Have you noticed
the moon never leaves the sky
ever watchful, a silent eye
the glare of sun may blur it
clouds too
and when you’re far from me
with just lonely for company
look up and remember
day or night
I placed it there
omnipresent
because I miss you too.
a dawn bird
In response to Word of the Day Challenge – Lonely
Full moon, Diggers Rest, Wyndham, Western Australia
Sexual attraction, that indefinable energy, that surfaces silently and generates a force of its own, and much like the moon, has the power to move oceans.
Does one normalize this clinically as a biological instinct?
Or does romanticize this as an unmissable magic carpet ride?
a dawn bird
In response to RDP – Friday – Normal
It’s been a long day today but made easier when a friend sent me texts and pictures of an area I visited for the first time, about two years ago. I felt a pang of nostalgia for that harsh and stunning landscape. Fortunately, I have a colleague who loves this kind of travel as much as I do and when offered work, we are always prepared to go the distance. We both love the nothingness and fullness of the outback experience. She and I were there for just a week but my friend’s swing is longer. Long hours, heat and isolation takes a toll on folks. I know from experience, unless one has experienced this, work and travel of this kind is difficult to explain to others. It is emotionally, physically and psychologically taxing. It brings out a curious dichotomy of vulnerability and strength in people.
I’m behind my work schedule tonight but wanted to reblog my post of that visit. I have fond memories of that trip. We were like excited school girls and it was a long hot drive. I recall we drank litres of water but did not need a comfort break. The heat was intense in November in country that is usually hot at any time of the year.
Oh! how I yearn to be out there again.
Until next time
As always
a dawn bird
In response to YDWord Prompt – Distance– 23 April 2020
I’m not sure whether it is the case what the heart feels, the eye sees or vice versa. Both are applicable to my experience of photography. With camera in hand my world took on new meaning. Solitary in my pursuits, it drew others in. Nothing grounds me as much as the focus on photographing something that catches my eye. When I see something I get a visceral response and photographing it just intensifies the experience of the moment.
West Beach, Esperance, Western Australia
The young fearless surfers at West Beach are a delight to photograph and one of my favourite places to visit in Esperance. I love reflecting how analogous surfing is to life’s journey – the waiting, the patience, the moment of poise when you stand firm on fluid ground and let the wave bring you to shore. And then … you go out to experience the same again.
Grevillea
One of my favourite native shrubs is grevillea. The birds love it too. To my eye they are perfection, each loop, part of the whole.
Pelicans capture my heart as much as sea gulls. Large and ungainly, I love how pelicans descend on water, with the grace of a perfect flight landing.
Town Beach, Exmouth Gulf, Western Australia
When I retire I want just enough money to enable me to travel to this beach on a regular basis. Watching hues tint the sky, at sunrise or sunset, is like watching an artist at work.
Paraburdoo, Pilbara mining region, Western Australia
I love the mining regions of Western Australia. The earth is a rich red, contrasting pale spinifex, ranges and the awesome landscape that demands one is still in it’s presence.
My front garden is laden with roses at certain times of the year and at other times, there are roses. After a rain shower, oh, the perfume!
I use this cape gooseberry encased in the filigree paper like lantern as part of my meditation. When I want to extinguish an undesired behaviour, I envisage new pathways emerging in the delicacy of my brain.
Who can resist the attraction of unconditional love? Not me! This is the day Kovu became part of my son’s family and like a doting grandpawrent, I was there to document family history 🙂
Until next time
As always
a dawn bird
In response to RDP – Wednesday – Visual
The pace was slow
to stillness
and Mother Nature smiled
a dawn bird
Parched
layered in memories
new ways, seep in
a dawn bird
In response to Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge – Sense of Seeing
Ivanhoe Crossing, Kununurra, Kimberley region, Western Australia
The Ord River, lifeline of the fruit growing region in Kununurra where there are km after km of mango groves, is magnificent in full flow. As I drove up here, some 8-10 kms out of Kununurra, I could hear the water but was unprepared to see the force of it. There is a curved sealed low bridge road that one can drive across the river when it is not flooded and some do attempt to drive across when it is. I’ve also seen folks fishing, standing in these waters where there are saltwater crocodiles. On one trip there was a couple knee deep standing on the road and fishing off it. He left his partner in the middle and walked toward us. I asked him if he was local, he said no so we warned him about the crocs. He glanced around and said, “haven’t seen any today”. Such stupidity is breathtaking. A few minutes later a couple of rangers came up to the site and directed the couple to another safer fishing spot. The rangers just shook their heads while these folks packed up. I’m not sure whether their casual attitude was stupidity or bravado. I’ve photographed crocodiles in a croc park and they are lightening quick. I managed to get some beautiful shots only because I was startled!
I’ve walked along here a few times and have been here on my own. I just love it. The birdlife here is pretty amazing. Big water birds sail these waters with ease. To be an observer of this force is a humbling experience. Nature does this. The added bonus is a mango farm on the way here that sells the most delicious mango ice cream and milkshakes.
Oh! I’m missing travel and being outdoors so very much! My days are a roller coaster of emotions. I feel vulnerable some days and others, stronger and resolved. I question myself whether I could have appreciated my experiences more than I did. Is it really possible? Ever hopeful, I guess I’ll only know once I travel again.
I love the anonymity travel gives me. I am often in small towns where no one knows my name and yet I have never felt lonely. Here in the city, I am consumed by a sense of being alone, so I put my game face on and plod through another day. I have always believed feeling lonely when in company, is a crushing feeling. I find walking through supermarkets or shops an unnerving experience. The automatic response of putting distance between folks is unsettling. I have a massage several times a month. I am an affectionate person with those I love so I have skin hunger like nothing I have experienced before! When I’m home alone working I’m oblivious to it. But if I go out and return home, it takes a while for me to settle into my skin so I plan each day, each week carefully.
During the day the sounds in my neighbourhood are a comfort. Children practicing their piano or wind instrument. The low hum of neighbours’ voices. The hammering, the lawn mowing, dogs barking. But the odd feeling of presence amid absence is disconcerting. I feel a pang of guilt writing this post when there is such pain around the world but on second thoughts I felt it was important to look at the human experience of this at a subjective level. If I cannot access this in myself, I know I will not be able to understand it in others.
I’ve decided to stagger whatever work that remains to be done to the home. It feels good to have someone around. I’ve found a good gardener who is enthusiastic about rejuvenating my garden. Once it is established, I know it will be a healing space. And, don’t we all need this?
Until next time
As always
a dawn bird
In response to RDP – Tuesday – Bravado
Rainbow lorikeet, in my garden
Being home has given me the opportunity to get my house and garden close enough to what I envisaged when I bought the property. I’ve had time to build up my ‘little black book’ and struck gold. I now have a small group of good tradesmen who are able to help me realise my dream.
With most of the internal building renovations done and just painting and window treatments left indoors, I’m enjoying moments in the garden trying to dream up a space that will keep me grounded. I was toying with the idea of getting rid of the big mulberry tree. I get barely a cup of fruit from lower branches and a laden, tall tree is tantalizing to others too, it would seem. Sadly cockroaches love the fruit and when the fruiting season is done, they try and come indoors. I abhor cockroaches enough to contemplate, for a brief moment, to cut down the tree.
Last evening at dusk I heard the rainbow lorikeets outside my study window. They love the mulberry tree. Then I remembered what a serendipitous moment feels like, and it made my heart beat to a new rhythm again.
a dawn bird
In response to RDP – Monday – Flutter
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.
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.
The simplicity of walking in seagull footsteps is something I will follow again in three words, sea, sky, solitary. 
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’).
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.
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.
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
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
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
Esperance Bay, Esperance, Western Australia
It’s all about pace
each step forward
same as the one before
gets one there
as intended.
a dawn bird
In response to Pic and a Word Challenge – Running – #226
The colour of yellow is sometimes used to welcome loved ones home. The colour has given me a new way of looking at current circumstances.
As a frequent traveller in this large State that covers a third of the continent, the whole of Western Australia has been my home for some years now. Although my work continues with technology, I’m feeling the sudden cessation of being isolated from nature as I knew it.
Pacific gull, Esperance, Western Australia
In Esperance, south east of Perth, I would spend my three mornings a month at the Bay with birds, dolphins and seals.
Miner, Kununurra, Western Australia
In the far north, East Kimberley region, I was alone in Hidden Valley (Mirima National Park), just outside Kununurra one afternoon, enjoying a quiet moment in the car when this miner bird buzzed my car so aggressively I had to move. It taught me to respect territory and space.
In the eastern Wheatbelt town of Merredin, my mornings were among the tall gum trees at a reserve where red tailed cockatoos were raucous enough to silence the usually vocal wattle bird. The lesson here, perhaps, there are times for some to speak and others to listen.
From my Midwest hotel window I enjoyed my coffee with a white plumed honey eater with a delightful yolk yellow head. I think this one was still a young one as it waited patiently for a feed to be brought to it. Patience is key!
What I miss the most is the soft butter yellow spinifex of the Pilbara outback, where in the harshest environment, my heart is receptive and vulnerable. That hasn’t changed. I found I can also experience this in a city, encased in bricks and glass.
Waking to the scent of frangipani outdoors on always warm mornings in the mining towns of the Pilbara, will be a memory. The scent may fade, not the memory.
One of the most rewarding aspects of my work is being with children. This was outside a child care centre in the South West. A Dummy Fairy Tree. Children can always make us smile. It is their gift.
Although I’m not a cat person, I found this street art striking. Not far from my neighbourhood, in the days leading to self-isolation a reminder, for a wanderer like me, the yellow brick does lead to home.
Meal with loved ones, March 2020
Little did I know at my last meal with loved ones, what brought us together would lead to a new tyranny of distance, be it less than six feet or thousands of kms.
I am home. And my wish for those who read this post, is the same. May you feel you are home where ever you may be. The world will still be there. When we emerge we will see and experience it again. We will gain new perspectives. That’s a place to hope for, and anticipate.
Until next time
As always
a dawn bird
In response to Friendly Friday Photo Challenge – Yellow
I moved into my home about six or seven years ago and have not yet unpacked most of my belongings.
I refuse to give into the blah of changed circumstances and decided this morning to order a bigger skip for next week and start culling. There are suitcases and boxes in the garage to be unpacked, sorted and thrown away. Magazines, recipes books and hundreds of children’s story books have to be sorted. I still have the Tonka Truck I gave my son for his first birthday and can’t bear to part with it 27 years later. Children’s puzzles, old video games, DVD players. Oh! the accumulation of trivia and technology. All will go. Except the Tonka Truck.
I sat on the sofa today and looked around my home. There is so much stuff that can be discarded and I would not miss it.
Willy Wagtail, Bunbury wetlands, Western Australia
I’m hoping during this self-imposed isolation I will catch up on reports and get my home into shape. These are my priorities.
When I moved into this house I promised myself there would be no ‘junk room’. Each room would have a purpose. My home would be a home where I nest. Birds do this well. I plan to do the same.
Until next time
As always
a dawn bird
In response to RDP – Saturday – Habitat
Over Shark Bay, Western Australia
The sea is a sea
nothing more, nothing less
but a glimmer of shore, beyond
a dawn bird
In response to Pic and a Word Challenge #225
A Shared Space 
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