I recall many years ago attending a weekend health retreat at a place that was primarily for cancer patients and their family. The retreat would open to the general public once a year and I jumped at the opportunity to go there. We were warned there would be no caffeine, sugar or salt in the meals. My knees buckled at the thought but it was just a weekend, I would survive, I told myself. The weekend changed my diet for months. I could not eat fast foods (too salty), caffeine gave me an unpleasant buzz and sugar made me feel ill.
Last year my goal was to be a mindful consumer of food. I wondered if the label had a paragraph of ingredients, was it really healthy to consume on a regular basis? This led to mindful shopping. I do love zoning out in a supermarket but have found I need bare essentials only. I take out the recycle bin every 4-6 weeks. I’m not consuming that much!
Having made major adjustments to daily living, I’ve set a personal goal this year. It is an undeniable truth I lead a stressful life. Making sure I spend some time in mindful moments comes easily to me now. I am healthy on a psychological level but I have neglected my physical health. So this year I’m going to be kind and nurturing to my body.
To achieve this goal I had to think what that actually means. With competing priorities, this part was the hardest and quite confronting. It required me to do what does not come naturally to me. I had to give myself a higher priority. So I thought I’d start like I did on the health retreat and try this over a weekend.
I seem to have chosen the hottest weekend to detox and nurture myself. In some ways, a blessing in disguise. Lots of fluid is the order of the day.
It has taken a lot of planning to get to this point. With a fridge that is often bare was a good place to start. I could choose what I needed. It has taken away the stress of choice of what I should not be consuming over the next two days.
This morning I made a jug of green tea, and added lime, orange and grapefruit and a handful of crushed mint leaves, and filled it with ice. Delicious! It will be gone before lunch.
Late last night I made a pot of clear vegetable soup. I could have easily used kitchen appliances to slice and dice vegetables. But I enjoyed the manual task. It seemed to be a nurturing gesture. Despite being a warm morning, my body craved the soup instead of coffee. I knew the soup was full of nutrition.
Making changes comes down to perception. It is a chore or is it a choice. Choice is more self-directed, and a powerful motivator. A chore is generally imposed by someone else or circumstances. Having made this distinction, I can’t wait for the next weekend!
Until next time
As always
a dawn bird
To the novice, this is just rubble. Not me. My heart raced as I walked around. I anticipated seeing some wild orchids, just as the blog had published.
Soon I found the first orchids. 
Tiny bulbs. I had never seen orchid bulbs before.
The donkey orchids bloomed, stained like tortoise shells, in their hundreds.
Among the grass there were spider orchids.
Oh! so graceful in bud!
When blooming, they danced around, ta da ing their way across grass and rubble.
Their heart, exquisite.
Some bloomed in trios, each more graceful than their neighbour, in still posture.
I headed over to the Lookout where there is a steep gradient over granite rock to bush land below. I’ve found white sugar orchids here before, so I went looking. I wasn’t disappointed!
There were some that were stronger in colour. Each detail so perfect in dusk light.
Others, tinted white.
And others, deep in the bush, barely pink.
The Lair was a florist shop. There are thousands of flowers and different species every few steps. Instead of rubber necking, I decided to explore one side of the track before exploring the other. I also decided to look for the smaller flowers that the eye can barely see.
I found tiny purple tassle flowers.
Blue lechenaultia blooming in some corners.
While others responded more slowly to sunlight. Blue and purple flowers are more difficult to see in dense bushland where white, pink and yellow are dominant colours in spring.
I spent a lot of time with the exquisitely tiny paper everlasting flowers. They are barely visible to the naked eye.
They love the sun and open at first rays before one’s eyes.
How cute is this?
I loved the white flowers too, interspersed among the pinks.
The tiny pink fairy orchids were scattered here and there.
The sundew were less frequently seen this month. I love these flowers.
The hakea tassle flowers were frosting large bushes, white with pink tips.
I found this beautiful white orchid, demurely blooming behind a log.
I thought this was moss but it looks like a succulent of some kind.
This was the only pimelea I found during my walk. Beautiful!
I heard a squawk above my head, only to find a young redcap parrot, all ruffled to greet the day.
While another young parrot groomed nearby.
On the ground, the red breasted robin kept me company.
Those who know me, know I love the philosophy of Marie Kondo, the Japanese declutter queen. She says, “People cannot change their tidying habits without changing their thinking”. This is true. Change can be achieved, mindfully. It fits in with three simple words that guide me: “Think. Do. Be”. There is no wisdom here. Just the principles that guide the complex science of behaviour modification.
The results speak for themselves!
I learn from educational programs. Is sugar good for you? The insidious nature of it should stop us in our tracks. If we stopped supporting the fast food industry, will we be healthier? Can we reduce the use of plastics? How do we combat pollution? For me, these TV shows have become an unwitting mentor to living life with meaning. I recall years ago when someone stood up and was counted. We now have labels that identifies food from source countries. The ones that say ‘some imported ingredients’, the percentage never identified, I leave those well alone. I don’t see any reason for fresh food to be transported from across the world, when it is available a few kms down the road.
The road out of Broome is initially a sealed one. Then comes the fun part!
About 90kms of unsealed road. I’ve driven up here with others on four occasions in different weather conditions. It has always been an adventure!
Sometimes one drives through deeply gutted and mousse like pindan (red) earth.
At other times one eats dust.
The road etiquette is pretty easy to adapt to. Ride the ridge to allow oncoming traffic pass safely.
I often despair watching children with hand held devices. Immersed in technology, they miss the world around them. So when I saw a young boy wetting a line on the beach, Pacific Seagull by his side, it made me smile. He could have been sitting in the hotel room playing video games. But he was out here at dawn, because he enjoyed the experience of what he was doing. He didn’t catch any fish. It was just the enjoyment of anticipation and being near the sea. He had a relationship with the environment. There is hope ….
I look at the ocean differently. The responsibility for keeping it pristine lies with each of us. The answer to a complex question ‘What can I do?” lies within the question. It starts with “I …”.
I look at the debris left behind by the tides each day. It’s the kind that makes me happy. Like watching a child fishing at the beach, it also makes me hopeful.
A Shared Space 
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