As you may be able to tell from the lack of posts, there hasn’t been much time for details. Eventually they will come… for now, a little about the new stuff.

I first heard the word Skinship one day in Korea and it struck me immediately, I thought it was at the same time culturally meaningful and absolutely adorable. I loved to just hear the word! Through countless discussions I discovered that Koreans thought that Skinship was first, a part of the English language, and second, that it was a well understood concept. So it was a mutual delight to explore the significance of Skinship from within a conservative society on the move. Christophe found me shooting one night in Itaewon and our Skinship study on camera was born. Thanks to him and Ahn Sunok we were able to draw a little Skinship insight from some friends we met in Hongdae. As always, it’s a real pleasure to visit a day in the magic of Marsha Taylor in one of our favourite inner Seoul neighbourhoods.

The 100 Friends Project is the culmination of one man’s life exploring the developing world and his desire to help. We call him Gold-Marc. It’s an understatement to say he is a lively character, famous for his 100 faces, entertaining people on the road and us with his endless stories. It was a beautiful trip into the Kham, a rare opportunity to connect with the people that we did, a challenge to keep warm and to find something to eat other than yak! We covered a lot of rough terrain with loved Tibetan friends who will always remain in our hearts.

Freeing Ourselves is a special piece to me because it encompasses much of what I feel closely connected to. Gentle activists and founders, Peggy and Jo, developed Pun Pun as their living contribution, one that has organically evolved into a living example of an alternative lifestyle that fulfills on many levels. You can see very easily that this life brings much more than just finding ways to cope with the scale of environmental degradation going on these days. It is not merely about sacrificing luxuries that we are accustomed to, but it touches our very basic human nature, what it feels like to live with the land and to experiment with ways of developing this kind of life, a very liberating existence in itself. Addressing food in particular on the farm, Pun Pun is a living seed center, saving and propagating indigenous seeds to contribute in their way to the greater preservation of a healthy diet. People are drawn to their community to share and learn, discovering real happiness in a simple life, sharing it with others along the way. Like getting together with some friends and hand-sculpting an earthen house, this piece is a sample of what can happen when a group of people come together. I would like to thank the Pun Pun crew that you see here, everyone who participated in this documentary surprise, everyone who sat down with me to share their thoughts and their discoveries so openly and unself-consciously on camera for us all to see. To me, this is what it’s all about.

All the best to each of you as a fresh new year comes.

with love
Lisa

Pass it on

all yummy and warm bundled up in my mummy bag moving through the stunning freezing daily cobalt blue skies of Eastern Tibet,

under the blurry Chinese skyline wondering if it will ever one day clear you’d think all those electric bikes would help a community out though they can’t hear them coming,

up on top of the magic platform of an earthen masterpiece with panoramic sunrises and sunsets, the ebb and flow of the full moon overhead with starry eyes and special new friends in Northern Thailand,

dreaming of white water rafting as I move feet first on a cross country train,

at my friends place with its notoriously incessant construction in this city that we lovingly call the cock with all its glaring contradictions…

I like it but it drives me crrr-a-zy..

so after a moment to celebrate the lovelies that exist here all around me, laughing over the table with my boys in our little glass house on the quiet soi next to the neighbours green swamp slime instead of grass with the background of a lilting cummingbird, gow-wow…

my randominatrix daze of eastern vagabondage is coming to hot and humid wintery close.

and not without a timely drop into Seoul just as I get back to the delayed release of the delayed release of skinship,

much love from the land of smiles….

now I am goin underground in the garden to get ready for you the fun things we do.

-lisa

Pass it on

This is the beginning.

Pass it on