Tag Archives: Schumacher College

Guest Blog Post for Schumacher College

Below is a guest post that I wrote for the Schumacher College blog. To view the original click here.

‘First Steps to Seeing’ a new book by Emma Kidd

Submitted by mark.wallace on Tue, 23/06/2015 – 16:18

During the MSc in Holistic Science I was led towards, and able to experience, what was no less than a different way of being human. This way of being involved bringing a new quality of attention to the world, and to everything in it. In the first module of the MSc, we learnt to give life, and the life of our senses, our full attention; and were encouraged to notice the ways in which our minds constantly try to organise and define the world we see. By putting both of these techniques into practise I was able to alter my way of being in such a way that everything I rested my gaze upon suddenly seemed to burst to life. And then, with sustained effort and study, over time I realised that – by using practices taught on the MSc, such as Goethean Science and Phenomenology – I was able to see and to wholly understand the life of the world on its own terms, as though it were speaking directly to me.

Discovering, and experiencing, this new way of being for myself completely turned my world upside down. Up until starting the MSc, nobody had ever told me that there was more to seeing than meets the eye! Nor that, with sustained effort and focus, I could learn directly from the world itself, without turning to text-books or expert opinions; and that in doing so I could experience the world as being far more alive, full of meaning and character than is possible through absorbing abstract information, facts and theories alone.

This new way of being, seeing, and knowing – which the MSc in Holistic Science led me towards – has transformed my life to such an extent that I have dedicated the past two years of my life to writing a book about it. ‘First Steps to Seeing: A Path Towards Living Attentively‘ is down-to-earth and practical by nature, aiming to lead the reader directly into experiencing this way of being from the very start. The introduction opens with an exercise in sensory perception, and an invitation to slow down from the hectic pace of everyday life. On the MSc, Henri Bortoft used to say that perception can only begin when we slow down, and slowness is a theme that is carried throughout the book.

Reflecting the nature of myself, the book is very eclectic, in style and in content – partly academic, part personal development work-book, and partly biographical; and chapters are independently dedicated to setting the content in a personal, an interpersonal and a professional context. Therefore, it makes for a rich and interesting read whether you are looking to develop your own way of seeing; to explore the way you relate to other people; or to examine the way you see at work

First Steps to Seeing is now available to purchase online as a paperback and an e-book.

Guest Article for Network of Wellbeing

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Below is a guest article that I wrote for the wonderful Network of Wellbeing, a not-for-profit organisation based in the UK which works to support the development of wellbeing on a local and global scale, both with individuals and communities. The original article was posted on the 9th July 2015 and can be viewed here.

Living Attentively: The Bread and Butter of Wellbeing

By Florence Guest Posts, Personal Development , 0 Comments

In this guest post independent researcher Emma Kidd reflects on the importance of being present and giving attention to our sensory experiences. Emma explains how this practice can offer a foundational step towards a strong sense of personal wellbeing. Emma, a Schumacher College graduate, has recently published a book on this topic entitled, First Steps to Seeing: A Path Towards Living Attentively.

Photo credit: Emma Kidd

Being attentive

Whilst exploring my own experiences of life, and studying human experience through science and philosophy, I have come to understand that it is not only ‘what’ we do that increases our sense of wellbeing, but also ‘how’ we arebeing when we are doing something. This is equally important whether we are engaged in a simple daily act of, for example, eating an amazing piece of home-baked bread with local butter lavishly spread on top, or whether we are engrossed in more complex tasks, involving thinking, speaking or working.

For instance, to experience a feeling of enjoyment and satisfaction whilst eating – which can contribute to a broader sense of wellbeing – it is not enough to just carry out the act of eating food; we can go a step further and give our attention to our sensory experience whilst we are eating.

We might think that carrying out the act of eating would automatically draw our attention tothe experience of eating. However, unfortunately this is often not the case. One of the reasons for this is that, in everyday life, our attention tends to be automatically drawn away from our sensory experience, and redirected towards a persistent stream of thoughts which pour into our awareness every waking moment of the day.

On an average day, instead of noticing our sensory experience during daily actions, our attention usually gets transferred to whatever our mind believes to be ‘more important’, such as reviewing our agenda for the day ahead, rehearsing difficult conversations, or fretting about the fact that our partner left their wet towel on the bathroom floor yet again.

This preoccupation with our thoughts then often leads us to spend our everyday lives in a kind of comatose state; a way of being which zones out from the world, either obsessing over the past or becoming fixated with the future. This stops us from paying attention to our experience of life in the present moment.

Living in the moment

However, we can change this at any moment by consciously bringing our attention back to our sensory experience. An everyday event such as eating breakfast, which is often ruled by monotony and constrained by our hectic schedules, is a particularly great opportunity to practice stepping out of this ‘automatic’ way of being.

Whilst eating breakfast we will usually only be vaguely aware of what the bread tasted like or the fact that our cornflakes crunched as we chewed them, and we end up left with a hazy blur of experiences that our mind bundles into one event and labels it ‘eating breakfast’. However, as a result of intentionally paying full attention to the flavours, textures and forms with our senses whilst we are eating, we can allow our attention to focus on one experience at a time, and we therefore open ourselves to a much more satisfying encounter.

A path towards living attentively

Paying full attention to our own, or to other people’s, living experience of the world also allows us to become more fully aware of life, in terms of itself. Though it is not necessarily possible to be fully attentive at all times, consciously bringing yourself back to living attentively on a regular basis can be extremely beneficial.

If we scale up this way of being attentive and apply it to broader aspects of living, such as personal or societal challenges, the deeper form of ‘living knowledge’ which emerges makes it possible for us to approach life with a more detailed, dynamic and authentic understanding of the challenges we are facing – which, in turn, organically informs us how to best proceed.

Today, in the twenty-first century, we are confronted with a rapidly changing world full of social, economic and environmental uncertainties, and each of these does bring a myriad of challenges to our wellbeing. As we are all inherently connected to this changing world, if we wish to create the best possible conditions to thrive, we must develop an inner capacity to respond and adapt to life in new, creative and innovative ways.

In my new book, First Steps to Seeing: A Path Towards Living Attentively, I offer a series of ‘stepping stones’ that help us develop the capacity to live life with full attention – to live attentively – and to thrive. These steps are delivered through a combination of personal stories, professional case-studies and practical exercises that are all related to everyday life. The intention of the book is to enable us to put the process of living attentively into action, straight away – no matter where we are, or what we are doing.

I see paying full attention to life as the ‘bread and butter’ of wellbeing; it is the internal prerequisite to getting the most out of life – both as a cognitive tool which can increase personal satisfaction and wellbeing, and also as the most fundamental skill involved in getting to know the world ‘as it is’, and in context.

By living attentively we can improve the ways in which we engage in our everyday tasks; we can more accurately get to know the subjects of our world, our work or our studies; and learn to be more sensitive and authentic in our interactions with other people, and with the world around us. In this way, living attentively can not only expand our own sense of wellbeing, but can also help us begin to see more possibilities for supporting others in the world to ‘be well’. And we can start putting this attentive way of being into practise with even the smallest of everyday acts, such as eating a piece of bread and butter.

Biography

Emma Kidd is an educator, writer, independent researcher and consultant. Her practice is centred around leading living inquiries into how we can co-create a happy, healthy, and peaceful world. She works with educational charities, third sector organisations and businesses. Emma has a Masters degree from Schumacher College, UK, where she specialised in Phenomenology and the work of Henri Bortoft.

You can visit Emma’s website athttp://www.sensinglife.net

First Book Review for First Steps to Seeing: by Simon Robinson

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This is an excerpt from First Steps to Seeing‘s first ever book review! The review is from my wonderful friend, colleague and fellow aficionado in a dynamic way of seeing, Simon Robinson – editor of Transition Conciousness and co-author of the wonderful new book Holonomics.

Simon has been been supporting and encouraging my philosophical work on exploring and understanding a dynamic way of seeing, almost from the very beginning. So it is with great pleasure that I share with you his reflections on First Steps to Seeing – and with much gratitude that he is the first person to review it. To see the original book review on Transition Consciousness click here.

BOOK REVIEW: FIRST STEPS TO SEEING BY EMMA KIDD

July 6, 2015 · by Simon · in Reviews. ·

If I were only to say that I have been looking forward to reading First Steps to Seeing: A Path to Living Attentively you may not quite realise how much. So I thought I would first start this review by mentioning that I first had the pleasure to meet Emma at Schumacher College in 2009, just after I started my masters degree in Holistic Science and just after Emma had graduated, also in Holistic Science, the year before.

Photo credit: Emma Kidd

In fact, I think I may have first heard of Emma I believe before meeting her, since Henri Bortoft, who was giving the first week of lectures on wholeness, did in fact quote from Emma’s dissertation in one of our classes. This is the quote:

A phenomenological inquiry, as conducted with Goethean methodology, is a form of dynamic engagement with the world – dynamical doing by dynamical seeing; it allows you to see the whole within the parts and brings the world to expression.”

In bringing a phenomenon to expression, perceived qualities have to be expressed, but also simultaneously expressed to be perceived; as if the phenomenon is an active subject that reaches out to us. This calls for a hermeneutic understanding of expression as a reciprocal dynamic process, with perception and expression being intrinsically related.

To read the rest of the original post click here – Book review

Workshop @ Schumacher College – 22nd March: “Learning to Sense Life in our everyday lives”

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Sensing Life – Wellbeing Workshops

“Learning to Sense Life in our everyday lives”

Craft Ed.Building, SchumacherCollege, Dartington

Saturday 22^nd March 10am-1.30pm £15 (£10 conc.)

Email to book: emmakidd81@gmail.com

How can our sensory focus and attention improve our wellbeing everyday? In offices? In homes? In classrooms?

Aesthetic (sense) experience is when:

– Our senses are operating at their peak

– We are present in the current moment

– We are resonating with the excitement of the thing we are experiencing

– We are fully alive!

Educator, writer and researcher Emma Kidd will explore practical ways in which we can improve our wellbeing by becoming more open and alive to the world around us. This will be the first in a series workshops made up of practical indoor and outdoor exercises from her new book: “First Steps to Sensing Life: Practicing a Dynamic Way of Seeing in Everyday Living”.

http://www.sensinglife.net

Schumacher College Earthtalk – Stories of the Great Turning

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In October 2013 I organised an Earthtalk at Schumacher college to promote the book “Stories of the Great Turning”, which I have a chapter published in. This is a video of my contribution, which summarises the story that I wrote for the book. Enjoy! xx

Seeing with New Eyes – An Adventure in Perception

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Photo credit: J. van As

“Look deep into nature and then you will understand everything better” – Einstein

Seeing with New Eyes – An Adventure in Perception

Between February and April this year, I led a series of workshops at Schumacher College in Devon which I called ‘Seeing with New Eyes – An Adventure in Perception’. The workshops were designed to allow students to experience the practice of a phenomenology of Nature – which can also be called Goethean Science – without an overload of theory, just learning through participation.

These workshops took the form of an experiential nature study and walk – observing yew trees on the Dartington estate – guiding people gently and playfully towards a more sensuous and intuitive way of perceiving and experiencing life.

I worked with a variety of different groups of people including; a group of MSc Economics in Transition students, MSc Holistic Science students, short-course participants, Transition Town Totnes and the ‘Holistic Science Now’ short course group. The aim for me in these workshops was to facilitate an experience of getting to know the world in terms of itself, without getting caught up in explanations and abstract ‘knowledge’ of Phenomenology, instead just allowing the participants to practice it and to gain an embodied understanding from the outset.

I chose the Yew tree as our phenomenon of study because I knew of three very different size and shape trees within walking distance of the college. A very straightforward aim for the workshop was helping the participants to see how unique and particular each manifestation in Nature is, and using comparison in phenomenology works excellently for that, as they get to see the ‘same’ phenomenon becoming itself in very different ways, in different instances.

The workshop is an adventure and an experiment in perception and also in humanity. The participants are first invited to consider the question ‘how do we meet the world?’ and ‘how do we get to ‘know’ the world?’, while I describe a little of the thoughts and processes that brought these workshops into being.

Information v.s experience and ‘About’ thinking v.s. ‘withness’ thinking

The nature of our analytical/Intellectual mind (left hemisphere) expresses itself through separating things into parts, fixes into certainties, and reduces to commonalities. It puts separate parts together and tries to make them belong. This can be very useful but the danger is that it can lead to static, ‘dead’ knowledge, mechanism and reductionism. We end up with information and use it to know things about other things.

The nature of our sensuous/intuitive mind (right hemisphere) sees relations, wholeness and relationships. It is present to the natural unity emerging organically and dynamically from multiplicity. It presences the world, before the left hemisphere has had the chance to re-present it, and expresses itself by embracing diversity, dynamic and living knowing. It gets to know the world through direct experience primary to the abstractions of the analytical mind and enables us to think with things, not just to think about them.

Iain Mc Gilchrist, author of “The Master and his Emmisary”, urges us not to slip into cognitive reductionism, as every function is mediated through both ways of seeing (hemispheres), but there is neverless a strong cognitive distinction that affects how we perceive the world. The left hemisphere re-presents the world, the right presences it.

The approach of this particular workshop is phenomenological and hermeneutic, and so focuses on process and relationship, which in turn allows for intuitive perception through direct sense experience – and apart from a brief introduction to set the scene, it is always centred on practice, not on theory.

In this way of working, as noted by Henri Bortoft in “Taking Appearance Seriously”, by returning to the senses through active seeing and exact sensorial imagination, we bring about a shift from the left-hemisphere dominance of the verbal-intellectual mind, to the right hemisphere experience of the wholeness of what is livingly present, which is characteristic of the sensuous-intuitive mind.

“According to Empiricists see-ing the world is purely a sensory experience.” (Henri Bortoft). However, the answer is contrary to that – it is the way of seeing which ‘sees’ a leaf, tree, giraffe. The way of seeing and what is seen cannot be separated.

There is more to seeing than meets the eye. Cognitive perception gets confused with just being sense perception. “We live in a dimension of mind which is, for the most part, as invisible to us as the air we breath” (Bortoft). Ordinarily our way of seeing is invisible, Husserl called it “everyday naïveté” – but we can make visible the activity of the mind to itself.

Disenchantment with the world emerges when we miss the active, dynamic, receptive dimension of cognitive perception and ‘see’ ideas onto everything as fixed, static, finished products, rather than letting something be seen in terms of itself. When we engage with the world in a dynamic way of seeing, getting to know the world in terms of itself, be can begin to understand the uniqueness, creativity and dynamism inherent to life.

An Adventure in Perception = An Adventure in Humanity

Integrating ways of knowing = Becoming fully human

Getting to know the world in terms of itself, involves engaging in conversation that brings forth our fullest human capacity to be in relationship with another living being, both human and non-human. Engaging from your heart space, not just your head space, and your right hemisphere, not just your left hemisphere.

During the workshop we work to let go of habitual ideas, assumptions and generalizations. Organizing ideas such as ‘tree’, ‘chair’, ‘leaf’, are useful in everyday life, but they can be limiting in a deeper search for living knowledge.

To begin to more fully understand Nature, and life, we must develop the capacity to encounter what is active and living.

Photo credit: Tim Strasser

Goethean Science/Phenomenology of Nature

The practice of phenomenology asks us to become increasingly aware of how we meet the world and cultivate our relationships with it; to become more whole, authentic and human in our communication and conversation with the world.

Conversing with the natural world is more challenging as it does not share our language of spoken word, so we need to develop other capacities for knowing/engaging with it in different ways such as intuition, direct sense perception and imagination. Although, these skills and processes are just as useful and valuable when applied in human encounters.

A phenomenological ‘conversation’ is a mutual interaction and participation – a two way process. Through it we discover the ‘limitless’ nature of connections and relationships and also our potential to grow and adapt ourselves to new, alive ways of knowing, more adequate for the study of Life.

During the workshops, and any further practice, you are treading a path of conscious development.

Entering into a conversation, a riddle. Ponder, observe, ask questions. Being careful that it does not dissolve into chit-chat, nor become too narrow or rigid in focus.

The encounters embody openendedness, openness, and an active receptivity. Expect to discover newness. Listen to what is revealing itself to you, with fresh new ears and eyes. It is a two way conversation, don’t be afraid to respond and interject with new questions. Goethe called this process a ‘Delicate empiricism’.

I took the participants to work with three Yew trees that we observed, described, imagined and intuited. Each was a different size, shape, age and in a different location.

Even when walking I encourage you to see everything as if it is new to you, even the feeling of walking on the ground.

Maintain the space within you for adventure and experiment. Cultivate a child-like wonder, see everything with fresh new eyes, as if for the first time. Be curious, open and gently expectant.

Be aware and focused on all that you perceive.

Be open – mind and heart. With a deep with of ‘getting to know’, like befriending.

Photo credit: Tim Strasser

Getting to know the Yew

With each tree we visited we followed this series of exercises:

Exact sense perception

Observe up close, in detail. Form, touch, qualities, pattern, particularities, colour texture – but no association or judgment.

Describe as a group – qualities, time, process, aliveness/livingness. (How do you know it’s alive?)

Exact sensorial imagination

Imagine, replay your exact sense perception like playing a video of it in your mind.

Imagine growth and decay, coming into and going out of being. Backwards and forwards.

Observe from a distance

Look for gestures, intuit patterns. Sketch the gesture as you intuit it.

Repeat atleast three times with different trees, and after the second tree, compare and contrast the different trees.

In summary….

This workshop is taste of how we can learn how to encounter what is active and living in the world, rather than just relying on the simplified generalities of our everyday naïveté; or the abstractions of our intellectual mind to show us only separation, and what is ‘finished’.

I graduated with an MSc in Holistic Science from SchumacherCollege in 2009 and have since continued refining my skills and cultivating integrated modes of knowing. I am passionate about sharing my insights into new ways of seeing and relating to the world from an organic, relational and dynamic perspective. I believe that the shift in perception that these workshops aim for fosters a sense of wonder and an inner transformation which supports the transition that our world is desperately in need of.

If you would like more information or to book a session with me, please email me: emmakidd81@gmail.com

Getting to know Life in terms of Itself

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And so it begins….

Approaching life, people, plants, situations – any phenomenon – as if engaging in conversation with a new friend. I have an open mind and an open heart. I hold an air of wonder, I carry a positive expectancy of as-of-yet undiscovered uniqueness, confident that I am getting to know something new but aware of the mystery of the unknown and the potential for wonder and discovery that this process of ‘getting to know’ may bring. We meet each other on equal terms, I am aware that neither party is more or less worthy of the right to exist than the other – and that both of us may stand to learn from each other. The exchange is light at first, but not superficial – and I don’t expect to get to know them suddenly all at once, or to have their entire being laid bare in the first instance. I appreciate the nature of the process, that little by little, bit by bit, they will reveal themselves to me, on their own terms and in their own time – and that it is a two way process. For they may only fully come into being to me, within me. I have to participate in the process, to live into their livingness, to enliven their stories, to be actively receptive to what they are gracious enough to share with me. The open heart and open mind work together in allowing the ‘something’ or ‘someone’ to fully come into being.

This is complimented by a degree of critical thinking – for allowing the ‘something’ to come fully into being, I need to tend to my own inner being also. I need to continually sort the wheat from the chaff, what is mine and what is there’s? Are they living into me, or I am living onto them. Is it their own? Or my projection of my own? If I were completely open, this ‘something’ would flow directly through me. If I am not open enough I deny them their livingness – for all I have to offer them are the dead, static frames into which I squeeze the life out of their livingness to make them fit. I bring a focus, which is my intention of ‘getting to know’. It is the openness that allows for discoveries to emerge, however it is a focused openness, as within the ‘conversation’ the intent is set for ‘getting to know’. I am not just tending to appearances, or repeating what I think or feel that I already know, but I am engaged in the dynamic act of know-ing.

There is no guarantee that the doing of this process will lead us where we want to be, we can only immerse ourselves in the process and see where we end up along the way. If the heart is open, but not focused on ‘getting to know’ we may attend to the ‘something’ and experience only what is immediate to our experience within the confines of past understanding. If the mind is open but not focused on ‘getting to know’ it know no more than that which is quite immediately apparent in how we react to it. So the ‘something’ may appear interesting, shocking, dull or uncomfortable, short or tall, but we skim over the details, we do not notice the uniqueness or particularities, nor the complexity and dynamism of what is being presented to us. It is in the details, in the parts, and in the rich context of which every element is a part – which is where the ‘something’ comes into being. That is where the ‘true’, authentic know-ing may arise – and so, these details, parts and context need consciously attending to if we want to truly get to know something, beyond just first impressions and appearances. To ensure that we are honestly getting to know someone we must take care not to project our ideas, theories and judgments onto them. Otherwise we are not open to letting them reveal themselves – instead we will get an inauthentic picture of ‘knowing’ based only on what we think that we already know.

Every ‘something’ or ‘someone’ is completely unique and dynamic, even if it’s dynamism and uniqueness are not immediately apparent to our thoughts or our senses. All ‘something’s’ are highly contextual, being and having been involved in many complex relationships – even if they are not immediately apparent. Only a deeper inquiry, such as the open and engaged intent of wholly ‘getting to know’ will, with time and continued participation, reveal the complexity and richness of it’s context and it’s relationships with the world. When I gain a richer picture of who ‘someone’ is, feel like I am know-ing them, but then ‘boom’ something completely out of the ordinary occurs, or a paradox arises, that this is when I truly feel like I am getting to know them. This opens my heart and my mind further, and stimulates my curiosity to continue getting to know them, further and deeper.

Everything surrounding us is imbued with the mystery of the unknown, if you can choose to let go for moment of everything you think that you already ‘know’. The curiosity from seeing with ‘fresh new eyes’ emerges when you open to the depth and mystery of the unknown, and from being content with dwelling in a process of know-ing, not known-ing – observing, not projecting. This can be cultivated in any situation and within every experience of ‘getting to know’. Expect their to be mystery, expect the unexpected to emerge, and expect there to be something new to be experienced or ‘known’.

Approach every encounter of ‘getting to know’ with a warm, open-minded, open-hearted greeting. Hello! Greet the ‘something’ as if it is ‘someone’ that you are pleased to meet, with a sense of anticipation of what is yet to come. “Ciao!” “Good morning!”. The tone of your welcome can set the tone for the rest of your encounter, and the conversation which then emerges. When you come face to face with ‘something’, you can often sense whether you are carrying a pre-occupation or judgment that is carried in your tone of ‘voice’, and non-verbally in the tone of your intention. Feel the difference between a closed, judgmental frame of mind – and an open, welcoming, willing gesture of ‘getting to know’. We need to let go of the closed, judgmental frame of mind and to cultivate a curious, welcoming openness – the inner ‘Hello!’. Once we are living this warm, open gesture of intent, we can more directly begin the receptive process of ‘getting to know’.

“Openness is required before truth unfolds and at the same time, as truth unfolds, it produces openness. Here we have what is known as ‘hermeneutical circularity’.” http://beliefinstitute.com/article/importance-hermeneutics

My intention: Getting to know livingness of life

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Welcome to Sensing Life! My name is Emma Kidd. I am a researcher, writer, underwear maker/designer, facilitator, photographer, philosopher and lover of life. After spending the first half of my career working as a Designer for International companies in Hong Kong and China, I experienced first hand the social and natural destruction caused by mass-production, globalisation and neo-Capitalism. Four years ago I relocated to the UK to begin my, inner and outer, journey to explore more meaningful, sustainable and harmonious ways of being and doing in life.

My personal intention is one of ‘becoming alive’, so that I may bring life to the world in my own unique way. I am doing this in various ways, and it is this process of ‘Sensing Life’, and becoming alive to the livingness of life, inside and outside of myself, that I would like to write about in this blog.

I am a guest writer for blogs such as Transition Consciousness. This was founded by a great friend and colleague of mine Simon Robinson. He has also been kind enough to feature my MSc Holistic Science dissertation on his site which is available for download here.

I have just finished writing a chapter for a book entitled “Stories of the Great Turning” which is contributed to by the great Joanna Macy, and is a wonderful collection of stories from a diverse collection of grass-roots sustainability projects – to be published April 2012.

I have particular interest in the practice of phenomenology – as a science of living experience, and a pathway to living knowledge. My key influence has been the writings and teaching of the English philosopher of Science, Henri Bortoft during, and after, the MSc in Holistic Science at Schumacher College. Part of my phenomenological work with the Nettle has been referred to in his latest book “Taking Appearance Seriously: The Dynamic Way of Seeing in Goethe and European Thought” which has just been published and is available to buy from Floris Books.

I also work with the Holistic Science Journal. It is aunique and independent journal uncovering the living dynamic within the facts of science. Set up as a platform for living inquiry, it extends an invitation for authors and readers alike, to become co-creators, participating in an on-going, dynamic, evolutionary dialogue of lived experience.

I am also very passionate about empowering and inspiring women, and to develop this further I am Associate Design Manager at the fantastic women’s ‘pants making’ cooperative, Whomadeyourpants?

I also run my own knicker making project Emiliana Underwear which aims to empower women by teaching them how to upcycle unwanted stretchy fabric into new knickers that they create themselves.

To leave you for now here is a quote that summarizes my journey of vitalizing myself and the world:

Joseph Campbell: The influence of a vital person vitalizes, there’s no doubt about it. The world without spirit is a wasteland. People have the notion of saving the world by shifting things around, changing the rules, and who’s on top, and so forth. No, no! Any world is a valid world if it’s alive. The thing to do is to bring life to it, and the only way to do that is to find in your own case were the life is and to become alive yourself. … There’s something inside you that knows when you’re in the center, that knows when you’re on the beam or off the beam. And if you get off the beam to earn money, you’ve lost your life. And if you stay in the center and don’t get any money, you still have your bliss.