I recently facilitated my first ever art therapy workshop. The class was centred around unblocking & unleashing creativity and for someone who spends a lot of her time exploring the concept of creative freedom, it felt like the most natural and exhilarating thing to finally be sharing it.

There is a quote and it goes something like “being an artist means forever healing your own wounds whilst at the same time endlessly exposing them”. Loosely translated, Artists dance feverishly on the fringe of social norms in an attempt to self-process

At fourteen I am a handful. Even I know it.

I feel like some kind of undetonated dynamite that gets thrown from person to person, each one hoping that I wont explode on them.

The bus drops me into this one-pub town with my oversized backpack. The air here is dry and cold enough to make a nose bleed. I check the map and start to move towards the inlet. Overgrown shrubs on the path loom over my head like a barrel as I meander along the water’s edge.

When we think of a hermit archetypically, we usually imagine a cave dweller living alone, isolated from society and people. Words like “loner” and “recluse” can come to mind. In ancient stories, hermits were seen as guides - imparting wisdom & direction to travellers in need.

She is the source of all life. We all had one. From conception until birth, she was our home. Our relationship with our mother ranges from idolisation to contempt and everything in between. It is in her ability to be intimately known - yet enigmatic that makes her a living contradiction.

From the time I discovered the concept of ‘archetypes’ some years ago, I was fascinated. I immediately identified with so many of the archetypal folklore and mythology characters. In some way throughout my life, I had been The Trickster, The Prostitute, The Child, The Rebel, The Victim, The Saboteur, The Mother, The Artist, The Addict and The Explorer to name only a few.

I spontaneously decide to go to Flores about a week before we actually leave. I know very little about the island except of course that its home to the infamous Komodo dragon. I conduct approximately 18.5 minutes of online research during the baby’s naptime and deduce that it is in fact the place for us.

My son likes to create his own animal totems. I guess this could potentially be considered cultural appropriation .. but he is 6 years old and to him its just a kind of game that he’s created. Each animal has some kind of message to relay to him. For instance, he has this turtle necklace and he tells me “turtle says never give up”.

Ladies, have you ever visited your womb? What was happening in there? Was it nurturing a child? Was it nurturing you as a baby? Perhaps it was bleeding? Was it fecund, fertile with earthworm rich soil, ripe with ovulation? Was it dark & barren or filled with light? Perhaps it had sticky ancestral fingers all over it….

Today is my birthday. I’m 39 and I’m in Vava’u, a beautiful group of islands to the north of Tonga and I’m a little shitting-myself because today I plan to go swimming with whales. Like in the middle of the ocean.

I don’t have any preconceived notions of what to expect as I drive to Terania Creek. As usual it is chaos to even leave the house. The ambivalence of itching to break free from the daily grind, but being pulled to stay by the familiar sloppy kisses and cute smiles.