this week...

has not been without its distractions. The search is still on for Paul Van Rensburg. Updates are being posted here and please click on the Donate button below if you can help. Every little bit is greatly appreciated.

I'll be off tomorrow to southern Arizona to meet a friend and take a few days off. (what? days off? the weekend?) I know, I know, 'look up in the sky! Pigs are flying!'

I'm going to be throwing pots, and packing pots this afternoon and then off to dance tonight! So I'll leave you with this poem by Mary Oliver

The Journey

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice--
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do--
determined to save
the only life you could save.

Update on Paul's rescue efforts

My friend Paul is still missing. The crew of friends and family is working hard to keep up the search... Considering the weather in the area he set sail from, they believe his boat was blown further off than the area previously searched. There is now a facebook fan page for updates.

and the official LET'S FIND PAUL site

Here is today's update from the info site:

We have made quite a lot of progress in the last couple of days with getting the media onside to get the awareness out to the NZ public and also to Paul's friends and friends of friends around the world and the many people Paul has touched.

We over here are really feeling the beginnings of a ground swell being created by the collective energies of you all supporting him, be it by suggestions, donations, messages of support or whatever and the momentum is building!!

Yesterday we sent up a private helicopter to scour the Eastern Cape one more time. Regan and Warwick, the Tauranga driving force, went up in a deer stalking chopper - they are awesome pilots and fantastic spotters - and they spent all day looking in every nook and cranny along the coast for signs of Paul, Tafadzwa or debris.

They found nothing at all. This has strengthened our hope that he is still on the Taf and just needs finding, as we have felt all along but yesterday's result has given us a little peace of mind and checked another box.

So we are back on the task of raising as much funds as possible for a further search.

Watch out for Kristen and Regan on TV3 Campbell Live either tonight or tomorrow. For those of you overseas I'll post a link for replay tomorrow or the next day.

Our strongest theory is that Paul has had some kind of gear failure in the storm on Friday night/ early Sat morning. The wind has been consistently blowing SW since then. We think that in such a case he would have chosen to sail with the wind instead of against it which he would have needed to do in order to continue on to Gizzy.

So, he would then be heading in either a NE or NW direction. There was also the cyclones in Fiji from which the winds would have possibly pushed him back West.

I spoke at length today with the Airforce Wing Commander who flew both of the sorties in the Orion's. He is a very experienced Search & Rescue pilot. He explained to me how they calibrate the radar and perform the search. The radar the Orion's are equipped with is specially integrated to find periscopes, which as you can imagine will be a lot harder to find than a 35 ft steel hull which is a perfect radar reflector.

The Wing Commander said, that while of course not ever being able to guarantee anything 100%, that he believed that had the Taf been in the area they searched, he would have found it.

However, the search did not begin until Tuesday morning, by which time Paul could well have sailed off for for nearly 3 days in a NW or NE direction and been out of the search area. Which is why we very much believe he is out there.

The Wing Commander also said that he ALWAYS finds a beacon.

What we want to do now is search where we haven't searched before for Paul and Nita on Tafadzwa. So for that we need to raise as much as we possibly can!!

Anyone in NZ can now walk into any ASB and ask to donate to Paul and they will have the bank details or see the notes section here for bank transfer details.

Overseas people wishing to donate can use the PAYPAL link on the website www.letsfindpaul.co.nz

The cost of this search is monumental--renting the plane and equipment for one hour of searching is over $800 per hour. The family and friends are financing the search on their own at this point and every little bit donated helps. Time is of the essence and the clock is ticking. You can donate by Paypal--every little bit is appreciated. Not to mention prayer.

thank you from the bottom of my heart.

A call for help-

A dear old friend, Paul Van Rensburg is lost at sea. Literally. His 11 meter yacht is missing after leaving Tauranga, New Zealand, sailing alone into rough weather on March 12. A 10 day search for the craft has turned up nothing, but it's possible he's run ashore on a small island or is in the lifeboat. Paul is a lifelong sailor, and if anyone can survive, he can. Please put him in your thoughts and prayers. And if you have any connections to any organization in New Zealand that can help with rescue or would like to donate to the rescue fund, please contact me at Christinerhp@gmail.com.
A website for information about this situation and rescue is here.

and a facebook fan page for updates is here.

hearts and a tango clip...

Spring is springing all over the place--our little town is busy with tourists and so is my little studio--things are flowing all over the place...


On another note, B and I have been dancing more than ever and just started learning Argentine Tango--which we both love and I'm sure will be one of the great joys of our lives. I'll dance anything and am starting to feel much more confident with my West Coast Swing, which is a really fun dance, when I'm not panicking about being on the floor with a pro. (which actually happened last weekend--swoon!) Our little town has a smalll, but growing dance community and we actually have dances at a local saloon twice a month, so we get some real floor time with other dancers. I found this clip from the film "The Tango Lesson" by Sally Porter and I just love how simple and understated the dance is portrayed here.

Happy Weekend!!

oh and another thing I love about my job...

is the continued development. Stagnation is impossible.
I was glazing up some birdies this morning and as I dipped them into the bucket and watched the light play across the curves which imply 'head', 'back', 'wings', 'tail' I was sort of stopped in my tracks. From where had these creatures emerged? From me, duh! It's like I almost don't recognize the product of my own hands, it's changing and developing so quickly from month to month.
Somehow I feel it is a physical record of me, described in the language of clay, fired to solidity as I am not. In ten years these pieces will most likely still be on earth in exactly the same form, but me, I will be a different being altogether. My cells will all have been replaced by new ones (twice!) and the years will have described me a bit differently at that time. But here are concrete pieces of me, they will be still standing as they are today. A snapshot. This is what I will leave behind so I better do good work.

it's been cold and rainy~

typical March, you say? Well, normally here in the high desert March is often dry and sunny with the accursed clouds of pale yellow dust--the pollen from the cedars and junipers covering our world in a fine mist. Sometimes when the wind blows it looks like the tree is filled with smoke. And then the sneezing. I swear, before I moved here, I thought I knew what sneezing was. Well, I was dead wrong. There are days when I sneeze literally hundreds of times a day. My nasal passages so swollen for weeks at a time I forgot what my normal voice sounded like. Snorting Afrin like coke, even though I knew my body was just becoming immune to it. *sigh*
Well, this March has been so wet that the pollen is draining off the trees in tiny yellow rivers. Perhaps that is why I'm able to be outdoors for nearly half an hour before I have to run for cover. B and I sat outside on the porch for about 20 minutes on Sunday, enjoying the late afternoon light, and sure enough, the sneezing started and we scurried back inside, cursing our stupidity. How silly of us to think we could enjoy the outdoors in March.
I know it's a little silly to be so insanely grateful each morning I wake up to more rain, but all I can say is I'm only sneezing 30 or 40 times a day.


I received a potted bunch of bulbs for my birthday a while back and they're all blooming!! How sweet--I can enjoy them and not have to go outside!!