2025 – and half way through already!

I am clearly rubbish at writing an online journal – averaging less than one entry a year!

So just a quick up date from me:

SPACE TO BE retreats still running see: spacetobe.info

NEW PUBLICATIONS:

• Social Business in Action – Trigonos in Eryri – published by Y Lolfa in February 2025 – see home page for details
• Revealing & Concealing – just printed (also by Y Lolfa – a great local publisher / printer) – see home page for details

With two publications in 4 months, I feel a bit ‘written out’ so very glad to be pursuing my growing interest in collage soon to involve a 5-day summer school in Contemporary Collage at St Martins College of Art in London in August 2025… watch this space… the next journal entry may be a collage!

And (just in case you are wondering) MACHYNLLETH – the ‘ancient capital of Wales’ and now a small market town where we moved during the pandemic in 2020 – is a lovely and lively place to live… with its myriad of groups, range of independent shops, craft cooperative, range of ‘alternative’ approaches to wellbeing, a modern art gallery, concert venue and well connected by bus and rail… HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!

Maybe I’ll see you here sometime…

This business of re-inventing oneself is ‘interesting’!

In short bursts of excited activity new opportunities pop up and new directions of travel are identified. But there is always what has gone before lurking nearby to keep you stationary…

This year it has been a great pleasure to work on compiling a new publication entitled: Light, Warmth & Life: Exploring the Textile Work of Eta Ingham Lawrie and to launch it together with an exhibition of her spectacular wall hangings at Trigonos on June 5th.

The book is available from Trigonos (www.trigonos.org)

Also Trigonos-connected – the regular SPACE TO BE retreats are going so well that I have decided to create a new website to explain and promote them more widely…(www.spacetobe.info) this will be going live in early July – hope you like it!

Meanwhile there are a few places on the up-coming retreat in September (22nd to 25th) – contact Trigonos (www.Trigonos.org) if you want to book or contact me (ros@rostennyson.info) if you want to know more.

Look forward to hearing from you about these things or in response to any of my writing on this site…

There are still a couple of space left – early winter is a wonderful time to be at Trigonos in Snowdonia  – offering dramatic landscapes, quiet spaces, warm fires.  The S2B retreats follow a simple principle of working together within the small group (up to 7 people) to co-create the programme. Usually the agreement is to offer lots of space for quiet reflection or individual activities held together by early morning and evening meditation, gatherings of the group 2 or 3 times during the day and some lightly structured group activities, if wanted. The latter, to date, has included story telling, journal writing, exploration of the senses, mapping pathways from past to future…

Want to know more, feel free to contact me.

There are four more dates for 2022 – go to the Trigonos website for details.

One way of looking at my past 2 years, is to see it as an on-going experiment in letting go. In some ways, letting go has always been easy – I am notorious (with those who know about it) for ditching diaries, emails and paperwork when they have served their purpose. I am uncomfortable with clutter whether physical or mental. Similarly, holding on to any ‘intellectual property’ has always been anathema – perhaps because I believe we stand on the shoulders of giants and any insights or new ideas come through us, not from us. So we really have no right to a sense of ownership.

Nevertheless, having let go of a leadership role in two projects that have been very important over many years has given me pause for thought.

https://partnershipbrokers.org 

https://trigonos.org

So many people (including those that I thought knew me well) have said that I must find it hard to let go (they assume I feel possessive about projects I have created and carried for so many years) or that I must feel sad about stepping back and / or moving away. But I really don’t feel either of these things at all. I actually feel relieved to be shedding responsibility, combined with a kind of objective curiosity about the future of the work in which I have invested time and effort.

Above all, I try (rather late in life!) to exercise the discipline of simply waiting to see what comes next – whether reigniting interests from the distant past or welcoming something entirely unexpected from the future. Patience never having been my strongest virtue (understatement) this is a new experience and whilst on some days I find it challenging, on most days I find it completely intriguing.