Nature, Me, and Others

Here’s my story

How I enjoy being part of the Illumination community, invited by Dr Mehmet Yildiz! Reading so many great stories from a diversity of people worldwide is invigorating.

And although it feels a bit naked to write about myself, I’ll give it a try. Starting with my work and my writing. Leaving the personal stuff further down. You might have stopped reading by then. Hopefully…

My writing career on Medium started in May 2019.

Carefully dipping in one toe, getting sucked into the river.

Writing as such is not new to me, but writing like this is new. Personal. Snappy. Short paragraphs. Full of images and inspiring links.

You can say I’ve been a writer all my life. As a child, bookish was my middle name. Losing myself in words and stories. My studies got me into the business world as a commercial manager, communication consultant, and business unit manager. In 2014, as an international marketing manager for a high-tech company, I had enough. Basta!

A few years before, I had decided to combine what I did well in business with my purpose: a more beautiful world. I really didn’t know what I would be doing or how. But I needed to explore. Experiment. Find out.

Just before turning 50, I jumped on the freelance bandwagon. People said: “You’ll never find another job if it doesn’t work out”. But I felt free. And it still works out.

Sustainability became my new field of study, although windmills and solar panels won’t save the world. We need a radical change. But how? The Blue Economy gave me some answers and I started studying again.

Schumacher College in the UK set me on an even broader path until I found my own voice. So now I apply my own radical recipes to align the economy, ecology and the human spirit. We need human awareness as well as concrete action to make it happen.

I’m a fierce advocate of systems thinking. Everything is connected by visible and invisible threads, so our solutions should take these into account.

Together with many partners, we implement nature-based and technological systemic solutions in real life. My freelance playing fields are the Netherlands, Europe, and the world. I’m a permaculturist, creating food forests and healthy soil. I’m a Blue Economy Expert for the European Commission. And I write.

Writing is not new to me. In my jobs, my articles have been published often. I worked with many scientists, engineers, and creatives to mold their views into explanatory words, so their audience would understand.

Writing fiction has been a hobby. A fun one! When I was 26, my first fiction story was published in Cosmopolitan. I wouldn’t mind share it with you, but it’s in Dutch. My first language. So a picture will have to do for now. If enough people want to read it (tell me in the comments), I might translate it…

My father said: “It’s like Roald Dahl. I thought for a minute she was going to hack off his hands.” He got it. Creating suspense was on my mind. Looking back, I think Cosmo found it erotic. And the protagonists didn’t even take their clothes off!

The byline said about me: “A new talent”. My adrenaline pumped. I hoped something would happen, but it didn’t. No publishers knocking on my door. I stayed a promise. Fiction writing remained at the edge of my life.

In 2008, I won an award with a Dutch story “Geleend licht” (Borrowed Light). After reading it in public, a woman came up to me. She said: “I remember your story in Cosmopolitan. Something to do with buttocks?”

Yesss! I thought to myself. A reader who still remembers me! Hahaha.

An idea about the style — suspense combined with sensuality — can be grasped from this story.

From December 2019, my partner Mike and I traveled through Indonesia for three months. And there my story writing for Medium flowed. I’d never been to the tropics before. The sounds, the smells, the colors. Inspiration emerged like sweat on my humid skin.

Below I give a few examples of published stories on different subjects.

Sustainability and Systemic Solutions

My motto is: “Let’s restore ecosystems and learn as humans how to live within the boundaries of our planet”. It can be done! I share many examples and easy ways to look at the transition we are facing now.

Marketing for Purposeful Businesses/Writers

My stories about marketing skills are dedicated now to purposeful businesses. Often they are started by idealists who can use some marketing skills to become successful.

Nature

My big inspiration is Gaia, Mother Nature. We are water, we are bones, we are made to be part of her intelligent fabric. She gives me inspiration for business models, new materials, mindfulness, and quantum physics solutions.

Leadership

And in the end, it all comes down to leadership. Can we connect enough to nature, to ourselves and to others to make a real difference?

Getting Personal

So, now it’s time for some personal stuff. I honestly believe it’s important to be all of me. Everywhere. In business and in friendship. But my, that’s difficult! For me, it’s easy to be on stage giving a professional presentation. But when I have to get personal up there, sweat starts to come out of my every pore.

I’ve always worn masks. Now the time has come to shed them. The rationality-mask. The business-mask. The certainty-mask. Ms. Know-It-All. The more I know, the more ignorant I feel.

“Nothing lasts. Nothing is finished. And nothing is perfect.” — Wabi Sabi (Asian worldview)

Whoah, this is hell for a perfectionist like me! But I try. Getting better at it.

The themes in my life are emerging in my writing:

Rationality Combined with Heart and Bodily Awareness

Growing up in a very rational family and working for so long in all-men environments, I forgot how to be a warm-blooded woman. Then, some personal crises threw me into a deep, black hole.

So I had to learn. How to channel my emotions safely through my body. How to be sensual again. How creativity emerges from within. Sisterhood came. Friendships flourished. Young women entered my life as dear friends. The daughters I never had.

Nature was my companion during long walks and deep meditations. I decided to stop pleasing others. From now on I would live my best life. Just me. Alone. Following my purpose, my dreams.

Love and Family

Then Mike saw me. And I mean saw me for real. Like one person can see another under her skin. The decision to stay alone wavered and now we’re living happily together in an old, small chalet. At a campsite in the woods. A calm, simple life. Not much stuff. Just basic needs.

At the same time, it’s the most adventurous life you can imagine. We travel when people ask us for help with their projects. Stay with locals. Connect to people. We absorb the world like a sponge and write about it. And put our hands in the soil and the ocean where needed.

Of course, I skype and zoom often too…

Spirituality

When my sensitivity started to come back, I realized that spirituality can be combined with science. Should be combined with science in order to find real innovations.

Wonderful companies that use quantum physics for real-life solutions ask me for guidance. They purify water. They regenerate the soil. They provide renewable energy. I love them! They are ethical and ground-breaking and so important for a sustainable future!

Fritjof Capra, Leonardo da Vinci, Maya Angelou, and Brené Brown are just a few names of the many giants who inspire me.

Sometimes, my writing is inspired as well. The words just arrive. I read my own writing and am surprised. Did I write this? Magic, but I accept it. This is me. All of me.

Fiction

Fiction has stayed with me, during my travels through life. Many of my fiction is in Dutch. But here are some English stories. Always short stories so far. I love the short tension arc.

My poetry is sometimes in two languages. My mother tongue, Dutch, and English. I love languages and can feel them in my veins…

Well, my dear friends. I did it! This is me. All the rest you can read in my stories.

“Her character is known through her writing.” — on Felicia Hemans’ tombstone in St. Asaph cathedral, Wales

Reading your personal stories has been very inspiring for me. So please, let’s connect. Here on Medium. Or on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or via my website.

And if one of you wants to collaborate, don’t hesitate to ask. I’d like to experiment with writing stories together. So if our subjects touch or match, why not try it?