The World by Us

Guess what? We’re back on the oh-so-speedy-world-wide-web! And do you know what the first thing we did was? Caught up on all the wonderful musical discoveries we’d been missing out on. Here’s what we’re loving lately.

Enjoy xx

Grimes - Genesis

The Do - Too Insistent (Trentemoller Remix)

Little People - Moon

Matt Corby - Brother

Pictureplane - Real is a feeling (Grimes Remix)

And last but certainly not least… We may be a little late to the party with this one, but my is he GOOD. So good, that we struggled to choose just one falsetto laden, harp-infused tune to share with you.  So we chose two. If you like Bon Iver/ How to Dress Well/James Blake/M83,  you should most certainly go get yourself this album…and the EP before it – Curtis Lane.

Active Child - Hanging on

Active Child feat. How to Dress Well - Playing House

Your turn! What are you listening to? Share in the comments por favor…

Hello lovelies! We hope you had a delightfully relaxing weekend.

Apologies for our absence lately. We relocated over the holidays and have been experiencing internet difficulties : (

We expect these to be sorted out in the next week and then we’ll be back to regular posts. Yay!

Until then, a few bits & pieces and pretty things for you…

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There is something wonderfully other-worldly about underwater photography. Last year, we discovered the beautiful work of Elena Kalis and this year we’ve come across American photographer Neil Craver‘s stunning Omni-Phantasmic series.

Interested in the psycho-physical effects of colour, Neil says the images in this series are meant to be perceived with your emotions, not just your senses. His gorgeous use of light, foliage, and the female form serves, as he says, to illuminate the subconscious and the mysterious – the all-powerful/ever-present illusion.

Check out his video slideshow and a few of our favourites below and read more from Neil about this series here.

“…work is it’s own cure. You have to
like it better than being loved.”
-Marge Piercy, from for the young who want to

I.
it used to be that stories of great women inspired me:
reading about Dorothy Parker was a stiff whiskey sour,
watching Rosalind Russell strut about as Auntie Mame

was a full bottle of cheap champagne
i got drunk on fabulous amazons
until i swaggered about like i was one.

i filled my head with the poetry of gods,
Emily, Billy, Lucille, Marge, Maya,
dosing me with their heavy songs of truth.

i read my life into their heartbreak.
i copied their smart mouths
i wrapped myself in their cynicism and barbed-wire wisdom

and willed myself to be strong.

II.
in my favorite photograph of my mother,
she is standing on a beach in Malibu in the May sunshine
surrounded by the seagulls it was her idea to feed.

her blue one-piece is stretched across her stomach.
the birds are aggressively closing in, her smile belies
some hidden panic i imagine only i can see.

III.
it’s not fair, but life happens just the same.
if you’d asked my mother in 1971
she would have born witness to the timelessness of paisley,

told you rock-and-roll was just a passing fad,
sworn loyalty to a life of chocolate chip cookies and PTA meetings.
she was a believer all the way to the welfare line,

tried to look graceful dragging three daughters and a station wagon behind her.
20 years of broken air conditioning and hot laundry
and bad dates and she still remembers not to swear.

so for her,
i hide how unprepared i am for all of this.
i smile, and i breathe

when the children with their grass-stains
and pencil shavings and fistfuls of questions
surround me on all sides.

IV.
i want to believe

i can look my enemy
in his good blue eye
and hold my stomach,

that power can be traded into nothing.
your stories read like warnings now.
be careful what you traffic in—change is work.

love may break you.
i hear a woman wins the election and i take my vitamins.
i hear Aretha on the radio and i stretch my aching legs.

- Mindy Nettifee

We thoroughly enjoy perusing Pictory’s monthly photo diaries so we were thrilled to come across the latest.  For us, Something to Write Home About awoke memories of the exciting freedom & discovery of travel and the pure joy of falling head over heels in love with a place….maybe even deeply enough to make it ‘home’.

“Gorgeous views collected from exotic corners of the earth are a bonus, but this theme is about something much more basic. Delight. It can happen anywhere under circumstances much more mundane than flying a helicopter without doors, watching a glacier float by, or dancing with fireworks. The trick is to notice it’s there. And better yet, make it real by sharing it.”

You should certainly check out the full showcase HERE, (as well as the many wonderful themes from previous months) but until then, we’ve compiled for you a little taste…

Damascus, Syria

Dear family,

I have discovered how to love a city. In Damascus, I have found a gentle and bright people. I have found warm kitchens and welcoming tea shops. I have found colorful art and comforting music. I have found a complicated history and an even more complicated future. I would do anything to return. (By the way, I told you I was traveling alone, but I was with Ross. I discovered him here, too.)

Lake Titicaca

Dear Professor Arbulu,

I have discovered the true meaning of the Chinese proverb “learning is like rowing upstream: not to advance is to drop back.” This schoolhouse in the middle of Lake Titicaca is a reminder that education is about enchantment, understanding, and can happen anywhere. Thank you for teaching me to dare to wander, to never stop learning, and to live my best possible life.

Colorado

Dear Home,

I think I found a new one. It’s more beautiful and inspiring then I could have even imagined. Everyday you can see the awe in our eyes, waking up knowing the mountains are to our west, and the incredible city to our east. When I say ‘our’ I mean us, meaning I found a group that I can call Us. Just a bunch of misfits that have fallen in love with the same place. Home, I hope this doesn’t make you sad, or angry, or think that I’ve moved on and I’m never coming back. I’m not saying that you’re not Home to me anymore, it’s just that, now I have two.

San Francisco

Dear future daughter,

I have discovered a beautiful place where I want you to grow up. That’s why I decided to leave France. It’s a small city (compared to some others I visited), a city where I feel good, where people are friendly, where the weather is not warm and not cold. It’s a city with great parks where you can walk, climb, run, and a cosmopolitan city where people don’t judge you on your differences or appearances. Dear future daughter, I hope you will love it like I love it.

The West

Dear Mom and Dad,

You know how I always said I wanted to be a cowgirl? Well, it turns out I haven’t grown out of it quite yet. I have discovered the beauty of “the west,” and I’m quite ready to stay. We spent the other night at the rodeo, and it felt like the life I could have had, the life I still want to have, and the life I want my kids to have. Wish me luck?

Brooklyn

Dear Dad,

I’ve discovered that I feel at home here. It’s not where you want me to be. I’ll always miss you.

Where have you discovered ‘something to write home about’?

Community Oriented Design Studio is a Melbourne-based non-profit organisation working in partnership with disadvantaged communities around the world to create ‘equitable, healthy, livable cities.’ Mobilising communities, governments and stakeholders, CoDesign provides the opportunity for all parties to fully participate in designing and creating great, sustainable places to live.

Today, we chat with Founder and CEO Lucinda Hartley about her inspiring work.

As Lucinda tells us, “the design and planning of our cities and built environment affects almost everything we do on a daily basis – from how we get to work, to whether or not we have access to parks and green space, to public health. However, very rarely is planning and design considered when it comes to community development projects such as schools, housing, playgrounds, community services.”

With a background in landscape architecture & urban design and experience working throughout the Asia-Pacific, Lucinda was first struck by the alarming speed of urban development in Phnom Penh, Cambodia and the need for communities to be empowered to be able to understand and transform their built environment – be it a house, community centre, bridge, or a footpath.

“There was no time to wait for the municipal engineer or architect to create a solution – communities needed to be able to design and create their own solutions to self-identified problems,” Lucinda tells us. So CoDesign began working with some local organisations to run small scale slum upgrading pilot projects which is where the idea for the studio was born. CoDesign is now partnering with community organisations in India, Cambodia, Vietnam, West Papua and Australia to design and implement community infrastructure projects.

Lucinda sees participatory, community based design is an important and necessary tool for delivering effective and sustainable urban growth – especially considering that  by 2050, 70% of the world will live in cities, and most of that urban growth will occur among the slums in informal settlements in the developing world.

“Traditional planning and design processes don’t have the capacity to deal with these types of new environments, and need to be radically transformed. CoDesign aims to play a part in this transformation.”

We wanted to find out a bit more about Lucinda’s experience leading an organisation and most recently, doing so as an expectant mother:

As a woman in your field and a woman leading an organisation, have you come across any challenges since CoDesign’s inception?

There have been many challenges! Although I’m not sure if they have all necessarily been more challenging because I am female. Building and design is a fairly male dominated industry in general, although it is changing. I have faced challenges working in leadership overseas, where it is not expected that a woman is the technical expert, or the leader. This is a cultural barrier, but working in teams and working closely with local partners has helped overcome this issue.

And we hear you are expecting! Congratulations! We recently posted a piece on the challenges that Jessica Jackley (of KIVA & ProFounder) was facing as a pregnant CEO/Co-founder, including her investor’s doubts in her ability to effectively lead an organisation and raise a family. Have you run into any issues so far? How do you plan to balance the demands of running an organisation and raising a family? 

Being pregnant, and facing a new challenge of what work/life balance looks like, has brought up a number of questions for me, many of which I am still thinking through. I’m fortunate that my work with CoDesign is relatively flexible, and that we have a great team to keep moving things forward. The question for me is more of a personal one, about balance. I believe that our generation will need to redefine what being a leader and a parent looks like. It may require a new type of leadership, and to a large extent it will require both parents to be flexible and to be actively involved with the family. I still don’t know how it will work out, but I plan to return to CoDesign in some sort of leadership capacity.

In terms of partners and investors, they have generally been really supportive, more so than I expected in fact. While they have not questioned my ability to return to the workforce, they have asked me to demonstrate clearly the capacity of the team, and any interim leadership strategies, but this is understandable. In many ways this is a great opportunity for our whole team to step up and take ownership of the work we are creating, together.

Do you have any advice you would give to other women looking to pursue leadership roles or balance a successful career with a family?

Only that they should not be mutually exclusive. I hope that I will have greater advice on the subject later this year, when the realities of parenthood are a little more familiar. All I know is that women should not feel that having a family is a step back in their career, or that it makes them less of a leader. We need to define a new model for female leadership, and our generation is making great progress towards this.

What has been your proudest achievement?

Watching CoDesign grow over the past 12 months has been so exciting! While we have had a number of awards and grants, all of which I am proud of, the most exciting thing for me is to see emerging professionals from all over Australia and internationally start to take responsibility for community projects and for creating great cities.

Who inspires you?

So many people inspire me, each in different ways. A few key people are:

Tim Brown, Partner IDEO, who has been instrumental in redefining the role of design thinking for community development on a global scale. And Sopheak, a community leader from Phnom Penh who I first worked with on slum upgrading projects in Cambodia. His passion for transforming his community and the pride he had in his work inspires me continually. Sopheak is one of many community members and leaders we have the privilege of working with.

I’m also really fortunate to have great mentors and peers, whom I meet with regularly and would be nothing without their support and guidance.

Thank you Lucinda!

Today we share an anonymous guest post. A poem, introduced by the author. And a beautifully raw one at that.

Have you ever imagined finding those hidden letters your grandparents once wrote? Ever dreamed of reading them just so you could get a little closer to knowing them and who they were, how they expressed themselves?

Why does one even write a diary? Perhaps in the hope that one day we will read back and make sense of our mind that was searching for answers at the time….in love, in fear, in delusion….

Do we secretly hope that one day someone will find it and understand us? Is it a cry to be understood in this world of confusion?

 UNSENT LETTERS

What would the unsent letters to you say?….

I miss you but I’m trying hard not to

If you don’t “feel it” that’s ok,

I’m letting go, but not quickly.

Good times shared with you

fill my memories with smiles,

smiles that turn when I remember reality.

Reality being that you’re not here.

You’re not here now.

And although a piece of me is tempted to hold on and hope…

it’s only a small piece.

I could hold on and hope

but what good will that do me in time?

I love you and It’s hard letting go

but I realise I need to learn to let go

of the ones I love eventually.

Another unsent letter may….

Question what I should do

I could request that you stop sending me messages

but I’m afraid.

Afraid I’ll shut that door completely,

Although it’s hard to read your words of honesty

as it’s confusing me.

It’s good to know you’re feeling something now

even if it’s withdrawals you feel….

You’re feeling something right?

You’ve sent me messages of thanks and blessings

which I’m yet to acknowledge you for

so instead I call this the unsent letter

as I’m yet to be clear.

I’m yet to be complete of what we shared.

There are so many things that make no sense.

Accepting it for what it was and leaving it at that,

then believing in a future friendship in this raw state….

I don’t think I can carry that.

I’m strong but not strong at hiding

truth…..

It being that when I close my eyes and think of you

I remember your arms around me and mine around you….

“you’re good for me you are”

I’ll miss you and then I’ll move on……

and what will be will be.

 -Anonymous (22.12.2011)

When was the last time you expressed yourself through poetry?

Was it yesterday? Last year? In high school?

If, like many of us, it is the latter – we invite you to pick up a pen, let go and let the words flow.

Yoga – It’s graceful, beautiful…and hard work!

We may have just found our 2012 fitness inspiration. This is quite incredible!

Amanda Fisher is not alone in that she has travelled to poor countries, seen the devastating effects of poverty, fallen in love with the people there and wished she could do something to help. But unlike many, she has gone a step further, turned words into action, and created ethical fashion label Bachhara - an Australian-based line providing Bengali women with valuable skills, a living wage, and an opportunity to send their children to school.

With a high school diploma under her belt and dreams for something bigger, Amanda left her South Coast Sydney home and headed for Japan to live and study. She was soon offered an opportunity to work for an international non-profit organisation in India which eventually led her to the slums of Bangladesh and the Jaago Foundation – a free educational program for underprivileged children. Recognising the centre’s need for financial sustainability and drawing on her own creativity and passion for the arts, Amanda established a sewing centre, and then an entire fashion label, both of  which now serves as the profit arm of the Jaago Foundation.

Believing she could do more for Jaago from Australia, Amanda returned home to study both business and fashion. She now spends her time fundraising for the Foundation as well as running Bachhara from her New South Wales home where she designs each collection before traveling back to Bangladesh to help the women prepare each season.

The beauty of Bachhara, Amanda tells us, is that it has become a fabulous medium to communicate the stories of the women with whom she works and inspire empathy in those who hear them.

“The women and children of the Rayer Bazar slum are the most amazing and resilient people I have ever met. Despite having almost no material possessions, they go about their days with courage and strength. We all have the same needs at the end of the day.  We dream to fall in love, feel a sense of worth and purpose, perhaps create a family and lead a fulfilling life.”

What we love most about Bachhara is the way Amanda and her team view the women who work for them.

“I do not want to simply provide employment and skills.  Our lives should not be only about work and paying off debts. It should be about living, breathing, learning and loving. I want each woman and man to leave their job at the end of the day feeling respected and satisfied. It is my hope that fostering a sense of self-respect and dignity will affect that person’s partner, their children, and eventually their entire community.”

Amanda understands that not everyone will have the opportunity to travel to Bangladesh and meet the wonderful people she has come to love, so she aims to share the Bachhara story with as many people as she can. What’s really exciting, is that you can help her. 

You could host a Bachhara party with your girlfriends. Try on the gorgeous dresses, update your summer wardrobe and share the stories of the women and children of Bachhara. 30% of every dress supports Bachhara’s charity work in Bangladesh and as the host – you decide where the money goes. It might directly support  a child at the Jaago Foundation, buy a sewing machine, or help train the women at the sewing centre. Furthermore, you get 50% off your dress. (That is, unless you raise more than $500 – then it’s free!)

……………………..            

Hello again and happy new year friends!  We hope you all enjoyed the holidays as much as we did and managed to spend time with loved ones, relax, celebrate, and re-group for the new year. We certainly enjoyed our time off and are back feeling refreshed, recharged and ready to take on a brilliant 2012!

If you haven’t already, we suggest pouring yourself a glass of red/white/whiskey/tea – whatever your poison – and taking some quiet time out to ask yourself a few questions about the year that’s passed: 

• What challenged you? What did you learn/realise you need to learn?
• What were your accomplishments? What are you most proud of?
• What areas of your life would you like to improve? What do you wish you did more of? Less of?

Then take a moment to reflect on where you want to take your life in 2012. We find it helpful to think about this in backwards steps, starting with the BIG picture:

• What is your life legacy? How do you want to be remembered at the end of your life? (A little affronting, we know, but oh-so-powerful.)

• What are a few long-term goals that would significantly move you closer to your legacy? (You may like to split these into two categories – personal & professional. Eg. Being world-class in your field, financial freedom, a loving and supportive relationship/family, creating a magical childhood for your children, remaining fit and healthy in body and mind, life-long learning, etc.)

• What 2-year goals would move you closer to your long-term goals? (A promotion at work, winning that big client, beginning your own business, writing a book, a romantic holiday with your partner, spending more time with your children, taking up yoga/dance/a new language, drinking more water, eating less sugar, volunteering in your community, etc.)

• And finally, what can you do in the next week to move closer to your 2-year goals? (Maybe it is nailing a presentation at work, writing a business plan, writing the first chapter of the book, setting up a meeting with a new client, leaving a sweet note in your partner’s wallet/purse, a date night, a day off with the kids, researching yoga studios in your area, drinking at least 2 bottles of water a day, watching a foreign language film, etc.)

Whatever your goals, be sure they are specific, measurable, and in your control!

A vision board is another fabulous way to reflect on goals and be sure you remain focused on them throughout the year:

1. Get out the old magazines/newspapers and start looking for things that inspire you. Dream big.

2. Try thinking of your goals & dreams in terms of your career, health, relationships, education, spirituality, finances, etc. Visualise what your ideal life would look like and choose images or words that represent that on the page.

3. Put the finished product in a place where you’ll see it every day. When you are in need of some serious motivation or find yourself caught up in the daily grind, revisit your vision board for big-picture inspiration.

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