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The voice within

As a child I was very intuitive. I instinctively knew things, and often had premonitions. But growing up my intuition got drowned out by other voices. Being an analytic philosopher really didn’t help. Because I couldn’t frame any of it in logical terms, I didn’t know how to explain it. My inner voice was still there, telling me things, but I no longer listened to it. Einstein once said: “The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.” I was a living example of that. But last year I read the beautiful book A Still, Small Voice by Echo Bodine. Once I embraced my inner voice, it became louder. Now that I’m learning to trust my intuition, life is much simpler. Things just happen without effort. Not only did it guide me to the sweetest creature, but also to my new home. For the first time in my life I no longer seek advice from others to make decisions. Why would I? I have my own inner wisdom.

Paws in the mud

When the world overwhelms me, I return to the ground. I sit and connect to my breath. I feel the mud between my toes. Stretch in the sun and follow the sway of the wind. This practice is not about perfection or performance — it’s about remembering. That I belong to the earth. That my body knows how to listen. That motion can be a kind of prayer. This practice draws inspiration from Daoist traditions, a way of returning to harmony with the natural world. Movement is rooted in connection — with the elements, with animals, with the living earth. And so, for me, dance is not choreography — it’s the body’s natural delight in motion. It’s how I listen, how I remember, and how I return to belonging It’s a living practice. One that listens. One that responds. One that belongs to the changing moment.

Outside the walls

For many years, I walked the halls of distinguished academia, formally trained in the rigorous logic of analytic philosophy. The key to writing philosophy, according to some, can be found in Ernest Hemingway’s quote: “Know how complicated it is, then state it simply.“ But in my experience a lot of philosophers have a really hard time doing precisely that. Most philosophical texts I read were riddled with jargon. That is, obscure and often pretentious language marked by circumlocutions and long words. I found most of it unintelligible. Like Philippa Foot said: “Ask a philosopher a question and after he or she has talked for a bit, you don’t understand your question anymore.” One day I decided I no longer wanted to be a scholar. As Walt Whitman captured so beautifully in his poem When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer… I no longer wanted to sit in a lecture-room, so I wander’d off by myself in the mystical moist night-air. These days I sit quietly in my hut and listen to nature.