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2016 Aspirations

~ Julia Kendal ~ 3 Comments

2016_aspirations

When catching up on the Downton Abbey Christmas special, the post-festive season adverts told me it was time to start getting fit, redecorating the house and booking holidays. These themes did arise in our New Year’s Eve reflections on the year past and the days ahead, but they weren’t the only features of our discussion. We are content with the framework we have established for our lives, prioritising sustainable living, fostering community, exploring creativity and honouring God. In 2016 we hope to continue on this trajectory, which means making more incremental steps to thread these throughout the fabric of our lives.

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Grow

~ Julia Kendal ~ 6 Comments

plant_potshanging basketsAn unintended consequence of our house move is that, after all that moving and sorting, it’s actually the small rectangle of space found beyond the back door that draws me most. From our first days in the house, in dry weather (wooly jumpers overcoming the challenges of temperature) I could be found out there, usually sat with the laptop or a good book, a coffee or glass of wine. The impact this small space has had on my well-being has been pleasantly unexpected. Continue reading →

The Opposite of Loneliness

~ Julia Kendal ~ 2 Comments

opposite of loneliness

So much has been written, more eloquently than I ever could, about Marina Keegan’s ‘The Opposite of Loneliness’. Keegan’s collection of essays and short stories was published posthumously, as this brilliant writer, actor, journalist died in an accident when she was just 22 years old. She had graduated from Yale just a few days earlier and was tipped for greatness. Much is rightly said of the tragedy of it all. Continue reading →

A little book of craftivism

~ Julia Kendal ~ 1 Comment

book_of_craftivismCraftivism: “a way of looking at life where voicing your opinions through creativity makes your voice stronger, your compassion deeper” – Betsy Greer.

I became aware of the Craftivist Collective over a year ago, but it wasn’t until last summer when I watched Sarah Corbett share her story that I began to understand the power of this kind of slow activism. Sarah talks about how as a worn out activist, she discovered the power of pairing her enjoyment of craft with her passion to see the world changed for the better. This change in her personal approach has grown into the Craftivist Collective, with people across the world taking part in craftivist projects, sometimes on their own, sometimes in groups, but always in solidarity with the movement. Continue reading →

Spoken allowed

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no_matter_the_wreckageIt was TED’s fault. A couple of years ago I was trawling online for some generic ‘inspiration’, when I stumbled across Sarah Kay’s TED talk, ‘If I should have a daughter’. It was a revelation to me. I had always loved reading and writing poetry, but I had never before experienced spoken word poetry. I was instantly taken with the idea of poetry that, as Sarah Kay puts it, “doesn’t just want to sit on paper; something about it demands it be heard out loud or witnessed in person”. Continue reading →

25 years after the ‘Last chance to see’

~ Julia Kendal ~ 1 Comment

Last chance to see

As a longtime devotee of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to The Galaxy I would’ve picked up Douglas Adams and Mark Carwardine’s ‘Last Chance to See’ regardless of the subject matter. The fact that the book details their attempts to see some of the most endangered species of the 1980s just meant that I gained an extra level of enjoyment, beyond their hilarious retelling of jetlag, excessive aftershave purchases and empathy with chickens (I’m not sure fellow passengers on public transport were as blessed by my stifled laughter and shaking shoulders). Continue reading →

A lifetime of words

~ Julia Kendal ~ 6 Comments

books*

I have always made time for words. Reading them, arranging them, pondering them…

At the age of four I was proud that I knew my letters. Even on the day that we moved into our new home, the most important thing to me was practicing them and showing them off. This was for some reason not appreciated by my parents when I chose to show off my writing skills on the side of a new chest of drawers (the perils of stray biros and four-year olds!). For the next 15 years the letters stood as a blue-inked monument to my early priorities. Continue reading →