I have been lucky enough to have spent my life immersed deeply in nature and creativity. I was raised in Sydneys south on a small block surrounded by bushland reserve not far from National Park and beautiful beaches.

My parents owned an art and craft supply store, frequented by a wide range of artists in all mediums. Creativity and Nature have always been my happy place. My immigrant father showed me to garden, to cook and to fix anything. My mother and the women in my life taught me to sew, spin, dye, knit, weave, macrame, crochet, embroider and bake. They had lived in a time before synthetics were common place. I learned from a young age that anything you could buy from the shop could be made at home.

On this grounding I have built my life around creating what I need from minimal resources. While I thank my parents for these gifts, it is what they didn’t give me that taught me even more. Themselves the children of war and hardship, they did their best to survive. From my long hours of solitude in nature I knew there was more to life than survival. I yearned to thrive.

Through my 20s I wandered down many roads that seemed to hold that promise, that peace that I felt was intrinsic to really living. I ran away with a travelling show, I travelled to India, I spent time in a monestary, I got married and had children. I could feel a calling.

It wasnt until I found Transpersonal work in my 30s that I found the calling was from a deep part of myself. That realisation changed the path of my life.

I had always had nature...I mean, we are nature. I had always had creativity...we are creativity.

But when I gained access to the deep knowing of my soul creativity and nature aligned in a way I had not experienced before. Without expectation there was flow. Without judgment there was clarity. Everything came together in a kind of Alchemy.

Allowing life to unfold from that place saw me not only find a home within myself, but also to deeply embody the wisdom shared by the land and people of Rorruwuy, North East Arnhemland, the burial place of my childrens grandfather. Wisdom that has enriched my life in our other home in the Tamban Forest on the Mid North Coast of NSW.

Creating a work life balance as the single mother of five children in a forest more than half an hours drive from anywhere is not as easy as it sounds! (insert hysterical laughter). But it has been an incredibly rewarding. BARE Riverstone is symbolic of where I am in my life now.