Collaboration (spread the love!) by Angel Young

Where is the line between collaboration and protecting your own work? It's certainly a thing I've been pondering lately.

Italian Street Artist Collaborating with the Highways Department!

Recently I attended a real time class with someone I greatly admired, an artist who's work really has such a great vibe - you know the ones I mean, where something universal runs through their art, regardless of the medium, and you can feel the purity of the universe has been combined into that piece or poem or dance, whatever! 

But the course was a bit of a let down because the artist was reluctant to share those techniques, worried we would copy and undo the considerable body of study they had undertaken.

I can understand the concern, but it seemed to me that was a profound misunderstanding of most artists' intentions. We all are trying to tune into our muse, and let the universe flow through us, and because each of us is unique, the creation is by necessity, altered. What I am trying to create is very different, even though I'd hoped some of the techniques would prove useful. After all we all "stand on the shoulders of giants" and spark off each others' creations.

I'm wary of claiming ownership in this way in my work, I see that I am channeling that universal vibe, which combines the current moment, and all those moments which have lead to that one. It's the nature of the creative act. And I expect those that follow will do the same. Rather than feeling ownership I feel honoured to have inspired others. Imitation opens the door to a revised version that speaks to another generation. To be creative is to be at the cutting edge of life. So for me, share your work and share the love. Don't be fearful, and trust in your version of the vibe. See what comes after as your collaboration with the future, and the atoms that made your work exciting will be reinvented a thousand times into the future. And that is the gift of collaboration, knowingly or otherwise. Let's share the love! It makes the world a better place.

Angel Young is resting in Venice this week, amongst a thousand layers of history and collaboration.

Harvest by Angel Young

Milling the grains, old school!

I wonder what you have been planting In the spring, that brings you now to a point of harvest? I'm finding it's a bit of a mixed bag this year. My word for the year has been gentleness - doesn't that sound good! But truthfully I'm learning the need for that the hard way. For while I have planted some exciting seeds (more of that in a moment) I have also planted over work, too much travelling, not enough rest and time off, and now I'm wondering why I'm so tired and my back's playing up. So I am digging up these weeds, or at least trying too. I'm listening to my body more - meditating / allowing my pain to surface. This week, a revelation! My back was full of the stress of my GCSE exams from over 20 years ago (you takes these at 16 in England & Wales). I could feel the emotions from that time release, and I realised that the impetus to keep going then was informing my choices now. It seems so ridiculous to me that I have allowed that to happen. But I was blissfully unaware. So I am being more gentle. Allowing my pain to surface. I am planting healthier seeds that will be nourished by more rest, less travelling for work, less giving of myself to breaking point.

So my exciting seeds are, planning a trip to Italy, going on a course with textiles artist Cas Holmes - her combinations of stitching and layering blew my mind in Open Studios in June (http://www.casholmes.textilearts.net/). (Open Studios is where artists open up their houses so visitors can see how they work and meet real live artists!) Also I'm hoping to go up to Norfolk and Suffolk to take photos and do some canoeing in October. A bit more fun to balance out the working hard. Hopefully your year has been better weighted in 2013. What adjustments do you need to make for your own harvest?

Angel Young is resting in the UK. You can see her photos here.

The Quiet Hero by Angel Young

I've been pondering on heroes - I'm not much of a hero worshiper, never got really obsessed with a pop group, and I've been struggling to really see who would be good to put forward - aside from the obviously marvellous Jamie Ridler!

Kindly the universe has obliged with a gentle reminder of my artistic beginnings. Andy (my husband) and I have just got back from Latitude where we've been selling Andy's Jewellery. Latitude is a really fantastic festival - a bit like Glastonbury but smaller (a mere 35,000 people) and more diverse with lots of poetry, literature, art, comedy, film etc as well as the music playing until 3am! We had beautiful weather, worked our socks off, and had a really great time. Andy's my hero too - at every opportunity he says "I am a silversmith" he puts us shy-of-our-talents ladies to shame! But I digress.

A lovely lady came to my stall, and she seemed familiar, but it was because she looked quite like another friend of mine. But then she spoke, and she spoke just like my textiles and art teacher from High School. And it turned out she was my former art teacher, from like 25 years ago! My favourite teacher from school.

And Miss D. is a hero of mine. Naturally creative, Miss D could easily draw, paint, batik etc just as you would want to - with a bit of flair. And she challenged us, made me spread my wings a little bit further, encouraged us to be bold. And created this sanctuary in the art room, where we could retreat at lunchtime, and allowed us freedom to explore what it meant to produce art in lots of different mediums. What a gift. I just wouldn't have had the courage to explore my creative side without this basis back there in the mists of time. Quietly, working behind the scenes in my brain, is the groundwork put in there by Miss D.

Today, it turns out that Miss D is painting full time. How wonderful is that! So, to my rediscovered hero, Miss D - thank you! I genuinely wouldn't have survived without the sanctuary of creativity you instilled in me, and many others, all those years ago.

Angel lives in the UK, and is enjoying the summer plotting some lovely textiles projects.

Getting Unstuck by Angel Young

Angel lives in the UK and currently loves her Medium Format camera.

Mishaps, low points, and finding a way forward by Angel Young

I think there's quite a lot of variation in the doldrums. From a small mishap to a full blown low that can last much longer. There's a quote I love from a poet called Tony Harrison - he says something like "I know the darkness. The darkness is my friend." It's a good thing to remember when you are in the middle of it. It is a friend. A part of the transformation to the next step or the next understanding. Oh but it's so hard to come to terms with in the moment!

The first thing is to feel it out - is this me / or have I absorbed some feelings from someone else?

Second thing is - is this what I would call "environmental" - ie it isn't you really, but something in your environment. I find that can be quite broad. So think small first - if I move my room about will that help? Have I had enough fresh air / exercise / food etc. Do I need to smudge the house to clear the vibes?

But it can also be much wider. A good check for that is - are all my friends facing similar questions / doubts? Sometimes the universe sets a question and leaves you in a quandary to work it out. At the moment I know quite a few people, including myself, who are having to face up to our own self care. Sometimes you find everyone is arguing. Or that everything you try to progress becomes like walking through treacle. When it's like this try to detach. It's not personal! Let the process evolve, but try not to fight it! Or as little as possible. :) Take some time out. Look for the hints of where it's been going wrong, so you can make the small corrections needed.

Of course, sometimes it is personal. It's good to have a First Aid kit ready to deal with that in advance - so you can have some strategies ready to go. So what helps, what works? A bath? A trip to the cinema? Meeting with friends? A reiki session. Have a think - decide what is good for you.

Whatever happens remember it will pass. It's ok to have a natural pause. Like winter, eventually spring will return. There's no need to fight the ebb and flow of the creative seasons. A way forward will emerge.


Angel lives in the UK and currently loves her Medium Format camera.

A little trip back to myself by Angel Young

 

OMG the winter has just been so long here this year! Just grey skies, rain, cold. So a little trip to Berlin was just the thing. Four days visiting my friend. Mind you it hadn't been better there, but I timed by visit with the start of spring - I brought the sunshine with me :). 

You know I hadn't quite realised how tired and worn down I was. It's so easy to get into that place unwittingly isn't it? To let day to day life overwhelm everything else, even those little breathing spaces where you can pause. 

What was great about this trip was its lovely balance between seeing my friend and having some "artist date" time on the days my friend was working. It was so great to wander the streets with my camera just exploring the city. I didn't really feel the need to go in the tourist attractions. It was enough to be outdoors and reconnecting with my creativity again.

After a little dither, I decided I would go and see the Bauhaus Gallery. If you're not familiar with this it's a school which ran through the 1920s & 30s. It was a melting pot of innovation in its day, and when war came its designs were scattered to the winds, and it's tenets run right through into modern design.

But, wow did it spark for me! The weaving was exquisitely coloured and patterned; the pottery had an edge to it; the copper sculpture twisted; the chairs were - well classic Bauhaus! But most importantly for me were those little colour test grids, those colour mixing experiments they converted into carpets and fabrics and painting - a new approach to design. They just spoke to me! Suddenly I could see how you could extrapolate that into my printmaking. These simple colours painted some 90 years ago still had the power to spark the imagination. I got home and I've started those old colour mixing experiments. It feels new and exciting. 

A little investment of time and then all that lovely creativity can rush in. Where will you take an artists date and breath some fresh air into your creativity?

Angel lives in the UK and a rediscovering her paintbox this month.

The Empty Room by Angel Young

Sometimes the room is just empty. Uninhabited. And uninhabited for some time. Above is a photo I took in the Yukon, at Fork Selkirk. We had been canoeing for days already and there were still many ahead of us.

The action of canoeing everyday really pares everything down. There is paddling, making camp, making fire, preparing food, eating, sleeping, striking camp, and paddling. Don't get me wrong there is beauty and wildlife and fresh air and lots of good things, but basically everything boils down to the basics. There is not the energy to write a journal, nor read a book and there's no broadband or phone signal out there in the wilderness. But the space was restoring in some way. It ordered my thoughts, even though I was unaware of it. It settled my always upset tummy. My health improved (in spite of my high chocolate consumption). It restored my soul.

And with creativity it's the same. It's an empty room. It's an awe-inspiring trip which is also exhausting. Creativity needs periods of no productivity. This informs the other times. After I finished my Art MA, I literally did no art at all for 2 years. I had given everything and it was time to focus on resting - on refilling the room.

So if your room is empty, go with it. Let it be. Stop fighting your natural fallow season. There may be nothing happening on the surface but the dust motes are settling, the room is breathing, exhaling. And that's ok. When you are ready your creativity will, of course, return.


Angel lives in the UK and is looking forward to warmer days.

Travelling and The Art of Finding Your Place by Angel Young

Acceptance. It's really the key to finding your place in the world. It's that recognition that you like this, but not that - you like to draw in charcoal, but not pencil, or you like Fuji film more than Kodak. Or hot countries more than cold. We all spend some much time trying to fit in with how we think we should be. But this doesn't take us closer to our soul, but further away from it.

Until my early twenties I felt like I just didn't fit in anywhere. I couldn't find my place, but I couldn't seem to squish myself into the hole I was supposed to be occupying either. I imagine this feels quite familiar for many creatives. In a way that's to be expected - I'm a great believer that artists pave the way for society to follow, as they navigate the not-so-comfortable cutting edge.

With creativity comes sensibility. A sensitivity to the world, or your medium. That's the thing to embrace. Finding your place is all about where those sensitivities can flourish. 

I've been thinking a lot about our place in the world, as we start to tidy up our house to put it on the market. We've packed some of our clutter away and I miss it already. It's not that we're going far, but I do feel a loyalty to our 1870s house, with it's lovely open fire and cosy "workers" cottage feel, and a front door which opens straight into the living room. Still I'm looking forward to the perfect house coming our way, with enough space for creativity and kids and still room to swing a cat. 

But while the move will be important, I know that for me coming home to myself often involves a journey. My nomadic soul loves to move and somehow this brings me closer to myself. I find it can be very creative. The journey shakes away the stresses of day to day life. It provides a hiatus that allows the words to flow, or the inspiration of a different perspective to come into my photography. And I love the silence that travelling can bring. 

But I didn't really find my place until I went to India, one of the noisiest places on earth! When I arrived I was an over sensitive person who cried too much. By the time I left I had begun to connect with who I was for the first time. The difference? In India being "tuned in", having a spiritual take on life, is normal. I met loads of people who were just like me. They interacted with the world like I did, and then gave me the language and tools to start working with the sensitivity that had felt so wrong up until that meeting. I learnt to meditate, to use and trust my intuition. To understand I wasn't imagining the things I "saw" "knew" "understood" beyond the normal world. I accepted my true nature. 

Don't get me wrong it was not the easiest journey - not physically nor emotionally. And it's been a long road too. India was my beginning. It opened the door. But I couldn't have survived in this world without the skills I learnt there. I like to say - I met a monk and it changed my life. It's true. It did. But the reason it did was that I was "seen" as I truly was for the first time in my life without judgement or rejection. Today, try to set aside the judgements you have about yourself and just respond to your own preferences. Allow yourself to be as you are, and that will take you closer to finding your own place in this beautiful and complicated world. There is, after all, room for us all.

Angel lives in the UK and is dreaming of a beautiful new house in which to thrive.

I love myself! A short guide to self care by Angel Young

Today I want to write about love of self. It's a particularly hard topic for many of us. Being creative often means being super sensitive and then it's just sooo easy to be too aware of everyone else and their emotion. And then somehow you do what they want.

But what do you want? And what do you need - as a minimum?

I must confess this is work in progress for me as historically I have dealt with self care by
a, working until I fell over
b, shouting at my nearest and dearest (sorry darling)
c, subsisting on chocolate
d, crying a lot.

Oh dear.

Still I am a lot better. I know my triggers. And I understand that sensitivity so much better. So this is my very basic guide for folk like me who need it spelt out slowly!

What's important?

For the Body....

Eating. Breakfast. Very important. Then there's less temptation to eat sweet things that actually make everything worse. Get breakfast right the rest seems to fall into place.

Regular breaks when you are working. Maybe 10 mins every hour. It gives everything a chance to relax. Give yourself permission to do this. It's especially important for home workers who perhaps don't get the dilution of office banter. For me a cup of tea then later lunch - not too late.

Exercise. Oh yes. Great if you are a natural gym bunny. If not trying walking or swimming. Our local pool has ladies night too which is really nice.

Fresh air. See above re walking but get out into the natural light every day.

Sleep. Get enough. Enough said.

Personally I travel a lot for work, but the same is true. Enough breaks when driving. Hot bath when I get home. Down time.

For the Soul....

Meditation. There are lots of guided meditations online. (Meditation Oasis is good if you are a beginner. Here's the link: www.meditationoasis.com. You can also find them on I-tunes.) Or just sit and still your mind. Feel each part of your body. Acknowledge each part and really feel any discomfort. If you have emotional discomfort, or have absorbed someone else's, sit with that too. Feel it and it will dissipate. Acknowledge when it isn't yours. Over time this process makes the world much easier to deal with. Also it creates a sense of time and spaciousness in a world that suggests we are always running behind. Take back some of that lovely feeling of having time. Don't rush.

Inspiration. A good blog you like. The satisfaction of making scones. A magazine. The small things which cheer your day. Or the local places that inspire you. I love Charleston Farmhouse. Former home of Vanessa Woolf, sister of Virginia, and several other artists and key thinkers from WW1 onwards. Every surface is hand decorated - the walls, the doors, the lampshades (made of pottery). A hand painted naked lady reclines along the side of the bath! Check it out: www.charleston.org.

Morning pages. Or for me, evening pages. Never been much good in the morning! So even a paragraph can be helpful. I like to add little sketches into mine of projects I'd like to do. It helps. It's a pleasure.

Space. Do you have a "room of your own"? A corner? A cafe? I'm really missing this since I do my day job at home and it's subsumed my creative space. We're hoping to move house so we have a bit more breathing space. I'm trying to learn to work elsewhere. It's a kind of meditation in focus and patience. Do what you can. Stand outside for a moment and look at the moon. Sometimes a deep breath is all we need.

This isn't the only answer, but it the one I'm working on for myself. See what fits for you, and what you would do differently. Remember to allow time to observe how you behave before you try to change. Change sticks more when you take it slow. Most importantly be gentle with yourself. A bit of forgiveness and self love go a long way.


Angel lives in the south of England and loves writing and photography.

Start by Angel Young

Start now. It's January. The traditional time of New Year's resolutions. The trick is to choose small things. You don't need to map out your whole life right now! How about one thing? After all a little light can build into something brighter.

• Maybe buy some flowers for yourself
• Or do a little sketch
• Or workout how to get your stuff on etsy
• Or draft a blog post
• Or choose a supportive word for the year
• Or just take the time to dream a little, to start making new world in your own mind. It's a pleasure in itself.

Sometimes it's also about stopping. What can you stop doing? Watching too much TV, working too hard, prioritising everyone else above yourself? Maybe just pick one thing and see how you get on. No need to get dispirited as change has moments of flow and moments of stasis.

The main thing is just to love yourself - start respecting yourself and your own needs and the rest will follow. Maybe the answer is just to start there.

Angel lives in the UK and loves film photography.

Winter Pause by Angel Young

Sometimes it's just too hard.

It's been like that lately over here. Several family members have been diagnosed with cancer, and have been facing very tough times. Work has been soo busy - I travel a lot, and I feel like my feet have barely touched the ground. I've been trying to iron out some health issues of my own.

Wow I feel tired.

I'm the sort of person who normally keeps going until I fall over. Now I have a few days of breathing space it's starting to seep out of me. I just haven't had the time to do anything creative at all. All I can do is let go. I'm allowing myself, perhaps for the first time in my life, to take an easier option, to not work as hard, to finish earlier, to go out for lunch. I'm not quite sure where this ridiculous work ethic stems from. Sometime in childhood for sure. But I'm getting older, and hopefully wise enough to see that I can't please everyone all the time, and no amount of effort on my part can fix everything. It's difficult for me to be in this place - normally I'm a getting things done, taking people with me sort of person. But for now everyone will just have to take themselves, and I'm going to continue to rest until I feel whole again.

It's really a winter feeling. Packing up, folding myself away until the renewed energy of spring arrives. So here's a picture to remind us all that winter is about quietening down and being still.

Angel lives in the UK and is hoping for snow this winter.

 

River Sparkles and Other Truths about Who You Are by Angel Young

Identity - what does it mean? The dictionary defines it as "the fact of being who or what a person or thing is". 

Mmm that kind of helps. But how do we know what we are? 

This is a pretty big question. 

So what is identity actually made up of?

When you're a kid (at least in the UK, and I'm assuming it's like this other countries too), there's an emphasis as you travel through school about what you want to be when you grow up? It was phrased as if this was to be a fixed thing, and I guess for previous generations it probably was - you'd be a bricklayer, or a dentist, or a journalist, and that was how you would be defined. I find this pretty strange because everyone would also have had the things that were important to them, like politics, or gardening, or poetry. Right now I'm sitting in Glasgow where there was a huge socialist movement and great tradition of education among its shipbuilders. But how many said - I'm a socialist first, and then a shipbuilder?

I do the same. I say, I'm a surveyor. It's an easy role to play. Instead I could say, I'm a photographer, or a healer, or a vegetable gardener. But I don't. I wonder why that is. 

Granted I still spend more time doing my job. But it's more than that isn't it? What would it mean to start with the things we're passionate about? Am I ready to declare my true identity to the world?

Mmm there's a clue there too - so, for me, my true identity is what I'm passionate about. And because I care about those things in a different way from my job, they are more personal, and I'm therefore more protective of them. I think that might be the nub of it. Protection. We conceal our true passionate nature because we don't want to get hurt. This is probably based on very real experiences where our tender dreams have been stamped upon. But what's important about this is how we deal with that protection. It's completely ok to protect your passions from others who might be less than supportive. Just as long as you are not protecting yourself from those truths. Be really honest with yourself about these deep core things. It completely ok to be a bricklayer who loves ballet, a shipbuilder who's a socialist, a dentist who likes shamanism. How about being really truthful with yourself about those passions - where would that lead you?

When you are ready you can take the middle ground - hey I'm a surveyor, but I really love taking photos! How amazing would it be if we all started doing this! Then the world would be full of conversations about what we all really care about. 

Now I feel that the first part of life was about learning to live by the rules, and this second part of life is learning to break those rules - to allow our true selves to surface and know the world can stand that truth too.

I wonder how the previous generations would deal with this now, if they were given the same opportunities we are being presented. Would they turn away from the collective identity of work. What would they do with their 'one precious life'?

So start small. Write a list of what you really love. Mine begins:

Printmaking

Folk music

Photography

Art

Vegetable gardening

Reiki

Deep talking

Snow

Warm fires

What about you? Tune in to what you truly are, and see what unfolds from there! 

Angel lives in the UK and loves photography, snow, deep talking, reiki, shamanism, warm fires, friendship ..... love.

Paddle Strokes and Feeling Safe by Angel Young

Andy and I are quite different - a classic case of opposites attract. This became very obvious as we canoed through some of the Yukon's rapids this summer - Andy's response "Wasn't that exciting! Let's do it again!" Me: "No thanks that was scary not exciting at all!". We seem to have such a different approach to risk taking: Andy is much more gung-ho, while I'm more cautious, more of a planner.

In creativity Andy has launched himself into silversmithing like a kiddie jumping into the swimming pool, feet first. He started describing himself as a silversmith without any qualms at all while he was still just taking the baby steps of his practice. Now he's been made redundant from his job he's turning his passion into a business, giving it all his focus.

Me, I've been wobbling about with my creativity for years. I want to be doing it full time, but can't get going at all. I don't do much actual creative work (although I seem to do a lot of washing up). I struggle to claim the titles associated - photographer, artist, printmaker, craft maker, even though my friends complement my work, and keep suggesting I phone Ikea to see if they want any of my pics.

I'm starting to wonder if this is a question of gender. That there is something inherently focused about Andy's approach, the way he can ignore the dishes and the hoovering, that he is happy to take risks and finds them exhilarating. I'm programmed to play it safe, to keep the boat steady, to protect the situation as it is, even if that's not what I actually want.  I'm guessing this is even stronger for women with kids to look after as well.

I'd like to think I'm miraculously going to be more Andy-like in my approach! But instead, back in the real world(!), I'm trying to understand what's needed to provide the level of safety I feel I want.  

I've started by working out what the risks are for me, aka what's getting in the way. Here's my chart:

All this time I had really thought that money was my main barrier, but it turns out those emotional concerns are stronger. Thinking about it more I realised I wasn't actually getting to a safe place with my work, so the money thing couldn't really be considered until I had. If I felt confident about the creative works I was producing then that would change my feelings about money and any risks I might be taking. That's not to say that finances aren't part of the equation, but for me they are a part-gremlin at the moment, masking what I'm actually worried about.

So what are the factors I'm worried about? What's holding me (and maybe you?) back?

Competence is the first bit. You have to have faith in the work you produce. This is why it's called a practice! Here's my chart for that:

So what is needed to feel safe?

Emotional Space & Time

I realise that personally I really need "percolating" time, or artist's dates as Julia Cameron calls them. Space to be inspired and let the normal day to day thoughts subside. For me this produces more work, and the attrition of doing the work breeds confidence. I have to start with the space, the inspiration, otherwise I just end up imposing other people's ideas and priorities onto my work rather than giving it a room of its own. This gives me the faith to believe my work will stand on its own, and I can defend it if I need to.

Physical Space

I'm lucky enough to have a place to work in, but this is obviously a factor for many - we all need a safe place to produce our work. How can you find that in your life? Is it the cafe on the other side of town, or a log in the woods, or a corner of the kitchen table? What about longer nourishing trips? The wilderness really does it for me - there's something in the silence that gives me room to breathe. 

Perspective

The next important step is the backwards one. Look at your work from a distance: actually is it enough? If you had perfection what would it look like? Will most people even see the flaws you find? Check in with the final piece of the puzzle - intuition - are you ready to step forward now? What else would you need to do so? Just the exercise of asking these questions helps you focus in - maybe you are ready now?

Intuition

Intuition is also the mysterious force that inspires, tells you to go right or left, red or blue, or to paddle the Yukon and marry the mirror of your personality! Learn to heed its signs. There's a lot of good books about this - Martha Beck's Follow your own North Star is a good place to start, or if you prefer fiction, The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho. 

So even as I write this I see I'm further down the road than I thought, and now I recognise this I can share my creativity with more people, feeling happy(ier) that it's of sufficient quality. 

A bit of safety lets me stretch a bit further. What can you do today to help you feel safe in your work, and build for there? After all paddling the Yukon, well the 460 miles we did anyway, was a journey built of a thousand strokes, and in the end you get there, safe and sound.

Angel Young lives in the UK, and is enjoying the late summer sunshine.

Of Fluff and Journeys by Angel Young

Well - the truth is I'm a bit mixed about completing stuff. This stems from a moment of tiredness after my university finals, having trudged through too much Charles Dickens, Chaucer and other greats of the English language - a feeling which became almost a vow - not to continue reading books which are not fun or interesting to me, even if they are worshiped by others. It's good to not feel the obligation to complete everything. Liberating! 

Then there are things that do need to be completed - a quilt for my friend's new babe, a cushion for my aunts, a painting for my friend - these things are full of pleasure!

Then there are projects which may be completed, like my novel. My cousin, who assisted with some Danish research in 2007 for this doesn't quite believe it, but my feeling is it's just taking a bit of time.... And I'm ok with that. 

Then there are things that I can't seem to find a way through. That need time to stew. That are annoying and frustrating. That make me cross. It's really hard to step back from those projects. To know when to push and when to walk away, or at least let it rest. Patience, for me at least, is hard won. I'm still working on a solution to this, trying to trust my intuition. It's all I can hang onto in these moments. Stepping away now....

Finally there are wonderful, hard won completions - that feel amazing, and even in the hardest parts you can enjoy the journey. I guess that is the core of it - the journey itself needs to be rewarding, it needs to have a bit of zinginess about it. Those are the paths to really follow. Those are the paths that have a destination. Other projects are steps on that path, but focusing on the projects that speak to you, regardless of what anyone else has to say will ensure the things that need to get done are done. And that's enough for anyone. The rest is just fluff so you can let it go! Liberation is the key here, and of course, not to be too cliched, the journey is the destination so love the road!

Angel lives in the UK, and is proud of canoeing 460 miles of the Yukon river in Canada this summer. Then you really know the journey is the destination!