An original illustration inspired by the visionary world of Ballet of the Birds not the book cover.

I’m delighted to share that Ballet of the Birds has now been published. It is my major work to date: a deeply personal journey of imagination, healing and hope, and the creative legacy I most wish to offer. The book unfolded as I myself expanded, bringing fresh insights to its pages.

The story developed organically, drawing together threads from my own life, my associations with artists, and the Australian places I love from the harbor, Opera House and Botanic Gardens to the beaches, headlands and lush communities of the Rainbow Region. A share-land community that my sister helped develop was a particular inspiration, opening my mind to cooperative and creative ways of living. I thoroughly enjoyed watching these experiences and places mingle with spiritual and fantastical elements until the world of Ballet of the Birds came alive.

At its heart, the book grew from a wider imagining of our future. I believe that every thoughtful, well-informed perspective we share can help us move towards a more productive, bountiful and harmonious earth. The story belongs naturally within visionary or spiritual fantasy: its higher beings, symbolic encounters and otherworldly guidance are woven through recognizable human experience. Some of their words came to me with such immediacy that they felt received rather than invented, and I allowed them to take their place within the unfolding story.

For readers, the journey moves through constraint and freedom, sorrow and resilience, and the courage required to give form to a dream. Through Gina and those whose paths cross hers, the book explores how individual gifts can strengthen one another and become part of something larger. I hope it encourages readers to value imagination not as an escape from life, but as a way of perceiving possibilities that might otherwise remain unseen.

Above all, Ballet of the Birds is the work in which so many strands of my life have come together. I offer it with love as my legacy not as the final word, but as one perspective among many, and as an invitation to help imagine and bring into being a more abundant and harmonious world.

Ballet of the Birds is available now. I would be delighted for you to read it, dream with it, and share your reflections.