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Brave Seeds - The Voice of Platform 13
Brave Seeds is the journal of Platform 13 — a collection of reflections, field notes, and stories gathered from life in France and the shared human experience. Some arrive here to read quietly. Others return often.
Let curiosity lead.
French Kitchens - In praise of "proper butter".
There was a time, and I might be showing my age here, when butter became the subject of a deliberate, fatty witch-hunt. It seemed to be a hearing behind closed doors, for us butter lovers. It was accused and found guilty of shortening our lives and making us fat. The Western world fell under a wave of nutritional anxiety. Butter, which had been besties with bread for such a long time, was suddenly recast as the insidious villain of the kitchen. Into its golden yellow slippers
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4 min read
Emotional re-wilding - A return to self.
I think we are all sufficiently familiar with the concept of 'conservational re-wilding' , for the subject not to require a lengthy intro. In an eco-nutshell, it's designed to help prevent species extinction and restore balance to our ecosystems that have suffered as a result of human activity. We have priotised control over nature for centuries, with a rather obvious disrespect. So how is that all going? Humans love dominance. It's in the soup of our DNA. The rank of an indi
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5 min read
Floriography - The Secret Language of Flowers
Red roses. Valentine’s Day. Floral messaging that has no room for manoeuvre or misconstrue. Important, perhaps becasue our February 14th intentions need to be absolutely legible. Our designs and desires must have clarity and meaning. The red rose then, is a comfortably predictable symbol, bought and sold by the dozen. In fact, 250 million red roses are produced globally, for this day alone. Beautiful, classic, fully unmistakable. Even if we feel that a red rose is actually st
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3 min read
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Curated articles open to Members
Intimacy - Beyond the Slap & Tickle
Somewhere along the way, we took the word intimate for a long walk. We led it out of philosophy, psychology, and human experience, and ended up folding it neatly in a drawer, labelled - " Reserved - Date Night"... But why even take this subject on, when we seem quite happy for it to describe what we take off? Is intimacy all about the bodies beneath the clothes, or the self beneath the surface?
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5 min read
The Strange Loss of Adult Friendships...
There is a particular kind of lonely discomfort that comes with one-sided friendship maintenance. I mean it's certainly better on paper than having "no one at all" - hopefully none of us know the depths of that sorry pit. It comes more from actually having people - important friendships with
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5 min read
"My Side" - Who We Are, Within A Story.
"He started it..." Perhaps this is my earliest memory of me telling my side of the story. The instinctual, defensive DNA, with which we come into the world. I think we might be born wanting the facts straight. The imbalance of truth and blame perception, is the stuff of childhood panic attacks. On the surface, we actually care about needing the footnotes to be correct. The narrative accounts balanced. To intensely dislike being cast as the villain. This, it turns out, is
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7 min read
French "Brocantes" - Objects changing hands.
Today is a particluar kind of Sunday. It's flea market day. Not any one in particular, just one close to us. In fact there is very possibly one taking place every day of the year in France. The French "brocante" . The word itself is pretty old. It comes from the 15th century verb "brocanter" meaning to barter or trade in small goods . It's roots are a bit more practical than poetic. The things for sale, were never supposed to be rare or carry any kind of prestige. It was all
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3 min read
Tall tales - Letting the story breathe.
Way before "stories = letters forming words", they would be carried from the mouths of our elders to the eager ears of a younger generation of listeners. Tales of fire and creation - of seas, lakes and mountains. The wonderful animations around the family tree of all things starry and celestial. These ancient tales were not fixed things, back then. There were no documented points of reference, or scrolls unfurled in proclamation. The stories moved from firelight to shadow, a
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5 min read
Mirrors - Not just for checking yourself out.
Mirrors aren’t always about what we need to fix — sometimes they show us how far we’ve come. I have used mirrors as a decorating accessory for years, to bounce light around a room, to open up a space or bring the outside in. But it wasn't until I began using them for personal growth that they took on a different meaning. We’ve all had that moment when we look into a mirror and find that new line, that little dot that no one else would every notice, but seems enormous to us. S
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3 min read
Brave Seeds - The Archives
Articles By Category
Field Notes
Observations from the ground up - living seasons, the countryside and the beauty in the everyday.
At the Table
Food as memory and connection - French flavors, simple recipes and stories from the kitchen.
The French Connection
A love letter to French Life - culture, language and moments that make this place endlessly fascinating
The Spirit Level
Where beauty meets balance - reflections and essays on the inner journey.
A Sense of Place
Stories of home, design and character of life in the French countryside
Guest Appearances
Voices from the wider Platform 13 community - shared stories, perspectives and lived wisdom
Brave Seeds Member's Library
Brave Seeds - The Members Library
All Articles
French Kitchens - In praise of "proper butter".
There was a time, and I might be showing my age here, when butter became the subject of a deliberate, fatty witch-hunt. It seemed to be a hearing behind closed doors, for us butter lovers. It was accused and found guilty of shortening our lives and making us fat. The Western world fell under a wave of nutritional anxiety. Butter, which had been besties with bread for such a long time, was suddenly recast as the insidious villain of the kitchen. Into its golden yellow slippers
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4 min read
Women - Are we strong enough to stop?
I have always admired strong women. The ones who hold things together. The ones who don’t panic. The ones who say, “It’s fine, I’ve got it,” and somehow do. The women who show up, not just as a statement of bravado, but as proof of real life. I have also been one. At times. I am clearly not talking about lifting weights here - at least not physical weights. I am leaning into character strength. Core values. That kind of strength, in its healthiest form, is a thing of beauty.
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3 min read
Field Notes - The Sides of March
March 15th sits in that peculiar place in the French culinary calendar where winter has not quite finished and spring has not quite sprung. The markets still have a bit of an Irish feel to them - with much space still given over to leeks and potatoes. But you can sense that local market aficionados are sensing an arrival of sorts. The first crop of bright, green asparagus. The French love their asparagus. They have been cultivating them since the 15th century and their popu
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3 min read
Gardens - On Lawns vs Lavender...
In the late 1940s, on Long Island, just east of New York City, a new kind of American landscape was being built. It was called "Levittown" - one of a few that would appear in the 40's and 50's, designed originally for returning WWII veterans, with affordable homes, solid construction, picket fences and identical facades. But along with the mortgages came something else: lawn obligations written into property deeds. The owners needed to agree to maintain their grass to a le
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3 min read
The Myths of Multi-Tasking
Take a second to look at everything in front of you right now. If you’re like me, you’ve got at least a few browser windows open (each one loaded with tabs you “ need ”). Your email inbox is steadily filling up in the background. Teams keeps popping up messages from different teammates. And of course, your phone… In other words, you’re multi-tasking. The problem is, there’s no such thing as multi-tasking! As multiple studies have confirmed, true multitasking—doing more than o
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6 min read
Emotional re-wilding - A return to self.
I think we are all sufficiently familiar with the concept of 'conservational re-wilding' , for the subject not to require a lengthy intro. In an eco-nutshell, it's designed to help prevent species extinction and restore balance to our ecosystems that have suffered as a result of human activity. We have priotised control over nature for centuries, with a rather obvious disrespect. So how is that all going? Humans love dominance. It's in the soup of our DNA. The rank of an indi
-
5 min read
"Blanc Blanc Blanc" - Reborn to Purpose
Set on a rolling 180 hectares of bocage and waterways in Mayenne, just 90 minutes from Paris, lies the historic estate of "BLANC BLANC BLANC" . Our host for Soulstice 2026. It is certainly more than just a venue. It is a living, breathing testimony to transformation - of ancient place and industrious people. With more than 250 years of history , this site was once at the heart of linen blanching a physical, tactile process of washing, bleaching and preparing noble textiles f
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2 min read
Thick Skin and the Panic Room:
You don't see adverts for lotions or potions designed to give you "thick skin". Neither does it seem to be a specialisation that any dermatologists would chose to agressively pursue. "Thick skin in just weeks ".. no thanks. Yet from an early age, we the people, are told that it is a desireable thing to have. As if growing into adulthood requires a kind of fleshy armour, like my friend the Rhino, above. An epidermis wholly impermeable and totally resistant to almost anything.
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6 min read
Emotional Fitness - Part Deux - Boundaries
I thought I had a pretty good grasp of boundaries. In theory at least… Recently, I had to cancel some plans at the last minute - something I almost never do. Life just intervened in a way that made the cancellation choice-less for me, but not necessarily obvious to the party cancelled upon. What surprised me most was the reaction that came back. Instead of a bit of welcome understanding , which is really all we need here, I received a guilt-inducing response that pulled me i
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6 min read
Cosmic Alignments: As Above, So Below...
This is a picture of Mystic Meg. She was an icon to us British kids in the '80's - flamboyant, and convincing. The BBC obituary described her career in fortune telling, with the term "quintessential", a lovely word that has it's roots are in middle latin and comes from "a fifth element, essence or ether" .. The essence and the ether, indeed. ..So here it is. I never thought I would be someone writing about tarot or astrology. As a child, horoscopes belonged to the same
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4 min read
Platform 13 @ Soulstice - "Enoughness" -
I was very glad to learn... "enoughness" is a real word. The OED has references going back to 1873. So there. We have had issues around this word for years. Enough already...I think we get the meaning, without needing to open the dicionary. It deals with our sense of sufficiency - being adequate - the quality of our self-worth. 150 years later, our culture still makes "enough" a struggle. The issue is both classic and central to society. We judge oursleves to be not enough
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4 min read
March 1st - The Emotional Re-emergence
If January is all trumpets and resolutions, asking too much, too soon, and February is the long, quiet endurance in the middle, what does March mean? It certainly doesn't feel like a total beginning, but it definitely seems like a bit of a hinge month. A calendar-page threshold, finally reached. Maybe March presents more like a menu - to the return of a subtle, un-named appetite for life. The first of this month arrived - at least it did on Platform 13 - with the same reali
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4 min read
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