Yum! Stuff that’s provoking + inspiring me (July 2025)
This month has been wonderfully full with family and friends visiting us, so I got to enjoy chats with them instead of listening to podcasts and audiobooks during my daily walks and dinner prep sessions.
Our dear friend, Kerryn, was a source of many different kinds of learning and inspiration during her visit. An accomplished musician, music teacher, and music therapist, being with her reminded me of my love for music as a form of creativity and healing. I love that she brought her violin with and filled our home with her music everyday.
On her last night with us we hosted a little gathering of friends and Kerryn generously performed a live concert for us all (pop over to my insta for a short look and listen). She also shared inspiring stories of the amazing “music for wellness” work that the non-profit she co-founded in South Africa, Music Works, is doing in some of SA’s most under-resourced and traumatized communities. It felt so good to fill our home with friends and so much creativity and hope! And time with Kerryn, witnessing her creativity, authenticity, playfulness, courage, and deep commitment to relationships, community, healing, and humor, is always such a heart-healing and grounding kind of wonderfulness that inspires me to do better at prioritizing those things too.
And speaking of people who are lights in the world, I was so sad to hear of poet and activist, Andrea Gibson’s, death on 14 July. I’m sure you’ll find their poem, “Love Letter From the Afterlife”, which - perfectly - seemed to be everywhere this week, as moving as I did. I’ve been binge-watching their poetry, enjoying Andrea’s rich metaphors and the wonderful way that they hold space for the full range of human experiences and make it so undeniable - and wonderful - how much light there is in the dark and vice versa… how non-binary all of reality really is. Thank you for all of it, Andrea.
A lovely sunset swim with some of our visitors at our local lake. Evening walks, cycles, or swims are one of my favourite ways to slow down and refresh at the end of the day, and the dramatic Dutch skies and reflective waters are always a source of creative inspiration!