Bornholm, October 2025
Dear Friends,
It has been some time since my last news bulletin, almost a year. Since, I’ve been busy, you’ve been busy and the chaos of the outer world seems to have exponentially increased. So, let’s shelter underneath the tree of life, Yggdrasil, and enjoy some quiet time.
In my last email, I announced the end of my odyssey with the release of a second volume: Pathways to Selfhood. Not surprisingly, after three years of navigating the phenomenology of consciousness, I experienced Mal de débarquement, the dizziness that occurs when we set foot on firm land after a lengthy time at sea. There was nothing else to do but to rest, before attempting to stand up and resume my peregrinations.
After the winter hibernation, alternating stretches of shedding the outgrown with periods of deep rest, I was blessed with several unexpected invitations. Late spring, I spent four weeks in Switzerland, a homecoming of sorts, a propitious time for revisiting previous chapters of my life that found their way into the first volume: An Archaeology of the Personality. At the end of my trip, I spent some time alone in Geneva where I had lived for 42 years. I thought I knew Geneva inside out and that I would mostly be rambling down memory lanes. Yet, much to my surprise, and utter delight, I was able to experience everything afresh, as if discovering Geneva for the first time through the eyes of the former bewildered child, now accompanied by a mature woman.
I returned to Denmark with the same sense of newness and joyful expectancy. New questions arose. How does the unannounced breakthrough change the story I tell of my journey to Bornholm eight years ago? Why am I really here? And what is the true destination? I am not talking of tweaking the goals carefully assigned to the vision that prompted me to settle on Bornholm. That is in the past now. Something new is shimmering on the horizon. Back on the island, I decided to cast off the ship I boarded to sail the odyssey. I chose to gaze, afresh, at Yggdrasil, the tree of life, first encountered when I landed here. Never mind the initial giddiness; rooted in the land receiving me, I would soon regain my balance.
The first insight received was to rewrite and restyle my website drawing on the archetype of the tree of life. This provided me with a fruitful frame for reviewing the past years and appreciating the harvest that has been quietly gathering in the basket. Hence the new name: The Fruits of Yggdrasil.
Love’s labour turned the mechanics of designing a website in to an art form. It polished my creative skills and acknowledged my hunger for beauty. The art form revealed by whittling a website has encouraged me to blend philosophy and spirituality in a lyrical-speculative form. It has reconnected me to the source of inspiration that propels my quest and keeps the conversation alive. Who would have thought that information technology could invigorate an intense spiritual quest?
This first issue of the updated Newsletter is an invitation to explore the garden of Cockaigne and taste the first fruits of Yggdrasil. You can discover the story of Yggdrasil Guest Lodge growing from the constraints of the pandemic. You can imagine the anticipated transition from the guest lodge to a Retreat Centre serving contemplative awareness. You can glimpse at the intentional Community House readying itself to arise in the ripeness of time. You can have a peep at the first produces gathered in the harvest basket.
My deep longing to engage in contemplation is now burning strong in my heart. As the website came together, I recognised that this longing has always been there, hovering in the candlelit shadows, seeking thoughts and words to pierce the darkness. Contemplation is not about absenting myself from world, but about drawing on the power of rest to participate fully in the mysterious experience of being alive.
I am currently designing, and testing, simple events based on silence, stillness and solitude that illustrate how a short, but sincere contemplative retreat enables us to remain steadfast in a chaotic world and true to ourselves. More on this in the November issue.
For now I leave you to wander, and wonder, in the found garden where contemplative awareness flourishes.
💛 Nicky 💛
4 Responses
Hi Dear Nicky
It is great to read your beautiful words again after a long hiatus. I was tempted to write to you over the last year but held back. Seems that was the right thing to do.
I have been over busy for the last year which is my usual ‘doing’ in life. Currently I am ‘doing’ a year long journey with Jeff Carreira and others and plan a subsequent year in January as it’s bearing fruit with our collective gradual opening to ‘Cosmic Consciousness’ that is always already within. I have recently discovered Rupert Spira and have thoroughly enjoyed his latest book ‘The Shining of Being’; The eternal Being within that is aware of the endless passing experiences of life.
I have been painting a lot and currently have 18 pieces on view at the local library entitled “A Trip To India”. I will send you images later when organized.
This showed up on my feed this morning:
” We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.”
—TS Eliot
Welcome back Nicky. Best wishes to John.
Love
Robert
Thank you, Dear Robert, for inaugurating this open space for holding a fresh conversation. I am looking forward to watching how this grows.
The TS Eliot quote ending the Four Quartet is a much loved piece. It reminds me of the circles of belonging praised by John O’Donohue. Ash Wednesday is another TS Eliot poem that speaks of all the ways we turn and turn again. In the circles of belonging we help each other see what still remains blurry and we guide our hungry eyes towards the “crevices and corners where the mystery continues to dwell glimmering in fugitive life” (John O’Donohue, from For Light).
May your voyage in the pleats and folds of Cosmic Consciousness be fruitful and rewarding in surprising ways.
Much love,
Nicky
Dearest Nicky.
What a precious unfolding! Thank you for journeying with life and sharing your steps along the way.
Like you, I am in joyful anticipation of the next iteration of Yggdrasil.
Much love to you, and to John.
Margaret
Thank you, dear Margaret, for your warm words and blessings.
As Yggdrasil sheds the last of this seasons leaves, it can now rest trusting in the turning of the seasons.
Much love from both of us
Nicky