International Day of Climate Action

I’m behind the game on this one, as we’ve been so busy processing images after our phenomenal Soul Safari with Hills of Africa Travel, but this is too significant to pass up:

Our group visited Table Mountain on Saturday, 24th October, which was ‘co-incidentally’ the International Day of Climate Action, organized by 350.org. Here’s a photo that Dave took from the cable car of a group of dedicated rock climbers doing their bit!

TABLE MOUNTAIN - Cape Town, South Africa

This follows on from my previous post on Blog Action Day 09 (15th October), with the theme of Climate Change. Robin Beck (Lead Organizer for Blog Action Day 2009) emailed all of us bloggers after that, saying the following:

“You just took part in something unprecedented–with a 500% increase in blog posts about climate change, last Thursday was the largest coordinated climate communication of all time…October 24th is shaping up to be the most widespread day of environmental action in the history of the planet. All events are designed to do one thing: show the support for the most important number in the world: 350…the number that leading scientists say is the safe upper limit for parts per million carbon dioxide in our atmosphere. 350 is the number humanity needs to get below as soon as possible to avoid runaway climate change…Most immediately, 350 is the number world leaders need to lead with as they prepare to meet in Copenhagen this December to draft a new global climate treaty.

Hats off to everyone who participated in these events & especially (from our point of view) to the Table Mountain climbers…it was stunning to stumble upon such a dramatic display of support for our planet – THANK YOU!!

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Settling in after “Soul Safari”…

It’s great to be back home and settling in again after our phenomenal “Soul Safari” with Hills of Africa Travel. What an AWESOME trip it was, from the stunning venues, five-star accomodation and food, exceptional wildlife and cultural experiences…to the ten-star group of fantastic new friends!!

Our sincere thanks again to Sandy and Meredith for including us as the photographers, to Ainslie MacLeod (author of The Instruction: Living the Life Your Soul Intended) for the insight he shared, to our exceptional hosts at Madikwe Safari Lodge and in Cape Town, and to the rest of our fabulous fellow travellers, from all over the USA and Canada. It’s been a privilege and a pleasure getting to know each of them, and witnessing their delight in a first trip to Africa

The journey involved far too much on too many levels to summarize in a blog post, so instead I’ll include a group photo from Madikwe Game Reserve and one from Cape Point, as tiny representation of our two destinations, which so beautifully encompass the themes for my two novels, the African bushveld and the Sea, respectively.

SOUL SAFARI 2009 - Madikwe Game Reserve, South Africa

SOUL SAFARI 2009 - Cape Point Nature Reserve, Cape Town, South Africa

Now it’s all about processing…hundreds of images and hours of video footage…what a wonderful way to relive an amazing adventure!!

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Write with integrity

I’d like to share a snippet from Ainslie MacLeod’s book, ‘The Instruction: Living the Life Your Soul Intended‘ with other writers out there. For your reference, this book is available online here: www.amazon.com.

Ainslie encourages examining our desires, and establishing a balance that supports the soul’s purpose. He refers to the desires for fame (with the advantage of recognition) and immortality/leaving a legacy (with the advantage of achievement), mentioning these as possible motivations for writing a book. With humour he adds: “That’s not to suggest, of course, that everyone who – ahem – writes a book does it for that reason.”

The inherent advice is to focus on doing what you love and allow the rest to follow. He explains that “Something all desires have in common is that the harder you try to achieve them, the more they’ll elude you” and “The secret to overcoming desires is not to destroy them, but to master them”. The zen saying, “The moment you aim for something you miss it”, echoes this beautifully.

It begs the question, though, of how to approach not only writing a book, but also marketing it – especially in this age of social media and the ‘platform building’ explosion. My take is to strive for integrity, using the tools available to establish credibility and deliver a message to as wide an audience as possible, in the hope that it may be of benefit.

I’m scheduling this post for a few days’ time, as Dave & I will be privileged to be with Ainslie MacLeod and Hills of Africa Travel on their “Soul Safari”. We leave tomorrow for Madikwe Game Reserve, heading on to Cape Town…so will report back soon. Wishing you a fabulous fortnight in the meantime!

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Loerie Awards

It was awesome to discover that ‘Lucky’, the VW Golf 6 advertising campaign by Ogilvy Cape Town, won Gold (in the ‘TV & Cinema Commercials’ category) at the 31st Annual Loerie Awards held in Cape Town recently.

You may remember my previous blog post (Cheetah), which mentions the advert and ‘Lucky’, the phenomenal three-legged cheetah at its heart. CONGRATULATIONS to Ogilvy Cape Town on an outstanding job, as well as to all the other winners!!

Especially significant to us was that Draftfcb Johannesburg won a Silver Loerie Award in the Experiential category. This was for their internal marketing program, connectEd, which incorporates Twitter. Dave and I are particularly delighted about this because his son, Michael, was one of the illustrators on that campaign. WAY TO GO Mike & the rest of the team!!

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African Penguin Day!

Here’s an important reminder of a previous post: if you’re lucky enough to be in Cape Town THIS WEEKEND (25 – 27 September 2009), take a trip to Simon’s Town for the Penguin Festival.

For the first time ever, penguin-lovers will celebrate the 26th September as African Penguin Day!! This is an initiative of SANCCOB international, aimed at raising awareness of this “much loved and ‘vulnerable to extinction’ species”. The opening highlight of the festival will be a beach release of some African Penguins that have been rehabilitated by SANCCOB, which will take place at 10am on the 26th – be sure not to miss it!

The beautiful Boulders Beach Lodge website: www.bouldersbeachlodge.com has more information about this special event. As they explain: “ALL proceeds raised over the weekend go to support SANCCOB (Southern African Foundation for the Conservation of Coastal Birds)”, so please take a look

On this note, sincere gratitude and congratulations to everyone involved in the salvage operation of the Se Li bulk carrier, which ran aground at Table View beach earlier this month. As reported on News24 on Sunday, “the threat of “significant” (oil) spillage…has passed”, despite difficult weather conditions. In case you missed the Carte Blanche article on this, which clearly outlines the extent of the threat, here’s a link to it: Shipwreck.

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Synchronicity

Through a sequence of synchronicity, Dave and I are delighted to be joining Hills of Africa on their phenomenal “Soul Safari” in South Africa next month, as the official photographers.

This is a 9-day internal and external journey with celebrated psychic Ainslie MacLeod, author of ‘The Instruction: Living the Life Your Soul Intended’. He has been interviewed by Oprah Winfrey on her “Soul Series”, alongside the likes of Eckhart Tolle, Dr Wayne Dyer and Dr Jill Bolte Taylor – all of whom I consider as exceptionally inspiring, powerful contributors to our collective wisdom.

The “Soul Safari” incorporates 4 nights at Madikwe Safari Lodge in the Madikwe Private Game Reserve and another 4 at the Twelve Apostles Hotel and Spa in Cape Town.

As such, the trip perfectly represents the two underlying themes, and tributes, in my novels (see My Books pge of this blog). The first one takes place in Cape Town and centres around the sea. The subject of conservation is African Penguins (being critically endangered). In fact, our group will be visiting their colony at Boulders Beach! The second takes place on a fictitious game farm in the Waterberg mountains. It centres around the African bushveld and Cheetah in particular.

How amazing to have the opportunity to explore this more fully, both internally and externally. THANK YOU Sandy & Meredith of Hills of Africa for that! Also, my immediate family all live in Cape Town, so I have the added bonus of visiting them again

Incidentally, all of this has arisen from connecting with Sandy and forming a cyber freindship via blogging, facebook and twitter – just one example of the exceptional potential of the internet explosion!

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SMS…SOS

If you’re in South Africa, here’s a good deed for the day: SMS ‘SAVE’ to 39991 – it costs R10, which will feed a penguin for a day…even better, tell a friend, or many

Also, if you’re lucky enough to be in Cape Town on 26th September, take a trip to Simon’s Town for the Penguin Festival. More info at the beautiful Boulders Beach Lodge website: www.bouldersbeachlodge.com.

Ashes and Snow Exhibition

We watched enraptured when Carte Blanche recently featured ‘Ashes and Snow’. This breath-taking exhibition by Gregory Colbert has been viewed by millions of people around the world as “the most attended exhibit by a living artist, ever.” Apparently it may be coming to Cape Town next year, in which case I’ll be booked directly on a plane!

If you’re not familiar with it, the project “weaves together photographic works, 35mm films, art installations and a novel in letters”, capturing “the extraordinary interactions between humans and animals”.

In a word, it’s exquisite!

Go Table Mountain!

I just noticed a tweet on Twitter by @savenuescom, as follows: “New blog post: Table Mountain Tops Everest www.blog.sa-venues.com.” Have a read!

The gist of it is that “Table Mountain is one step closer to being named one of the New 7 Wonders of Nature…28 finalists to be announced on July 21, 2009, when the third and final phase of public voting will begin”.

Thanks so much to SA Venues for keeping us posted I’ll definitely be voting again!

The Magenta Penguin

I am blown away by something extremely special – kids in Cape Town helping conservation with The Magenta Penguin:

‘The Grade 2 class at St Cyprian’s Preparatory School wrote and illustrated a book called THE MAGENTA PENGUIN. 1000 copies of the book have been printed and the net proceeds from the sale of these books will be shared amongst the following Organisations: SANCCOB, TEARS and St Cyprian’s School.

Twitter was the cause of me coming across their site, so big shout-out to Twitter!! If you’re not on it yet, follow this link and I’ll follow you back: Twitter.

In chatting to my Mom, I then discovered that the books (with fluffy magenta penguin toys) are being sold (amongst other outlets and online) at Jenny’s Pre-primary Equestrian Centre in Noordhoek, where my niece does horse-riding. Wierd new world to discover this project courtesy of social media!