17 articles

I want to tell you about two things that happened to me recently. By any objective measure, neither of them is remarkable. One involved a car. The other involved chewing gum.

It stretches as far as you can see in every direction. And in it, flowers. Hundreds of them. Thousands. Each one is a different colour, a different height, a different shape. Some of them face the sun. Some of them are bent slightly from the weather they have lived through. Some are in full bloom. Some are past their peak.

There is a particular kind of heartbreak that does not come from loss. It comes from watching someone you love remain in a life that is slowly dimming them. You see it in the way they speak about themselves. In the exhaustion that never lifts. In the habits they defend but quietly resent.

Words & Contemplations starts her podcast journey, bringing you blogs in audio format as well as meditations, gentle practices and talks. Come along for the journey; we'd love to have you tune in.

I’ve always believed that self-inquiry can be a portal. Sometimes that portal is meditation. Sometimes it’s heartbreak. Sometimes it’s travel, long and lonely and bewildering. But recently, it came in the form of something unexpected:Running my astrological birth chart and my human design through ChatGPT.

Sometimes, stepping away from everything you know is the only way to truly see it.We all have places we’ve outgrown, or thought we had. The home that once felt heavy, the routine that seemed suffocating, the four walls that turned into a mirror for our restlessness. But what if it wasn’t the place holding you back? What if it was what you carried inside it?

Home has been in flux for me lately. With travel comes the idea that I’m a nomad, that I can become comfortable wherever I lay my head. And to some extent, it’s true. I open a suitcase, light some incense, set up a playlist, and move on my yoga mat, and I feel grounded. A sense of home lives in these rituals.

We’ve been in Vietnam for 12 days, and I’d be lying if I said it’s been plain sailing. After the peace we found in Bali, this rhythm of packing up and moving every 4–5 days feels tedious. There was something grounding about our daily yoga practice there, something magical in the stillness that gave our time structure and soul. Now, without that anchor, we find ourselves drifting, disoriented and restless.

I wrote this piece back in April 2022, and it feels poetic that it still holds relevance now, three years later, in April 2025. I’ve left most of it unchanged. It speaks to something tender about the way time carries us—sometimes with a gust, other times with the softest nudge from one place to the next.

Without any expectations, write the answers to these questions. Write freely and as if you are talking to yourself, someone safe and silent. See what comes up with out judgment, but curiosity see where these questions take you.

Three years ago, when our blogs were hosted someplace else, I wrote: Finding The Right Vocabulary To Make Your New Years Resolutions Attainable. It was a time when we were all in different places; many of us had no freedom, very little in the world of choices, and we were all a little gloomy. This year, ending 2024, feels hopeful, empowered and freer.

When the rain drops from the sky it transforms the ground beneath it, if only for a moment, this temporary change is part of the cyclical nature of our world.

You watch day by day thinking that these things you witness are normal, and then all of a sudden out of nowhere, you see something in a new light and for the first time ever you realise that the conflict in your work life and the person you are can no longer coexist in the way that they have done for years.

Away with friends this year instead of the time old classic of going for drinks and dinner, watching the fireworks or any other habitual example you can think of. It’s not that I am above all of it this year, it’s just that I’m not sure what I would be celebrating, another year - with restrictive freedoms still likely being something we coexist with, it’s different somehow.

Have you ever thought about the patterns that we live amongst, the nature that surrounds us and the peace that can be found in the symmetry, the design and the truthfulness of it all?

It was Einstein that said, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results.” I think we all tend to do this in some capacity. We wait for a change to happen, hoping someone or something will rescue us. We can seem powerless to take responsibility.

As Melbourne - the city in which I live goes into its fifth lockdown it forces us to once again take stock of our surroundings. If time is the only positive side effect of these lockdowns. What do you want to do with yours? Could time be a gift, an opportunity or is it simply a waste?