i feel so inspired to write...on my way here to commit my musings, i passed a post on the blog of a friend of mine, timed 13 minutes ago - this after months, and months, of her committing nothing to this space about her life....i look forward to going back and reading about what so inspired her today...

in fact, i feel so inspired to write, that i may even be making a resolution...i hesitate to call it a 'new year's resolution', but it does appear to be coming over me at this time of year.  whatever the timing, i feel a resolve coalescing inside of me, a resolve to honour this urge to write...i feel i'm edging toward a commitment to write, every day...something....to somehow commit to the capture in words of something, some moment, of each and every day.

today i have been musing upon the nature of  appearances, a train of thought sparked off in me by a number of recent, disparate, interactions with others around me.

if i'm honest (and what would be the point of being otherwise?) pretty much the whole of my life has been fraught with issues, and learnings about how i look to others. for the most part, i have felt positively ugly, and this has coloured my interactions with those around me, as i have approached these interactions feeling immediately inadequate through the simple fact of my ugliness in a world obsessed with beauty.

my outer ugliness has always, in my mind, shown to the outside world my inner corruption, the essential toxicity of my inner, unseen self.

i guess i always held onto a belief that life would be different if i was just beautiful.

the year i turned 30 was the year in which i, for the first time, became aware of my body as something other than a window into the imperfect morass of my essential being - a vehicle which consistently disappointed me by it's flaws and limitations.

at this stage in my life, i was studying full time at uni 40 minutes from home, working an early morning cleaning job before uni three times a week, and a mid-week cafe shift as well.  at home were my two children, partner, acres and mortgage.

at some point i realised that my life was very cereberal, and i needed to somehow balance that out in the physical.  i attended a local martial arts class run by two young guys who i studied with along the way. that class fizzled out within a matter of months, but by that stage i had developed the ability to find my centre, and hold it strong, throughout my daily life.  i was amazed at my own ability to 'centre' and was the first time i had seen and appreciated a tangible linkage to the body/mind/spirit connection.

i started doing circus training with some good friends and this became valuable time out for me, when my sole focus could be me, and my strengths and weaknesses, my own abilities and limitations, allowing my own aspirations for strength, flexibility and physical control to bubble to the surface for examination, analysis and nourishment.  pretty soon i was reliant on this physical outlet as a regular part of my life.

this sort of training opened me up to kickboxing class with a bunch of mums of young kids, on a friday evening, after which we would all share a drink and a laugh at the pub - our drinking and fighting night we called it.  so this kind of physical commitment really also served a purpose of  building social networks and supports as well.

with notable breaks in routine over the last decade, i have maintained this commitment to my physical being and have always since valued having some physical outlet for my energy, lest i burn it all up in my head. sometimes, i find this outlet in dancing, also and wood chopping and yard work.

so, i have pursued a physical regime as a harmoniser for my mental well being.  i have used physical training as a means to the mental and emotional strength to which i aspire. lessons learnt whilst chopping firewood, moving into a yoga pose, straining for a chin up, whirling like a dervish, or battling lantana, have, for me served a deeper purpose as i strive to understand the strengths and boundaries of my mental and emotional self.

as i have actively pursued embodiment, i have strengthened the connections between myself and those beings around me - my friends and family, my workmates, the trees in my forest, the frangipani in bloom, my community and the broader environment and society beyond.  it is through emobodiment which i understand connectivity, the complexity of the weaving which holds this all together, and each and every one of us at the centre of a vast multi dimensional network, the depth and breadth of which is beyond our understanding.

i have noticed and enjoyed the outward changes occurring within my physical self.  somewhere along the way there i must have become attractive to observers, because people do make comments to me about my physicality.  and when that happens i find myself scoffing, feeling a bit annoyed, because i know that what i look like to you tells you nothing about the important bits of my self.  if i happen to fill out a particular dress or pair of pants nicely, is so beside the point.

what i am valuing about myself in this body is not how it looks, but how it holds me all together and allows me to interact with my space through the medium of my physical senses as well as the psychic ones....i am valuing the unique capacity i have for moving through this world of sights, sounds, smells and caresses, in this physical vehicle of mine. what it looks like to others is ultimately immaterial.....


the fundamental problem at the core of the beauty myth is this. beauty is not in the eye of the beholder.  beauty resides in the heart of the beholder. beauty is a feeling, not a visual which we perceive with our eyes. so while we all strive to achieve the body beautiful and sculpt, wax and groom ourselves for the eyes of others, it is all pointless.  beauty is as beauty does and it is our actions which reveal our inner selves to the world. it is our responses to the people and environment in which we work and play which reveal our worth.

moments of moment

I’m looking for the moments…I’m seeking the space within the space – the space where change happens. I’m searching out the minutiae, examining it and deciding whether to keep it, or remodel it or throw it away entirely.

An example:

Tonight as I washed my face clean of the day,  I began to feel anxious and wasteful at letting the water run whilst I waited for it to warm up. My inner voices chided me for the power consumption from running the pump, and the precious water just running down the drain. I considered putting a plug in for the washing up, but reasoned that I didn’t want to wash up in my dirty face water.

In that small moment of angst I glimpsed an option.  I glimpsed an opportunity to enjoy abundance. It has rained for about  10 out of the last 14 days. Additionally, the rain came each day in the late afternoon, after the spring sunshine had juiced up the batteries and we had an excess of power. So, as so rarely happens, I had plenty of power, plenty of water and plenty of gas (as I had just gotten a full tank).

What better time than now to enjoy abundance?

So I gave myself over to the waste.

I was wanton in that water. I allowed it to sluice deliciously over my hand on its journey to warmth, and run on down that drain taking the crumbs from the sink with it.  As I splashed my face in the hot water, feeling its warmth on my hands and face, I was so grateful.

Later on, I wanted to go outside for a cigarette. I listened for a moment to the chorus of voices in my head demanding to know whether this action would serve my greater good before conceding that no, it would not serve me.  Rather than go anyway, conscious of the fact that I was actively doing myself a disservice, listening to those voices and feeling crap about myself, I figured that maybe, whilst doing so, it was also possible to do something which would serve my greater good.

I walked out into the night, felt the chill of a clear night on my bare skin. I listened for a while to the frogs calling to each other. I began to discern the different frogs, their voices coming from different locations. I started to differentiate the different calls, their frequency and the answering calls from across the creek.

Looking into the sky I noticed the beautiful balance of a clear and high sky studded with stars, and the wisps of cloud streaking across it.  the silhouette of trees and mountain against an inky sky, the first blushes of moonlight in the sky above Blue Knob, and the frogs calling through the crisp and bracing air – what a wonderful antidote to the soul destroying habit of inhaling tobacco…..

Musing, listening, smoking, I watch as the first brushstrokes of the rising moon are painted above the mountain. The light of the still hidden moon is reflected back from the bottom of the clouds sitting in the sky above it, painting them golden, reflective.  As I watch it seems the mountains and trees below get darker in comparison to the lightness which is seeping into the sky, from a focal point somewhere behind the mountain which sits front and centre from my vantage point on my verandah.

It feels as though I am pulling the moon, cajoling it, willing it to rise.  I can’t help the smile playing about my lips as I feel her coming. She’s cheeky when she does arrive, showing herself first as a torchlight or a flare, suddenly illuminating the space between 2 trees at the very top of the ridge. This could just be a house light, or oncoming beams of headlights, but that there is no house, no road up there.

Before my eyes the moon ascends the far side of the mountain and drags herself into the waiting sky before announcing herself – luminescent, glowing, so smugly self assured and so damned perfect.

I smile, and I feel the night smiling back at me.

red wine and heartache

there have been a handful of times in my life where i have been confronted with the fact that i have inflicted unspeakable pain upon someone i love and that i have done so completely unknowingly.....today was one of those times.

i am sitting in the cozy surrounds of my loungeroom, as a fierce wind blows outside - i hear it in the treetops and it brushes my skin through the windows - drinking red wine and running an endless loop in my head, alternating between anger and self justification and just a deep and profound grief.

i'm confronted - again - that sometimes it is all we can do to love from afar.

it pains me that love transmutes into something nasty and putrid and painful.

today marked a fundamental shift in my relationship with my oldest and perhaps dearest friend, and i am grasping onto a hope that she is not lost to me forever. let this just be a bend in the road, not an
irretrievable loss.

but i have to wonder why this is. this has happened to me before - when a dear loved one has angrily cut me loose due to an entrenched feeling of subjugation.  i'm forced to ponder - do i really misuse my power to such a degree as to mortally wound those i hold dear????? what is it in my character, what can i do differently to avoid coming to this place again????

and it makes me feel wary of close relationship. if i am so fundamentally flawed (i mean, it really is a fundamental problem if i can't even see where i am going wrong) then i know i will only ultimately hurt those to whom i feel close, somehow.....in a way i don't quite understand....

god....i'm going round and round in circles on this....

....from the mouths of babes....

discussing feelings with my 7 year old.
talking about anger, sadness, tiredness, frustration - trying to tease out one from the other; attempting to identify what we are actually feeling at any given time.
she's a child of quite startling depth. faced with the theory that we can sit in many different emotions at any given moment, she struggled through genuine tears of grief to tell me that she has a part of her which is very, very sad, and which will always be there, always be a part of her.  'we share that sadness, you and me' she said.

talking about redemption with my 7 year old.
talking about choosing our own identity, working with the idea that we all of us have challenges, a drive to self improvement. identifying times when we each have felt truly happy, and seeing how feeling happy is tied up in also feeling generous, giving, loving, compassionate, empathetic....

together, we are accepting the notion that we can choose our own perception, from moment to moment - that each moment is a gift, to be evaluated and explored, choices made about how we respond, and how our responses will shape the next moment, and the next.

these children of mine truly drive me - sometimes, they drive me to distraction, others they drive me up the wall, often they drive me crazy and a few times even to the very edge of the abyss.....then there are the times where the place they drive me to is exactly the place i need to be, if only i had seen it for myself.

it used to really irk me that i was living a cliche - parenting the inner child whilst parenting my children; seeing in my child's eyes my younger self, crying out for guidance, acceptance, nurturing, unconditional love. i see it now as a symbiosis - as i teach them i learn, as they learn they teach me, we learn together as we teach each other.

and, in this moment, i am grateful. grateful that a bedtime conversation takes me out of my own feelings of tension and resentment, and that through my child's struggles we both learn to be gentle, on ourselves, and on each other.

more friday night musings.....

Musing on the nature of connection tonight. The inevitability of it. the absolute randomness of it. sometimes there’s just no rhyme or reason to it. there are times when a connection, when it reveals itself, seems pure lunacy. at others, a connection is so unarguably ‘right’ and not even requiring of scrutiny.

We connect with people on so many levels – some more subtle, some more overt, than others. Sometimes we even connect with people on levels we didn’t know we had – heights AND depths!

Some connections can just occupy a corner of our minds, our lives, a certain little window of illumination which is only apparent at a certain time and place in space.  Others burn so brightly that all the details are seared away in the luminescence and we are consumed.  Sometimes we give in willingly to the resonance, and at others we fight it…..

 

And also mulling over the idea of openness.  And how it is we open. There are people who rip us open, snatching the sensitivity from us, demanding truth and openheartedness and not taking no for an answer.

Those who no amount of psychic protection will keep out.

Those who demand to be seen. Felt.

Then those who hover,  much like a hummingbird, never quite alighting yet constantly darting in, at once relentless as a mosquito scenting blood, yet also as alluring as a sunbeam. An emanation of warmth which calls forth a welcome response, an answering radiance drawn from the very depths of one’s being.

Those with whom we bask in a metaphysical sunlight.

Those with whom we may never speak, yet know completely.

The different natures of openness, too, consumes me.  At times I’m resistant, not wanting to acknowledge connection, at a particular time, or in a particular place, or with a particular person (and sometimes all three at once!)

And yet with others I feel myself unfolding, unfurling, revealing in a most exquisite way.

And the truth of it all is this – it is all completely random. I cannot intellectualise my connections. I cannot reason them into some kind of pleasing order. I can neither justify nor deny my resonance with another.

It just simply IS.

a solstice gift - a ray of light on this longest of nights.....

i met a very lovely young man tonight....by young, i mean younger than me! I think he was aged maybe 30.  I was at a solstice party at a friend's house about an hour away from here. it was a reasonably restrained affair - vegetarian bbq and sangria, with the added indulgence of a session in their steam room.  my kids opted to contribute chocolate fondue strawberries and fresh whipped cream to the feast, which was a welcomed and exciting addition to the festivities.

the young man in question was visiting the area and i'm not quite sure of the connection but think he was a friend of my friend's housemate...

he presented as a quite friendly, open and gentle individual with interests in music, yoga, drawing, and a carpenter by trade. he also happens to have an extremely rare and aggressive cancer which is growing around his spinal cord, is resistant to conventional therapies, and causes him to suffer from chronic and often unbearable pain.

it was bizarre and unusual to meet someone in this position.  as he spoke to me about his condition it was like I was having a conversation with myself......he described his illness as one which is ridiculously rare.  apparently it is generally unheard of in one of his age - usually afflicting young children.  his presentation is not as would be expected or has been observed before.  the similarities to my daughter's condition were striking.

I cannot adequately convey the gentleness, and joy of this individual.  he confessed that, now two years since first diagnosis, it is not something he really thinks about very often.  with the failure of conventional treatments, and with the tumour remaining in his body and causing him extreme pain, he has embraced his own intuitive style of therapy.  he uses regular yoga, and breathing techniques to help him manage the pain.  he uses foods as medicine, and maintains a conscious and constant awareness of his body's needs from moment to moment.

he positively radiated light as he spoke to me of the wonderful people he has met along the way and the lessons he has been learning, courtesy of this scourge. this was a young man in love with life; who accepted the rapid change in his life direction, and totally embraced a new way of being.

it was a relatively brief meeting, but an inspiring interaction, which reminded me of a few things which I tend to forget in this whirlwind of my life.....

picture imperfect

Friday, 14th of June -

a good day
 in fact a day of good:-
   good news
    good fortune
     good company
      good weather
       good ideas


the list is seemingly endless...

there I was sitting on a low wooden, slightly damp bench seat against the wire fence of my daughters' school. it was mid afternoon, school was finished. about fifteen children remained in the playground, waiting for the last bus, or parents who were chatting, or running late.  leaning back against the hedge which grows from behind the fence, the chill winter breeze kissing my cheeks and nose as I snuggle down into the scarf around my neck.

I watch my youngest daughter as she idly swings herself in circles around the basketball hoop, her golden hair plastered across her face, her mouth moving silently in some song or game or fancy - no doubt involving fairies and gnomes. a moment later she is off, absorbed into a game of chasing involving two or three other little girls of varying age, size and temperament.

my middle girl is holding court against five or six boys and girls, on the handball court. they good naturedly jostle each other for supremacy, arguing about rules and hierarchies.  dressed as they mostly are in blues, greens and purples, some barefoot and bare armed, others buttoned up in bright, bold coats or swathed in rich cosy woollen creations; they are beautiful, tousled, grinning children....

such a joy to behold.

as I look around at my surroundings, breathing in the colours of the children's clothing, the sunlight at the very tops of the gum trees, achingly cloudless blue sky, the mud and flowers and cubby house and buildings; as I close my eyes and listen to the singing, protesting, laughing, chanting children, the murmur of school gate catch ups among parents, the whistling of the wind through the leaves....I smile to myself and marvel....I am filled with gratitude.


good news today came in the form of a good scan result for my eldest daughter.  it followed a time of worry, and at times crippling anxiety resulting from a not so good scan result about two weeks ago. anyway, today for us felt like a reprieve. this positive result means my daughter can confidently take a month or so away from treatment for her cancer - the first break she's really had for about six months.  she has her first ever university exam early next week, and then is travelling overseas with her friends on the weekend. she was so relieved today and said she can finally allow herself to be excited about going away, without the background anxiety about being unwell.  as we walked through the hospital after seeing the oncologist, I couldn't resist doing a little jig and a jump in the air. I would have done a cartwheel if there was not a big ridiculous tiled column in the middle of the walkway.  we walked out of the controlled air of the hospital into a winter morning positively bathed in golden sunlight.  we giggled giddily as we remembered the cheeky, dodgy park i'd done in a doctor's carpark as we were running late and anxious to get to the appointment.

good fortune favoured me when I bought my regular friday raffle ticket on the street in nimbin later in the morning.  of course I got stuck doing odds and ends in the shop and was still around when the raffle was drawn and I won! $100!! again, I stood in the sun, grinning like an idiot, as I was handed a crisp, and unexpected greenback.

I've had a good idea today, but in it's execution, I wonder if it really was such a good idea, and I guess only time will tell....I bought some blackboard paint. I had a pantry built in my kitchen about a year ago and we suddenly had a big, unadorned, untreated fibreboard door, right there, in our space.  it's been yawning at me this whole time, begging me to paint it.  I've always been a fan of the public blackboard space, and have seen occasional masterpieces appear on them.  the last time I did this I painted a random smear on the wall above my fridge (which is one of those intense looking chest style ones which run on 12volt), in our old house on the mountain. that chalkboard was both a blessing and a curse at times! in that house we also had a big round chalkboard on the back of a huge wardrobe which formed the partition which allowed me a bedroom.  both of these boards attracted doodles, poems, flowers, stars and love hearts, whilst periodically annoying me with their dust and disorder....

anyway, I just went to paint another random smear, but the space is so much bigger and I couldn't make it look right, so I just painted the whole thing! and now I have this HUGE, BLACK panel in my kitchen, which impacts on the entire living space with it's....blackness....and now the damn thing is still yawning at me!! tomorrow i'll get some beautiful bright chalks and we can overwhelm that blackness with shopping lists and birthday wishes and phone messages and rainbows.

as I waited for the first coat of paint to dry I made myself a pot of tea.  it was a truly inspired pot of tea.  all I put in there was nettle and rose petals.  the result is lovely, clean and slightly sweet....so warm and fragrant.  i'm so inspired by that pot of tea that i'm thinking about buying a camera, so I can photograph the steam rising up off the rose petals, with their differing shades of pink and magenta, against the wholesome dark green of the nettles, nestling there in the mesh basket surrounded by butterflies on my ceramic tea pot.

and lest I paint too beautiful a picture of my immediacy let me tell you about the mouse which just ran across the arm of the couch where i'm sitting. and the other one which keeps running back and forth along the wall behind the fireplace. and the one I can hear in the kitchen, though whenever I go over there I can't find it. I caught two last night, in a live trap baited with peanut butter.  I released them under a tree when I dropped my kids off at the bus this morning.  I must say I felt a bit clever this morning, but now as the nightly rodent circus resumes in my living space I concede defeat, again, as I do every night.....