Author: Kit Vantastic

I’m a nomadic soul living in the beautiful Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, living a large and untamed life and regularly taking to the roads in a converted minivan. I had a choice: a middle-age crisis or a middle-age adventure, and having great lust for life (and because I sometimes can’t make up my mind) I chose both. Join my little friend Pippa and I as we van-tramp our way along the back roads of Canada and the US in search of soul treasures and spend time with us on our farm and nature retreat, learning from Mother Nature. This is a journey of heart-healing, recovery from addiction and the sort of repair work that happens after unwanted change; gentle stories of how curiousity and nature can restore peace to an unsettled body and mind. And sometimes it’s just about the bat-shit crazy things we see and experience along the way. Let the She-Vanigans begin!

Turning the Compost Pile

~ Kit Vantastic ~ 1 Comment

I started writing "This Wholehearted Life" five years ago to enjoy and share a “Year of Living Naturally” as I settled into my new life on Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia. This was just three months before the onset of Covid, and while the "pandemic years" didn’t always feel particularly “natural”, they certainly gave me … Continue reading Turning the Compost Pile

The Growing Season

~ Kit Vantastic ~ 17 Comments

I’d just donned my winter nap-cap in that little resting place between 2020 and 2021, when there was a knock at the door. To my sleepy surprise, it was some manner of Cosmic Carnie, advising me he’d just collected ticket stubs from my entire family, loaded them onto a star-speckled Tilt a Whirl; and smacked … Continue reading The Growing Season

Hindsight and 2020

~ Kit Vantastic ~ 18 Comments

When I last wrote in January 2020, I had just asked the Universe help me “PUSH PAUSE” so I could get a good look at some decisions I was making, particularly related to my relationship with Nature. I have no interest in being credited with giving Mother Nature the idea for a global pandemic, but … Continue reading Hindsight and 2020

January: Pushing “Pause”

~ Kit Vantastic ~ 6 Comments

So, you came into 2020 with a plan for change, huh? Me too. I want big change, the blustery kind that closes highways and piles nasty habits and limiting beliefs against my front door. I try to open the door and feel the pushback. Where is my other glove? The snowblower hasn’t been by. I … Continue reading January: Pushing “Pause”

Plum Rising

~ Kit Vantastic ~ 8 Comments

But it was just a tree. Or it might have been just a pet. Or a cup. Or someone you didn’t even know that well. Why do these losses sometimes crack us open so deeply? If Leonard Cohen, Canadian poet and songwriter, had heard the crack of the plum tree’s trunk as the wind took … Continue reading Plum Rising

Beside the Plum

~ Kit Vantastic ~ 9 Comments

If you didn’t drop this class after enduring my stint as the rambling substitute teacher yesterday, I have the distinct pleasure of re-introducing the Plum Tree today. I know what you’re thinking; having met the plum couple yesterday, why aren’t they presenting together today? I find dramatic foreshadowing almost unbearable, but as your narrator, want … Continue reading Beside the Plum

Under the Plum: The Prequel

~ Kit Vantastic ~ 17 Comments

“The hair on my arms stood straight up and that's when I knew.” I asked you to meet me at the plum tree, so it could help explain how I came to live in Cape Breton, but I have something to share before we are ready for that class. The plum will present it’s lesson … Continue reading Under the Plum: The Prequel