Sunday, April 25, 2010

Final Thoughts!

Final thoughts!

Another busy month since my last blog.

The last woodworking job is competed, two special sewing boxes for three sisters, one of which lives in Canada. Mostly in NZ woods although the black Wenge surrounds on the tops and bottoms were added very late in the piece.


Lots of preparation went into my 60th Birthday party, which we held here on the farm at Rosedale.

Kellie our neighbour and super duper hairdresser gave me a special haircut and a fitting dye job (for a clown) to travel to London and beyond. We had planned for a more orange/red colour however I’m more than happy with the pink! The white is my original (current) colour, or should we say a “perm-U-tation”.


Neighbours kindly lent us a party tent 3m x 9m and the day was fine and windy.
We had many people doing a party piece, singing a song or reading a poem etc, but mostly it was full on chatting.

Many people are leaving NZ at this time of year and the Volcano dust problem was only just beginning.

Christine made a special birthday cake with the small icons of saxophone, bicycle and a yogi in shoulder stand…. perfect…..we also got the guests to wish me bon voyage by decorating the cake with special icing writing tubes………


I managed to cut the cake, play the saxes and ride my unicycle, though not all at the same time!

Arty Party Feet

This is what always happens in the kitchen at parties

Kevin our pommie, the goat milker from Sussex came late and with our kiwi musos we all sang well into the night around the camp fires! I also sang my learnt Peter Cape NZ tunes with our kiwi folk expert Paul Bond’s help, intending to deliver impromptu performances while travelling in Europe, UK and Ireland.
I now feel much more confident in this area, and hey at 60, one needs to drop all fears of performing in public.

This will be the last blog before I leave and probably the first for many as I will now set up the blog list, which means YOU will receive notification when I post each blog. Please feel free to comment at the bottom of the blog and keep in touch if you like,….. this will also be extra material for the blog as I go around!

This is an opportunity to share the experience and add to it as well. My motto for some time now is “Together We Create Beauty” I would like to state my reasons for going on this special trip. I have been on many other trips/journeys in my life, and feel this one is a culmination of them all, plus a desire to get out into the world and spread some beauty and laughter, as I go!

I have chosen my clown character “Kokopelli” well, as I spent a lot of time walking in the National parks of America, especially the four corners area in the southwest and Kokopelli is a legendary figure in the native Indian cultures of that area. He is said to be the bringer of fertility, to banish the winter cold and bring the spring rains, a jester who carried the seed of all the plants in the world, playing his flute where ever he went!

Kokopelli gives me the opportunity to be a child again, to have fun in the most simplest way, being slightly crazy and opening more joy in myself, which hopefully and expectedly, will be returned ten fold!

Kokopelli is magical, it is my belief that this modern world (which I am also engrossed in) is over stressed, being driven by technology, knowledge and somewhat out of touch with, joy, fun, creativity and a sense of spiritual connection, in our everyday contacts with people.

So this is my mission on this trip........ to lift my own and people’s appreciation of the simple pleasures, of travel, meeting people and having fun.

I made this Kokopelli wind vane 6 years ago and put it up in Christine’s garden in Nelson, little did I know it would grow into being my alter ego and companion for 6 months travelling, by bicycle.


The last few years three people close to me locally have died early. Peter Sparrow, in his 50s, a easy going family man who taught Tai Chi died of a heart attack. My old soccer team Captain, Brian Dowding, died after a sudden brain cancer, and Kim Merry aged 46, also of cancer, he was my yoga teacher, a great theatrical person and wonderful creative light in our local community. One never knows what is around the corner, accidents, health issues, etc, so I made the decision to travel this year in this manner, while I still can and will, use the memory of these people and others (my father’s influence is still huge in my psyche) to help me on my way.

Getting my technology connections in place this week has been a real challenge, and in spite of 6 months preparation, I’m going right down to the wire getting everything in place, possibly not a good idea to change from Windows to Mac computer at this time, we’ll see how this pans out???
Inside the last week, hopefully the northern hemisphere’s Volcano dust has calmed down and I sail though to London in a daze, not a haze.

Setting sail toward adventure!

Through this blog and my contacts with people as I travel, I encourage you to have more fun, be more creative, extend your creative and personal boundaries, my belief is you do get another chance in another life and you also take this experience to add that to the next……so go for it!

I am.

Cheers and Ciao
Till the next Blog
Namaste

Jimu/Kokopelli