Another night of sleep broken by periods of Wandering Mind Syndrome! Phew. A cocktail of anxieties from worrying about the state of the walls in my house (and their ability to let in water in varying quantities), to the aggression of the anti-Scottish Independence movement.

Rain has arrived after a significant absence; it is astounding how the place can so suddenly feel like home, like the west coast of Scotland, when a serious downpour arrives. The two grand pines below the house are shrouded in familiar mists, bello! And sheeeeet; someone has begun working that bit of land below, which I was dreaming of working... Having waited for a suitable length of time since the last angry outburst of my ignorant neighbour below me, which has not arrived, it seems I may have missed the window. This is very disappointing, but the fickle ways of land ownership-custodianship-use are well beyond my understanding at this stage, so perhaps better to not have got involved. Certainly, the less need for interaction with my relatively insane neighbours, the better. Just too much of a cultural rift between us, and at this point it feels great to let go of potential complications, and to focus on building up the energy in the house.

In my latest DIY assault on the Chapel Bedroom, I'm discovering the dynamic qualities of the walls; how the plastering I did a while back still appears to be a bit damp (yikes!), and how the paint, now I've started looking closely at it, is rather blotched in places. Hmf. Just part of learning how the place functions, like having to listen to the body, I suppose, and this makes me think about Friedensreich Hundertwasser's philosophy of the 5 Skins Of Man. The artist made this marvellous sketch, of the layers of our awareness radiating out, like skins of an onion, the physical body being just the first layer. I like this. My work is heavily rooted in this idea of our awareness extending way beyond our physical being, particularly if we interact with the subtler levels of our consciousness.

I guess there are aspects of the house which have to be accepted, in regards to its organic, interactive properties! Maybe this is part of the joy of it; I would never want to be living in a place which was neutral or characterless- how boring. There is certainly, in the moments when I am not exhausted and/ and or swearing at walls, a sense of this being an alchemical process; a genuine transformative process, as I bring this quirkily unique property into some semblance of elegance.

My own development too, seems to be alchemising. It all seems a bit more realistic now, where deadlines are finally looming in the foreseeable future, and the first of the visitors' visits are almost here. And the rooms are almost ready for the B&B to be officially opened! Just waiting with bated breath for the new stove-water-heater to arrive! What a business that was; not just finding the name for this kind of machine (which functions with both a wee wood stove below, and with electricity), but finding a place which could deliver, and accept my card... which turned out not to be possible, due to Paypal's inability to accommodate folks like myself who have a UK account but with a foreign address, bah! After several days' research and investigation, a lovely man in a shop near Pontelandolfo contacted me to say he could order one, which I can pay for with cash. Phew! Back to basics: paying with money-in-hand and picking the item up physically from the store.

It is obviously part of being a foreigner who unfortunately moved to a country without learning anything about the language first, and having no partner or family here, but it is also something one has to adjust to as part of normal rural Italian ways of being; most enquiries will take a circular route to solution, that is how it is. There will be opinions of the most radically opposite stances, and great useless digressions and wastings of time, and every stage of investigation punctuated by lengthy siesta, obscure festa closures, etc. But what an insight into my own cultural tendencies and expectations! All in all, it is a wonderful boon to be learning firsthand the essential deep, calm patience, and the ability to move with the flow- well, it's very hippy, and much preferred to the high levels of neurosis accepted in contemporary life in north west Europe!

The last of the major jobs in the kitchen is coming to the top of the list: this ceiling of 1960s paint, in all its shiny, cracked, peeling, smoke-stained, creamy-yellow-brown glory. Mmmm. Here I go with my reinforced sandpaper, which perportedly works with water, which I'm hoping might save me taking the whole room apart, beforehand. One of the more bearable aspects of life here now is that the kitchen is cosy, cheery, cleanable and functioning like a proper kitchen. I've a real reluctance to regress; even at this stage, one year into Arthouse Guardia, a sense of forward momentum is vital to keeping motivated.

The alchemy is appearing in every new sunrise, though, and in conversations with friends, colleagues, new contacts. It isn't something far off in the distance, uncertain; it is a proper B&B, a functioning house and a thriving studio, in a magical place... just waiting for the visitors to arrive!

ITALIANO:

Un'altra notte di sonno interrotto da periodi di Sindrome Mente Vagante! Phew. Un cocktail di ansie dalle preoccupazioni circa lo stato delle pareti di casa mia (e la loro capacità di lasciare in acqua in quantità diversa), per l'aggressione del movimento anti-scozzese Indipendenza.

La pioggia è arrivata dopo una assenza importante, ma è stupefacente come il luogo può così improvvisamente sentire come a casa, come la costa occidentale della Scozia, quando un acquazzone serio arriva. I due grandi pini sotto casa è avvolta in nebbie familiare, bello! E 'merde', qualcuno ha cominciato a lavorare quel po 'di terra al di sotto, che sognavo di lavorare ... Dopo aver aspettato per un adeguato periodo di tempo dopo l'esplosione ultima arrabbiato del mio prossimo ignoranti sotto di me, che non è arrivato, sembra che io possa aver perso la finestra. Questo è molto deludente, ma i modi volubile di proprietà della terra-custodia da usare sono ben oltre la mia comprensione in questa fase, quindi forse meglio non sono stato coinvolto. Certo, la minore necessità di interazione con i miei vicini relativamente folle, meglio è. Semplicemente troppo di una frattura culturale tra noi, ea questo punto ci si sente molto di lasciar andare potenziali complicazioni, e di concentrarsi sulla costruzione l'energia in casa.

Nel mio ultimo assalto fai da te sul letto Cappella, sto scoprendo le qualità dinamiche delle pareti, come l'intonacatura ho fatto un po 'indietro ancora sembra essere un po' umido (yikes!), e come la pittura, ora ho iniziato a guardare da vicino, è piuttosto macchiata in alcuni punti. HMF. Solo una parte di imparare come funziona il luogo, come il dover ascoltare il corpo, credo, e questo mi fa pensare la filosofia Friedensreich Hundertwasser dei 5 Skin Of Man. L'artista ha realizzato questo schizzo meravigliosa, degli strati della nostra consapevolezza si irradiano, come bucce di una cipolla, il corpo fisico è solo il primo strato. Mi piace questo. Il mio lavoro è fortemente radicata in questa idea della nostra consapevolezza si estende ben oltre il nostro essere fisico, soprattutto se si interagisce con i livelli più sottili della nostra coscienza.

Credo che ci sono aspetti della casa, che devono essere accettate, in relazione ai suoi organici, proprietà interattivo! Forse questo fa parte della gioia di farlo, non ho mai vorrebbe essere vivere in un luogo che era neutrale o senza carattere-che noia. Vi è certamente, nei momenti in cui io non sono esauriti e / o e imprecare contro le pareti, un senso di questo essere un processo alchemico, un processo di trasformazione vero, come io porto questa proprietà quirkily unica in una parvenza di eleganza.

Mio sviluppo troppo, sembra essere alchemising. Sembra tutto un po 'più realistico oggi, dove le scadenze sono finalmente profilarsi nel prossimo futuro, e la prima delle visite dei visitatori' sono quasi qui. E le camere sono quasi pronti per il B & B per essere ufficialmente aperto! Aspettando con il fiato sospeso per la nuova stufa-acqua-riscaldamento per arrivare! Che un business che è stato, non solo trovare il nome per questo tipo di macchina (che funziona sia con una stufa a legna pipì sotto, e con l'elettricità), ma trovare un luogo che potesse offrire e accettare la mia carta ... che si rivelò non essere possibile, a causa dell'incapacità di PayPal per ospitare gente come me che hanno un account di Regno Unito, ma con un indirizzo estero, bah! Dopo diversi giorni di ricerca 'e le indagini, un uomo adorabile in un negozio vicino a Pontelandolfo mi ha contattato per dirmi che poteva ordinare uno, che posso pagare in contanti. Uff! Back to basics: pagando con i soldi in mano e raccogliere la voce fino fisicamente dal negozio.

E 'ovviamente una parte di essere uno straniero che purtroppo trasferito in un paese senza imparare nulla della prima lingua, e non avendo coppia o in famiglia qui, ma è anche qualcosa che si deve adattare a come parte delle normali modi di essere rurale italiano; maggior parte delle richieste si terrà un percorso circolare di soluzione, che è così. Ci saranno pareri delle posizioni più radicalmente opposte, e grandi divagazioni inutili e sprechi di tempo e di ogni fase di indagine punteggiato da lunga siesta, oscura festa di chiusura, ecc Ma ciò che una visione mie tendenze culturali proprie e le aspettative! Tutto sommato, è una manna meraviglioso essere di apprendimento in prima persona l'essenziale profondo, la pazienza calma e la capacità di muoversi con il flusso-bene, è molto hippy, e molto ha preferito gli alti livelli di nevrosi accettato in vita contemporanea nel nord occidentale!

L'ultimo dei grandi lavori in cucina sta arrivando in cima alla lista: questo massimale di vernice 1960, in tutte le sue lucide, incrinato, peeling, fumo colorato, crema-giallo-marrone gloria. Mmmm. Qui vado con la mia carta vetrata rinforzata, che lavora perportedly con l'acqua, che spero mi porti potrebbe salvare l'intera sala a parte, in anticipo. Uno degli aspetti più sopportabile della vita qui è ora che la cucina è accogliente, allegro, pulibile e funzionante come una cucina propria. Ho una vera e propria riluttanza a regredire, anche in questa fase, un anno in Arthouse Guardia, un senso di slancio in avanti è vitale per mantenere motivati.

L'alchimia appare a ogni alba nuova, però, e nelle conversazioni con amici, colleghi, nuovi contatti. Non è qualcosa di molto in lontananza, incerto, è un vero e proprio B & B, una casa funzionante e uno studio fiorente, in un luogo magico ... solo in attesa per i visitatori per arrivare!

The new year brought with it darker days, colder mornings, and a heavier load as the small problems -which would have been manageable individually- seem to conspire against my progress... then the death of my wee cat, my travel and adventure companion these past few years, from the harsh Scottish hinterland, through mishap and chaos, to new-found comforts and dreams... suffice to say it was like the darkest hour which comes just before the sunrise.

The accumulation of problems is something I struggle with, if there is not a safe place to shelter from discomfort, the warm embrace and conversation with close friends, and the familiar normality of the everyday, it can feel like a period of exile. Times like this of course, one has to shake oneself a little, jiggle the energy up a bit, and find something to make oneself laugh! Anything really, which helps to divert the mind from heading downwards into a spiral. My fai-da-te (DIY) activities certainly help to keep me grounded, and my mind occupied constructively/ body active during the winter days. Finally the pace of things seems to be reaching a peak: there is a balance between problem and solution, and a sufficiently dynamic momentum/ direction/ focus to resolve most issues methodically, swiftly. This is a marvellous feeling!

Tomorrow is the one year anniversary of the very first day I stepped inside this house! Momentous, thinking of what I have managed to create in this time! Without being too proud of myself, it is still the greatest of my life achievements, to have not just survived this most difficult of years, but to have done it mostly alone and without resources, bar inner riches and determination. It feels important to reflect on this, in order to rest in some satisfaction that goals have been reached, new strengths have been garnered, my spirit has been recharged, and I have made the beginnings of a wee nest which will be the perfect birthing place for all good things.

Another vital new aspect this month has been the stepping up of the dialogue around Scottish independence: a beautiful, vibrant, intelligent and dynamic new conversation, whose time has come. It is fascinating that, when the time is right, all things flow with an all-consuming inevitability... like the 'love that consumes all things' or 'agape' as Paulo Coelho describes so succinctly in his stories. It is impossible to force a revolution, but when the energy is ripe, it fruits and matures naturally. For so many years there has been this heavy hand, or dark cloud sitting over us in Scotland, stifling our culture, vitality, economy and all other aspects of our reality. Like a well-meaning but abusive parent, our heavy-handed supervision from down south has prevented us from ever seeing our potential, our true nature and spirit.

We are now finding our voices, and this is something profoundly stimulating about finding a voice, an identity, a new outlet for expression, especially alongside the realisation that one has been suppressed. A real awakening- a sunrise- the word 'alba' means sunrise in Italian- how appropriate in this moment, on a personal and collective and national level! Onwards and upwards!

L'anno nuovo ha portato con sé più scuro giorni, mattine più fredde, e un carico più pesante, come i piccoli problemi, che sarebbe stato gestibile individualmente sembrano cospirare contro i miei progressi ... poi la morte del mio gatto wee, il mio compagno di viaggio e di avventura in questi ultimi anni, dal duro scozzese entroterra, attraverso la disavventura e il caos, di ritrovata comfort e sogni ... basti dire che era come l'ora più buia che viene poco prima del sorgere del sole.
L'accumulo di problemi è qualcosa che faccio fatica con, se non c'è un luogo sicuro al riparo dal disagio, il caldo abbraccio e conversazione con amici intimi e familiari la normalità del quotidiano, può essere vissuto come un periodo di esilio. Momenti come questo, naturalmente, si deve scuotere un po 'se stessi, jiggle l'energia un po', e trovare qualcosa da farsi ridere! Tutto ciò che in realtà, che aiuta a distogliere la mente da una traiettoria discendente in una spirale. Il mio fai-da-te (DIY) attività certamente di aiuto per tenermi a terra, e la mia mente occupata in modo costruttivo / corpo attivo durante i giorni invernali. Infine il ritmo delle cose sembra essere raggiunto un picco: c'è un equilibrio tra problema e soluzione, e una spinta sufficientemente dinamico / direzione / centro di risolvere più problemi di metodo, rapidamente. Questa è una sensazione meravigliosa!
Domani è il primo anniversario del primo giorno entrai questa casa! Importante, pensando a quello che sono riuscito a creare in questo tempo! Senza essere troppo fiero di me stesso, è ancora il più grande dei miei successi vita, di avere non solo è sopravvissuto questo più difficile di anni, ma di averlo fatto per lo più da solo e senza risorse, bar ricchezza interiore e determinazione. Ci si sente importante riflettere su questo, per riposare in qualche soddisfazione che gli obiettivi sono stati raggiunti, i punti di forza nuova sono stati raccolto, il mio spirito è stata ricaricata, e ho fatto l'inizio di un nido wee che sarà il luogo perfetto parto per tutte le cose buone.
Un altro aspetto importante novità del mese è stato il rafforzamento del dialogo circa l'indipendenza della Scozia: una bella, vibrante, conversazione intelligente e dinamica nuova, il cui tempo è venuto. E 'affascinante che, quando sarà il momento giusto, tutte le cose flusso con un consumo di inevitabilità ... come la 'amore che consuma tutte le cose' o 'agape', come Paulo Coelho descrive in modo succinto nelle sue storie. E 'impossibile forzare una rivoluzione, ma quando l'energia è maturo, frutta e matura naturalmente. Per tanti anni c'è stata questa mano pesante, o nuvola nera seduto su di noi in Scozia, soffocando la nostra cultura, la vitalità, l'economia e tutti gli altri aspetti della nostra realtà. Come un genitore ben intenzionato, ma abusiva, la nostra mano pesante supervisione da parte a sud ci ha impedito di aver mai visto il nostro potenziale, la nostra vera natura e spirito.
Siamo ora trovando la nostra voce, e questo è qualcosa di profondamente stimolante di trovare una voce, una identità, un nuovo sbocco per l'espressione, soprattutto accanto alla consapevolezza che uno è stato soppresso. Un vero e proprio risveglio in un'alba-il 'alba' parola significa alba in italiano-how appropriato in questo momento, a livello personale e collettiva e nazionale! In avanti e verso l'alto!

Today I had a lovely synchronicity with my vision, where I found myself actually inside my dream: working creatively from the kitchen table, beginning with the handmade, looking to expand my wee business, and getting into an enjoyable working routine! My dream was always in a farmhouse, with bigger windows, and gingham curtains, BUT I think that the view here across the valley, and my current lifestyle and independence way outstrip the original yearning! This pleasant moment follows a series of troubling situations, culminating with my cat finally falling from the balcony yesterday, but all seems to be going in a direction towards health wealth and happiness, despite how hard it is to see whilst being in the emotional thick of it...

Making progress with the Italian language does allow a gentle expanding energy to pervade my business- each time there is a step forward such as solving a problem on the phone in Italian, or meeting a new colleague or important contact- the progress is visible: phew! Of course, with every loosening of the tension pent up these past two years, with the letting out of the breath, is the realisation that it has all been held in for so long... it is still an ongoing challenge to work with this 'letting go' dynamic, but to keep oneself contained whilst the unraveling of tension goes on.

Thus, it is incredibly therapeutic and relaxing to work on logical projects; the groundingness of both painting, but more particularly making calendars! Though my subject choices at school quickly went towards the artistic, it is SUCH a good balance to bring the intense creativity down to earth, focussing intently on numbers, measurements, and making the repetitive actions of cutting, printing, making dotted lines; glorious! It is also truly fabulous to have a finished product which can be taken out and about with me, and sold online: particularly here in Italy, having had to begin right from the beginning of a career all over again, it is so important to me to be able to show examples of what my work actually looks like.

Most people are responding incredibly positively to the two calendars I'm producing this year. They are postcard calendars, based on the same/ similar design to those produced in the Secret Shop- each month the image is connected to the season, with a tear-off postcard ready to be written on and sent off round the world somewhere :-) There is one 'vertical' format of figurative paintings- both new and old, and a 'horizontal' format one with the landscapes. I hope I can keep up with demand, as it is a laborious (though absolutely enjoyable!) process, and is using up a lot of ink!

Anyhow: general progress on the house continues, and I hope to have it up on Air BnB -the profile is already prepared, but needs photos of the finished rooms, which are not quite finished yet! Of course, now that Arthouse Guardia is almost ready to present to guests, family and friends are asking to come and stay- hope I can get the next rooms sorted out, to accommodate everyone, should they all descend on Guardia Sanframondi at once!

The autumn and winter here are proving to be some of the most beautiful imagery yet, with the brightest colours in the grape vines only now calming to deep yellows, reds and greens. The skies are more interesting than the harsh hot blues of the summer, and the misty movements of clouds, rain, fog across the valley, up and down the mountains, are endlessly glorious.

My new camera STILL has not been taken out for a proper walk!! It is mighty frustrating to be driving through SUCH stunning scenery and not being in the right place to stop and capture it on camera, but I have made an agreement with myself NOT to try and do everything at once, and landscape photography is one the things I can return to when there is more space in my head to allow the focus. It has been liberating to let go of this desperation to do it all now -which of course is not possible. The practical implementation of my 'una cosa per volta' or 'one thing at a time' is a blessing in this period, in the light of my finding myself fairly damn run-down and het up. I am greeting the cold season with arms open wide, thinking of snuggling in, moving at a snail's pace, and being gently attentive to detail...

Here we are in Guardia, bringing in our fruits and harvests, and sitting huddled in tight wee groups of old or young, watching the leaves blow up and down in the street. It is a magical time, of course, today more than other days; the time where the veils between worlds are loosened and may even fall. The dark times call and seep into our houses and minds, and we are often passive guests at the party.

It is a time for clearing, cleansing, letting go of the old and stagnant... though I must admit that I am bloddy well exhausted of clearing, cleansing and letting go of the old and stagnant, having spent all of the past 10 months doing precisely this, with intensity. But dream as I may of tidy rooms, of all the small pieces of necessary flotsam being stored away on pretty shelves, hidden behind neat curtains, that time is not here yet... there is simply a heap more work to be done before I can sit down with my pipe and slippers.

In moments like this, where everything is heaped up on my head like a pile of junk, it is very important to do something symbolic to let go of this image: this is why I adore autumn's collective rituals that we all participate in. As in most countries, the days of the dead/ the gateway into the winter   are celebrated in various ways here- there is a lovely balance in the sunny days of markets and fairs to celebrate the harvests, then the dark nights as folk shuffle closer together in the bars and cafes, trying to keep out the cold.

The cold has such a different place in the lifestyle here; certainly in the centro storico (medieval quarter) there are winds and water which enter the house   like the more severe winters of Scotland might do. But generally there is the warmth and cheer of the sun around every corner, which takes the edge off of any suffering which might be trying to sneak its way in!  

Anyway: back to work, after exhibition openings, electricians working on the house, and much fun time with my boyfriend. All healthy enough distractions, but this season calls for some solitude and silence now, reflection and recuperation, in preparation for the long nights to come. The simple jobs like collecting wood for the fire, sorting out the windows which do not have glass in them (!), and trying to clear all clutter off the floor and into cupboards, these things are all to ready the space for the deep thinking that winter brings: the dormant transformation time, when the energy gained in the year is brought inside to be alchemised into who know what for the new year.

I think that this will be one of the most beautiful winters I have known in my life- nearing the completed circle of the first year in my (very own!) house, looking at what has been achieved already here, and making plans for what is possible in the next phase. All these hours which seem somehow free-er, in the dark months; free of partying and dancing in the piazza, of wine festivals and eating outside: these months are like returning home for me; back to familiar territory!

Cool days are settling in proper now; the quilt is finally on the bed, and wood for the fire is beginning to preoccupy my thoughts. It has been the most intensive of months, again, but also has contained moments of the most profound relaxation and peace. Some areas of my life here are starting to feel less effortful, and the areas in which I am still exerting myself excessively, well, I am mostly accustomed to the strain now.

This week there is an expo of my paintings in a wonderful wee art restaurant in Caserta, La Signora Alice. It is great to reconnect with the city a little, after feeling so stuck in small-town head-space, up here in the hills! There was a point only a week or so ago, where I began to feel that creeping despair, like a fast tide coming in over a long flat sand beach: the inevitability of being weighed down with all that water, as it were... but then I found an electrician to sort out my obstinate wiring and put in new sockets and lights- wow! -within a couple of days the whole house feels entirely different- like it is inhabited! I get glimpses now of what the place may look like when it is finished, if such a phenomenon as 'finished' can possibly exist within the context of a house like this! But I am definitely getting a handle on what needs to be done, and how to do it. My great friend Eileen introduced me to a fabulous idea via Air B+ B, an international network of folks with rooms to rent out to travellers; this'd be the perfetto stage one of having an arthouse bed and breakfast: it'd be a good way of getting some income, in order to continue fixing up the rest of the house...

My commissioned paintings are going well, especially the portrait, which seems to be opening up a completely new direction, which I love! It feels like a step towards the idea of 'manifestation' or affirmation paintings, so it is exciting to think about finishing this first one, and putting it out in the world to see how it is received.

Good too, to just work with whatever comes up each day, to go with it, and to see where it takes me. And to do the simple jobs first, like I cannot rent out a room until the walls are painted, which I cannot do until the electrics got fixed. Slowly, slowly, each task frees up the other list of tasks: mostly they have an order and direction which cannot be overruled. Here I go to follow the trail of the Random Spontaneity of Accumulative Small Solutions. Nice.

Well there are moments of more refreshing temperature, but mostly we are still in the thick of quasi-debilatating oven-like days. Especially as I found to my dismay on driving 1,500 km last weekend: my spontaneous mini-adventure to the north of Italy to catch up with an old school friend at a Celtic festival! It was a fabulous break and perspective-taking opportunity, to reflect on my progress with this new life... I am coming to terms with the fact that there is no let up, no calming of the pace of work and living here: this is what it is like! So I am learning to let go of the tension surrounding trying to hold back this beast, and just doing what I can in whatever time I have, at the same time as taking regular astoundingly enjoyable food breaks, and making certain that my evenings are a time for kicking back and tidying up.

My longer term plans are bumbling along, like a simmering pot of winter soup; slowly but surely they are becoming more realistic and grounded. There is a strong feeling in me that I am putting down roots, that my life is really here, and that this is a good place for it to be. I love the simplicity of this, that it doesn't have to be a great struggle any more, and that I am here for such a long time, that eventually I will get all the things done that I want; this is one of the problems of living so freely: prioritising all the stuff that wants to manifest! Right now, it is painting; finishing canvases commissioned recently. Then there's my 'wee' birthday party- the first party ever in my house! And then I have two volunteers arriving from Scotland, and then I go to Scotland and home to Arran to visit family, with my partner :-D And then there's the house to work on...

It definitely feels like I am entering a new phase now- of work, of life, of being, of thinking and feeling. EVERYTHING is completely different, but particularly my sense of identity; slowly a new self is growing out of the ashes, as it were. There have been various points in my life where I have had to transform myself, following some traumatic incident or an illness of death of a loved one, but this is an entirely different thing- like making a new garden on a piece of fabulous soil: it is (mostly!) all positive! All I have to do is keep my mind clear, work diligently, and stay humble and grateful. I am off for an early beer now! :-D

Though my new romance is a little overwhelming at times in its intensity, it is equally nourishing beyond anything I have ever experienced. It provides the perfect anchor for me- brings everything down to earth, when I am prone to floating up, and getting lost in ideas and visions. This new phase of my life here in Guardia Sanframondi is like the reaping of the fruits of labour; always a suprise how abundant the earth can be, the gifts of nature jumping up onto the plate, and the joy of the feast...

On another level, I am quite pooped; the party just didn't slow throughout all of July and August! It was hard to sit at home and rest, when there was absurdly fabulous local wine flowing by the bucket, a wondrous array of traditional and modern musics, and all sorts of opportunities to dance, laugh, have tremendous fun... But at a certain point, my stomach, lungs and legs were working beyond their capacities! I'm glad that the town is calming down, as folks slip off on their vacanza, or start studying again before they return to university. And I am glad to be able to see my time clear enough to start working at a less frenzied pace on my career in another country.

My days are beginning to settle into synchrony with the lifestyle and the long-term vision of my living here in Italy. The first 6 months here in Guardia, after breaking from my 'worst ever relationship of my life', have been mostly about managing chaos, making do, solving large and seemingly insurmountable problems. But now my days are about settling into a pleasant seat in a marvellously abundant life and work. I am enjoying my food in a way that I thought I had lost forever (when I was 7 Kg down, last year), and truly loving the daily meditation of watering the garden and picking the harvest.

The vertical garden is almost reaching the balcony! The rooms of the house are all a little neater, and nearer towards knowing what they might be when they grow up! My networks are widening and friendships deepening, and I can say 'buon giorno' to most of the folks in the town and expect a smile and reciprocation. Perhaps now I can dare to trust that I am on my right track, and to jump into the flow, and just enjoy it!

There just has not been appropriate point to pause and take stock, thus my blog has been quietly simmering but never quite becoming ready for the table! Several big exciting shifts have been made these past few weeks, and yet all the changes going on around me, in the house, with communications and projects, and, most notably, in my relationships- all these changes have seemed to be so natural and so settled and so meant-to-be, that it is hard to begin talking about them. Suffice to say, this deepening; the realigning and the calming of my mind and heart, is well under way.

It astonishes me how much better life is, each day, each week; it seems like an unlikely pattern of eternal-improvement, until I think back to where I was at this time last year, and realise that, navigating in relation to that, it would be impossible to feel worse! The bigger the perspective I gain, the more I understand the extent of my helplessness at that time: it is easy to think that I was actually enjoying various aspects of my experience, but there is no getting away from the fact that I was deeply unstabilised by my relationship and my introduction to the culture. I look at my situation now, and all the positive learning and growth going on in and around me, and look back at my learning through negativity: there is no comparison!

The book (Spiralling Upwards) is maturing in my head, though not on paper... the ideas that come to me in this creative space, doing my work, making my food, connecting with the garden, they are like ripening fruit to be plucked; there is no effort at all in gently tugging, and receiving the bounty. Life here is like that: I liken (my) life in Scotland to chopping wood- an endless laborious process of balancing energy and comfort, of being able to keep up with the need for heat, and the basic effort involved in just getting enough e.g. hot water, to then relax in a bath and counteract all the tension in the body and emotions of having cut the effing wood in the first place... But here in Guardia, it is as if all the core hardship and strain of survival has simply been taken out of the equation. Extraordinary: fresh fruit and vegetables arrive unannounced by the bucketload, a bottle of wine is delivered without fail by every visitor, and it is hard to pay for one's coffee and croissant in the bar, due to the intensity of kindness prevelant. I am beginning to think that I will have to avoid earning money, otherwise I will have an excess, and thus no use for it! That is just me being silly, of course, as I do have bills to pay and a car to run, but my ideal lifestyle is so synchronised with the luxurious simplicity of being here in Italy, that I wonder at how out of place I was before, with my ski pants and axe.

I am quietly slipping deeply into an incredibly nourishing relationship too (with a man, I mean!): impossible to describe, but it seems to answer all the questions I never could put into words; we are taken by an equilibrium, and there is no point in doing anything other than following where it leads us. It is a beautiful and surprising thing for me, to suddenly be in something that was there the day before, but I couldn't see; a gentle steady friendship suddenly blooming wildly like a rainforest flower, into the brightest sacred geometry. It makes me feel, over and over, like my place IS here; this is my home and my peace, the house of my heart. Not like in Scotland, where my energy extends far under the earth and into the skies, and where I am familiar with all plants and life forms, weathers and currents; here I am freed and stimulated, fed and roused to spontaneous laughter by the most infinitisimally small happenings. It feels like sitting on the rim of a great plate of consciousness, just biding my time before transcending, hehehe! Perfetto.

  I took a spontaneous trip to Scotland a couple of weeks ago, and it really helped to empty my brain a little. I will try now to pace myself better, in terms of learning the language, socialising and networking, painting (paintings and walls), planning volunteer time and purchasing materials and furniture. And arguing with neighbours. I arrived back to be greeted by an unnecessarily excited torrent of abuse from the neighbour below, about my having left a window open. No point in going into any detail, suffice to say I have really had enough of this kind of heavy-handed neighbourly parly, particularly the part where she barged into my kitchen without knocking. It ended up the next morning with me making a short and succinct speech about 'if you want to communicate with me -about important condominium business only- you will have to write me a letter. I.e. I do not have to talk to nobody who is angry and unreasonable'.

I feel quite proud of myself that I managed to make this speech: my time in this magical house has been punctuated by very ugly outbursts from the beast above and the other below; always unnecessary and always impossible to interact with, due to the extent that the others have roused themselves into a state of fury. It is not that I am doing anything offensive, or refusing to abide by neighbourly neighbourliness, more that my two 'vicini' are attempting to intimidate me into a place in the pecking order, which unfortunately for them, I do not subscribe to. Obviously I will find ways to avoid the assault that is being waged on me; antidotes and boundaries, allies and counterbalance. But it is very sad that the FABULOUSLY generous, happy, light and open spirit of Guardia Sanframondi seems to have escaped this patch.

I guess I have to accept that this is one of the effects that I have on people: my work and ideas and behaviour are not always in-line with others -particularly not with medieval and territorialistic mentality such as I am encountering here. My appearance and habits are not of the boring or grey or small-minded, thus I stand out. My experience  with the neighbours does make me think about being bullied at school, and how depressing and destructive that was to a small person trying to find friends and define themselves. Luckily life has moved on, but it is never pleasant to have people building a case against us, and to have to try and defend oneself to folk who are absolutely not listening (and, dare I suggest, who are talking absolute shite). Onwards and upwards. Keeping myself informed about the by-laws of the old town and of condominiums, and making certain to never react emotionally....

Since returning from Scotland, things feel incredibly different: I must keep aware of how much I am carrying at any one point, that I can put things down that are too heavy! Without regular contact with English-speaking close friends, I am missing that everyday out-pouring from the mental reservoir, which has built up and which will overflow if not channelled contructively! Oof- my spelling is developing a strange lilt towards Italian, where the English doesn't look right! 

I had a fabulous day with my great friend Charlotte the photographer, who came to stay this weekend. Lengthy discussions and catharsis about our recent relationships, a tremendous picnic by the river near Morcone (in the photos to the left), and a healthy amount of chitchat about plans for Arthouse Guardia and beyond! It is so nourishing to have someone here who is equally inspired by the space, and who sees its potential, and who recognises the deeply atmospheric qualities of Guardia Sanframondi: yey! Oh, and the photo at the top is of the garden growing and growing. Ulderico has given me some great mesh and canes, which I have constructed on the big wall behind the lemon tree, for the plants to be supported by. The tomatoes are fruiting, the vite (grape vines) are spreading their leaves like wings, and the zucca are becoming already too big for the wee bed! It is a joy to watch it all thriving, despite the naff soil and heavy sun and winds recently :-) mmmmmm!

I am reaching the stage where I find cold half cup of tea every time I try and drink one, and enter rooms with absolutely no memory of what I am looking for there. My head is FULL, to the brim! This signals a time for emptying, or leaving, or putting things down. I like how the rhythm of things dictates the logical (or rather, intuitive) direction to take- how life follows this steady breathing in and breathing out, the rising and falling of the tides of events and experiences.

My meditation is to sit in the local bar with a large glass of wine, and let whatever thoughts are tipping over the edge just spill out onto into my big notebook. Then I have a spell of havering a way in semi-italiano to whoever is interested. We often talk about language, and the mysterious interconnectedness of the European languages. The local dialect here is fascinating, and, like many aspects of the culture, seems to resonate with the ancient, clackity words of my own country. I was talking with a friend last night about how the old tongues are far more suited to talking about the land and the weather; deep things and seasons, rather than the emptiness of the superficial. Much of modern speech is not communicating much in particular, and perhaps our use of severe abbreviation in texting and Facebook-ing, perhaps it is a sign of our not really having anything to say. On the other hand, it could be that we are getting into a good flow with our expressive interaction with all things: communicating more often with more people: having more direct and more indirect influence, in splashes and waves and currents, outwards and outwards, across the entire planet. Mmm- I prefer the latter interpretation.

The sun is baking us nicely, here in Guardia. The nights are cool and refreshing, but the days are starting to demand that we remain out of direct sunlight, or else risk wilting in the sun like the sensitive plants. There is a lot of watering involved! Drinking of water, and sharing it out amongst the botanical inhabitants of gardens. It is very satisfying, after watering the 'orti' (vegetable plots) in the evening, to then awake in the morning to see all the plants sitting up erect and rejuvenated! Hurray for the good order of things!

That's about all I can write just now, I am getting itchy feet for dashing off on errands and problem solving, and have to fit in a few things in the next hour or two, before I meet someone to chat about the church option for the big painting expo in July and August. We are discussing a presentation about Scottish-Italian cultural exchange, and it is helping me keep my eye on the other goals involved in my establishing the arthouse here: bringing creative folks in to repopulate the old town, and setting up a myriad of exciting links between here and the north- mmm- nice to have big ideas as outlets for all the fizzing energy which is buzzing in my brain!

I seem to be waaay behind schedule, according to the business plan I wrote a couple of months ago! Luckily, things are unfolding in an even more magical way than they could have done had I been working to a tight timetable, and I am having to simply allow- 'let good things come to you', as my Yogi tea-bag tab instructed me recently.The house is shifting and changing like the dramatic seasons here: 1) It is a far more sloooow process than I could ever have envisaged, with doing most things myself, and learning on the job, 2) the whole arthouse project seems to be bigger and yet more concise, the more I work through the process, and 3) I am finally learning to embrace the pace of life here in Guardia Sanframondi, and enjoying actually resting at weekends and in evenings! Don't worry, I have not lost completely that unique Scottish ability to be down on oneself even when one is thriving and succeeding... Can't wait for my volunteers to arrive, though.

The big, big painting is proving quite hard to finish, but it is large, and cannot be forced into submission like, e.g. a garden can. It has its own life and velocity, as has the house, and so I am listening and working alongside it, if that makes sense. It calls to me occasionally- not always to work, but at least to ponder in the vicinity. I am speaking with the municipality about my having a large exhibition here in the summer- likely in the castle- wayhay! It is an incredible spot, towering up over the town, with it's views all round. I love the idea of the paintings being up there, and it will be a brilliant spotlight to bring to myself, the artwork, and the arthouse.

And I am extremely excited to have met very recently with a gorgeous bunch of artists down in Telese, and sense that these will provide long-term inspiration, support, and mutually beneficial relations! A glorious Sunday spent with one hundred other family groups, by the icy spa waters of Telese, but under a scorching sun: the perfect giant, rambling meal, with dishes being passed along a vast table from extended family/ friends; games on the grass, and limoncello under the trees to finish off. Small snatches of successful conversation, supported by exchanged language skills, building the foundations of new strength in my vision here in my arthouse. I feel extremely blessed, especially after the past couple of very-hard-work weeks, doing difficult jobs and not always managing to finish them! It is like all efforts are rewarded here; like, so long as you are not greedy or egotistical or other silly attributes, all things will come to you; nourishment on every level will appear in abundance. THIS is what I must have had a sense of, all those years in the darkness and grieving: the sunshine and the fruit and wine and friendship. If I can build a sufficiently productive small business here, it can only be perfecter!

Phew- I just wrote my first blog in Italiano- I am certain it will be slightly unintelligible, but it is a step towards communicating with a new audience here, and integrating into my new landscape. It strikes me just now, as I embrace the social scene here, that I am a completely different personality in Italiano: I am mostly passive and listening; absorbing, trying to decipher. When people speak to me, I pause for a significant time, whilst saying 'si, si',until I decide whether or not I undertand what they have said. This is vastly different to the merry dance of talking almost simultaneously with someone in Scottish dialect! Even with the people that I know best here, the conversation is like two quite different roads, which only occasionally run (sort of) parallel.

Thus I am enjoying relative solitude- a quiet inner world, even when in company, which is calming and stabilising. I have always loved this sitting alone in cafes, being absorbed in reading, writing, drawing; it is a nourishing space: something marvellous; it lets me just be, to be more myself; less reacting and more radiating energy! I love what I am learning here about energy: it is a temporary period of reprieve from being bound by the complexities of the intellect, social expectations and emotional projecting. I can notice that I am becoming slightly more aware of the underlying vibes now, but am not absorbed by them in the way I have been in my past. The past in fact seems like another dimension, and one which I do not have to inhabit. It is hard to say what has changed, but it is something immense.

My feeling so settled here is probably to do with my having a house which is my own, being in a warm climate, having tranquility and space on all levels, and not having any links to the previous chaotic karmic whirl of life in Scotland. All that, and the homoeopathy: it feels like I have dropped a whole paradigm, and am picking and choosing a new, far more suitable one! So much of the dynamic in my previous life was based on the reverbrations of whatever traumatic event had just transpired: it was impossible to get a foothold in the peace, because there was always the shadow of a death lurking, or my boundaries raw and red and open to letchy/ push-pull energies from all directions.

Coming here to Italy was not a happy trot into paradise, but a dreadfully painful birth-like transition. It is a mystery to me why the gateways to great new places are so often guarded by such sinister challenges, but I think that the reason they seem such impossible monsters is to do with not being able to let go of our attachment to the negative stuff; familiar discomfort and all that. I am just now learning how to be connected but not bound; how to exchange energy on the surface and in the depths, but not feel the need to keep the other person's story/ vibe/ perspective as my own. It's an epiphany! It feels strange to be so free of fear, and so surrounded by interesting new experiences, none of which are grating on my mind, body or soul, like my past years. Fascinating to be being reinvented, relatively effortlessly!

In the physical world, my time is full with the vision for the house, and the solving of millions of small challenges, whilst I try to cram as much new language and culture and history into my being-which-is-quasi-full-to-capacity! I need outlets, I reckon, to prevent overload! I'm thinking now to the first exhibition-secret-shop-event, which I'll probably hold in the summer, coinciding with Vinalia (the big wine festival here, early in August). Once the gallery and library/ study spaces are established, I can plan a schedule for the next months. Hopefully the back room will be ready for the first paying visitors by then, too, and I can start gaining some income for the first time in more than a year! ...phew again!

Oggi o scrivo il mio primo BLOG in italiano! Scusa, perche la lingua e ancora difficile per me, ma io penso e importante o inizio qualcosa della storia in italiano finalmente, per gli gente chi non parlare inglese. Lo spero non e impossibile per me o per te, hehe!
Pero: per me, la vita in italiano e molte diverse di la vita in inglese. Io sono una personalita molte piu piano, con molto piu parole! Quando altre gente parle rapido, non o parlo niente, e non o capito quasi niente. Io sono qui adesso (in Italia) per dieci mesi, ma solo l'ultimo tre mesi o parlo proprio ogni giorno con qualcuna in italiano. E una buono esperienza, imparare una nuovo lingua, ma sono limitazioni; io sono piu tranquilla, con pazienza e umile, e ogni settimani il mio mondo qui crescenda (?)/ e un 'po piu grande.
 
E un buono tempo per me, con il mio nuovo casa, la grande progetto, il mio sogno! O aspetto per tutti il mio vita per questo momento, questa tempo e posto, questa sensazione di calma, pace, balancia. O vista la strada avanti me, e o capito e qualcosa possibile, in staggioni, con calma. L'ultima parte della mia vita e quasi sempre dura/ traumatica/ forte/ terribile. Io ho sempre qualcosa quasi-impossibile a fare, e triste eventi in vicino me. Ma qui, adesso, io ho una posto secura, finalmente. Io penso o pago gia per questa sogno, con tutto il mio lavoro (fuori, e anche dentro)!

O capito il mio italiano non e facile per capire; io parlo sempre 'scusa' e 'dispiace' questi giorni! Ma e divertenti anche, e un 'po relassante, perche non bisogno parlare di cosi profundo/ emozionale/ difficile- solo e difficile in una senso superficiale. :-) Poi, questa tempo e come una vacanza della mia vita: no bisogno parlare della mia vita prima; solo io sono qui, adesso, e basta. E poi, e un tempo buddista- tutto in questo momento, senza complicazioni! Mia piace molto. Preferisco, veramente, in contrasto di la vita pezante e profundo, prima. Forse e perche io ho questa casa, projetto delle miei sogni, ma adesso o sento come una persona molto diverso di prima; piu legere, libera, semplice! La vita qui in la campagna di sud Italia, e semplice e legere: buono cibo, fresca aria, tranquillita, gentile gente, bellisima paisaggi; tutti in vicino perfetto, E ANCHE il sole splende! Mama mia- che benissimo!

Io sono solo un poco-po paura, perche non io ho molti soldi per pagare per la casa e anche la aggiustare della casa; gli prossimi mesi sono un sfida. Ma mi piaci molte questi tipo sfida: semplicita senza troppo scelta, imparare e buon lavoro, spazio per penseri, e creativita. In questa casa d'arte io ho uno spazio per tutti il mio projetti: dipingio, scrivatto, fatto a mano libro, cucinare, cucire, giardinaggio :-D E buono gente in vicino. Per me, questa e un forma di paradiso.

Finalmente, ancora scusa per la mia male italiano: in pocci mesi e meglio, speriamo! :-)

I am very excited about all the volunteers contacting me; it felt like breaking through a huge wall, putting out the call for support, setting up a Facebook group for ARTHOUSE Guardia- defining the aims. I am reading a fabulous book 'The Ultimate Entrepreneur' business handbook; though a lot of the guidance is more corporate than is entirely applicable to my rural arthouse (and I don't want to be a millionaire, really), it nevertheless brings my mind to a point of concentration which is absolutely essential at this phase of the project. Without a clear list of objectives and deadlines, this house would certainly eat me up, with its erratic temperament (its relationship with the weather, e.g.) revealing itself anew daily. Not so much a learning curve as the precarious scaling of a cliff of new understanding... Luckily, I love this kind of intensive, hands-on, adventure kind of learning, and seem to have been preparing for this for the past three and a half decades. One of the great things about moving into a house early on, before it is comfortable, is that every tiny step forward is a huge boon; every comfort achieved is immensely appreciated! A brilliant neighbour friend donated a dresser for the kitchen, and by jolly, I am sitting and staring at it in such admiration and gratitude! After the previous months of my food being in a cardboard box on the floor, this is a tremendous sophistication!

It feels like putting myself back together, making this house a home. Finding my second skin, my roots, my little piece of heaven, that I can properly radiate my energy out in the world. It's a process of unwinding, still- day after day of integrating and becoming part of the gentle life here, in the house, in the town, in south Italy.

I have always been drawn to an intangible vision of that pastoral simplicity that felt so good in my childhood: the euphoria of summer barefoot on the hillside, with all the adults in high spirits with the full business of tourism. Our village (on the Isle of Arran) had some years of busy bliss in the mid 70s and early 80s: all quays, ports and pubs stowed out with folks laughing, sunburned and more than a little lubricated. The tarmacadam rising into hot wee bubbles, and us returning home with the late sun with our feet caked in a layer of tar. Stomping up the hill through the sheep meadow and trying to clean our soles on the cool grasses and wild flowers underfoot. It was a delicious freedom which certainly has affected the pull of my heart to this medieval town in the Italian hills.

At times I wonder how realistic is my optimism and enthusiasm for following dreams. To folk stuck in the humdrum/ 9-5 grey office job/ dark winter in the north, it would be awful to think of it as rubbing their faces in it by going on about how idyllic all of this here is. This is one of the difficult things about writing this Spiralling Upwards book: how to get across the tone of firm enthusiasm, rousing my own confidence about the happy path of non-attachment. Fffffffp. Easier said than done, but as the house takes shape, I feel a firming of my resolve and my thoughts, in regards to finishing the book. It needs, like the house, to mature in its own season. One of the gifts of not having money, is that it makes us think more deeply about solutions- rather than going out and buying an 'artificial fix', the inner resources have to be honed, stimulated, nurtured. It is good too, to acknowledge that things have to follow a more natural flow, rather than everything being about consuming the next purchase... I love this process of the deepening, which goes on when I am faced with a challenge. Bringing me into the present moment, making me be grateful for the simplicity of the small miracles, the little comforts, the elegance of simplicity. Domestic alchemy.

The past few days have been interesting. On Wednesday, I finally purchased a Manuale Completo di Fai Da Te (DIY), which has opened a gateway into solving the problems in the house, which seemed at first glance insurmountable. I have put a couple of shelves and coathooks up, and am starting to get into the swing of something... of just understanding the house, and figuring out how it is going to be transformed into a magical arthouse. :-)

A few people suggested, when I said I was moving straight in here, before it had furniture or mod cons, that it'd be better to wait a few months, and to get the place ship-shape first. This reminds me of similar advice from the Safe Thinking Folk, who told me not to buy my own car before I learned to drive: this advice is superfluous, distracting and frankly unwholesome! To know the house, I need to be in it: it is a large and complex animal, which needs reined in, and trained for a very particular purpose. The space needs to be sat in and worked in and loved and observed, in order to fit this purpose. The original ideas I had for the layout of the rooms, now is shifting and opening out in other directions, which I could only have found out by sleeping, eating and bathing here. Like when I was learning to drive, I needed the feel of the car, to be able to absorb into my intuitive self the necessary know-how, which is something very different from logical knowing.

This is a very interesting subject; the difference between knowledge forced in from the outside, and knowledge radiating outward from the whole, as it were. Working with the intuition is sometimes religated to the realms of the romantic and insubstantial, whereas in fact, working intuitively is using the whole of the being; logic and gut instinct and deep physical awareness: the whole being far more than the sum of the parts. Viewed in this light, it is working with mere logic that is something limiting and wishy-washy.

I hope very much that I can begin to get into my book again very soon: it feels like the time for it, if I can just chill out a bit about how I am going to earn a living out here... the words are starting to accumulate in my head, sentences piling up, and a sense of completion methodically forming. But still a solid resistance, and lots of doubts about my ability to finally get this big thing out into the world... Just now, I am quietly listening to the resistance (know thy enemy!), and waiting for the moment to collar the beast, which will be soon. Daily business is beginning to thicken in terms of important tasks achieved, and this is allowing a purposeful rhythm to settle into the days. Phew for that- it has been chaotic and challenging for so long (and I mean years and years, rather than just these past 12 months), and there is this strange floating-free feeling coming to my stomach, which is the feeling of being safe in the world. It is entirely foreign to me, but I dreamed about it before, and I remember a strong sense of it once on an LSD trip, on a warm summer's evening, on a vast sandy beach in Northern Ireland... the sensation of the body NOT being taught and ready for the inevitable next-crazy-challenge appearing; the sense of everything being comfortable, gentle, calm, and good things possible.

It is this feeling that has pulled me along all these years- not just the ecstacy of a teenage drug trip, but that very clear sensation of being UNAFRAID and of NOT HAVING TO BE afraid: I have held onto this like the vision of the holy chalice, knowing that one day this would be my normality. I wonder how I knew this, always; how I knew that everything would be good one day, and I see this as part deep intuitive, part determination. Both are vital to our functioning, but they are particularly potent together; like two stronger, wiser friends, holding and supporting a person on either side.

More than when I first made the agreement to take on this house, more than when I left my relationship, this week I feel I'm beginning something really NEW. With few resources, and having abandoned the majority of my treasured possessions in the UK, I am faced with an expansive emptiness. But sitting in this emptiness is powerful; it provides a space to think, to settle, to grow, in a similar way to what happens when a garden is left... without interference a place can just get into the way of itself. I would often get into a panic about a garden that I had not attended to (particularly during the summer months when everything was rushing upwards), but each time I arrived at the plot, there'd be such lush perfection -I couldn't help but feel that all was absolutely, inarguably, well.

With this house, alongside the idea of my settling here in Italy, alone, I am a little scared. I'm nervous about the scale of what I am doing, about where to begin, how to pace myself; about where to make the organisation and where to let things just come into being. The last week with Kate here has helped me settle into life in Guardia a lot more naturally and dynamically, but now there is a distinct hole where she was, awaiting her return in the summer! The thing about having this kind of space, is our modern lifestyle habit of wanting to fill it, I suppose. But this is the space, the freedom of movement, the solitude and silence, that I flourish in, which I need as the fuel to fund my more public life. The house itself will dictate what I can do with it, and my priorities will make themselves known.

But this feels so wholly DIFFERENT from before, and from the way I was approaching life before: I guess I will move forward gently, then intensively, in fits and starts... I know that there are less choices open to me right now, because of my limited resources and lack of income, BUT the choices that I DO have, they are profoundly more useful and accessible to me, than those I had in my recent past (comfortable materially, though it may have been!). This makes me realise something deep about the binds of consumerism: I would rather NOT have a so-called choice of one hundred crap things, when what I need is ephemeral, divine, subtle, atmospheric. The morning light coming onto my balcony cannot be bought, nor can the "buon gio'"s from the neighbours in the old town, nor a quiet moment sitting on the street steps, absorbing the evening ambience. These things belong to me now; an on-going elegant simplicity of being, which is enriching beyond measure.

It's a still morning; mostly quiet apart from Silvio fixing a drainpipe up the street. Hazy sun burns the night back. This is my first morning alone in a full month, following my time in the UK, and then the visit of a close artist friend. The past weeks have brought me full circle, deeper into the rich, simple happiness that is life here in Guardia Sanframondi. I have met more people in the past month than in the whole year's various trips to Italy, and sense that these meetings might glean more riches of friendship and meaningful connection than my first steps into this world.

It is not easy to step down out of a cycle of stress and tightness. Many alchemising conversations have passed between us in the kitchen of my new house: finally getting the hearth working, and the consequent comforts of hot showers and sitting cosy in the evenings, well, it feels luxurious, to say the least.

Kate and I talked at great length about the sad negativity that blighted our recent attempts to 'settle down' -uncanny how close friends can share patterns and rhythms, experiences and emotional worlds. Her 10 days here in Guardia stretched out into 12, and felt like a fortnight: we have several clear goals set already, Kate being equally enamored as I with the life and community here. If all goes to plan, she will be learning to drive, and bringing art and workshop materials back here in August! Various unfolding ideas connected with parades, lanterns, films, street parties...

But here I am getting coffeed up for the day, and a little overwhelmed by being back in this alone! Despite all the advice to 'get this done first' and 'focus on one room at a time', I am best going about it as I go about everything; intuitively and spontaneously. So I am rubbing the paper off the walls in the 'artists' residency' room, and assessing how damp it really is. I have a strong urge to start clearing out the shop, which is the old stable space downstairs... but mostly I will be pottering, exploring, checking and grounding myself in the building again. Orientation time: at least now I feel that I am at last part of life here.

I am writing from my family home in High Corrie, Isle of Arran. It is a marvellously surreal time and space; transported back home, as if my multiple trips to Italy had been dreams or flights of the imagination. I savour the moments of inactivity, which probably will not fill my day with grace again for some time!
I am making contacts with people who I have not seen in 20 years. It is truly fantastic to sit down on a train and find oneself opposite a person who shared my formative years, and knows the intricate web of inter-relatedness that makes up the island; to pick up a vibrant patchwork of stories as if we lived next door to each other, despite having not been in the same room for at least one or two decades. Our island fabric is of the strongest of fibre and weave.
Solitude 'in movementi' is quite a different kind of alone to being in one's house/ work place. It is wonderful to watch the journey moving past, to enjoy the sacred quality to individual moments, and to be caught up unexpectedly, spontaneously with encounters, rapid dialogue, elements and landscapes. The light and the rain falling alternately, and the eyes and soul drawn out of their usual (local/ inward) focus to interact (punctuated with cups of tea, cups of tea, cups of tea: how I miss this when in the hot country!)
This is a very important time in terms of reflection and reorientation for me, probably THE most important in my life. I will return to Italy to embark on my wee crusade; the book, the arthouse, the gardens, gallery, residency. I imagine it all alchemising, as I align increasingly synchronised with my path! At the same time, there is something infinitely more enjoyable about the chaos, knowing that there is a base for me; a place to rest at the end of the day, a shell with identity, character and potential, which I will be intimately taking apart and putting together again. I confess to perusing magazines with well-lit rustic romanticism, but only to confirm my own inner vision -this magical atmosphere with lights and surfaces and textures and colours all beautifully harmonising and contrasting.

Reconnecting with family, with the past, with the land and the weather, this is a key aspect of grounding my ideas for the arthouse. It sort of stops me floating away in a bubble of excitement, and reminds me of the biodiversity of creativity that flows through my own culture's evolution -before I wade into a new country's. Before I arrived in Scotland this time, I was trying to make a list of objectives to be ticked off, but actually, the quiet normality -the familiarity- of it all is far more important to me than any official business: a kind of life-force trickling back in. A great deal can be achieved by adventure, but it always has to be nourished and balanced, held in place, by the roots that keep connection with the place we were shaped by.

Where to start?! I am in the middle of a glorious whirlwind of activity, but surprisingly calm and grounded, because this is the time/ place/ project/ opportunity that I have practised and prepared for all my working life!

By the summer I intend to have a gallery, shop and events space opened, with various unique and magical and interactive aspects to it... as with Secret Shop, it will be far more than an outlet for paintings! The house is incredibly well-suited to all the elements that I have tried to squeeze before into my high-rise flat, a Cypriot village house, and the wee terraced cottage in the Glen Estate. It has a gallery/ events space almost ready to use, and the shop, though it is closer to its original state (a stable) than the rest of the house, is perfectly situated, with big doors onto the street.

It is a beautiful process, the uncovering of this treasure, which it really is: decades of neglect have built up a rather impressive layer of debris, dust, darkness, and I am scrubbing every surface with all my might, to bring the light and colour back again! Under the murk, there are raw marble stairs, hardwood shelves, and sweet 1960s tiles. I'm retrieving various abandoned pieces of furniture and accessories which will serve nicely in the house: a gigantic travel chest in green and metal, almost big enough to sleep in; childrens's beds, brand new and just needing a wipe down; all manner of linen and woollen blankets; a collection of traditional, handmade baskets to rival a small museum.

Though most of my Italian friends have assumed that I'll be requiring a skip to clear the place out completely, in reality I'm seeing seeing the potential of all the stuffs left behind by the family. All my enthusiasm for reclaiming, recycling, reconstructing the new from the old, it is tumbling to the surface, as I uncover boxes, papers, materials that can be used in book-binding, in making lamps, as garden containers. I was thinking that I should have set the artists'/ writers' residential space up immediately, as the atmosphere and possibility in the house are quite optimum at this first stage. But I am gleaning all the goodies for myself, as I deserve! I'm getting to know every inch, every texture and micro-climate of the house, that I can inhabit it with all my energy, creativity and dreams!  

I BOUGHT THE HOUSE!

I think I have been waiting for this particular new year for a very long time! It seems that a lot of what I have worked so hard for, sacrificed comfort and stability for, is coming~ suddenly and unexpectedly in some places, finally and deeply satisfyingly in others.

It is cold here, obviously nothing like Scotland right now, but unusually bitter for the area, and enough to shock a few of the newly planted saplings in the garden into permanent submission. I've spent the new year festivities with neighbours and new friends, snuggled in, close by the house, and in the church at beautiful concerts. The sense of being part of a family is immense; like all the communies I have been part of before, rolled into one. People insist on your company here- they don't like to see you alone, and a lot of Italians don't like to  be alone a lot, which is part of the reason that such cities as this one exist- houses piled high on top of each other, quite in contrast to us with our wee bit o' garden, shed and garage, between us and the next folk.

Being able to become part of this community 'family' is exactly what I need, in finding myself alone in a foreign country! It appears that I am being led into the next phase of my life and work by multiple hands, which bodes extremely well for me setting up a magical art-house here! Today I still have not seen the inside of the house, but everyone is talking about it as 'my' house, and saying that it is meant for an artist. (Did I mention the stucco angels, the high arched ceilings and the secret underground room down the stairs at the back?) The only glitch so far is the asbestos roof on the bathroom, which relatively speaking, for a very old property like this, is not the biggest of challenges. I'm allowing the momentum to lead the way, and letting myself be led by it. It is nothing like buying a house in Scotland; the process is unfolding in an utterly different way- much less talk of facts, figures, regulations, and much more face-to-face exchange of enthusiasm!

So I'm entering this new year in a sort of happy terror: ready for anything, but alternately shivering and in raptures! Hehehe~ fairly normal for the life of the artist! The spring is threatening to pull us all out of our wee holes very soon, with the sun giving glimpses of the softness that is the norm here. The atmosphere is glorious. This incredible vista, birds chirruping, vespas buzzing, and the occasional holler of neighbours... it is a place designed for creative reflection and gentle action. Peace cannot help but enter the heart.

Work-wise, I'm having a meeting with the director of the DONNA SENZA TEMPO production (the four photos here are from the spettacolo on 29th Dece in Caserta's Teatro della Pace), as he hopes to tour it around Italy! He's also presenting my artwork to a major Milano art gallery that he has contacts in, so I hope that might lead to something, though I think I will have my hands full with Secret Shop art-house in Guardia! The book is having another pause, as it likes to do when there is a lot of change going on around it; there seems to be more potent fodder every day, and the pages are alchemising into a continually more solid form. But there is no rushing it- it will come to completion when it is ready, and not before! This is a particular kind of patience that I am learning from being in Italy; how to be ready for anything, but not grasping -it just doesn't work if one tries to control, but when one lets go, everything flows, messily but somehow perfectly into place, from one moment to the next!

I should be back in the UK very soon, with a stack of wee Arran paintings, and to catch up with everyone, and organise funding for the house/ project! Happiest New Year, everyone!

O, the descent downhill after the solstice- how much easier everything feels, and following that potent full moon! Life seems to have swung around and slotted perfectly back into its neat path of possibility and synchrony! Let's hope that I can ground my vision in the practical, sufficient to support the ongoing unfolding of this plan I am working on!

In understanding the futility of being open to a return to my previous relationship, and realising that I will have to find a new route for myself, here in Italy or elsewhere... my spirit opened to a picture that had come to me a few months ago, but not made sense at the time: a property down the street is available (for sale), in which I could fit my Secret Shop art-tea-house, with a gallery-events space, and the possibility of rooms for visitors. The idea is centred around the focus of my book, Spiralling Upwards, and the inherent creative ability of us human beings to make things, to build energy, to transform the mundane into the magical!

Ultimately, with some serious graft and a lot of good luck and friends, I envisage establishing a mini-centre of much inspiration, which would also function as a gateway for people to come and explore the atmosphere of Guardia, and the (practically untouched) cultural wonders of Campania! Like Secret Shop, it will be a magical space filled with beautiful art, fascinating people, deep discussions, laughter and singing! I imagine cultivating mutally-beneficial relationships with a multitude of local businesses, organisations, cultural attractions and of course ARTISTS, both here and in the UK.

Over the next few weeks, I'll be planning my return to the UK to organise finances, do market research, and reconnect with my networks! There's no denying it will be a challenge to come up with the moola in a short period, but I have some ideas around membership (and subscription-based payments similar to Community Supported Agriculture).

Anyway! It is all rather a change of plans, in contrast to where I thought I was heading, but it sets me back perfectly in-line with where I was before I left Scotland! :-) Funny how things happen, which pick us up, shake us about a bit (or a lot!) and then set us down in a far more suitable context- I never get used to it, and am regularly perplexed by the weight of (things that appear to be) problems, just before they all ALCHEMISE into the clear way forward. Phewwwww!

And the poster on the left here is an invitation to the spettacolo DONNA SENZA TEMPO which I mentioned before: it is tomorrow night! I will be on stage throughout the performance, doing a spontaneous act of painting alchemy! :-)

The solstice! Quietest solstice I have had in a while. It is a gentler season here in Italy, obviously, so doesn't feel like such a big thing needs to be made of the return of the light, because we have far less hardship to take! I sat in the garden awhile this evening, watching a strange sunset, between clouds above and fog below, with pointy peaks jutting up between distant whisps; a raw streak of orange, with the sun's circle sitting centrally, like a huge eye watching over the world. It's amazing to think of this as the darkest it get, and to know that from here things will lighten, grow, expand again.
My book is filling my days, and the word count is rapidly ascending, I'm well past 65,000 words now. It is still pretty ropey in places, and really like my painting practise, with the alchemising of the final format; the ideas are cut, pasted, shunted and expanded upon in a most spontaneous fashion! This kind of gives me faith that I am doing it like I should, but of course a wee nervous sub-personality likes to gripe about the lack of inherent logic to it all, and to suggest that I am always in a right old muddle. I am not, I'm sure of this now. My confidence and direction are returning, and my life, though it feels strangely on hold/ in suspended animation, it is feeling more like it should do.
It is a little cabin-feverish here ~nothing so serious as being in the Glen!~ but even my painfully quiet daily activities are regularly jazzed up by a chance meeting with a new friend, a trip to the market or the town, and the Christmas festivities put on by the municipality in Guardia. It's really atmospheric and magical here, with the street at the back of the house rather tastefully enhanced by lights around the ancient doorways, and elegant Xmas trees on the corners.

As I settle into my work pattern again, and the rhythm of being single, I'm thinking about my options for the near future. I do not want to up-sticks again, I simply can't ~ I don't have the energy or the enthusiasm for a new direction. Maybe once the book is finished I will feel quite different, but just now this feels like home, here. I want to go much further in the Guardia project, to really make some connections with the UK, and see if we can't get some more artists, writers and creative folk over here, to stay/ work/ retreat in the old town! Certainly I am finding it the perfect context for the writing of a book...

I'm nervously excited about the performance next week; I'm finalising details of how the paint will go on, during the 'spettacolo' and can't wait to see my colourful costume! It's the first time I have done a live painting performance, and I love the idea of this spontaneous space, the intensity of being in front of the audience, and being constrained by time! Oooh! :-)

I am settling into solitude in fits and starts! My mind is over-occupied with trying to make sense of what has happened over the past months, and this is a little tormenting. Some things cannot be made sense of; they are to be let go of, accepted as they are, or transformed into new opportunities. But the events of the last year are gnawing away at my stomach and emotions. It's as if there is something blindingly obvious about it all, at the same time as it all being impossibly elusive.
This possibly summarises the life experience of a good percentage of western civilisation, so I should not be so concerned about it! And I am finding ways to bring my current experience and healing/ transformation process into the book. I am making progress! I've gone past 56, 000 words, and am working on the introductory paragraphs to each chapter, which feels like a way of solidifying them.
I swing one way and then the other, in terms of my confidence about the writing, the purpose of the book: part of me knows that it HAS to be written, and another timid part of me thinks, oh god, people are going to think it is stupid. I hope that the former voice wins out, in the end! Hehehe.

There has been a cold snap here, and wow, people really feel it; it seems strange to go out hunting for gloves and heavy coats, when they will only be needed for a week or so... Folks look shocked at the bracing wind whipping round the town, the stall-holders at the market looked utterly spent by lunchtime, shivering and blowing into red hands. I feel quite comfy in it, of course, with a borrowed jacket and layers and layers, and posh winter tights that would be hidden under ski-pants if I were at home!

I am thinking about my options now, this being yet again another big pivotal point (perhaps I should be working fairground ride) in my life and work. I had invested everything in my dream of coming here and having a family, and it really feels strange to have stepped so suddenly out of that dream. I've been thinking deeply about my work, and that perhaps it is to be the priority in my life, and maybe I will not go down that road of a comfortable family life. My 'experiment in normal life' certainly did not feel so good as I thought it would. I missed so much the clarity and wildness of being close to the land, and at times I felt truly like a caged animal. There were so many layers of confusion: decisions and choices and opinions to be put forth, on things that I was really not bothered one way or another about.
It feels better to have retreated, and to be hibernating away, far away from that, from conformity, from being expected to make the right decision, when I am accustomed to operating from the heart, making decisions about deeper things. What has it taught me? That there is not so easy a way to reach everyone, no matter the gentle intention, the kindness of word, the truth displayed openly: not all things can be transformed. This is good to understand at this point; I want to reach a wide audience with my writing, and I hope that this might in turn open up a new audience to my artwork. I must hold steady, speak clearly, and be absolutely resolute in my intentions with the book, and with my painting. It is easy to imagine a hazy happy vision, of millions of folk suddenly being enamoured with the profundity of my ideas and imagery, in a blurry magic future. But I am bringing it all down to earth now, a painstakingly slow process.

I am in Guardia Sanframondi again. This time it feels quite different to when I was trying to make it my home and studio: it was damp and smelly, chilly and dirty. Today I am sitting at the sweet little kitchen table, looking out to the big pine trees and Monte Taburno in the distance, and the air is warm, clean, and rich with wood-smoke. Every morning a wake up here is like a layer shed, another viel pulled away from my eyes, and I trust that this process will continue into the completion of the book. It is nerve-racking to embrace the silence and solitude, and to not have a long-term plan in place, nor long-term material security, but then again, I was in that position in Scotland for most of my life already... It is December, but I am wearing sandals and pyjamas, and thinking about taking the garden furniture outside to work! It is very peaceful; birds are resting here, from the winters further north, and they are busying about the trees and ruined buildings of the Via Degli Orti. My wee cat is tentatively, wide-eyed, testing out her territory again- not quite sure if she remembers it -her blindness makes her very jumpy, especially in the narrow streets where she's worried about being stepped on. She comes face-to-face occasionally with a mafiosa cat, and this invariably leaves her squeaking and buzzy-tailed, kind of like a squirrel.

This week I was in Caserta talking with a theatre director, and the Spazio Donna (Womens' Space) people, about a production being presented on the 29th. It is rather a forward-thinking 'spettacolo' based on women's life experiences, and involving song and story, and a live art aspect, where I will be spontaneously alchemising the marks made by all the women, into a figure or face. Throughout my time here, I have not found much 'like-mindedness' in regards to my artwork and philosophies, and this has been incredibly challenging, particularly in the context of my wanting to put a book out into the world, and for it to have a wide application! Yikes!

A good friend sent me a link just the other day, to a short article about James Redfield's progress with the writing of his book The Celestine Prophecy. It talks about the coincidences which supported him in finishing the book, and with the way it stopped and started, but he persevered. Most inspiringly for me, it describes how he cultivated his path, and how his passions and work intertwined; using his life experience to evolve this story, and allowing all it to encapsulate more than one discipline/ thought field. I love this! I love the idea of things being seriously intertwined, and also of nothing happening by accident~ everything has a depth, meaning and purpose to it, IF we choose to look at it that way!

My book is coming along, and it is great to have a time to work in words rather than paint. The ideas for my book have come up to the surface in multifarious ways, over the past few years, and with an increasing sense of urgency I have tried to get them OUT into the world: through my work on a vision for transforming social housing and poverty mentality whilst living in the high-rises; through Secret Shop and the idea of opening up the home and studio (and life!) of the artist, for people to come and participate in ongoing creative dialogue; and finally moving to Italy, seeking a beautiful long-term partnership, and balance between wealth and meaning in my life. Throughout my career adventure, I have appeared to have regularly landed in a place of 'loss' or emptiness; it is an ongoing theme in my life, this letting go and giving away of things, and it seems to echo my inner path of emptying (in the Buddhist sense) of the ego, pain body, past, etc ~ of being open, that the vital force can flow freely... My artwork has been a means of supporting this release; like the unravelling of stories, like water flowing, pouring thick and abundant from the end of a big wild river pool. And it is very interesting to me how the ideas have alchemised, eventually, on a parallel path with the imagery, into specific concepts, with specific application in the world.

Sometimes the most difficult challenges feel to me like the biggest opportunities for progress, for the quantum leaps in our lives. When we are so comfortable and everything is right, then we have less need for seeking, for wanting and needing, and for pursuing something better. But our whole human purpose is to evolve, to grow, to develop and learn, and if we shirk this duty, this meaningfulness in our lives, then this is the emptiness of real lack. On the other hand, as we attend to our challenges, issues, our dynamic-interaction-with-the-everyday, then we embark on an accelerated and accelerating kind of a life experience, rather than a perpetually limited/ limiting one.

Part of my own deepening is this groundedness, this coming down to earth and into context, of the ideas. It is easy to talk to other folk who have similar ideas about light, energy, thinking positively, but it is something else to bring those themes into everyone's every day ~into the mundane friction of our eating, sleeping, working and so on. I am building a bridge between the realms, I hope! I can only trust this feeling, like the feeling I have when I paint, that something wants to be made, formed, manifest. And to muddle on through the best I can, letting my writing be guided by what happens in my working day and night-time dreams.

As per usual, my life has turned upside down again this month; just when I thought I was getting to grips with stability, and finding a balance between challenge and comfort! Here I am again, in between homes and really unsure where the next step needs to be, though confident that I absolutely needed to step out of the destructive situation that I was in. I trust my instinct again for the first time in several, several months. Something clicked a couple of weeks ago; something allowed me to say 'enough: stop', and here I am sheltering and recuperating in the wee safe house in the country.
Part of me sees this as a logical step into my own strength and ability to manifest good things in my life: I came here with open heart and mind, but my energy, joy, enthusiasm has been beaten back in every sense. I am utterly stretched out, to the maximum of my elasticity! It feels like when I was caring for my mum, and after she died when I returned to the high-rise political boxing ring to quickly, and began to feel that I didn't have the strength to pull any punches; I was shaking and without defenses. I feel empty; emptied.

And yet, what a place to be! :-D The greatest gift; to have it all taken away! To be freed and let loose! I feel like a temporarily domesticated animal, who has been put out into the wild meadow again- kind of dazed, but garnering my vitality and resources, before I head off on my next adventure. I will look back on this moment and smile, I know this much- another layer of vulnerability has been stripped away. Comparing to when I was alone in Cyprus, or in Canada, and how afraid I was about finding my way, this is very different. I have been blinded by the impossibility of my situation- by the goal-posts moving and changing unceasingly, and the criticisms ever deepening and becoming more cold, more rejecting. There is nothing left for me to lose, and all I can rest back into is my sense of self, my work, my writing -outside of the confusion. When I have come through crises before, my creative work has similarly come to the fore, like a calling to the mission- there is no other route open, nothing else to do but to make it all into something powerful!

This path of creativity is a powerful force. It always surprises me how intensely it defends itself; how impossible it is for creativity to compromise. Everymoment, the place where all things meet and are open to influence; once we experience this open door to possibility, we cannot go back to closed heart/ mind/ door/ ways. It would be utterly pointless, ridiculously, impractical, and like making an illness to prove a point- that we are ill; like blocking a river so that it over-flows and makes a terrible mess of everything around. The vital force cannot be contained, and the urge to create, to make good, to raise energy and awareness, to remove blocks and doubts, this cannot be quelled or suppressed. I'm not talking about my art being rejected by the world, but about the vitality that I occupy, and how it is pointless me trying to tame it. But being creative also means being sensitive- to the world around us, to feelings, to sensations and influences, because to create is to be fluid, dynamic, constantly growing and nourishing oneself: not jumping from one thing to another and changing in the sense of becoming something else, but deepening, bettering, becoming bigger, wiser, stronger, more real. I wonder sometimes that my ideas are too abstract, not grounded, but the point of writing my book is to get beyond this fear, putting them into context, building a structure with them- an intricate, sacred geometry like honey-comb or snail-shell: a cathedral of words- spacious, and as solid as the religion it shelters. Carved and balanced, lit by the sun through windows of the brightest colours ever found in nature.

I have this vision of everything slipping beautifully, elegantly into place. When I am in my strength, this is exactly what happens: little things and big things alike sit down and behave themselves; there is none of the bumping into stuff, or rubbing people up the wrong way, or not being in-tune with the day, the moment, the others or the self. Everything seems to flow with a sacred order, a simplicity and magic that is so deep and pervading that it is possible to believe in divine intelligence, and our place as part of that intelligence. Like being whispered the secret of life, supping from the holy grail! But I don't want to know this just on my own- it would be like living in all the riches and finery and comfort of life, whilst outside the castle's closed doors and windows, people are battling with disease, poverty, nature and each other. Perhaps I am too ideological and arrogant to bring something like this to fruition, and I will always be floundering from one state of disconnection to another, but it doesn't feel like that: it feels like there's a method to all of this, and that some part of me/ the consciousness-in-all-things knows what needs to be said, done, made, in order for the next page to unfold. Unfolding and unfolding.

So I am returning to the scribbled outline of my (Spiralling Upwards) book, and finding ways into it, and knowing that this is where I have to rest for a while: if I cannot find the depth of connection in the external, then I obviously need to look at my own part in the equation. What I am seeking that I am also pushing away? What do I doubt in my own work and life, that I have drawn myself into a dynamic of suppression and atrophy, instead of expansion and growth? There cannnot be exponential growth, as we all know from our current materialistic 'situation', but there must be vitality, energy flowing, and growth each to its season, or else we are moving towards the end, rather than towards life.

When I go, I want to leave like a tree that has spread all its leaves and branches to the sun, and which has the strongest, widest trunk that it could potentialised, the deepest stretching roots. I want to leave in that poise of being fully opened, NOT shrivelled in a pot without water!!

I'm at the final stages now, with two large paintings which I hope will be finished for the expo at the Prado, opening on Sunday 21st November. (Above are details of the heads, during the creation of the 'Adam & Eve' painting.) It is always a time of tension in the most positive sense- pulling back the bow before the arrow is released, steadying the posture before a big jump. I love showing work, I love it going out into the world, and all the interconnected consequences that ensue. It will be such a relief, particularly after this period of intense isolation in the studio. It will feel exciting to show my paintings to a completely new audience, too. This is something that I relish- the feeling of unveiling something, of presenting something that has not been seen before. I like the atmosphere of unknowing. It is good for me too, to see fresh reactions; they can be more authentic, not having had time to be contrived- it is good to hear people's first impressions, their gut instinct about a painting, rather than the conclusion of excessive rumination.

It is also very satisfying to be presenting my ideas verbally in a new language; it feels like an achievement on a new level, to be here, and to be integrating; getting involved in new creative circles. This unlocks my energy to new ways of creating, collaborating and presenting: the positive side after all the crappy months of struggling to enter the stream!

Halo Of Thoughts (image on left) is being reframed, after being repainted! She was beginning to look somewhat battered, and the change in temperature and humidity, as well as the stress of movement from the Mediterranean to Scotland, round the UK and then back to the Med, well, there were some scuffs and scratches in the background, to say the least! She looks new again. She may or may not be for sale, I am thinking deeply about this, as she is my most important work, and closest to my heart in many ways.

The group 'Spazio Donna' who are presenting me in this exhibition are a support group for women in the Caserta area; they work with women and their families, to resolve issues specific to gender and oppression. Their focus is related in many ways to the themes in my paintings; body and emotion, transformation and self-sufficiency, health and wholeness, sexuality and power.

The wild winds and heavy rains are here, drenching and deep cleansing the streets and the lands, providing much needed sustenance to all life forms. It is a time of descent, but not on the scale of the hibernation which would already be underway if I were back in Scozia. Here I am reaching the point of completion in some cycles- it is exactly one year since Sergio and I first made contact, and is coming up to the time last year when we first met. This feels like a time of catching up with myself, with my life/ work/ pace, after the storm that has blown through it, and it feels like I am now better strengthened and equipped to achieve my dreams.

I've recently finished two paintings, one of which has been on the go for several years. The larger of the two is The New Family (left) which was begun only a couple of months ago, and is the first figurative work that I have completed whilst in Italy. This painting is the second in a series of 'manifestation' painting, which I will be putting up a page on this site about, very soon. The first in the series was The Marriage, which helped bring me to Italy and to be with Sergio. I am very interested in the idea of creating and evolving our own reality, and this approach underlies my whole practise... originally, the concept of my affecting my own reality was more to do with healing, being able to survive, through traumatising and chaotic situations in my life. Once reaching a point of stability, I've been interested in further developing this approach, to bring deeper experience and interconnectedness with the world: drawing the dreams down to earth, as it were. I will write more about this, as I expand my writing for the book.

The second finished painting, Standing Alone (left) is one that began as a portrait of my mum and I, five years ago: it was a dark and frightening picture of my mother's and my bodies, overlapping, which went through multiple transformations, as I struggled to make sense of my feelings and thoughts around my relationship with my mum, after she had passed away (details of earlier views of this painting are shown below). It is satisfying for me to reach a point of completion which contains elements of energy, beauty and happiness again; it has taken a long time for me to really rebuild my life after the hugely disturbing events with mum and after her death, in 2006.

(left, detail of head from Standing Alone) The figure which stands strong now, was earlier pushed into the background, even though she had started as a strong, clear, happy character. The point I am at now is one of clear perspective, health, abundance and balance; it was hard to work on the painting over these years, because everything kept changing so much. Below are three of the stages that this painting went through, before its final completion viewed here.

Though she seemed sort of finished, and has been exhibited extensively, as City Girl & Story-telling Man in 2008 (image on left), there was always something not quite complete about the work. Something was still like a drawing rather than a painting, and the male figure always seemed temporary. Once I got here in Italy, too, the mountain didn't seem relevant, as it is an Arran mountain, and here I am interested in the pointy mountains, hehehe. Anyway, although I really loved this stage in the painting's progress, it is good to go with the intuition, and to 'clear out' by acting on impulse and painting over and into an older work. I use this technique a lot, and it seems like a kind of evolution, rather than the destruction of something.

(work in progress, 2006) Whilst I was caring for my mum in the final stages of her cancer, I had a vision of how connected our patterns were- I saw clearly in this broken body of hers, the choices that she had made to reach that end, and in this I also saw the choices that were potentially my own to make. It really shocked me to see her rapid descent to the finish, and to see her embrace her path so wholly. I wanted to fight it, and to convince her somehow that life was GOOD and worth living. We spent a lot of time, though she was often in a dazy sort of reality, discussing spiritual ideas in a simple language- I bought CDs and DVDs of meditations and inner journeys, and tried to bring her away from the brink. At least we had a temporary reprieve, some extra months.

(work in progress, 2007) The next stage was a process of repairing the body-mind-spirit, once mum was gone. I met and old friend of hers from Arran, on the train home, after her funeral. She shared a powerful quote which helped me on the stormy sea I was sailing, something like "When we are born, our mother draws us a map of the world, and puts herself in the middle of it. When she dies, we have to completely redraw this map, but have no point of reference/ place to begin." What also shocked me around this period, and which the painting process helped me to understand, was how strongly my mum had influenced my life over the years, though she had had little contact with us since her move to Canada when I was 15 yrs old. In her absence, she had such a huge and negative effect in so many ways, which I only understood through the final months that I spent with her.                 

I am making progress with the Spiralling Upwards book, now that I have submitted to the process being intuitive and spontaneous, as with my painting! What a relief! The first bulk of words came out like a dam opened, on my deciding to write the book, when I was back in the Glen in Scotland. But with the upheaval of coming here to Italy, it sort of blocked. Not so much a writer's block, as I am not yet a 'writer', but a quite tangible inability to sit down and look at it. I guess that this is like the stage in moving house, where you have all your belongings in the new place, but are drained by the stress of having got them there, to be able to start unpacking and organising! I'm finally at the organising stage, and it's beginning to feel like a more natural procedure; part of my life.

I made the decision with Sergio to speak only in Italiano now, and this really changes things. I feel liberated, in a strange way! A shift of energy, like entering the stream: letting go, acceptance. And what a rise in the learning curve; infinitely quicker to absorb information- I'm learning much more openly now, like a child absorbs a language, where before I felt like one of those people I have previously puzzled over in a foreign language class (why aren't they just pronouncing it properly- what's the problem- it's so easy!), for whom it just won't go in.

Anyway, my experiences these past few months are proving to be immensely useful, in that they are feeding themselves into the book. (My notepad is regularly pulled out as I observe something around me which has relevance to a topic, and it begins to feel like the alchemy of painting.) All in all, this period, this move, this relationship and new phase of my work is like the resolution of all the things that came before. The clearing out of clutter, the tying up of all the loose ends, and the putting in order of the future, no less! Although this strange town and situation are just never what I would have chosen, had there been a catalogue to peruse, it is incredible to me that everything ends up being exactly what I need to move forward- to develop on every level. I have had huge doubts about being here, but they are fading into insignificance as I observe all the things that I have needed and not had access to ever, come into my everyday. My studio is buzzing gently with the potential of projects and ideas that are starting to form, and I'm now actually enjoying the city which before was an aggravation on every level (too much to acclimatise, after the clean wilderness of Scotland)!

My paintings are in a quiet phase: they sit on the easels and wait for me to do my final tweaking. Sometimes this final tweak is just to sign them- it is not always immediately obvious when a painting is complete... they can sit there with no interaction for weeks or months, then suddenly they appear finished. Just like that. I've been working on some script for them, though- similar to 'The Marriage' and the Domestic Alchemy series, and am waiting for the right moment to approach them with the posca pens! It feels really good to have my writing finally taking a proper place in my life and work, now: a looooong time coming!

Over the past week I've been working on a comprehensive database of my more important paintings and drawings online and visible to a wider audience. The SECRET SHOP group on Facebook has been transformed into ART WASHES AWAY FROM THE SOUL THE DUST OF EVERYDAY LIFE- a Picasso statement which is one of my favourite quotes ever, and a working motto!

It is truly powerful to connect with my older works, and to reflect on the cycles, transformation and adventures. Some of the earliest paintings remind me of how enclosed I was in anxiety, fear, pain, during times of grieving (which, looking back, have taken up a significant chunk of my time)... seeing the changes in the work from tight, cold, darker colours, to the stronger and more confident stages in recent years, is heartening to me.

The dynamic helps me to have confidence too in the basic theory of the book I am writing. At times it is quite intangible, but seeing the 'evidence' of the dramatic changes over the years, this stimulates me to try and get it all into WORDS.

At times, since I have been here in Italy, my mind has felt so FULL, it has been impossible to make decisions, gain perspective, express myself. This has happened at several stages in my life and my work, when I am faced with too much 'input': I cannot digest! Fortunately, I have the support of a fantastic homoeopath (who has been the sole supplier of my few medicines taken over the past 15 years): I am able to spew out in a torrent of emotional expression, the symptoms and blocks which I perceive are standing in the way of my peace or stability.

My recent remedy has brought a huge shift in my awareness, since I took it two weeks ago. Most significant is in relation to my putting my work out in the world; a learning curve has popped up in front of me, which I am stepping up onto... following some links and intuitions, and assessing more objectively where my imagery might be best displayed and accessed by an audience. Onwards and upwards! There is a definite sense of my having regained a feeling of comfort in myself, and this has come via both the remedy, and through returning to the easel.

Back to work!

A glorious weekend of absorbing seriously rich landscape through the senses. After the week in my new studio, painting away merrily (well, it is hard work, but tremendously satisfying, especially after an absence!), this has been probably the best week so far for me in Italy! I keep getting a sense of 'finally. I am settling', as if things are all in place at last, but then I realise that it is an ongoing process, to settle in, to be at home in a new place or a new culture.

Am thinking a lot about when I lived abroad before now, and am comparing my experience here to all the other times I have moved, transformed, changed everything from scratch. A dear friend, who is moving house this week, reminded me of something I had said when she was going through a moment of serious doubt about the move... That it is an opportunity to reinvent yourself, in whatever way you want- a chance to have fun and explore things afresh, and to leave behind all the stagnant energy of your previous rut!

Well, I wish I had used that as a mantra, on my arrival here! To make up for lost time, I am looking at a more methodical path in my spiritual discipline- sitting in meditation with a group once a week, and clearing space at home so that I can be in peace as I work and relax.

The most important aspect of my most recent 'reinvention of self' is the organisation of everything: just having the right stuff in the right place at a convenient time is essential, particularly in the context of a foreign culture. It is difficult for me to digest things here at times- everything happening so quickly, and without a chance to absorb or contemplate!

Painting is a means of organising; of re-laying the layers of reality, by just being, instead of doing, or trying to do things. There is a lot of logic here in this new city and country: a load more than in the intuitive and spiritual communities I have lived in before now! It is interesting to explore this new language, but not to be weighed down by it, or to be pulled in too far, trying to prove my own reality.

In the context of writing my (Spiralling Upwards) book, it allows me to look at how I can bridge this gap between the logical-material world (which uses economic transaction as the central axis of its universe), and the world of the instinctive-creative. Each has the potential to compliment the other, but is more often in conflict.

In regards to this friction, I regularly think back to my permaculture training, and how we might look intelligently at a perceived 'problem', by taking the individual elements, and putting them together in a new, more successful way (rather than the original way, where one element is antagonising the other). My approach to painting somehow relates to this -it feels like a means of shifting things into a new order; of making sense of the external and internal realities, and of constructing a language of metaphor that might convey something substantial about this understanding.

I sold my wee 'Laughing At Anger' painting, painted in 2001, in Findhorn and Burghead (north Scotland). It is a very symbolic image to me, as I embark on this new voyage, needing all the humour I can muster up, to prevent me from being caught in a minefield of cultural nuance: polite restraint versus reticence, stating a preference versus rejecting the unpreferred, confidence versus aloofness, ego versus truth... It is hard to relate to at times, having come from a culture where we are very open in many ways, but rarely confident in the Mediterranean style. Everything seems so fluid here too, and open to interpretation! (And yet somehow I am rarely interpreting it 'correctly'.)

So this past weekend was a tonic on more than one level; mostly to just get out of the head and into the body- out of the city and into nature- a full day tramping through the most delicious of landscapes- with vistas almost beyond belief, down to the sea far below - in the most perfect of temperatures, and punctuated by tremendous food -and the next day driving through the most incredible towns, cities perched upon and tucked inside cliffs and gullies. 

Many new sights, hard to take them all in, but adding significantly to the tapestry that is growing in my heart, of this fabulous land, light, and possibility.

The studio is finally cleared and filled, and I can paint unhindered for the first time since I moved to Italy! There have been around 10 months of travelling, moving house, upheaval and clearing, cleaning and organising, now. It feels incredible to have a solid BASE at last -to have all my creative tools and materials in one space, with doors and windows too! Thank you for everything, Sergio!!! I just have to go and fetch my easels and paintings from the Secret Shop in Guardia.

And Sergio's dear mum has gifted me her aunt's Salmoiraghi sewing machine! It needs a little repair, but it is a magnificent beast, and I am honoured to be let loose on it: I am slowly building a store of clothing and material,with which I intend to further expand my reconstructing dress-making skills. I am very excited that my dear artist friend Kate Mackay (of the 'Alchemy Arts Recycling Is Chic' book fame!) will be coming over to visit soon, to join me in some art-versus-clothing projects!

My sense of identity and security are rapidly gaining ground in Italia. It is SO good to look back at the initial challenges of putting my toes in, and to see them as hurdles that I have cleared! Having not had my energies fully in my painting, means that all the others areas of life have been sort of jerky, out of synch. It is deeply satisfying and realigning, to now 're-enter the stream'. :-)

Sometimes the intensity of the constant transformation of everyday life, it is all a bit much! Something in my heart craves for continuity, normality, a clear space for a long time... However, dynamic learning is fun, once we get into the swing of it, and so long as there are rests at appropriate points on the journey.

I like how painting,writing, sewing, cooking, gardening, walking in the landscape- how activities that engage the mind and emotions fully and wholistically, can transform more gently, what might otherwise take us days to digest. The mind and actions synchronised allow a flow: integration of the myriad elements of the moment. Like swimming or some other whole-body exercise.

I am preparing for a painting session; this usually involves some housework or organisation first- getting one's house in order! The organisational aspect is also like a sort of 'getting up to speed' -the process of putting everything into its proper place, a more harmonious order, sets the stage for a good vibe in painting. I will try to describe the techniques I use in my painting in more detail, further into the blog series.

It is truly beautiful to wake to the gentler pace of the Italian September, after multiple sleepless night in the raging heat of August! The days finally are accompanied by CLOUDS, oh bliss! Protection and comfort. Life is normalising, as I think of winter creeping happily into my muscles and cooling my brain.

The rain is re-greening the hills -just in time, as the forest fires eat great swathes of vegetation in regular gulps, leaving bare and charred areas like the victims of scalping. New shoots come up like a second spring, in contrast to the browning leaves that I know will be spreading across tree, bush and grass in Scotland right now. I am glad of the burst of new life, the energy it brings, and the possibility of growth rather than hibernation. Onwards and upwards!

It is noon, and I'm in the studio thinking about having a break, though I've not been painting this morning! Life is settling into a rhythm here in Italy, but it still is very difficult for me to work up to my proper pace, outwith my comfort zone on every possible level.

This is rich soil for transformation, however! A little like approaching a piece of land which is overgrown or neglected, my life here is demanding that every area be studied without judgement, before I am even able to enter. Watching the light and weather shift over the land, allowing my senses to take in new sounds, smells, tastes: waiting, listening, thinking.

Italy is more like a foreign culture than any other I have experienced, possibly because I am so wholly immersed in it, and have decided to bring my life here in its totality. Mostly I am floundering, and trying hard to ground myself by writing, talking, painting and gardening.

Little moments pull me suddenly back into a healthy reality, and out of my doubts: a spontaneous conversation where I actually manage to remember a full sentence in Italian, for example. A quiet moment in a cafe, over a ginseng coffee, watching people and jotting down thoughts and drawings in a notebook.

I realise too that all my challenges are fodder for my work, and instead of resisting the friction, I can embrace it, use it, and reap some riches. With this philosophy in mind, I am off to try and communicate my postal inquiries with the Offici Postale d'Italia. Francobolo, here I come.