To see a waterlily afloat in a pond can take one’s breath away by the sheer beauty of it but to see a carpet of waterlilies, thousands of them, floating in a billabong in the outback, is a memorable experience.
This is Marlgu Billabong in the far northwest of Western Australia in the Kimberley Region. It teems with wildlife (saltwater crocodiles, fish, snakes), waterbirds, and raptors. I saw them all! To experience this oasis in the outback, is not a once in a lifetime experience. It is a place of return.
The waterlily symbolises joy, happiness, … a new spirit. I was never the same after my trip to the region.
Some believe a waterlily is a star that fell from the sky and became a flower (www.pansymaiden.com) which is such a lovely thought and one I’ll leave for you today.
When dawn broke I awoke, yet again, to a dark sky Stood at the threshold Unconvinced There was a galaxy up high Unnoticed, Venus shone bright Until she caught my eye That planet, a star Faithful friend in the darkest hour She appeared, silent Predictable Reliably undeterred to convince me In the darkest of nights I may be blinded by what I cannot see But that’s okay I don’t need a galaxy To brighten my day I need to seek that lone star, Venus, within That will brighten the way
a dawn bird
As a child I would look at the sky and search for the “morning star” or “evening star”. I did not know I was searching for Venus.
Sometimes, in life, we search for the brightest things, never realising what they really are, except we are drawn to them because they bedazzle us.
Over the years, I have found, when we search outwards, we dim the light within.
May you find your light within and may it shine brightest, in the darkest hour.
In that moment of exhale that fluid moment when night splits into day and unravels the seam I hear the sea sigh the softest sigh the softest sigh of the sea
I love that moment of suspension, where one waits for bloom, the revelation, the epiphany, call it what you may, that comes from peering closer into the unknown, hoping for discovery. It is these moments that I find most enlightening and helps my life journey and sometimes they surface during reflection and at other times, during a busy day.
Last year I spent a fair bit of time on ‘organisational porn’. Watched videos on decluttering and minimalism, learned the difference and set my daily tasks. But as my work slows down, the focus now is on budgeting, something I haven’t done in years. Living alone, one can be indulgent and wasteful and this is a habit I’m focusing on this year.
My frequent travel has made me a creature of habit. Some habits don’t cost me anything, for example, requesting the same hotel room each visit. But I pay a steep price in other areas. For example, I hate changing hair dressers and prefer to go to my usual salon. I can relax for a couple of hours but it is a costly exercise every three weeks. Since my mobility and strength has also been compromised, depending on my health on any given day, I’m unable to trim my nails. The fact I hate long nails because they prevent me being functional means this is another added expense every three weeks. So all up … hairdresser, manicure and pedicure … costs me $XXX per month. I never stopped to think about this until late last year when I started my financial ‘tune up’ for the coming year. It gave me reason to pause and reconsider am I paying too high a price for the comfort of the familiar?
Still reluctant to change my expensive habits, yesterday I was forced to look elsewhere to get my nails done as the regular person I see was on holidays and my long nails were slowing my typing. None of the beauty salons could fit me in, so I started phoning folks who run their business from home. I went to a home based beauty salon in the neighbouring suburb where the lady was so warm and welcoming we talked for nearly two hours like old friends. I left with a beautiful pedicure and manicure and paid just $65 (instead of $XXX at a salon). She told me to return every three weeks and she would trim my fingernails and paint them with clear varnish for $10! She has a few other clients with rheumatoid arthritis and they have the same problem as me.
Another area of waste for me in food. I often buy salad items and then throw them out. My salad garden has reduced that expense and interestingly, the two small garden planters produce so many cucumbers and tomatoes, there’s enough to give away to neighbours.
In the last two years I’ve discovered more about myself in a relationship than I ever did before. Each disagreement has led to me saying, “thank you, I didn’t know that about myself!”. My appreciation is genuine. Living alone, one can be too independent (at least that’s how I see myself!) but now realise I come across as “demanding”. Am I set in my ways? I hear a resounding yes each time I ask the question! How has this relationship lasted nearly two years! He works so remote and phone coverage is always an issue and yet our affection for each other has grown stronger. I’m reluctant to unpack this. Maybe there are some things best left undiscovered.
The Red and Green Kangaroo Paw is the floral emblem for the State of Western Australia. They are gorgeous when found growing in abundance in the wild. I remember some years ago finding a paddock of them in a national park a few kms outside Esperance. I stopped the car and took it all in, a feast for the eyes.
The flower symbolises uniqueness and individuality. Never more true than in these times. In the last two years our Premier has enforced hard border policies, and when things were more relaxed, strict entry conditions. He has borne the brunt of many from all walks of life. And yes, there are memes out there of Western Australia, our State, on one side, and The Entire World on the other! But Mark McGowan, Premier has a great sense of humour. The video of him removing his face mask to the theme song of 2001 A Space Odyssey (when wearing masks was no longer mandatory), went viral. He has had the support of some West Australians and he has endured the wrath of others.
There is talk the borders will open early February. Will this generate a state of collective relief or anxiety? There are some sectors in society that are keen for this and then there are others, who are apprehensive. What is evident is that people have started panic buying, yes the old scenario, of a dash for toilet paper, food essentials and when someone mentioned “stock up on analgesics”, the shelves were soon bare. Restricted buying in supermarkets has extended to fresh meat as well (a new restriction). The reality that a lot of our goods come from the Eastern coast has never hit home harder.
What I have loved over the last two years is that … People make eye contact more readily, and from behind the mask, their smile reaches their eyes. There is a genuine connection when this happens.
I take a moment to delay the witching hour when anticipation flows in streams I wade, wait and wait but thoughts fall on barren ground sterile, neglected and sour undeterred in furrowed brows I dig deeper until the earth within me yields I lay down my shovel on soil soften by rain scoop a handful inhale the petrichor feel the trickle and let the words fall where they may.
I’m hoping the difference in time zones means I’ve beat the deadline to this year’s Walktober.
Like many others, finding myself at the end of October has come as a surprise. My initial response was, the only walk I have done is on tarmac, when I realised, not so. I have been committed to going out with camera even on days when it seemed impossible.
Let me start from the Midwest where there are fields of wildflowers in spring. To find tangled old tree limbs entwined with delicate fringed lily made my day.
Then on to the southern Wheatbelt region to my favourite walk in Foxes Lair where wildflowers grow in impossibly hard clay.
And on to the South West region where I’ve walked many times but this year was the first time I found wild orchids growing in this little patch of bush.
And on to the Southern region where no visit is complete until I walk the boardwalk high above West Beach.
And then stop for a few minutes at the Arboretum on the way to the airport to look for wild orchids in the shade of tall gum trees and gum blossoms above.
But nothing has delighted me more when I returned home from one of my trips and walked around my small backyard to find a family of kookaburra have made the space their home.
This is Buddy, a juvenile, and my constant companion when I am home, who observes me as much as I observe him.
And in my neighbourhood, it is never spring until there is a new family of ducklings at the lake.
If you live in the Southern Hemisphere, may spring bring you new life, and for those in the Northern Hemisphere, may what falls away, make space for new.
As a child I gazed at the sky and asked why why is the moon so generous to sea and sky, and yet, like a dream, out of reach for me?
The Universe replied
That symbol of love is there out of reach, for the child to see like the moon, she has the power of one, to blind the sun she can dance on the sea at Earth’s seam, beyond the shore she can fade and disappear and yet omnipresent, like hope, she will appear to the woman who was once a child that asked why but bravely followed a dimly lit path shown under the mother-gaze of the moon and found, when she dreamed, she was never alone.
I’ve just returned after a quick trip to the South West of our State. My yearning to have my forever home there, is intensified. Each morning I set out looking for what I knew I would find.
Manea Park was quiet, except for the bird song. On the carpet of leaves, I knew, by next month, there will be wild orchids galore.
At the Bunbury Wetlands, the swallow chicks were fearless. All puffed out in fluffy coats, they watched my approach with curiosity and innocence.
I watched this little one for ages. She was not anxious for her next meal, she knew it would come. I brought home some of her wisdom.
My whole spirit delighted in what I saw in the bush. I was in a bird nursery. There were chicks everywhere.
When this tiny blue wren chick caught the sun in her chest, I knew this was a moment, for me to keep.
I lay in bed listening to the ocean roar the winds screeched above me the trees bent over, leaves stripped I was gripped in winter’s full fury I asked no one beside me, why is the world an unfriendly place? when one is alone this is the message shared with me
The world may be an unfriendly place but the Universe is a friend she watches, listens and waits nothing is given too early nothing held back, too late
So I rugged up against the winds and stepped into that enchanted place of communion I told the Universe where I was and where I never thought I’d be again I felt her warm presence walk beside me mother-like, she said
Each morning, head out to the unknown with just one certainty seek what you are looking for and you will find, what you seek
Remember, there is poetry in Nature nothing seems what it seems to be a piece of rock, is history the forest, a healing sanctuary the setting sun, is not an ending it is a new day, elsewhere and in the first light of dawn, when you feel blue remember, a flower may open to the sun but it smiles at you.
I was once the moon, that filled the night sky with my luminous eye. I was once the moon that brought sea to shore, faithfully, once more. I was once the moon that eclipsed the fierce sun, when the long day was done. I was once the moon, silent companion, that faded into obscurity during the day. I was once the moon, the promise, in darkness, we find light.
Dedicated to my father with whom I spent many hours in silent companionship.
There was a little girl who once sat on her father’s knee And told him all about What she wanted to see and be She left his knee To fly the sky Her path brightly lit By the stars in her eyes The little girl became a young woman who found love that didn’t stay She wiped her tears away and picked up the pieces and from the fragments, she chose the best tesserae she joined them together with salt, blood and tears and through her fears, the pathway emerged the young woman grew wise by her father’s words find life, and life will find you, in silence she heard she looked over her shoulder periodically with a smile and the knowledge the adventure of the life, is not in the eye of the beholder ringside, at the gallery but in the hands of the artist that holds the glittering tesserae So she shared her views, through the lens of her eye The colours, the minutiae, the wide open spaces, the early morning reverie to honour his memory, because the gift left behind was not in what he said or did But instilling the belief in her that she could fly, and she did.
This morning I woke in a bed that was empty There was no one else there but me In that space of aloneness I filled it with memory Of all the things we shared, Of what was and the dreams that could never be While outside it rained, bibilically That purest water from the sky Overflowed the gutters, and flooded the ground In that gush of energy, baptised I lay quietly and listened to the sounds Of my heart beat faster than when you were around I realised society had conned people like me The message always loud and clear One is not a number, it is an anomaly two is what counts I felt my face break open, wider than my heart had done I rose from my bed slowly Slowly like from the dead And when I was standing firm Stronger on two feet I knew I had conquered my fear, found my voice, I started to write, for perpetuity You see society promotes unity We are mismatched jigsaw pieces Never whole, a match has to be found, for that pretty picture that reflects cultural norms to emerge that promotion, is an industry in that enlightened moment, I felt the surge I had always stood on sacred ground Of the journey, the belief that cliche missing piece that completes me Was never lost, it lay within me A treasure, dormant, waiting to be found I felt blessed for the courage, that companion that walked with me into the darkness and in the coldest recesses of my being left me with a lantern , the knowledge, the treasure is not me, but the savouring of aloneness, is where serenity is found.
I love it when I learn a new word. With so much information out there, it is a treat to scurry to the dictionary scratching my head thinking, what does that word mean! Thank you Brian, at bushboy.
Much like the lines in nature, my life is falling into line again. I feel well and happy to be productive, relatively pain free and looking forward to travelling and working full pace once more after spending most of the month of July at home. I’m nesting. Being kind to myself. Finding companionship in birds that have taken over my back garden and generally just glad to be going back to who I know I am. It’s a feeling of home like no other.
Silk worms
I loved the dark fronds and delicate lace wings.
I watched tiny honeyeaters sip rain drops from these leaf cups one morning.
I’m not a gardener so I’m not sure whether these should be in my garden ….
but I loved how beautiful the mushrooms looked when they ‘bloomed’.
Then there are those lines that take me to places so far away.
May you, too, seek and find adventure in each day.
A Shared Space 
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