“Learn everything. And then forget everything.” A strange lesson from my weaving teacher, some very old hands, and a recent reckoning with joy, enthusiasm, and what it means to remain gloriously uncynical.

In the lead up to Way Of Story, Lee Trew has shared his beautiful story of a recent encounter with a Grey Fantail. One that evokes a sense of belonging and connection. Check out the video version, created by Michelle McCosker, which includes some incredible footage of the actual moment the Fantail landed on Lee.

What if, just IF, for 1 minute a day, we witnessed our own need for tiny sweetness and love. Gave ourselves just a breadcrumb of what is missing in the larger picture. Not as a way of ignoring the madness, but as a way of including something else as well. Planting a seed of gentleness in this heart of grief.

“Community is resilience made visible… love made structural.”

When fear arises, is it always a threat… or simply something small asking to be noticed?

Perhaps grief – in all of its heart-breaking, heart-opening glory – is coming home to life.

Advertising sells a life with no shadow. Healing makes room for a real one.

Written by 14-year-old Theo, this poem offers a young person’s reflection on power, blame, and the struggle to be heard.

"A burning love so powerful that reason and wrong have no place.

There’s some caution sitting there too, deep in my lower energy centres… riding horses doesn’t come without an element of risk.

Looking back now, I can see how closely my own nervous system mirrored that plant - surviving, adapting, never quite thriving, but quietly refusing to die.

The lotus reminds us that growth can be uncomfortable, but in her own time, at her own pace, the unfolding is worth it.

A threshold is the sacred line between the known and the unknown. Safety and risk. Familiar and unfamiliar. The new beginning and the old ending. A moment when the only way is onwards.

In those circles, everyone was both storyteller and listener. No hierarchy. No rush. Just life, shared in its many voices.

“Perhaps we can embrace the mud, just as it is… and simply say, ‘Yes, mud. Yes, lotus.’”

Pain is not the end of the story. It’s often the threshold of a transformation that does not deny the ordeal of its own creation.

To me, this poem is an example of the magic and mystery revealed when engaging in cultural repair.