As a child I was quizzical about the biblical parables. Particularly the feeding of the five thousand. I was too young to understand metaphor, and even with age I am still making sense of the wisdom teachings from the wisdom traditions which use daily acts to explain complex ideas. So the story of the bread and the fish has been revisited, as I seek to summarise the distilled essence of my 2025 experiences.

When we have abundance, we have the gifts aplenty of the things the heart craves and delights in. When we can share what we have however small, the act of generosity expands into abundance for all. What seems like meagre rations - fish and bread - shared with a full plate of love, ends up as a banquet.

This year gathering with neighbours in Porto and wider locations in northern and central Portugal, has felt like delighting in feeling seedlings coming to life from beneath the soil, and starting a journey of growth. It’s been hard not knowing if the seeds I planted with my company, my books and cards and my residency process, in the dark but with faith, would ever sprout. I’ve had to dig deep. Very deep. Midnight lectures to myself - remembering my University professor as he coached me in public speaking when my knees shook. Conversations with trees asking for help from their roots, when I wasn’t sure if another wounding to my heart would keep me upright. Lemon meringue cheesecake double portions, when sweetness was needed to fill up the empty sweetness container in my loneliness field. For each knock, the counter balance has been gratitude. The gratitude counter once applied, amplifies the abundance scale and you are quids in. The abundance essence, comes from those other aligned humans who come on your path with the gift of their unique selves. Showing up authentically and with that curious look in their eyes which declares, that the magical and the mystical will always be the key to abundance.