Books
Storm Dancers
Essays and poems
Through prose and poetry, an exploration of the systemic nature of risk to challenge the underlying premises, that create the conditions of the systems in which decisions are made that continue to accelerate us towards the collapse of systems critical for life to continue. Arguing that the underpinning of international law defies our understanding of what is now needed as the intergovernmental architecture, and the international legal paradigm, remain firmly anchored in twin unhelpful premises: infinite economic growth and the untouchable sovereign right of nation-states. As long as these problematic premises remain the starting points for all efforts towards risk-informed sustainable development, or a regenerative path for all life to flourish, our world will continue to experience dire and increasingly devastating consequences.
Fundamental reforms at the 'rules of the game' level are put forward for the global financial ecosystem (and the international legal paradigm). As is an embryonic suggestion for a care-and-kindness-based operating system to replace the inherently violent abusus-based system once the necessary adjustments to transparently reveal and appropriately price the existential risk (that we now collectively face) into every financial transaction and living system conversion decision have been made. A playful exploratory synthesis of the musings of Freud, Camus, Gibbon, West, Abramović, Artaud, Deleuze and Guattari and my own lived experience of swimming through rocks as an extreme ultra-endurance runner results in a preliminary elucidation of a Unified Theory of Human Extremity and the emergence of the ultra-runner as a Jungian archetype. There is much here to fill you with dread and much to fill you with joy, as poetry intermingles with prose I weave a frayed carpet on which we may rest awhile and reflect.
This is a wide-ranging volume of confusion, curiosity, humility, complexity, grief, weirdness, care, loss and love. For even within the careening chaos of the times in which this book was written, love labours on. It labours on. Love labours on.
Far Beyond Stability
The case for a Centre for Reembedding Cognition and Building Physiological Competencies
4 essays, an exploration and a poem. We are living in an era far beyond stability. This book is an urgent call to action. There will be no more warnings. There is no more time.
A. New way of life with no way back, but perhaps a way forward?
B. Thresholds matter, be gentle
C. On the potential importance of playful, poetic and embodied governance
D. Ultra life?
E. Nested Kinship
F. songs unheard, raining embers (aka five, six, seven, nine)
A unique format. A passionate voice for a different way of exploring the science, the governance, the behaviours, the mindsets, the barriers and the opportunities for a new way of being in relationship with our world to emerge.
Stagger is a collection of 33 poems and an essay.
"Facing the sun as it crests the horizon, blinding and healing, devastating and enriching, but always waiting for the clouds, hoping they are never too far away, to nourish."
Stagger
Poetry and an essay
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Swimming through rocks is my unique story of adventure and courage, empathy, love, failure, perseverance and teamwork on my long journey towards completing the Swiss Peaks 360 race in September 2024. The race is considered one of the toughest foot races in the world. It is a 380 km journey from Oberwald to Le Bouveret along the Swiss Alps with around 30’000m of elevation gain and loss over 20 mountain peaks and passes. The story is told in a real-time format so that the reader is able to feel the passing of time, the endless rhythm of climbing and descending and the rollercoaster of emotions, often spilling out in poetry, that I experience over the course of the 146 hours that it took me to complete the race as well as the rhythms and evolutions in states of being that I experienced. I feel like I swam through rocks and survived to share my tale.
Please join me on this incredible journey.
Swimming Through Rocks
How I finished one of the toughest foot races in the world: the Swiss Peaks 360
Fraught
Poetry and essays
A collection of 91 poems and 5 essays, in offering Fraught to the world, there is a sharing of vulnerability, of darkest thoughts and fears, of love and liberation into being in harmony with the world of which we are all just a part.
We exist within fraught times; as in we are living in times full of unpleasant things, problems and dangers. It can be argued that it has always been thus and ever will be, and there may be a kernel of truth to that belief. A kernel, though, is not the whole story. I do not commend myself as being in any way a holder of the fullness of that story, merely a part of it. And that part I offer to you to hold. Do you long for meaning or substance but are drawn moth-like to the words of sanity from one who others know to be anything but? To be within the forest is more than just a metaphor. Yet, metaphor is able to shape our reality as we stumble forward humble in confusion, in love. Perhaps even to enable an elegant departure from our fraught; a harbour into which colourless waters flow unceasing. We are alone in this together. Now, time to read on.
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Convulsing []
Poetry and an essay
A reworking of Convulsing (). Reworked for a new time, a new way of being, leaner, awakened.Exploring the whirlings and swirlings and convulsings of which we are all a part as the stable climate that we had existed in for millenia fades into the distance and we are called gastriloquially to embrace other ways of seeing, and being in the world. With love and courage, and a few quacks. Ahoy!
![Convulsing [] (Cover).png](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/00bd0c_e563d87df95d4512a0eb3277f4b4af4e~mv2.png/v1/fill/w_135,h_189,al_c,q_85,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01,enc_avif,quality_auto/Convulsing%20%5B%5D%20(Cover).png)
blue blanket
A memoir
blue blanket is the story of my Dad and I coming together unexpectedly in Hong Kong in June 2019, and my Mum's final gift to us.
What we experienced, what we shared, everything. It is our story of a precious moment in time, a momentous time. An intimate glimpse into the final moments of Irene’s life, within the final moments of a Hong Kong perhaps never to return.
convulsing ()
Poetry and essays
Convulsing () is a collection of 78 poems and 7 essays, confusing and chaotic, poetic and lyrical, substantive and transformative. It is a chance to play with and explore different perceptions of the challenges that we now face in our world, with detailed analysis and careful observations from personal experience all over the world about the nature of being human, of the way that we are in relationship with our world, of what we value and why.
The COVID Musings 3
Volume 3: 2022
The final volume in The COVID Musings trilogy is a collection of poetry and essays, musings and transcriptions and conversations on all that has been within and around us in our third year of living in the era of COVID. This is not a book of solutions, it holds no answers but poses many questions. As precautions and fears about COVID began to wane during the year it was clear that nothing was to return to as it was before. Yet much remained unchanged, the same epistemologies, the same metaphors held firm.
The COVID Musings 2
Volume 2: 2021
Confusingly similar and yet decidedly different. The tone shifting in ways both unexpected and not. Polarities became a little firmer, a lot firmer in places, less so in others where beauty stubbornly remained. Hidden processes, hidden assumptions about how we are together apart in life on Earth became more visible than perhaps they were even in COVID year 1. My musings into the 2nd volume continued on from Volume 1: 2020 amidst the waves of 2021; swelling, cresting, freshening.
The COVID Musings 1
Volume 1: 2020
2020 was a year like no other, a new beginning, an ending. So much suffering, and yet the beauty of humanity shone brightly in unexpected places. What was important, who was doing the important work, what we value, who we are... so many questions. As the cracks appeared and the light of another way started to shine through, even as COVID spread across the world in early 2020, a time of reflection began. For me the forests of the Jura were calling. A space to be, rather than do.
