SATORI EARTH — A Courtyard Project with Lexi)

Super happy with this side courtyard — this was my little project with Lexi. This space was previously a messy nothing section, completely overtaken by weeds.

This section sits directly beside my newly revised laundry room. I lost and donated my old laundry room and original clothesline to the back flat (tenanted / Airbnb) as part of our recovery strategy post-separation. I’ve been badly needing a proper clothesline, and just a neater, calmer courtyard space to step out to.

Lexi and I carved out this section together. We cleared it, laid weed mats, slowly trenched the brick frame we wanted to wrap around as the outline of the courtyard, and then wheel-barrowed gravel in bit by bit.

Thank you to our dear friend Martin for helping us finish digging the trench and cementing in the clothesline poles. I really wanted to do this with Lexi instead of outsourcing it. There is a different level of gratification that comes from being hands-on with small projects like these around the home.

—PLUS, it felt like this land was calling out. It wanted to be looked after and related to in a more personal, conscious way.

This property — which we now call SATORI EARTH — began revealing itself not as a trophy home, but as a living system asking to be related to differently.

This land had previously been shaped as a trophy home: visually impressive, but largely disconnected from nourishment, purpose, or relationship with the land itself. Not a single veggie garden. No functional spaces oriented around living, creating, or growing.

She — SATORI EARTH — felt like she wanted to be seen and used with intention.

I was raised a city girl, but always a country girl at heart. In many ways, SATORI EARTH’s history mirrors my own.

There was something deeply healing about this renovation process — redefining my relationship with our home from being simply a landscaped suburban house (which had been the case for every home I lived in previously), to one where connection with the land, its energy, and its essence became central.

Every house I’ve lived in has had its own personality and energetic signature. The healing and light energy on this property is particularly strong and palpable. The house sits on a gentle hill, surrounded by two small forests, a long row of tall trees, and pines. Nature holds this place.

I feel that the way I was raised mirrors this property’s earlier life — largely unseen, expected to perform and look presentable, yet lacking a deep, grounded relationship that supported authentic growth and development.

This is not a unique story.

In my work with children, teens, and adults, it is far more common than not to see people raised in homes shaped by unconscious parenting — where relationships carry unprocessed trauma and inherited baggage, rather than conscious guardianship.

A conscious home is one where parents understand their role as stewards of another human being’s development. Where parent-child relationships, and the partnership between parents themselves, are geared toward seeing, recognising, and optimising each person’s talents and fundamental needs.

A home that is safe, growth-oriented, and conducive to becoming fully oneself.

I feel that this land — SATORI EARTH — wants to be used for a particular purpose. The healing and creative energy here is strong. The land responds visibly to small, intentional projects like this courtyard and our enclosed veggie garden.

Next, I’m reorganising our two front studios. Art and sculpting classes, along with nurturing and creative day retreats, will resume on site in the coming months — hopefully before summer.

Very exciting, SATORI EARTH.

This land is dedicated to healing, creativity, and rebirth.

P.S. I love magnolias, gardenias, and this fire plant. Claiming these small pleasures for the first time feels significant. Having magnolia trees and gardenias planted around this courtyard — which opens right beside my bedroom — feels like a real act of self-love.

This feels like the beginning — not of a renovation, but of a long conversation with land, family, and what it means to live consciously.