Cape Gooseberry, yet to fruit in my garden.
Whitebreasted woodswallows, in the Kimberley region. Keeping together.
Love lines in the sand, Carnarvon, Western Australia
Solo mother, doing it for herself.
Camel lines on Cable Beach, Broome, Western Australia.
Hurried post. Hope you enjoy!
As always
a dawn bird
In response to Judy Dykstra-Brown’s Photo Challenge: All Lined Up
I’ve been doing some reading on the work of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi who espoused the psychological theory of ‘flow’. Much like mindfulness, flow is about being fully present in the moment. It appeals to me more than mindfulness. Flow is about generating a spark. It ignites. In a moment of inaction, it generates movement, it is fluid. One becomes all. All becomes one. All falls away. There is no ego in that moment.
Photography does this for me.
I need moments like this every day. To me, they are as vital as breath.
I need big skies over me. I am humbled and in awe of this.
To be one with this leaves me wordless.
There are times I am so still, I forget to exhale.
The best part is when what I’m experiencing in the moment, is visible to someone else who has seen it many times but never experienced it. It is a moment of intimacy, like no other. It ignites.
Until next time
As always
a dawn bird
In response to RDP : Tuesday – Spark
It’s late as I write
I should be in bed
tomorrow I fly again
this time, north
where the dust is red
and pink frangipani bloom
outside the door
I won’t be alone
you’ll be with me
watching the silent heron
as it catwalks through mudflats
and as always, waterside
waiting
for sunrise and sunset
then, I’ll be home soon,
too soon,
with stars for eyes
waiting
for the ascent, again.
a dawn bird
The sand was beige
much like life
when a sunset
became a new day
where we stood,
our feet immersed in gold.
a dawn bird
In response to RDP – Thursday: Regenerate
I hear your hymn,
nuzzle in
feast on me,
this velvet hour.
In response to Word of the Day Challenge: Velvet
Sturt Desert Pea, Pilbara (mining) region, Western Australia
Red rimmed
eye to eye, we bloom
in ravaged earth
that bleeds in
boom or bust.
a dawn bird
In response to Pix and A Word Challenge: Red #187
Nature’s depression
that confusion and distortion
descends by stealth at night
sometimes, preceded by warning
take heed, nothing will be familiar
Be wary,
The monochrome of grey
Where all is same but isn’t
Will become the norm
Ignore at your peril
which I did.
It took a brighter sun to break through
It warmed the earth where I stood
in bare feet or in boots
as the fog lifted,
I closed my eyes so I could see
and found,
in those dark days of invisibility
the trees continued to breathe for me.
a dawn bird
In response to Word of the Day Challenge: Fog
Wyalup Rocks, Bunbury, Western Australia
Still standing
leaning
into the wind
a dawn bird
In response to RDP – Monday: Blustery
Sunset, Back Beach, Bunbury, Western Australia
Letter to Steve
Grief torched my life in the years before I met you. You helped me refocus. You helped me find my voice, my creativity and a sense of purpose. Five years later, I lost it all in one fell scoop. The light you brought into my world was too bright. The memory of your vibrancy made me flinch for years. I averted my gaze whenever I drove alongside Back Beach. I buried myself whole into work. Last night I walked along where you once jogged. It was magnificent at sunset as it often is. As I walked I realised you were meant to come into my life for a reason. I am where I am, because of you. Today, this is my reality.
I looked for a relationship unsuccessfully with another academic in the years that followed. It was a natural thing to do, after all, I had been married to one and then met you. Life is either crazy or just plain contrary. What followed was so not what I thought it would be.
It was 17 years after your death when I found photography. It helped me see the world around me in new ways. What was familiar was unfamiliar, and then familiar again. I found shapes, patterns, colours and movements. A rhythm. I started to write again. I looked for clouds and rain, because, together, they meant rainbows and not a banal weather report that dictated my work schedule.
My work life is nothing you and I could ever have envisaged. I don’t present papers around the world like you did but I do spend more time at an airport. It has become an office. I find a quiet spot in the lounge and get work done. This is where life started to get strange.
Had it not been for my camera I would not have noticed the imperceptible glint in the gaze. The casual look that is exchanged between strangers, and maintained for a fraction longer. You did not know the logistically challenging rostered world of FIFO workers, if you did, you would have grinned and said, what followed was meant to be. The gaze turned into a conversation and my dormant heart found a beat again.
He is no academic. He barely finished high school and so proud of his TAFE achievement because he makes a good living from it. His nails are not manicured. His hands are rough and stained from hard work. He barely reads the news headlines, let alone a book. His views on politics are succinct, and expressed in the vernacular of the region, “Effing wankers, the lot of them!” End of story. There is no malice in his reference, “Miss Fancy Pants!” as he curls his finger around pearls. He is sensitive and sensual for a man who works with earth on his hands. Nor do I feel what I do is diminished by his inability to understand it when he says, “what is it that you actually do?”. What you see is what you get with him. He travels light. His values can be endearingly old fashioned, at times. We admit to nothing. The unsaid, saying it all. Things are just what they were, at first ignite. Alive. Unfinished. Unended. It makes pick up where we left off, easier. I like what this gives me. There are no tomorrows or happily ever afters. I searched for those for far too long. For me, they were an unfortunate myth. I live in the moment now. It’s a happy place to be.
He is no blinding light in my life, like you were. He lights up my world for a moment, much like seeing a shooting star, and when we leave, the eternal hope, it will happen again.
Where ever you are, here’s to another morning … shine bright. What was, and what is, is meant to be.
a dawn bird
In response to Word of the Day Challenge: Virtual
He emerged
from the underground
with limbs brown as toast
as warm, too
and a tweet so sweet
to dine alone
yet, together
head deep in flower.
a dawn bird
Geographe Bay, Busselton, Western Australia May 2019
Clouds, like memories
drift
within reach.
a dawn bird
Word of the Day Challenge: Cloudy
You travel light
Not a care in the world
No baggage dragged around
Or dumped at my front door
No ego, no superego,
no library in your vocabulary
No raised, quizzical eyebrow
Your curiosity is naïve
You don’t complicate life
With judgements and a critical eye
I like where you came from
And where you’ve been
Your plans don’t go beyond the now
You have no idea where you are going
Why would you, you question me
Because time stands still here,
where you are happiest
When you’re with me.
a dawn bird
In response to RDP Friday: Eyebrow
Rain, like tears
nectar
uncorked.
a dawn bird
A Shared Space 
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