Christinaswwworld Unlimited

The view from my outdoor hotsprings water "bathroom" this month in Pai, Northern Thailand While my kids are away with their dad this month, I've rented a small house in the mountains north of Chiang Mai, near Pai - a lively and lovely small town that we've visited before. I am on my own with the intention to disconnect for a while. Since arriving 4 days ago, though, one lingering issue keeps disturbing my peace.  Some dear friends of mine in Uganda are facing a serious crisis.  What remains of the Life in Africa I founded in 1999 is a tight-knit group of self-empowering war-affected women who live in Kampala's displaced Acholi Quarter. After years of working together to learn skills that would serve them whenever they managed to move back home to Northern Uganda, the land in the displaced camp/slum these women live on has now been sold for commercial development. They now need to move back to Northern Uganda urgently, which is causing quite a lot of unrest...

The Ci2i Global group never ceases to soothe and amaze. If we've done nothing else together in the past 3 years of regular working group calls, we have developed a beautiful culture of being together in community with each other, even if we are spread out on all continents of the globe. What we continue to learn from each other - about our work and about ourselves - is an important source of inspiration and energy for all of us as we make our respective marks in the world.   I wrote about our most recent call at the Ci2i blog, where - among other things - we reminded each other how important it is to take each time for ourselves and slow down in order to maintain a sense of peace and presence.  See the post: LEARNINGS FROM A VIRTUAL CIRCLE OF CO-CREATIVE IMPACT PRACTITIONERS Enjoy the deep wisdom of these amazing social impact-driven women. 

It's just us 3 next year... From my facebook: So graduation festivities are over and much else has begun, or is in motion. My 3 boys are at this moment in the sky on their way to Holland and the US for the summer, marking the end of an era for our joy-hunting family - chances are high that we will never again all live under one roof as the 4 of us. Single mom of 3 boys is no longer part of my identity, as my first born leaves to live as a you ng man on his own, in another friggin' country, no less! I will see him again before he takes up residence in the Netherlands, but his stuff is with him in the air now - except his awesome sculpture class work, which just couldn't be packed It feels milestone-like, happening in the midst of more shifts happening (and asking to happen) at different levels. Only hours after the boys were gone I was coming together back to back with the  Evolutionize It  Board and my beloved  Ci2i Global  working group in skype gatherings t...

My birthday was yesterday, so today I am celebrating the successful launch of my 48th year on this planet, and the re-launch of a crowdfunding campaign for my dear sisters at Life in Africa. These are some LiA Members who recently learned to grow mushrooms together. They're part of a group of 35 war-affected women who are now urgently seeking funds to help deal with  another forced family displacement. Please know that your support to this campaign at any level will feel like an invaluable gift to me personally. If I could just give these ladies $15,000 myself, I would. I have known them for 15 years, and they are like sisters to me. They are soon to be homeless and really need the power of their networks to pull through for them now - not to mention that they are a wonderful group and their plan is a good on. This all means I'll be appealing more directly to everyone I know on this one than I normally do.  You're invited to a facebook event page where we can fol...