How Time Flies
ON MARCH 30th 2016, I wrote the following blog. Who could possibly have known that life would change so radically for Kirsty and I, on our separate journies, just over two years later? Whilst the Wonder Inn had to close it’s doors last year, Kirsty continues to forge ahead with raising vibrations and I have found my own “vibration raisier” with Dewbury Park Mansion Community Hub. Read on and hopefully be inspired!
Going to places that you’ve dreamed of visiting, that have inspired you from afar, is good for the soul. It doesn’t have to be as far as Mecca, Jerusalem, Rome, or even New York, the Hebrides or India, it could be somewhere much closer. For just over a year I’ve followed the birth of a beautiful work of art called The Wonder Inn, based in Manchester. I know a little of the circumstances of the birth, but all I need to say is that it was, and still is, redemptive. Every pound and ounce of it has taken the old and nurtured it into new life: both people and the building.
I am told that this ongoing work of art called to it’s instigator, Kirsty Almeida. Oh I know it sounds hippy or new age or blah blah blah – stuff that rhetoric, it only serves to shut your mind down. Instead, open your mind to what I’m getting at here: this project needed to happen, the Grade II listed building, this corner of Manchester, the people of the city and all over the UK needed The Wonder Inn to be brought into being. And I could sense that as I followed progress from the nerves of initial applications to the joy of success. Then the bloody hard graft and immense pay-off that walk hand in hand as it grows. This is now a living creative space that is safe, and encourages and nurtures the people it welcomes.
Billed as a “Creative Wellness Centre” it’s focus is to “raise the vibrations of our community and the planet through creativity and the celebration of art.” Sounds grand doesn’t it!? And impossible. How could it possibly do anything like this? The mental illness epidemic throughout the UK screams, “IT HAS TO!” People and our planet are hurting and so The Wonder Inn aims to provide a way through the pain in any way it can, without inviting the “you can’t do that!” brigade to the door. From what I saw on Bank Holiday Monday, it is very definitely doing this. Every corner whispers hope and creativity, peace and laughter. Delicious food for the soul and for your belly!
Maybe that’s the thing I’m enthralled by: the openness to possibility, to trying it out, to busting through the “can’t” barrier that so many of us struggle with. That I have struggled with. That I’m on a mission to find my own way of busting through and helping others bust through with me. It’s why I needed to actually see The Wonder Inn so I know that I CAN. WE CAN. That kind of inspiration gives a lovely warm nudge forward, and I cherish that.
See you later Wonderfuls,