Both Susie and I are in China for the first half of July and since we have been here there seem to have been some momentous happenings around the world. Egypt has turned itself inside out again and there’s been a double plane crash in USA; Nelson Mandela lies at death’s door and a British man has won Wimbledon after a 77 year rest.

However while events have certainly been moving in the world that does not seem to be the case on my keyboard. I have sat down to write this newsletter any number of times and have been totally without inspiration but I doubt my writer’s block is going to make the news. However it feels like deep down everything is happening as it should; as our friend Pam Carruthers would say, the planet Mars is in retrograde and while I am not sure exactly what that means it is something like the fan, in its orbit, is getting very close to what should be in the toilet.

While I am aware of the happenings around me I still feel I am waiting, I am witnessing. It seems like there is a need for a little more ripening, a little more relaxing. There is this time in some parts of Africa when it gets really hot, so hot that everything seems to go into slow motion. People stand around searching for what shade they can find, often doing or even saying little. Many of the maize fields have been dug and planted, nobody much starts anything or in some cases even finishes anything. It is like the time towards the end of a pregnancy where you feel uncomfortable, so uncomfortable you just wait because it is all you can do. It is a time of patience, of keeping a weather eye out for those signs of the coming of the rains or the breaking of the waters.

In Africa the clouds build and become majestic, and now it is only a matter of time before those massive rain drops appear and bounce in the dust. The overheated earth drinks like a tormented man and the world seems to take another deep and long awaited breath or in the case of the baby its first!

The cycle has started and the wheel has then turned and life goes on and we must always remember to give thanks and have a little celebration at our part of being in the great dance of life. And hopefully the writer’s block has been washed away!

Love
Jeff