NEW MOON POST
The purpose of this blog is to position the book “The Nature of Belonging” as a catalyst of action through exchange of ideas and responses to its contents. The book took form through responses of Vincentians to local radio commentaries based on observations of daily island life, and subsequent urgings of listeners requesting the material be written initially as newspaper articles and later compiled as a book. The blog now serves as a collection point for responses to the book and related activities that can lead to the next important stage, action in our communities that can transform latent awareness into growth towards a wholesome sustainable culture.
Steps taken on this journey into the Nature of Belonging have worn a narrow path winding its way against the overwhelming tide of consumerism into a consciousness of possibilities of connection – the blog is a collection point, each comment, a tangible fibre building the structure of our togetherness. The Naturalbelonger blog is a community of hearts belonging to a sustainable future and yearning to build it together.
Congratulations for an excellent publication, Vonnie. It was well worth the waiting.
many thanks Jules, without your encouragement it would have taken much longer!
You have been instrumental in the natural unfolding which, like nature herself, could not be forced. I look forward to a continuation of a different stage of the journey as the Nature of Belonging reaches those to whom it Belongs!
Well Done Mum!
The book is getting rave reviews here in London. All the best for the launch. Would give anything to be there…..
Love Marlon
you have given more than you can imagine and you are here
Exquisite:
“…worn a narrow path winding its way against the overwhelming tide of consumerism into a consciousness of possibilities of connection – the blog is a collection point.”
As always, beautifully said!
I am ecstatic to see this phase begin!
Abundant Blessings!
How fortunate we are to now have access to The Nature Of Belonging! May we all be awakened !
The dark/new moon is almost here, preparations are underway for new beginnings. Give thanks for your comments- they are stitches that build the Quilt of Belonging. We are stitching and stepping a path of creative adventure together. The moons watchful eye is twinkling!
Vonnie, I am looking forward to getting my hands on this book. It sound exciting. Congratulations! Keeping on doing the good work.
Congratulations! Can’t wait to get my hands on this book. Keeping doing your good work.
TO AN ARTIST BY HEART AND SOUL.
Congratulations once again Ms. Roudette. I am so proud of you, words can never express. This book is indeed one that should be cherished by Vincentian as it is a work of art created to show Vincentians what they could not have seen individually.
Th
Greetings Natural Belongers- it was an amazing New Moon gathering at the Gardens, in the Curator’s House and for many who couldnt squeeze inside, out in the grounds.
Thanks for coming – you all made the evening memorable, bathed in New Moon glory and gifts of nature- hope you enjoy reading and doing, and may you walk in rhythm and step with the moon.
Lets us know how your roucou seeds are doing
one blessed love
……”the transience of a most memorable moment at the gathering was the culmination of momenta initiated many moon cycles ago”….It was a pleasure to have shared in your moment. Continue your many momenta, for WE need the permanence of the wise words!
i feel blessed to have trod d many
steps to belonging with such peaceful warriors who know the way. you are gifts graciously bestowed…..
the Nature of Belonging paintings will continue to hang for the time being in the Curator’s House, more positive and inspiring gatherings will be created there soon- keep tuned for date, time, and moon phase.
Vonnie
CONGRATULATIONS its a long hard road to get anything published and much more so in the Caribbean, so I have an idea of what you would have gone through.
Wished I could have been there and NEED to get a copy of the book!! Hope I don’t have to come to Vincy to get one!
Vonnie,
I am so sorry that I could not make the launch. The tourism business is a 24 hour business I’m afraid…
I wish you every success, and congratulations!
Kay Wilson,
Indigo Dive.
“As a society, we treat the earth and agriculture, the art and science of the soil, as something to be cleared away, not something upon which our future rests…” these thoughts are on point for me, having decided to leave everything behind in the u.s. to live in svg, has been the best decision of my life thus far. i read the “seeds of culture” to ras this morning, and i will include one essay each day as part of our daily affirmations. vonnie, we give thanks for your inspirational thoughts now inscribed in “The Nature of Belonging”. thanks again for inviting us, sharing your wisemind n the roucou. ras planted some of the seeds directly in the ground at villa. we are saving the others to plant at edinboro. oh, i love your use of wo/man in writing your essays, re-affirming the divine in both beings which makes us still one. much love an prosperity.
empress, ras yacob, khady n cheikh
What an inspiring evening Vonnie. As a fellow creative mind, my soul was enriched with treasures that cannot be described. I am half way through the book… Thanks for being ‘OUR VOICE’. Blessings in the name of the ARTS, sister.
Was no better way to spend an evening, outstanding, thank you and congratulations Vonnie for sharing..go girl. I will plant my Roucou seeds today, up mountain full ah water; i have to get my copy before it rains. The Curator’s Cottage an ole page with new story..wow energy.. dreams fulfilled. Magical new moon.
Congratulations mum!
I can’t express how proud I am of everything that you have done. It seems that years of hard work and lack of appreciation and recognition have finally paid off! You and your book have broken into territory scarcely travelled by the Vincentian mind and the reverberations of your work are bound to be many fold.
As the medium through which a new creatively catalyzed era of social consciousness has been channeled, St. Vincent is ever grateful to your pivotal contribution to its development.
Wish I could have been there for the remarkable event!
All my love
You were there my precious, we all find thought-form between the pages and between the mountains, sea and moon.
Congrats once again Ms Roudette for yet another magnificent job. I enjoyed the book launch and realized that i was surrounded by creative thinkers! However this book launch has only given me a more motivated mood for being creative. Thank you Ms Roudette and keep on giving encouragements!
Thank YOU- your motivated mood is my encouragement
I caught myself analysing the paintings of the new moon and find some very fascinating aspects of them. I am pretty certain that everyone who was there gathered something on the paintings and i am sure as we read the book we will be more creative to our environment … continuing the chapter in life of being focus and of course creative!
Robyn your copies and those of other Trini kindreds have by a wave of synchronicity landed in Trinidad- your thoughts materialised, the book finds its way to where it Belongs!
just as precious comments made by loving spirits find their community of voices, leading the way into more adventures of moon filled journeys.
Safiya insightfully studies the paintings, chapters unfold and pages turn. Ah! the beauty is all ours. Live it!!
I now fully live the new moon launch through your comments, exploring what many may think has passed but what we know has just begun.
What excitement in belonging!
Yo Vonnie, I thank you for my copy, I feel blessed and humbly proud to belong, to have been born into this Caribbean Creative Circle of time and space. The Power of One be with you I-tinually.
All Our Relations
john john
How can Negativity survive in a globalized world of positivity?…..I know where i am going to put the energies of my life!….let’s keep standing firm as sentinels of creative consciousness….introduce this movement to another friend! SOON!
Vonnie,
Massive apologies for not being able to attend your event! Work is crazy for me right now with moving into a new place! But I gather from people that it went very well and was a wonderful experience! I have seen your book and have leafed through it and it looks incredible! So, many many congratulations for all your hard work and accomplishments! You deserve wonderful things in this life! I am going to try my utmost to make it this week, but please forgive me if I don’t! Best of luck with the rest of your incredible journey! Much love to you xxx
Give thanks – I know you will be there be(fore)long. Hugs my precious hard worker.
NATURE OF BELONGING READINGS: The first of a series of Nature of Belonging readings will occur on the first quarter of the waxing moon this Wednesday, 21st April between 4 and 6pm at the Curator’s house Botanical Gardens, the same space of belonging that lovingly sheltered the New Moon Launch. It will be the evening before Earth Day and we will reflect on the significance of this day of this moon cycle.
On the Full Moon of the 28th at the same time there will be a guided tour of the Nature of Belonging painting series. We will take a visual journey together and discover another dimension to our nature of belonging.
Be present…..Belong.
I believe that a creative thinker thinks positively and uses different types of media to express themselves whether it be sad, happy, mad, and the like. Ms Roudette, I believe that you have given not only yourself, but also others the motivation to be creative and express ourselves. And the book launch has given us a deeper thought of being creative. I however have a question, why is being a creative thinker so much fun?
The creative pattern shines within all youth!
I think you have answered your own question Safiya- it’s fun because it shines! Like the sun and the moon and the stars!
wow, well done Miss Roudette, I’ve only started reading it, but, so far its remarkable. Looking forward to finishing it, when i do, ill make another comment of my overall thoughts, and when i do finish it, I’ll be looking forward to the next book, youths need something mind grasping to read these days, keep us out of trouble, when a creative thinker writes something it inspires other creative thinkers to read and act, we reflect on it which keeps our minds churning, we need these sort of things to keep us on a certain intellectual level in terms of creative thinking, creative thinking is always thinking and observing and thinking about the observed and unobserved, the known and unknown.
i hope everyone gets to see the world the way we do and appreciate being a being as much as we encourage it.. thank you for everything and i cant wait to get my copy!. so sorry i couldnt be there but wednesdays moon wud not miss me, i must moonbathe.
J
Ah! It’s so good to hear the vocal chords of youth ringing out! We know you all want to create great works, I am thrilled to be with you on your journey, it’s a challenging but joyous one. It’s essential for the whole, that youth are a part.
Of course you will recognise your Selves in Nature of Belonging- and your quotes are in there- did you find them yet? What moon phase are they in?
Special Guest of Honour, our National Living Treasure, (P199, Bountiful Moon) Lawrence ‘Captain’ Guy will attend our reading on the waxing first moon quarter on Weds 21st. He will share with us what Earth Day means to him. He has lived through 90 years, many earth days- how many moons is that?
Vonnie my Sister, your book launch and art exhibition was a new breath of life for a building with so much history, but which had suffered abandonment for many years. In a sense for me that evening was a new spiritual blessing of the building because of all of the positive energy and positive people that you brought to inhabit the building for just a few hours [because of the Goddess that you are]. I am happy that your paintings are there giving futher history to the building by telling their story of how and why we need to cherish and live in harmony with our nature. Thank you for your expressions in “National Hero or Dangerous Revolutionary” about how we uplift Chatoyer and not the ideals he fought for.. as we continuously kill the nature around us with no respect or regard for her. Thanks for the roucou seeds they are planted in Cane Garden and hopefully bringing forth life as I write this. Can we find a way to let nature lead and us follow? Keep doing what you are doing my Sister.
Give thanks for words that reinforce the importance of qualifying our relationship with nature. In truth the paintings are seen as part of that story by revealing hidden aspects of our homescape. Starting with what is tangibly before us, they tunnel the depths of our imaginations and lead us straight into the arms of mother nature, where we belong. But there are more wonderful mysteries we shall discover together when we take the paintings’ journey on the next Full Moon. With eyes and hearts open wide to mine the depths of our Belonging!
Beautiful processing of thoughts on the waxing quarter meeting in the round with Captain Guy. Garifuna Sister Nelcia lovingly embraces our generational connection in a tribute to the great man who consistently honours earth culture through a lifetime of many moons……
and this is Sister Nelcia’s tribute:
Greetings
It was such a lovely interlude. I look forward to many more!
Here is my dialect tribute to Captain Guy:
CAPTAIN GUY AND EARTH DAY
Captain Guy say
Who is the Teacher
Who has Knowledge?
Yo bound to fail
If yo don’t
Respect each odder’s story
And thank those
who show yo the way
Imagine Captain Guy say
Chemicals destroy
we plant variety
An how even though
he Ninety
He does diversify on
half acre a lan
processing cassava,breadfruit an more
an harness de energy from de sun
Captain Guy have a lament
He want to pass on
de skills
Yet de people so critical
Some tink he
want to be
a millionaire
Odders say he mad
The people today
don’t know de history
Odderwise dey won’t tink
is government alone
to do development
People Yesterday
used to have
dey own factory
in dey backyard
Everybody used to Wuk
Today everybody
want ting easy
Dey get so specialised
Dat Carpenter wuk today inferior
Cause dey separate from nature
So, let we keep de circle going
an appreciate
an learn from Nature
Give thanks my sister, your presence is here to feel and remains part of the belonging that continually r/evolves
My question is:
Why is EARTH day only a DAY? Happy Earthday or Happy Earth Life?
Today an address presented to St Josephs Convent Marriaqua graduates contained messages of youths creating change within their environments and inspiring eachother. They have the power, we are merely the conduit through which their own knowing courses.
Their yearning to belong naturally worn innermost, they carried it into the hall under their blue gowns and hats. What joy to have played a part in memories that say ‘be doers of the word, not just listeners’. That is what they chose for their graduation theme and so that is where their belonging lies, due to be discovered.
We graduate every day, every moment, every moon…..
A visual journey through the Nature of Belonging painting series will commence on the full moon of Weds, 28th at the Curator’s House 4-6pm. This is so exciting I cant wait to share with those present, the inner story of the paintings for the first time.
Having evolved through a very personal creative process, I know they now belong to all of us and those who came before, as does the book, reflecting our collective experience and connection with the nature of our belonging.
The moon was once, not so long ago, a prominent feature of community life. Her phases influenced community activities and her presence is the paintings, as they came from contemplation in moonlit nights.
Hope to see you there,
be present …… Belong
I found The Nature of Belonging genuinely touching, especially the tilting at the consumerist hurricane battering St V. I was won over also by Vonnie’s ability to retain hopefulness for the place through her nature/divinity and youth enhancing world views. It seems an honest coming to grips with a place that could not have been easy on her and her family, especially in the early days. From the turn out at the launch Vonnie has clearly won the wider community around. In the book format each of the pieces read like lay sermons – with lots of ‘good advice’ – but that is no bad thing given what I suspect is the relatively short concentration span of the average Vincentian reader. The outsider’s perspective clearly helps’
…ev re time mee feel like mee beelang, sumwheer, wid sumone…sumting cum rung an sen mee spinn in into dee deeep grung…YOU my sistren von-i, tek all dem holes wey mee mek an slow lee set yuh spirit seeds an sprinkle dem wid soul, sweat, sugah, art, heart, harmony, live E T, love an lite…now ah gardian garden grow in deeep inna wee dark…hed in wee to wards dee mooonshine kindred kine…one rooot-strong at ah time…
mannas an respec…
bops
deeep peace of dee mistik mooon to you…
bless…
bops
CONGRATS again Vonnie! Still anxious to get my hands on a copy and looking forward to seeing you soon – and seeing the book in Guyana, Trinidad, Barbados . . .
Big love and respect
Oonya
Hello Ms. Roudette,
I am a young Trinidadian who is in the process of reading ‘Nature of Belonging’. I read sections everyday on my long bus ride to work and I feel truly inspired by your work. As a young person living in an urban area I feel trapped and claustrophobic at times. There used to be lots of trees in my neighbourhood and there were lots of neighbours and elders that I looked up to. However, all of this community is rapidly disappearing.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts and ideas with the world.
I enjoy your work so much!
Emily Fitzpatrick
Thank you so much Emily. I am delighted that you connect with the message of Belonging that’s in your heART. Across the seas, we are linked through a similar yearning. Please keep in touch with us through the blog. I would love to know which essays resonate with you most. one blessed love
You are truly stirring the creative spirits of many people around you – how wonderful is that.