Paradise, with lamb

It has been a really wonderful week. Two days of work with a group that was tricky, but very grateful, a day at NZCER, and then a Friday that was so beautiful it makes my heart ache to remember it. It has been full spring this week. Tuesday in the Botanic Gardens (where the workshop was held), I walked through stands of tulips and under flowering fruit trees. Friday I walked along the beach and felt the sun hot on my face and I was moved to tears at my delight and good fortune.

And then today, there were more lambs. We went to the house of a colleague of Michael’s. They have a lovely cabin about 20 minutes away, on a plot of land that stretches three paddocks from the road to the river. There are flowering trees, lovely green lawns, a big outdoor table, and dozens of sheep and brand new lambs. I fed a newborn lamb—born last night, weak and unsteady and wearing a woolen sweater for warmth. And the kids fed a bigger orphan called James (all pictures of us holding a lamb are of James). James’s owner, in the next paddock over, is the animal trainer who trained all the creatures in Babe. James has some of that star quality.

Around the lovely outdoor table, Michael’s colleague J and her partner—along with their friend S who had come along—talked about life here, about Dupont Circle (where S used to go each year on work), about coaching and adventure and transformation. There were threads that pulled each of us together, these strangers sitting in the sunshine, sheep calling all around us. How do we like living in New Zealand, they asked us, as everyone here asks us. This week, we feel that we have moved to paradise.