day. Now I will prepare to fly north-west, against the earth’s rotation towards the east. I will fly back into time, into the light that is returning in the north. I am yet to comprehend what it means to be balancing on this solstice fulcrum. I am lost in some kind of metaphysical brain fog. It must mean something, but the mystery of it all has me captured in the spell. I feel like I am experiencing a a simultaneous collision and separation of two worlds at their extreme moments of darkness and light, all within 24 hours, straddling the liminal. I’ll be in the sky - in an airplane - at the precise solstice moments, both where I came from, and where i am going.

This time of the year is about acknowledging the complexities of the precious nexus of life on earth, daily working to find our inner balance between hope against all of the challenges. Like our ancestors, we are constantly living through another summer’s day and surviving another cold winter’s night. We move with these rhythms and listen deeply so we can navigate our way through the pandemonium of life. 2024 has clearly demonstrated this to us all… As it comes to a close, my wish is for folks to be able to find some quiet time to meditate and find a light shining within, guiding us to a path out of the darkness. As true as the earth spins, this too shall pass.

Love and peace, Penelope

It’s November and my inner witch is at one with the obvious cycles of nature.

The harvest of summer is well and truly passed, the farmers market is just potatoes and leeks, and the cycle of the seasons have shifted towards the darkness. The sun is getting lower and lower in the sky casting a golden glow at midday (should it even come out from behind these British clouds) and the blue skies do seem more pronounced at these moments. I give thanks. The days are slipping away, getting shorter and shorter making it harder for me to focus on work because I’m so busy chasing the sun or running around lighting candles to ensure that my nest glows with warmth. I give thanks. The imposing fear of the impending freeze, turn us inward. The hibernation that awaits is my way to honour nature and take time to assess where I have been and where I want to go once the light returns. Deep winter’s gift of quiet reflection helps me unravel & reveal some of my biggest mysteries, garner strength and work towards healing. For this I give thanks.

For more than half of my life the Northern hemisphere has taught me to honour nature. The cycles of the seasons are now part of my yearly patterns and rituals. I listen to the messages that come to me from their shifting energies. It is a spiritual thing for me. As a child I knew I yearned for these seasonal messages. I grew up in sub-tropical Australia where there really was only summer and the wet season. Perhaps we would get two frosts a year, where we needed our slippers and dressing gowns and the whole family would gather around the one heater in the house at night. There might be a few trees in the neighbourhood that dropped their leaves. As beautiful as the land was and it taught me so much, the static eternal summer lacked the real impact of change. Internally I knew that I needed to witness the highs and the lows of nature, to mirror my own perspective of the world. At 23 I packed my bag and left my island home.

After spending a few years traveling around the world, as a proverbial wandering soul, I found myself settling into downtown Jersey City in the fall of 1998. Just across the Hudson River was Manhattan, very close but at a safe distance from the chaos. I fell in love with the seasons and their celebrations. So much so that I ended up spending 15 formative years living in this New Jersey ‘village’. I gave birth to my daughter there. I fell in love with my life partner. I made the truest of friends. I finally began my music. I came into myself. My deep gratitude for the land I lived on and all the many seasons that held me during this period of my life are summed up in my personal honouring of Thanksgiving.

Despite the problematic aspects of this American holiday - the white-washing of the real impact that colonialism had on the Indigenous people - it is still a symbolic marcation point for me to celebrate life. Even the grim true history behind the colonial impact taught me so much. This holiday has so many powerful messages, but most of all, being reminded to “give thanks” can become a kind of mantra and for some, after time, it can be imprinted within our bones. It has for me.

Life’s complexities, coincidences, and chaos remind me to surrender to the flow of the seasons, without ever losing focus on my dream. Truly every day is a gift of life and for this I am eternally grateful.

Just over a week ago I began writing something for this platform but paused to try and allow for some of my internal emotional dramas to subside…. I am not quite sure if this has been achieved. All that has happened since is just that they have all morphed and evolved, as is the nature of life…

For the past 18 days I have been waking each morning to emotionally charged texts from my sisters, as they report back on my father’s dire health from the hospital. He was admitted on the 5th November, the ominous election day in the States. And last week when I began writing this, all I kept pondering was the quote by Oscar Wilde who opined in an 1889 essay that, "Life imitates Art far more than Art imitates Life”. I am overwhelmed by these words that swim around in my mind as they resonate almost too accurately for me right now.

So on that day, in order to cope with the double blow of the news of my father and of the state of global politics, I packed myself off to Lewes for Bonfire Night, for a blasting distraction as some kind of balm. It turns out that being bombarded with fire and explosions of sound and light were all healing blows to my aura. It was as if the flames and the loudness of every firecracker cleansed me of some kind of outer protective layer that I had been building up for years, to protect me from the reality of my mortality. The visual and audio onslaught became a self-flagellation that cracked at this shell around my heart that had been created as a coping mechanism. And it worked perfectly for the next day I sobbed with my whole being, not just for my father and my family, but for the whole world as the election results felt like a bomb had been dropped on the worlds heart - the collective mourning for the environment, for women’s rights, for the queer community, for world peace… just to name a few. The blow was immense! The need to grieve was real.

Now the dust is settling and we are all beginning to try to navigate the next stages of our lives, find ways to adapt to this new world so that we can still prosper with love in our hearts. My father is still in hospital. I continue to wake each morning for the latest WhatsApp messages from Australia. My medical vocabulary has been improving daily as both my sisters are nurses and use their secret language to explain the situation. All the tabs that are open on my phone describing my Dad’s state are all just tiny indications of the precarious nature of the human form when on the edge of life. After I decipher these cold terms, I lie in bed with a heavy heart and I emotionally process my father’s situation. For 87 years he has been a proud & independent “control freak”, navigating life with all of his undiagnosed mental health problems (which person of his generation was ever told they were “on the spectrum”??) Alongside his known physical health problems that have been accumulating in his ageing body due to neglect via heavy alcohol consumption and a poor diet, he is now reduced to a helpless soul, hooked up to tubes, confused and alone in a hospital ward. All dignity gone. Here is a poor human, just a little boy, all alone. A death approaching truly puts life into perspective….

If I were a crow I could fly 10, 299 miles to be by his side. However as a human it is “30 hrs between showers”, a physically and emotionally gruelling journey to the other end of the earth that keeps me from holding my father’s hand.

The most profound subject I studied at University was a module in the Theology Department - Death and Dying. We live our entire lives knowing that we will die and yet many of us are in constant denial of this one certainty. Death gets ignored and it is left to be a feared mysterious shadow that we are all running from. But to me it is a curious light reminding me of the beautiful precarious nature of existence. I honour nature and cherish every minute of joy and pain, giving thanks to the light and to the shadows it casts.

This is the first entry into my new Substack account. I am full of excitement and equal doses of anxiety as the caffeine rushes through my system this morn as I begin this new realm of sharing my writings.

I just have to start off with this initial statement that I am pretty sure I suffer from ADHD (like many of us do nowadays) so committing to this platform and this practice is quite the task for me.

But I need it !!! Oh my goodness, the world is completely mad out there and I need a place to share my personal journaling. I have always had a practice of writing with pen and paper as I love the flow of it, the textures, the touch… the mistakes and the epiphanies. However they stay silent and private, locked away in my own little world, wrapped up inside of beautiful notebooks that I collect (favourite brand of notebooks being Leuchtturm 1917 - current colour - bright yellow)

However the time has come for me to share my thoughts more publicly. I am not sure who will want to take the time to read these, and to those of you that do I am truly grateful! I may go off on a rant, I may ‘overshare’… is that what an artist spends their whole life doing? Over sharing? Perhaps…. As long as I am not a selfish narcissist who does this with no concern for their loved ones and the rest of humanity. That I know I am not. Sometimes I feel that I am almost too much of an empath… and this can be so very heavy on the heart. Perhaps there are many of us out there, whether we are actively engaged in the arts or not, who feel so very deeply and suffer when we think of all the pain in the world from war and all the hatred that is spread. The state of the world these days, so much chaos and suffering, from the environmental to the political and the personal, can truly make it feel like it is all too much to bear. Therefore my remedy is to write it out. The personal journal entries have always been that. I swear by the healing power of writing it out, getting it out of your head and onto the paper… For me it has often led to spontaneous lyrical ideas which is magical. Usually they are just my musings on the stars and the moon, nature, or tarot and other ‘witchy’ things, what it means to have lived to middle age as a woman, a maiden, a mother and now a crone. Owning ALL of it and being at peace with it, proud of it.

I want to share with folks my stories, things I have learnt along the way, things that inspire me and help me to navigate the world with as much love and light as I can muster.

If I come off like a mad woman then this is bloody BRILLIANT. This is my story, my life, my words. It is optional for the reader to stay engaged and if I lose “followers” then so be it. Honesty to ourselves and to Love, is all that we have and this is what leads us down the way, down the good path. It isn’t easy but it is real.