Step right out of the shower – it’s time to unleash your potential as a naked artist.

You need to get in quick – there’s no time to spare before the thoughts, messages and pictures of your quick wit and fast action make way for reality.

Don’t be in such a rush to clear the way for the morning preparations. Make some time to dig out that inner Dali and let loose on an audience of one.

And for those who may come after, love notes, to do lists, words of wisdom and big fat kisses are always welcome to be found on the frosted glass canvas of the bathroom gallery.

Finger painting just came back in vogue.

you bloody ripper!

When you’ve travelled to 42 countries, there are a lot of travel stories bundled up in the memory banks that have never been able to escape for fear of beating the ear drums and glazing the eyes of anyone who will listen.

16 years ago, I lived on a very remote peninsula in Crete, Greece for a year. In 16 years, I have never met anyone who has been to Crete.

This means my stories of mountain tracks, lots of dancing and frivolities in remote villages, delicious clay pot yoghurt, motorbike rides around spectacular coastlines (with no helmet), deep dives with giant rays, swimming in crystal clear water, freshly caught seafood dinners, kayaking with large turtles to work, wandering through ancient ruins… have never been shared.

Last night I went out. I didn’t plan for it to be a late night, but it ended up that way. After 16 years, I finally met someone who had come from Crete. Then it got better. And then there were three… all talking about the magic of this beautiful island and recollecting some of our favourite times. How grateful I was for being able to pull out the memory card that had long been filed away, and reflect on a remarkable year of my life.

I’m often asked of all the countries I have travelled, where is my favourite? My response is that I don’t have one. People and experiences from each country are etched into my memory banks and it is not possible for me to pull a culprit from the line up.

Living in a place, as opposed to passing through, certainly brings with it a different experience. You get to know the locals: Stavros the local baker knew how to put on a wonderful night of food, dancing, drinking and laughter. I can smell the fresh bread being pulled out of his wood oven and sharing stories of his childhood over olives lovingly marinated by his wife, Katerina. I often went olive picking with the family, have crushed a few grapes in my time and sucked way too many delicious Cretan oranges after pulling them off the trees scattered around my house.

Managing a few holiday villas, running kids activities and organising chilled evenings for the parents, I learned how to cook the best octopus, revelled in the delight of children as they took their first ever snorkel over the local rock pools, went diving twice a week, and swam across a very large open water bay in the clearest, warmest water I have ever experienced. I tried my first fish head and goat testicles and learned how to make retsina. I drank too much ouzo, never had enough siestas, climbed to the peaks of mountains and went diving in the darkest, deepest crevices of underground caves.

As I reflect, it’s a wonder I even managed to make it out alive with all the adventure and daring that crept into my year.

Considering last night I was heading home to bed, I think there were other plans afoot with my opportunity to dig into the files and recollect on some Grade A memories.

I’d never told anyone some of the stories I recalled and as I now close my eyes and meditate on the experience of Crete, my eyes are glazing over with the recognition I have a lot to thank this magical island for.

I may have no favourites. But yiamas (cheers) to you Crete. For in your magic, I fell in love with life.

I’m glad I talked to strangers. My estranged relationship with simple joys have been rekindled. It’s time to renew my vows to daring. And flirtation is definitely allowed. The realisation of our dreams depends on it.

I do believe I’ve fallen in love all over again.

you bloody ripper!

Melbourne’s heaviest rainfall in one day for over 50 years turned what would have normally been a 40 minute drive into a 2 hour crawl.

Having sat in all day traffic jams in China, I’ve learned the art of patience. But it wasn’t like I could jump out of the car and start playing badminton with all the other weary travellers.

What else could be done but to crank up the radio as loud as it would go. It was definitely time to call for back up and start busting moves to the grooves. I wasn’t going to let one big storm knock me down, so I got back up again.

My little one woman dance party was complete with the beat of the steering wheel drums. I didn’t need to apologise to anyone for my bad voice. I could hit every wrong note and no one voted me off. Windows up. Pump it out. Shout it loud. Bop the head. Just watch the tread. And at the end of the two hours, raise your fists in triumph… you made it.

Life is all as it should be when you’re jammed. Bad weather. Bad voice. Bad 80′s tunes that make everything feel good.

I got my mind set on you

I got my mind set on you

It’s gonna take time

A whole lot of precious time

It’s gonna take patience and time

A whole lotta precious time

It’s gonna take patience and time mmm to do it to do it

To do it to do it to do it RIGHT!

you bloody ripper!

As part of my Masters in Wellness, I’ve been doing a few activities on finding meaning. Activities that encourage you to think deeper about the big questions: who am I, why am I here, where am I going, what am I doing with my life, what do I want, what is real?

On reading the first activity I had to do, I thought it would be simple.

Supposing that you needed to escape from where you presently live, and could take only ten things that you currently have, what would they be?

Considering most things I own can be found in two rooms, five minutes is all I would need. The question was pretty vague and for all I knew, I could have ended up in Disneyland and had the time of my life for a day before ending back in my two rooms.

I began to scan room one. Slowly, one item was added to the list only to be crossed off when something more ‘valuable’ to my unknown future was identified.

I assumed I was wearing clothes when I escaped, so I didn’t even bother considering my wardrobe. I’ve arrived in places before with nothing and always managed to rebuild, so it was easy to remove half of what I could see from the consideration list. It was then I found myself reflecting on my life to give each item its ‘value’ on which to make the decision if it stays or if it goes.

So how did the final list shape up – one hour later?

• Passport
• Good hiking boots
• Voice recorder
• Sketch and note book
• Pencils
• Sarong
• An album of all the important people and a few key milestones from my life
• Visa travel card with $200 on it
• 20 year old backpack
• Pocket knife

Could I survive with just these ten items and the clothes I left with?

It was an interesting exercise to undertake as my list didn’t end up being about survival. From my experiences of meeting people in some of the most poverty stricken countries on our planet, I believe most of the items we need for survival are not so much physical but traits such as strength, courage, creativity and perseverance.

My list therefore came down to those items which would help support me through any experience: war zone to Disneyland. The backpack allowed me to have space to carry more things I may find/be given on the way and give me a good pair of shoes and I can walk for weeks. I had a little bit of cash for an emergency/bribery/border crossings and figured that I also had skills that could help me in raising some $ or to barter for a roof, food and water. It was important I had the ability to leave and enter destinations, hence the passport, as were the tools to record the people I met and the journey.

And so with ten physical objects, I added another big list of traits, abilities and willingness and figured that no matter where I ended up, I was certain to make the most of any situation for I had caught a glimpse of what is most meaningful to me.

Meaning comes from inside of you, and finding meaning is certainly a process of going to the source – yourself.

What do you value? What would you take?

you bloody ripper!

Lie down. Look up.

There’s nothing up there but sweet sunshine and blue skies.

It was time to go with it.

Lie down. Look up.

Imagine what can be created from a blank canvas.

you bloody ripper!

17 years ago, I first packed up my backpack and headed overseas. I recall sitting up late into the night writing letters and postcards home by the flicker of a candle. Internet cafes didn’t really exist and for someone who travels the unworn tracks, it was often impossible to find a cafe let alone a place I could share my travel experiences and hit enter to send.

I paid more for the experience of standing in a booth with ten people to make a call home then I did my weekly food bill. Communication with the outside world was difficult.

Today, communication makes the world a whole lot smaller. I can hit send to thousands at once: 17 years ago I would have spent one year handwriting that many words.

I can ‘like’  friends, strangers, places, businesses and random pages like ‘jumping on your mates back, pretending to be a bag, making bag noises’ or perhaps ‘that short amount of time when your life’s almost perfect’. And what about all those tweets, retweets, tags and trends? Communication brings us closer to other people on the planet who think the same, like the same things and help us to spread our word, and more often than not, the words of others. I just did a scroll of my last 24 hours twitter feed: 85% of my tweets were a RT or someone else’s quote. Where have all the voices gone?

There are even medical conditions creeping into textbooks as a result of our attachment to modern communication. 80% of Australians experience nomophobia: the fear of no mobile phone contact. Do you check it first thing in the morning, have apps that let you know you’ve got a new RT, feel disappointment when you’re de-friended, unliked and no one wants to follow you? Are we becoming less effective in meetings when we bring that which we can’t live without to remind us we have emails, messages, comments, reminders and followers?

Communication allows us to share our internal maps of reality and forms the foundation of culture. Are our opinions and thoughts being informed by the outside world? Does it encourage us to evolve, change and think for ourselves? Is there a tug-o-war with the centre line a fine balance between retaining information and sharing our views? Does the overload of information encourage us to pull away from the centre line rather than connect with it?

Recently, I’ve decided to downgrade my reliance on the external. Kicking my cleanse off with a dip in the email inbox, I found it relatively refreshing to read, respond, file and delete. Inbox = 0. The feeling of space allowed for a sense of efficiency, a space from which to create, so the cleanse followed with a scrub of newsletter subscriptions, smart phone apps and reminders. And then the final plunge: an email signature that let people know I only check my emails three times a week. Communications cleanse complete. Two weeks later, my inbox = 0. And I intend keeping it that way.

In some ways, I feel like I’m back 17 years ago, writing by the flicker of a candle. I know where the information is if I want to research my next destination, meet people and tell the entire world with a button what random, ridiculous or raunchy thing I experienced today.

And yet right now, I’m choosing not to stand in a booth with thousands all trying to reach the same number.

For we may have made the world smaller but I fear this does not allow space from which to imagine, play, create, learn and evolve. And these for me, make the world a whole lot bigger.

You bloody ripper!

It’s important to acknowledge who you are. But have you ever had some internal conflict that doesn’t allow you to express it? Or perhaps the external influences of need, desire and expectations just continually pull you away from centre. Do I know about excuses? And that self-talk, it certainly has a lot to answer for.

I wrote my first and only book when I was seven. I’ve written all my adult life, but not words I cared about. I wrote what people wanted to hear, press releases that never told the whole story, political speeches, strategic planning documents that were words without energy or action behind them, marketing campaigns that sold rather than told.

And so I stopped, not even really knowing why. I suppose part of me felt that even though I was writing, it took me so far away from myself that I just didn’t want to do it anymore.

Last year, quite a few things happened in my life to create a little turmoil and I realised that if I were to get through them and find some sanity amongst the insanity of it all, I needed to find joy in the small. Cause created effect of picking up the pen and tapping away on my keyboard in the wee hours of the morning. Result = youbloodyripper. I’m testament that focussing on the small things in life causes a shift in consciousness and certainly helps to support us through difficult times.

Nothing I have written was for anyone else. I don’t believe we should do anything in life because we expect or desire an outcome. And yet, when I was asked a few days ago if this was the case, why do I publish my thoughts online so the world can read it?

I’ve thought about that over the past couple of days: there was a clear contradiction and if I was to focus on my writing, I needed to get clarity on what my writing really meant to me.

So Jess, my response to you remains the same. I do not write for anyone else. I do not care what other people think about my writing. I don’t mind if no one reads what I have to say. I write because I enjoy it, it provides me with purpose and it allows me the privilege of meeting some amazing people.

The one difference is that I do desire an outcome. Simply, it is to write. Acknowledging this has been a huge release, allowing me to not only understand why I do what I do, but that I can, I will, I am able to and that I finally allow myself to do it.

As for that line about desires and expectations, I finally admit that I’m not a martyr, needing or desiring nothing in my life. We all should desire things and people in our life that bring us joy. I need to express myself without the waffle that my emotions sometimes create, I need people in my life that influence, support, are themselves and who move beyond the realm of winning and losing, being wrong or right. I want simple joys and I need to be able to do what I’m passionate about. It’s our attachment to all of these that we need to be mindful of, but that’s a whole other story.

There’s much to be said for creating space in your life for what you enjoy, simply because of the act of doing them.

If the flow on effect of people doing what they love, results in a new contagious virus that infects all around them, hooray for that subsequent outcome.

The next time someone suggests I get a ‘real job’ and follows it by asking how I expect to make a living out of sharing the stories of inspirational people across the planet who make a difference, I’ll stand firm and simply say:

Real is finding purpose in passion.

you bloody ripper!

“Just go in your room and shut the door.”

For someone whose middle name is spontaneous, this was up there in the top ten of  turn ons.

So to my room I went. It was some serious struggle to stay put when there was a fair bit of shuffling and sounds coming from the lounge room.

The wait was worth it. When I was allowed to open the door, there in my lounge was a cinema. And this wasn’t simply a screening of just any old Hollywood blockbuster. It was a preview of one man’s screenplay that was years in writing and development.

I admire people with vision. I appreciate people who make sacrifices and choices to ensure that vision comes to life. I value those who understand failure and success walk hand in hand. But what I love the most are those that are so dedicated to their vision and passions, their energy has a flow on effect to give others a kick in the arse to follow their dreams; to value their life.

We could have gone to a bar and drunk mojito cocktails until dawn and forgotten the entire conversation the next day after we’d woken up mid-afternoon. We could have headed to a restaurant amidst a crowd of people eating, drinking, conversing and thinking about what they should have done today or were going to do tomorrow. Perhaps a comfortable cinema seat could have been on the cards with a choc-top in one hand, popcorn in the other.

Instead, I valued the thought of not being a prisoner of the mundane for an evening, learning more about a friend and seeing first hand how amazing it is when hard work is replaced with end result.

The unexpected will never carry predictability as its partner. In the clash of thought vs mundane there is only one winner.

Surprises are guaranteed to ensure moments of happiness, not because we take hold of them, but because they take hold of us.

you bloody ripper!

My wee printer ran out of ink today. So did wee me. Actually, both the cartridges and I have been running low for the past four weeks and I just haven’t got around to refilling either of them.

Why is it we leave it until we’ve run dry to do anything about it?

I don’t use my printer very often. Me on the other hand. How was I going to get a refill urgently? I have things to do.

The facts are, in six weeks I’ve packed twice, moved twice, been sitting in a holding pattern, unpacked 1.25 times (remember… juice low), am waiting for a call from the hospital for a biopsy, not been able to do things I should have been doing, stressed, cried, sucked it up, spat it out and really done a few things that were a little bit odd.But I kept climbing the hill.

Wrong.

Like my printer that just won’t go when it’s out, today I came to the realisation I was sucked dry. The printing was dull, the colour hardly noticeable and the smudging… you couldn’t see a thing.

So tonight I headed to the Chalice, otherwise known as the Northcote Uniting Church. Yes, they do weddings, funerals and baptisms, but around here they’d probably do bah mitzvahs as multi-faith, ‘different paths and one intent’ ensure there is an incredible line up of musicians, meditations, speakers and events scheduled almost every day of the week.

My decision to go was based on the need to refill. I needed colour, vibrancy and I needed to be able to clear my head, express myself rather than expressing waffle, write and get back to centre. And the Ecstatic Sound Circle had my name on it: sound, song, meditation, vibration and energy. I’d never been to a chanting meditation before, apart from my efforts in the shower, and with the voices of 60 people and the acoustics of a 157 year old church, it did not disappoint.

I can’t sing. But tonight I sang Portuguese, Sanskrit, West African and Native American tunes at the top of my lungs. I pitied the poor girl next to me as there weren’t any bathroom walls to keep out the noise. But hey, I was on a mission. And when I start a vital mission, you’ll rarely see me pulling back: there was too much to lose.

It was a beautiful space to be in, not just physically. The energy of the room slowly began to do its job: calibrate.

I certainly feel the yellow is filled to the brim and the cyan and magenta have improved. But the overworked black definitely still needs some serious top up, and so on Sunday, I’m going to the country. That will get the brain back in order, the body rested and the space from which to clear the head so my work as a writer can really begin.

I’ve let myself down lately. Next time, I won’t let the ink run dry. A blank page is no good to anyone. There’s no life in black and white.

Is it time for you to check your cartridges are full?

you bloody ripper

I can’t draw.

I was really struggling in anatomy class when one of my classmates prompted me to get the right brain talking to the left brain.

There was no way I was going to distort anyone’s face, period.

Anyone can draw. Come on. At least do a stick figure.

And so began my new found passion for a blank piece of paper and a 2B pencil.

For far too long, my left brain has been in charge: organising, planning and directing, ruling the majority of my decisions and judgements. It needed to be let loose.

And so I commenced my Twitter and Facebook requests for profile pics. And I had rules: ten minutes, no eraser and just go with it.

Never had I experienced anything that quietened my brain to the point I become one with observation, focussed on the angles of the nose, the curl of the lips, the shadows and lines that hid stories and life.

On a recent trip to Bali, I decided to curl in a hammock and spent the morning sketching a photograph I had taken the evening before.

And now I just can’t stop. People want me to draw their portraits. I don’t promise masterpieces. And I appreciate the opportunity to create and unwind.

I’ve found that drawing is an organic process that takes a blank page and allows one to observe, express, interpret and reinterpret. As the lines appear on the page, so does the magic of creation.

So now you’re stuck with me writing and posting up my sketches every once in a while.

When was the last time you created something from a blank piece of paper? A blank screen? A blank mind?

When was the last time you tried something new?

Go on. Who knows what you may find.

Express yourself.

you bloody ripper!