Being Generosity
Field Notes From the Final Days of 2025
In December 2025 I completed a Possibility Lab, a 5 day training where evolution of consciousness happens at the speed of the heart - which I discovered is pretty bloody fast! One process offered at the training was to choose our own set of Bright Principles. Bright Principles are the way consciousness shows up in the world, the many names of god, the many colours of love, the archetypal forces of nature that each being comes with a particular set of when they are born. I have not chosen my Bright Principles yet. I am first discovering how it really is to experience sourcing them in my day to day life.
Inspired by the zero in my bank account after completing my trip to the Lab, I decided I’d start my experiential research with Generosity. Possibilities such as the “father buying his kid mountains of toys and passing that off as love” were far from my current reality. So I put my money scarcity aside and asked, how does it go to be the source of Generosity? What follows are my discoveries.
My research begun, on the eve of Christmas Eve.
I met a homeless man while on the road. Being generosity, I figured I better stop and talk to him. With a innocent smile plastered on my face I asked him, “How are you going, do you need anything?”
He replied, “No thanks, I’ve got a coke.”
I was flustered that he rejected my offer of generosity. I tried again:
“I have some chocolate in the car, do you want some?”
“No, I don’t like chocolate” he said sulkily.
I got back in the car disappointed with my experiment. Something tasted off. I scanned the exchange I just created and realised I was not sourcing from Generosity at all. I was wanting the homeless man to give ME something. His aliveness, his center, so I could HELP him. Garghh!
Generosity is not rescuing a poor victim to make myself righteous. From my fear of continuing this pattern and passing it off as generosity, a new possibility comes: Next time I have the impulse to approach someone on the street, I will lead with my own authentic heart offer, “I feel scared to connect with you because …”
The next day we arrived in Marahau, where both mine and my partner Sebastian’s immediate families met us for Christmas celebrations.
I see how Generosity looks like little acts of care. Picking a particularly radiant blue flower for each of my friends and family. Offering a fresh grapefruit to my father whose always been delighted by their juice. Sharing my poetry with my mother. Telling a friend I love him.
Since returning from the possibility lab, I source Generosity with my clarity and feedback. My anger has turned up 10 notches and I have the fire to speak from my witch, landing generous and specific feedback in others about what they are creating in our relating space, and bringing magical experiments and possibilities to life, instead of cutting down my impulses with emotional fear.
When I begun writing this evening I asked my father if he would sit and write also, as he had been intending to start writing an article about recent experiences in his life. We sat side by side, typing up our research in flow and concentration.
Generosity is not about bowing to others whims and trying to cater to their needs. Generosity happens when I bring my own necessity, my desire to others, so that a space can open between us for creation to happen.
After 10 days of travelling and navigating extraordinary spaces, on Christmas Day, I surrendered to the generosity of the universe. Red brush of Rata, whimsical wildflowers, and bountiful citrus trees, flaunt the abundance of summer unabashedly. Gifts pour forth from family close and far away, and the table is constantly smattered with Christmas smorgasbord of rainbow salads, smoked salmon and sausages, cheeses, chocolates, meringues and fresh berries. In between grazing and games of Kubb, I lay under billowing willow trees with my lover, watch the clouds with whānau who debate whether that one is a dragon or a centipede, share stories from recent adventures and hear legends of ancestors, living and dead.
It was as though the bubble of generosity I had started evoking had popped and in flooded the loving gifts of the entire universe. I was swallowed in generosity, and my only job was to be present on this pleasure cruise of a day where all were conspiring to feed my heart, and let my bodies rest.
For Generosity to flow out from me it also asks I be in receptivity when life bears fruit, that I harvest what’s ripe and indulge myself so that love can spill over my edges and fill the space I am in the world.
On boxing day, Generosity looked like holding my father’s first EHP, and shifting identity into a spaghetti alien.
Generosity is being a yes to bring my gifts regardless of any self-doubt. My being was joyous to hold space for my closest male ancestor to undergo the initiation of removing an energetic block, despite occasional freak-outs from my box about holding such a vulnerable space for my own father. The process happened in a forested area tucked away in a corner of the busy campground we are staying at. The trees and ferns provide generous guardianship of the space while witch and wizard (Sebastian at my side) do our work.
The place where I have noticed Generosity generating the most power is when I am generous with my feelings. When my feelings express and abound in spaces they open up doorways to new possibilities for all in the space. Winding round the lush coasts of the Abel Tasman park, I followed my fear to ask dangerous questions to my friend I walked with.
“Why have you never had a partner?”
“Why do you think you tried to kill yourself?”
“What do you have to live for?”
As intimacy begun to crack through tough protective shells, I upped the ante and became an alien interviewer from another planet, letting go of all stories, and intent on discovering the world of the human being I walked with. The hour of conversation that followed was uncomfortable, hilarious and extremely strange. Generous questions make for magical encounters.
The next day I grieved the child relationship I had with my sister, and declared a new relating space. Since she and I left home and created physical distance between us our lives have been diverging, and when I had made bids to connect with her in the past things fall off pretty quickly.
Being the source of Generosity inspired me to try something new. After a recent process of walking through my underworld I had seen clearly for the first time the ways I had manipulated, blamed and belittled my sister as a child. One particular incident that I recalled was punching her in the head with a boxing glove, wanting to overpower and destroy her.
As we drove away from the campground where we had spent Christmas, I shared what I had realised about the ways I was secretly trying to destroy her in our childhood. I saw how even when I learned to “play nice” with her and make myself light and silly I had a hidden purpose to keep my parents happy and protect myself.
I declared that relating with her that way was over. I am now relating to my sister as who I really am; a witch, a healer, a dangerous woman, and generous too!
Working on editing the RAW Edgecast I discover more of what is not generosity. Torturing myself with expectations of keeping others happy and not letting them down is not Generosity. It doesn’t matter how “productive” I can be by pressuring myself - it is not Generosity when it comes with resentment, frustration and ultimately playing the victim. Doing what I think I’m meant to do out of spite, and hating doing it.
Generosity is a gift. It asks nothing in return. It is joy for the pure act of giving.
I experienced Generosity in a space Millicent held for me when I called to ask where she would be living in the near future, and to explore where I wanted to live. She delicately and patiently listened for my conscious fear, to find what information and possibilities I had been missing right under my nose. She pointed me towards the Generosity that was already present in my life right here rather than searching far away. I experienced her Generosity of being there for me without having asked for this navigation in advance, and her witches knowing that this was what I needed that moment.
The day came for my living ancestors to journey home. Dave wanted to reflect on the highlights of our time together. As we begun sharing, my fear started twinkling that something more was possible than choosing a favourite moment. The next round I brought the question, “In what ways were you generous during our time together?”
The men were generous with their honest communication of feelings and the information they had. I feel glad to experience the Generosity of men who are present and expressing their feelings because it is so much more fun to create with them!
It was particularly touching to hear the women celebrate their generosity. To put it simply - Jo and Wanda ARE Generosity. They weave the hearts of whānau with their sharing of kai, and care for it’s preparation, holding space for all to gather and be uplifted. These women embodied manaakitanga - a Māori concept that I am exploring since beginning research on Generosity. Jo was generous with touch, with her loving presence, with her radiance as everyone watched in awe her swim in the cold water alone. Wanda created games and space of play to share her own joy of life with others. She called others in to her creations, asking us to paint rocks with her, and making a personalised Christmas edition of Scattergories for us to play together. Wanda’s Generosity was creating possibilities for others young and old to join her in her present connection with nature, through creating a treasure hunt for children with natural objects, shining a light on the more than human world. I was generous with my questions - asking those which were truly on my heart, and I was generous with creating what I want - not adapting to space but creating from my own necessity and desire, sharing what was alive in me each moment with others.
Celebrating the generosity of those beings whose hearts I hold dear was a perfect note to say goodbye on.
My Generosity discoveries culminated in a New Years celebration at Canaan Downs - Sebastian and I volunteered at the Coalesce festival where I experienced Generosity happening at a multi-generational village scale.
On the top of the hill I saw Generosity in many cloaks and costumes. She looked like pitching in to take down tents, offering shelter to others, and lending an umbrella as the camp was pummelled by ceaseless sideways rain. She looked like plentiful pots filled with colourful delights for a potluck dinner shared by all at the party. She looked like one man playing guitar, singing, sharing stories and another man pouring us hot, sweet chai as we prepare lunch for the crew. She looked like ecstatic dancers breaking through boxes, moving bodies young and old in full array of expression. She looked like musicians weaving together, supporting one another, playing from their hearts to inspire and touch all. Looked like hours of cabaret, one after another out of the woodwork we come, each with our own flavour, a song, a poem, a dance, a message, a meditation, a jam, a rap, a trick. She looked like owning the stage, shining despite all terrors and doubts. She looked like spontaneous being appreciations, celebrations, workshops offering all manner of skill ups, crafts, and curiosities. She looked like a whole that was so much bigger than the sum of its parts. She looked like being a yes to each others creations. She looked like children living in pure experience, reminding and delighting us all with their presence and wonder. She looked like a chocolate fairy woman offering sweet medicine whether it be ceremonial cacao or Whittakers block to all those in need. She looked like men letting their tears be witnessed in circle, men getting out of the way so women can be everything, men taking a stand for clean water, for Papatuanuku. She looked like ceremony and offering, of Earth, Water, Fire, karakia and waiata, holding silence, chanting in unity, sunshine and finally, the warmth of a campfire.
I experienced Generosity in it’s purest as an infinite unending source of aliveness. Generosity is not in how many apples are on the tree, or how sweet they are. Generosity is the tree itself, it’s commitment to life, by living and growing and nourishing itself it can’t help but be the source of oxygen, nutrition, fruit and flower. And when a village is committed to regeneration, to life, it can’t help but be the source of creation, evolution and love.
