Notes within a dream garden

 Memory jars I listened to a podcast called 'Diary of a CEO' and the guest speaker was Jim Kwik, an entrepreneur and memory expert who is the CEO of Mindvalley. Jim suffered a brain injury when he was a child and for the rest of his childhood he believed he was incapable of achieving great things in academia and career. This was further cemented by one of his school teachers telling him and his entire class that he was the boy with the broken brain. Jim eventually broke out of the negative beliefs he had constructed for himself over the years and started making new affirmations. Today he is one of the foremost experts on memory retention and affirmation activation. He states his life's mission or overarching guide can summed up with a simple ven diagram. This diagram, which conveys powerful concepts, is represented by three areas: Mindset which is comprised of possibilities, capabilities and belief; Motivation comprised of purpose, energy and small simple steps; Methods co...

Tokyo Godfathers Studio Ghibli made a huge impression on me over the years as have other sources of creative forms. My love for Japanese culture and subcultures run deep. From animation to fashion, gardening and philosophies, I have an appreciation of old world lore and rituals. The imperfection of wabi-sabi and the infinite connected energy of kintsugi (gluing broken artefacts together and painting gold over the join lines) is all that I needed to know for me to wander in the valleys in the land of the rising sun. I have always felt a sense of rejection and incompleteness when viewing Western media and seeing how lifestyles and products are pedestalized. In reality I was more than complete and needed no validation to affirm my being. Japanese cultures tend to be whole heartedly entrenched in the pursuit of achieving a concentration of power where the authenticity and subliminal coincide and  produce a language few dare to exchange...if you know you know. It's no wonder Western com...

Goethean Observation We were introduced to the Goethean observation method of phenomenology during our Design for Sustainable Futures subject block week at Montebello in Newlands. Phenomenology is a form of qualitative research where the researcher places themselves in the first-person point of view to experience phenomena as it is with no influences other than one's self. For the Goethean observation we were instructed to immerse ourselves in the Montebello ecology and experience our surroundings through all our senses. The exercise lead us to observe an area or plant species and through the different stages of the observation we worked through a multi-sensorial practice of self development. We calmed our minds and observed without bias the physical part as fact exactly what we saw. We bathed in the beauty of natural environment and let it speak to us not us telling the environment what to be. I then started to see the environment reveal itself slowly with all forms of life connec...

This week our Group 1 hands in the assignment we have worked on for a month. I have discovered more about biomimicry and how to view the world through a lens of biomimetic methods. The most important lesson for me is learning how to listen to my group members and work together to achieve a common goal of providing effective solutions to our challenges at Montebello, the other lesson I found profound was to immerse myself in the environment and shut down all my preconceived notions of what I thought was true. The link between human centred design and biomimicry is placing yourself 'in your shoes' of the 'user' you are studying and feeling real and true empathy so that your senses can become one with your environment.  It is a welcome relief from the distraction of the synthetic world where we run around clock in order to pay bills and make deadlines. This experience at Montebello has made me question how often I actually spend time in nature, admire and absorb the genius...