Month: April 2020

Finding nirvana

This morning I was up by four am.  With autumn chill in the air, I rugged up and enjoyed the silence.  I could not have been more at peace nor happier.  It took the birds another three hours before their birdsong filled the garden.  In the dark I reflected on my numerous trips and found myself smiling at the memories.  Although I’ve loved every moment of my work travel, I know the joy will be intensified when I return to these places.DSCN6508
Newman, Pilbara mining country, Western Australia
I took this picture a few years ago.  Although spring, it was hot.  It always is, up north.  I recall the sheer joy of acres of flowers.  The purple mulla mulla was blooming by the thousands.  And, those red Sturt Pea flowers, take my breath away every time I find a clump of them roadside.  In harsh mining country, the joy of finding fields of flowers, is a moment I know will experience again.DSC_0844
The simplicity of walking in seagull footsteps is something I will follow again in three words, sea, sky, solitary.  DSC_0828
I recall finding the most vivid coloured shells north of Broome in Lombadina, an isolated indigenous coastal community of the Bardi people (‘Salt Water People’).DSC_0823
Although I love collecting shells, somehow I could not bring myself to collect shells at this beach.  I had a deep sense they belong to the people that live here.DSC_0811
What was amazing, as my friend and I walked along the shore I thought I heard music, the kind one hears in Bali, not as sharp as the gamelan, but similar tinkling sounds.  We stopped and listened, puzzled, there was no one else within sight when we realised, as the tide swept out to sea, the music came from the water swishing through the thousands of shells.  It was a sound I have never heard before, or since.  Oh! how I wish I had taped it on my phone!  I’ve been to this beach a few times but never at a time when the tide is receding, so maybe this, too, will be on my list to do.DSC_0680
The Dinner Tree, Derby, Kimberley region, Western Australia
I have sat by the ‘Dinner Tree’ many times, an iconic historic spot in Derby, far north.  This is where the drovers would bring cattle along the flats, stop here for their dinner break before heading to the wharf beyond at Derby Jetty.  It is a beautiful boab tree.  The flats are expansive and the locals seem to use it to get to their fishing spot at the Jetty at sunset.  I’ve enjoyed quiet moments here and wondered how alive it would have been with the sounds of cattle and tired drovers, relieved to be resting after a day in Kimberley heat.

Life could not be more simple these days filled with chores and the trickle of work that comes in steadily.  The only travel I do is flicking through photographs.  There’s so much more to see and do and the impatient Aries in me has to be calmed, sometimes on an hourly basis.

Going through these photographs I found what I was searching for, my nirvana, that feeling of peace and happiness that comes from being at one with Nature.

It’s back to my reality for now.

As always

a dawn bird

In response to Your Daily Word Prompt – Attain – 19 April 2020

Being there …

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Cattle Station, Wyndham, Kimberley region, Western Australia

I love this quote by Thomas Fuller – “Absence sharpens love, presence strengthens it”

A few years ago I went up north and spent a week at a cattle station in the Kimberley region of Western Australia.  I was tired of hotel rooms.  I wanted to go back to basics and rough it.  I was immediately drawn to the horses.  The first time our eyes met, I was mesmerised by the intelligence, sensitivity and awareness of these animals.  They had this undefinable presence and I was hooked.  I took scores of photographs but this one is a favourite.  In these beautiful brown eyes I connected with something deeper within me.  It was easy to go there. I was no longer alone.

Everything I saw and experienced was a healing moment in my journey.  The 4WD river crossings and climbing rocks, where I had to place my trust in strangers, saltwater crocodiles we saw that scared and delighted me, camping under the stars one night, the sounds of brolgas in the dark, the barramundi fishing, the open camp fire with billy tea for breakfast.  What an adventure!  And as the full moon shone bright, alone in my tent, something shifted in me.  The urge was irrepressible.  For the first time in 17 years I started to write and shared my work with others.  ‘My voice’ had returned.  I had returned.

Until then I felt I was alive but did not breathe.  Grief has its own subjective expression.  Although I was highly functional and successful in every other way, the core of me, my writing, ceased to exist.  Among strangers I found family.  No longer did I have to be brave and dry eyed.  It somehow felt okay to weep in words and, at last, grieve my profound loss.  It felt like those around me understood the unspoken.  They were respectful and sensitive in moments of silence when I fought for composure and at times, strangers cried with me.  My pain, theirs.

I’ve shared this poem elsewhere in my blog but tonight I feel like I want to share it again.  I wrote the poem as a tribute to those who were at the Station with me.  If I am at peace and accepting tonight, it is because of them.

Stars
As the moon brightened the night,
I walked along the celestial bitumen
I saw stars there, signposts for travellers lost
I saw stars in other places too, that only I could see
Have I been lost?
Did you leave them there for me?
As dawn unveiled the granite ridge
I saw a kapok tree, aglow,
with yellow flowers on bare, brown branches
And at my door, emu and wallaby
Child-like I spied on nature
clutching seedpods in my hand
held my breath watching blue dragonflies land
And, while passing travellers warned,
I experienced life at a billabong
I walked down a dusty path, visible to you, not me
to Mother Boab tree
and at my feet I found stars twinkling
where light and shadow meet
I have been on a silent journey
This time, the million steps became one
when I headed out in someone else’s footsteps
and returned in mine
My fellow travellers, you were not to know
long ago, yet, like yesterday
Grief silenced me
But in the barren night, alone,
not alone
I found something glowed in the Kimberley
It was the stars

The ones you left for me.

a dawn bird

In response to Word of the Day Challenge – Sensitive

The Magic of Radio Ceylon

This morning I opened my emails to find another reminder from Spotify and soon after read Paesansunplugged (Punam) contribution to Napowrimo with the prompt ‘Forgotten Technology’.

The prompt took me back to the days of radio of my early childhood, when the only English music was available on Radio Ceylon  (now Sri Lanka).

As we waited in a hushed home the radio came alive, twice a day, morning and night.  Our lives revolved around that small box especially in teenage years, when after the BBC News, it was love requests for an hour with Elvis, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and Peter, Paul and Mary.

But in the years before this, my father would tune the dial and navigate the crackle until he found Glenn Miller, Benny Goodman, Duke Ellington, Artie Shaw and with Begin the Beguine in his soul and invisible partner in arms, he’d sweep her across the floor in that imaginary ballroom land.

They would duck and dive as one, he then waited a moment, back arched, perfectly still
for her dress to stop swirling and as I caught my breath, he twirled his partner again
just to see my eyes sparkle when I smiled.

My father’s step was light as he went through the dance genres without missing a beat, and lightest when in his world he was Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly, dancer extraordinaire, but to a little girl who adored him, he was always her incomparable daddy.

I miss him.

a dawn bird

The Waiting

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I watched a surfer as he watched the sea
right at the edge,
where he stopped contemplatively
he waited for the perfect wave,
that set he could ride
he stood still
watched and waited
for the tide to arrive

He watched the sea, as surfers do
with that surfer’s eye for opportunity
the thrill, the spills and falls
the waiting, the patience,
I saw it all

I stood with him
and faced the sea,
recklessly assessed
the turmoil, the torment,
the uncertainty

And like that lone surfer
who faced a churning sea
I waited patiently
for love to arrive
and overwhelm me.

a dawn bird

In response to RDP – Friday – Overwhelmed

Standing still

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Cable Beach, Broome, Western Australia

The moon and the sea conspired
and the tide came in with a rush
with nowhere to hide
I stood still
along with Mother Earth
to take it all in

The force of the water was intense
relentless in its pursuit
stopped me in my tracks
and like the ebb and flow of tides
the force lead me back, to where I had been

In the ivory tower, I let the silence infiltrate
in that space of disquiet
as I watched the scaffolding break away
and crash around me when,
the sledge hammer blows stopped

The clarity of reality is never easy
it takes a brave heart to know this
so I dared to go where angels fear to tread
and I now know
I am braver for having done this

the timing has been impeccable,
breathtaking even
there is no escaping my truth
still standing is not my catchcry
it was never my destiny
but standing still, is

This moment in time may be fleeting
or it may be longer
so experiencing it, as is, a necessity
it gives me clarity to a new reality

My path may be forged in silver
and tactile as silk
but the delicacy of the filigree
lies in the Force
that made me stand still.

a dawn bird

In response to RDP – Monday – Impeccable

When hope illuminates

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The flash flood of emotions seemed to disappear as quickly as they came.  First the shock of losing a significant part of one’s business, the grief of instant severance from teams without good bye, the discomfort and anxiety of uncertainty for the future.  It only took overnight for me to take charge.  I assessed my financial situation with the bank and my accountant and moved to the next phase of finding where I would start my new normal.  The statistics were low at that point with Western Australia having only 14 confirmed cases but the alarm grew with each passing hour.  While distracted by statistics I had to undertake training and demonstrate competencies in delivering my services remotely.  Then there were meetings with colleagues in a virtual office, each supporting others in finding this new path.  It was a valuable enough exercise for us to allocate time to do this each week.  Together, we were on the other side.

As with every peak there is a slide and it took me by surprise.  The emotion of guilt was pervasive for a few days.  I was able to get back on track and begin working again when so many have lost their businesses and livelihood.  All I have lost is money but for others, this public health catastrophe has touched their lives in unimaginable ways.  The saturation of statistics, each pebble with far reaching ripples of grief for so many overwhelmed me.  The sheer magnitude of the global situation and the nonsensical rhetoric of some world ‘leaders’ left me feeling helpless.  So I set about making changes in my own world.

I have written in another post about the time someone tried to break into my home.  In the decades that followed, I, unconsciously, started to collect stuff.  Everything had value because it ‘protected’ me in the home.  For example, for someone who was barely home one or two nights a week, to have a linen cupboard full of expensive linen should have been a red flag.  The countless vases when I cannot have fresh flowers in the home due to frequent travel, should have been another.  My home was not a hoarder’s home except for boxes in the corridors when it was being renovated.  But I did leave them there for longer than they should have been.  Every empty space had to be filled with something of value.  It was not the objects, but the thinking that was my ‘protection’.

Three weeks after the phone call that grounded me indefinitely I have found an  understanding.  What really matters in life is health and well being, being kind, being empathic, letting someone have the last can of tomatoes on the shelf because you know you already have one in your hand has new meaning these days.  Kindness highlights, less is more.  I can finally see a near empty garage.  Where folks cannot pick up the furniture I’m giving away, I’m arranging for a local handyman to do this.  It keeps him working too.  Very few belongings have the value they once did.  We ascribe value to objects in a subjective way and we devalue them subjectively too.  There is freedom in this thinking.

We may never fully grasp the enormity of what the world has experienced, continues to experience and will experience for a very long time, but we can experience hope for the future.  Nature shows us this.  It is after the fiercest bush fires that the most beautiful wild flowers bloom. I know this because I search and find them.

Much like nature, faith burns and blooms.  And as I experience the biggest faith challenge at this time, I dare to hope for the impossible that is inherent in the symbolism of Easter.  May you do, too.

As always

a dawn bird

In response to Word of the Day Challenge:  Disappear