Our first Christmas in the Tweed. Just Richard and I. Not many presents either. We have our big present. We live here in this beautiful place. Nevertheless we did get each other presents; nice token presents; perfume for me, scotch whiskey for him. But the best present was what we did afterwards. We drove to Mt. Warning and walked up part of the track.
Old growth forests of any sort aren't common anymore so it is a thrill, a deep visceral thrill, to walk among ancient trees, to be a small being among old giants. It is a sacred place. The aborigines desire that Mt. Warning not be scaled but of course we don't respect that and people by the thousands climb it every year. I'm not sure I want to climb to the top. What I do want to do is follow the rainforest track until it ends and the cleared final section begins. We didn't do that on Sunday but I will one day soon.
Tuesday, December 27, 2016
Saturday, December 17, 2016
In Sickness and In Health (nothing to do with marriage)
What a week. I've been sick. Talking about one's illness is boring so I won't except to say it took me an entire week to come to my senses and do something about it. And that something wasn't going to the doctor.
I come from a long line of Christian Scientists and although I don't consider myself a Christian and instinctively shy away from anything with Christian overtones (not because Christianity is inherently bad but because of the bad things done in its name), I do believe in the power of the mind, I do believe we are all spirit and that our spirit is essentially the same as the Great Spirit or Infinite Spirit or God from which everything has its being. And if I am that than I am capable of healing myself. So after a particularly excruciating morning in which I spent most of the time doubled over in pain I took myself off to bed. And then to the couch as the house painters were painting outside the bedroom.
I lay there and visualized the pain as a knot. I thanked it for its presence (after all I have lost 2 kilos!) and for what it came to teach me but now it was time to let go its grip and relax.
Cameron and his girls were coming. I had to be up (and straight up, not bent over groaning) and about before they arrived. And I was. By the time they came the pain had gone. I'm sore. Whatever it was, in the space of a week, left a bruised feeling but that's nothing. The cough is still here (an entirely separate affair?) but that too is nothing. And I'm working on that.
I am rereading In Tune with the Infinite by Ralph Waldo Trine. Finished it and started reading it again. It is chock a block with underlined words and sentences that held special meaning for Mom. In the back is written: Beauty: Eternal Spirit Truth Infinite Life Love. In fact, although the book doesn't especially emphasize beauty, Mom does. She reads the book with beauty in mind. To her it seems important to find the beauty in everything. She also wrote that sins were like mathematical mistakes made in ignorance. Once one knew better than one didn't make that mistake again.
Having done a little research (thank you Wikipedia - just did this years small donation) I have a bit better knowledge and appreciation of my roots through the maternal line. Apparently many of New Thoughts movers and thinkers in its early years were women. Grandma Hazel was a Christian Scientist and I believe Aunt Joanne was cured of a serious (incurable?) disease through Christian Science. So the female emphasis continues.
Unity Magazine used to be a daily part of my teenage life. I read it and liked it but wasn't really ready for it and even then I was put off by the Christian overtones. Didn't know that Unity Church also has its roots in New Thought.
I'm just grateful. Mom's emphasis was on beauty. Perhaps. Her artistic nature, necessarily dampened down by the life she led, found some release in the beauty of the everyday? I'm only guessing. I don't know. My daily emphasis seems to be in gratitude. Just so damn grateful to be alive to see the beauty in the every day. And to be pain free.
I come from a long line of Christian Scientists and although I don't consider myself a Christian and instinctively shy away from anything with Christian overtones (not because Christianity is inherently bad but because of the bad things done in its name), I do believe in the power of the mind, I do believe we are all spirit and that our spirit is essentially the same as the Great Spirit or Infinite Spirit or God from which everything has its being. And if I am that than I am capable of healing myself. So after a particularly excruciating morning in which I spent most of the time doubled over in pain I took myself off to bed. And then to the couch as the house painters were painting outside the bedroom.
I lay there and visualized the pain as a knot. I thanked it for its presence (after all I have lost 2 kilos!) and for what it came to teach me but now it was time to let go its grip and relax.
Cameron and his girls were coming. I had to be up (and straight up, not bent over groaning) and about before they arrived. And I was. By the time they came the pain had gone. I'm sore. Whatever it was, in the space of a week, left a bruised feeling but that's nothing. The cough is still here (an entirely separate affair?) but that too is nothing. And I'm working on that.
I am rereading In Tune with the Infinite by Ralph Waldo Trine. Finished it and started reading it again. It is chock a block with underlined words and sentences that held special meaning for Mom. In the back is written: Beauty: Eternal Spirit Truth Infinite Life Love. In fact, although the book doesn't especially emphasize beauty, Mom does. She reads the book with beauty in mind. To her it seems important to find the beauty in everything. She also wrote that sins were like mathematical mistakes made in ignorance. Once one knew better than one didn't make that mistake again.
Having done a little research (thank you Wikipedia - just did this years small donation) I have a bit better knowledge and appreciation of my roots through the maternal line. Apparently many of New Thoughts movers and thinkers in its early years were women. Grandma Hazel was a Christian Scientist and I believe Aunt Joanne was cured of a serious (incurable?) disease through Christian Science. So the female emphasis continues.
Unity Magazine used to be a daily part of my teenage life. I read it and liked it but wasn't really ready for it and even then I was put off by the Christian overtones. Didn't know that Unity Church also has its roots in New Thought.
I'm just grateful. Mom's emphasis was on beauty. Perhaps. Her artistic nature, necessarily dampened down by the life she led, found some release in the beauty of the everyday? I'm only guessing. I don't know. My daily emphasis seems to be in gratitude. Just so damn grateful to be alive to see the beauty in the every day. And to be pain free.
Monday, December 12, 2016
I've lost my eagle. That's what I dreamed. My eagle had flown away and I didn't know how I would get him back again. I tried to climb over a barbed wire fence but knew even as I struggled with the strands he was far far away and not coming back. I had a walkie talkie but it didn't matter who I spoke to, the eagle was gone.
I awoke with that dream in my head, feeling sad, feeling bereft. Feeling trapped, earthbound, inert, sluggish, all those gravity fed words.
So time to take myself in hand, once again. This dream reflects present perceived reality. Reality is more a series of chores and obligations with very little soaring. I am rarely alone, which is a bit hard to adjust to, or if I am, like now, I can expect a friendly query, 'What are you doing?'. Well meant but lethal.
Took a Natural History Illustration course through the University of Newcastle. A great kickstarter to getting some art done. Learned a lot too. Relearned some things as well. Happily some of the participants (about 600!) have started a group on facebook. They are still fleshing out the details but it seems it will be a place where assignments are given and feedback is received. I'm in. Have not one original creative idea in my head right now so best to keep the pencil going.
Even now, I've set the timer on the mobile to sit here for 30 minutes and write. To write anything and everything that comes to mind, just to get something going. A world of chores awaits; gardens to be worked, weeds to be chipped, painting to be done (A frame interior), enough chores to keep me going for a year. But I have to start choosing something like this. Just to keep my hand in.
Incidentally, doing a search of free university courses, there are quite a few for creative writing. Perhaps a creative writing course is something I could do in the future.
Sad news too. Both rainbow lorikeets have died. Found Yasi inert on the bottom of the aviary, the brand new roomy aviary. She almost seemed paralyzed. Didn't even try to take her to the vet. Fed her with a 1mm syringe. At first she seemed to want to eat but later it was obvious she did not, could not. Her eyes sank into her head, she was weaker and even more immobile. She was dead by evening.
Kept an eagle eye on her mate, Pablo. All seemed well. Two days ago, when I took the food and water in, he drank and drank and drank the water which was not a good sign. But he was eating, calling out to the wild birds, looking normal. Then yesterday morning, the feathers on top of his head were parted. Not like from an injury but almost as though either he wasn't preening or he got into something sticky like the grapes we put out on a wire every day for him.
Last night I thought he looked iffy. And he seemed a bit sluggish, a bit reluctant to move down the branch away from me, although he's always been semi-tame. His body shape seemed a bit unusual too, as though his crop was empty - but his food dish was mostly empty so he had been eating.
This morning he was dead on the bottom of the cage. No poopy behind, no funny smell, no sign at all of what went wrong. I've had the birds for years. I'd look up how long but my wild bird file seems to have gone walkabout. Yasi was named after Cyclone Yasi which made landfall in north Queensland in January 2011. Pablo had had several *friends* before Yasi. Birds that came good and were released.
Could have sent the body for autopsy and get a workup on bacteria etc. but know how expensive it can be with little result. The scalys seem bright and cheerful. Although their aviaries are near the rainbows, they don't have contact. Fingers crossed.
Saw a platypus yesterday. At the bottom of our street, two ponds are joined by a culvert. After rain the northernmost one sends a healthy stream of water to the southern one. We'd seen a turtle sunning himself on a concrete ledge a few days before so decided to sneak up and see if we could have another look without disturbing him. The turtle wasn't there but a platypus was. They are much smaller than I imagined. Thought of them as ferret sized but they seem to be just over a foot long, and that's including the tail.
We stayed and watched him for awhile. He leaves a trail of bubbles as he searches the bottom for edibles. How brilliant to have healthy waterways that can support a platypus and a turtle! On our street!
Phil has come and started painting the outside of the house. Finally we will be rid of the baby poo yellow and burnt orange. The former owner of the house is the nicest woman but our colour choices are very very different.
I awoke with that dream in my head, feeling sad, feeling bereft. Feeling trapped, earthbound, inert, sluggish, all those gravity fed words.
So time to take myself in hand, once again. This dream reflects present perceived reality. Reality is more a series of chores and obligations with very little soaring. I am rarely alone, which is a bit hard to adjust to, or if I am, like now, I can expect a friendly query, 'What are you doing?'. Well meant but lethal.
Took a Natural History Illustration course through the University of Newcastle. A great kickstarter to getting some art done. Learned a lot too. Relearned some things as well. Happily some of the participants (about 600!) have started a group on facebook. They are still fleshing out the details but it seems it will be a place where assignments are given and feedback is received. I'm in. Have not one original creative idea in my head right now so best to keep the pencil going.
Even now, I've set the timer on the mobile to sit here for 30 minutes and write. To write anything and everything that comes to mind, just to get something going. A world of chores awaits; gardens to be worked, weeds to be chipped, painting to be done (A frame interior), enough chores to keep me going for a year. But I have to start choosing something like this. Just to keep my hand in.
Incidentally, doing a search of free university courses, there are quite a few for creative writing. Perhaps a creative writing course is something I could do in the future.
Sad news too. Both rainbow lorikeets have died. Found Yasi inert on the bottom of the aviary, the brand new roomy aviary. She almost seemed paralyzed. Didn't even try to take her to the vet. Fed her with a 1mm syringe. At first she seemed to want to eat but later it was obvious she did not, could not. Her eyes sank into her head, she was weaker and even more immobile. She was dead by evening.
Kept an eagle eye on her mate, Pablo. All seemed well. Two days ago, when I took the food and water in, he drank and drank and drank the water which was not a good sign. But he was eating, calling out to the wild birds, looking normal. Then yesterday morning, the feathers on top of his head were parted. Not like from an injury but almost as though either he wasn't preening or he got into something sticky like the grapes we put out on a wire every day for him.
Last night I thought he looked iffy. And he seemed a bit sluggish, a bit reluctant to move down the branch away from me, although he's always been semi-tame. His body shape seemed a bit unusual too, as though his crop was empty - but his food dish was mostly empty so he had been eating.
This morning he was dead on the bottom of the cage. No poopy behind, no funny smell, no sign at all of what went wrong. I've had the birds for years. I'd look up how long but my wild bird file seems to have gone walkabout. Yasi was named after Cyclone Yasi which made landfall in north Queensland in January 2011. Pablo had had several *friends* before Yasi. Birds that came good and were released.
Could have sent the body for autopsy and get a workup on bacteria etc. but know how expensive it can be with little result. The scalys seem bright and cheerful. Although their aviaries are near the rainbows, they don't have contact. Fingers crossed.
Saw a platypus yesterday. At the bottom of our street, two ponds are joined by a culvert. After rain the northernmost one sends a healthy stream of water to the southern one. We'd seen a turtle sunning himself on a concrete ledge a few days before so decided to sneak up and see if we could have another look without disturbing him. The turtle wasn't there but a platypus was. They are much smaller than I imagined. Thought of them as ferret sized but they seem to be just over a foot long, and that's including the tail.
We stayed and watched him for awhile. He leaves a trail of bubbles as he searches the bottom for edibles. How brilliant to have healthy waterways that can support a platypus and a turtle! On our street!
Phil has come and started painting the outside of the house. Finally we will be rid of the baby poo yellow and burnt orange. The former owner of the house is the nicest woman but our colour choices are very very different.
Tuesday, October 18, 2016
Cat Ode, A Poem
Cat Ode
Four felines, eight chromatic orbs
Sixteen paws - lawless unlawed
Quatrains of tails, poetic prose
Posing.
A quartet of cats
inharmonious harmony
Oriental asymmetry
Kaffir confusion
On stage so we can see
Inharmonious poetry
No domestics these
A name they don to please
Us asleep, bed refugees
Killers of toes and whimsical foes
Black belts, black tails
Black pads, black masks
Adorable thieves
And flower faces
Wrinkled noses
Assiduously biting
Some microscopic imperfection
On a sculptured foreleg
Artful tyranny
Thank Bast!
Who needs TV
When they have we?
Thursday, September 22, 2016
Timing is Everything
Wish I could start this post with, The Dogs are Back! Alas, it isn't so. It has been 10 days today and while part of me wants to remain positive, another part says, no way. When they went missing for 9 days all those years ago, even though it was winter, they were younger dogs. Younger and stronger. Now they are both on arthritis supplements. Jamaica especially carries no extra weight. Jamaica is also on the special diet for a tender tummy, the hypoallergenic food so 'roughing it' just isn't in his lexicon. But worse than that this is the Tweed. It's rain forest and thus has many biting and bloodsucking insects; flies, mosquitoes, sand flies and especially leeches. I have had two on me since we've been here and I wasn't wandering through the bush. I can't see how two fine boned and finely fleshed dogs with little in the way of a protective coat can survive.
Other than that, and that's a big that, I am so grateful to be here. Rang our ex-neighbours yesterday and heard the gut-wrenching news that the quarry is going ahead. Trucks have been in and out, the rock crusher is coming and quarrying is to start early next year.
Despite The Lost Dogs, the ups and downs of getting here, the doubts, the fear, the stress, ultimately I believed all was as it should be, that the timing was right and we were doing just as were supposed to do. For a moment last night, when I was breathing in the night and gazing at the black silhouettes of The Sisters and Mt. Warning, even losing the dogs seemed a part of the greater whole and therefore part of the mysterious warp and woof of existence. After all, they have their destinies to fulfill as well. They could've chosen not to run away or to only run a little way and then come home. They chose, for whatever reason, otherwise. So, with this enveloping feeling of rightness, even the news of the quarry seemed to be part of the final look of the jigsaw.
We were right after all. All was, and is, as it should be and trusting in the process, in the rightness of being and timing, is the path to peace. With or without wayward dogs.
Other than that, and that's a big that, I am so grateful to be here. Rang our ex-neighbours yesterday and heard the gut-wrenching news that the quarry is going ahead. Trucks have been in and out, the rock crusher is coming and quarrying is to start early next year.
Despite The Lost Dogs, the ups and downs of getting here, the doubts, the fear, the stress, ultimately I believed all was as it should be, that the timing was right and we were doing just as were supposed to do. For a moment last night, when I was breathing in the night and gazing at the black silhouettes of The Sisters and Mt. Warning, even losing the dogs seemed a part of the greater whole and therefore part of the mysterious warp and woof of existence. After all, they have their destinies to fulfill as well. They could've chosen not to run away or to only run a little way and then come home. They chose, for whatever reason, otherwise. So, with this enveloping feeling of rightness, even the news of the quarry seemed to be part of the final look of the jigsaw.
We were right after all. All was, and is, as it should be and trusting in the process, in the rightness of being and timing, is the path to peace. With or without wayward dogs.
Friday, September 16, 2016
Radar and Jamaica Lost
New beginnings. Settlement day for this property was September 1; the first day of spring, the night of the new moon. This property is everything I wished for and more but my joy has been overshadowed by tragic circumstances. Four days ago the dogs went missing. We'd been leaving Jamaica off the lead during the day as he was happy to potter about the house and not go anywhere. Radar, on the other hand, twice went walkabout. The first time we gave him the benefit of the doubt (while Jamaica was tied up, just in case) and, true to his nature, he went bush. The second time Richard let him off for a pee and forgot about tying him back up again. But the third and final time, the rope which had held for over a week tied to a vise, came undone. Jamaica was off and now, so was Radar, trailing 5 feet of rope. They disappeared and haven't been seen since. I fear the rope has become entangled in the thick underbrush and even if he wanted to come home, he can't and Jamaica, always the underdog, won't leave him.
Year ago, when they were much younger dogs, they went missing for 9 days. We'd had rain so there was groundwater to drink but I doubt whether they ate anything other than pulling at something dead and stinking which they both reeked of when they were finally found, collapsed on the side of the road 2 kilometres from home. They were skeletal. Their paw pads where shredded and oozing blood and serum. They were within days of dying.
During that 9 days, in an area where everyone knew them, knew they were missing and they knew their way around no one saw them. Here they don't know their way around, no one knows them and we've had rain or showers every day to wash away their scent trail so even if Radar isn't caught up in some tree root they couldn't retrace their steps.
We've put notices up in Uki, on telegraph poles and have rung all local vets and the pound. My new and lovely yoga teacher, Julia put a notice up on the Uki Community page while Karen, Wilma's daughter, who lives at Stokers Siding has added the information to two other Facebook groups.
Every night Richard and I wake up, separately and together, hear the rain, feel the cold and think of them. This is their last photo.
Year ago, when they were much younger dogs, they went missing for 9 days. We'd had rain so there was groundwater to drink but I doubt whether they ate anything other than pulling at something dead and stinking which they both reeked of when they were finally found, collapsed on the side of the road 2 kilometres from home. They were skeletal. Their paw pads where shredded and oozing blood and serum. They were within days of dying.
During that 9 days, in an area where everyone knew them, knew they were missing and they knew their way around no one saw them. Here they don't know their way around, no one knows them and we've had rain or showers every day to wash away their scent trail so even if Radar isn't caught up in some tree root they couldn't retrace their steps.
We've put notices up in Uki, on telegraph poles and have rung all local vets and the pound. My new and lovely yoga teacher, Julia put a notice up on the Uki Community page while Karen, Wilma's daughter, who lives at Stokers Siding has added the information to two other Facebook groups.
Every night Richard and I wake up, separately and together, hear the rain, feel the cold and think of them. This is their last photo.
Wednesday, July 20, 2016
Getting Close!
She says she wants it. She says she will pay the price asked for. She rang the realtor. The realtor rang me. Said he would email her a contract today,
Driving into town this morning, I thought my heart would burst with joy. I didn't realize how important moving close to the sea was until it became possible. Seeing things with the mind's eye can make things real. Most days when I do yoga I listen to #13 of the ABC Hush Collection. There are several pieces, one right after the other, which evoke the sea. Specifically me in a kayak on the sea. Me in a kayak riding big smooth wave sets. Me in a kayak riding big smooth wave sets while watching humped back whales glide underneath.
Every day I listen to those songs and every day I see and feel me on the water. The harp and piano equate with sun sparkled water. The rise and fall of the violins, the rise and fall of the waves. I just close my eyes and I'm there.
Now I am calling the Universe to provide the perfect property, one with a view, with birdsong from the bush with paddocks suitable for the horses, with a characterful house, and something which provides for Richard all that he requires (big shed and a location where the bush doesn't enclose the house. He has a thing about trees being too close to the house).
The house we missed out on at Burringbar provides the benchmark. The house pad was clear of trees yet the bush rose in a wall behind the house from which the birds sang symphonies. The house was high enough to provide a stunning view of serried hills to the west (and coming storms!). The house itself was perfect. Two wings, each with bedrooms and baths and private decks, with the living areas and kitchen in the center. It was as perfect as I could imagine.
We've seen, desired and watched other perfect properties sell in the time we've been looking so I know they are out there. Am not convinced the properties in contention number among them THE property. But I could be wrong. It all is in the viewing.
Which hopefully I'll be going to do next week. Once we've signed the contract, I'm contacting realtors and Helen (for a bed to stay in).
Driving into town this morning, I thought my heart would burst with joy. I didn't realize how important moving close to the sea was until it became possible. Seeing things with the mind's eye can make things real. Most days when I do yoga I listen to #13 of the ABC Hush Collection. There are several pieces, one right after the other, which evoke the sea. Specifically me in a kayak on the sea. Me in a kayak riding big smooth wave sets. Me in a kayak riding big smooth wave sets while watching humped back whales glide underneath.
Every day I listen to those songs and every day I see and feel me on the water. The harp and piano equate with sun sparkled water. The rise and fall of the violins, the rise and fall of the waves. I just close my eyes and I'm there.
Now I am calling the Universe to provide the perfect property, one with a view, with birdsong from the bush with paddocks suitable for the horses, with a characterful house, and something which provides for Richard all that he requires (big shed and a location where the bush doesn't enclose the house. He has a thing about trees being too close to the house).
The house we missed out on at Burringbar provides the benchmark. The house pad was clear of trees yet the bush rose in a wall behind the house from which the birds sang symphonies. The house was high enough to provide a stunning view of serried hills to the west (and coming storms!). The house itself was perfect. Two wings, each with bedrooms and baths and private decks, with the living areas and kitchen in the center. It was as perfect as I could imagine.
We've seen, desired and watched other perfect properties sell in the time we've been looking so I know they are out there. Am not convinced the properties in contention number among them THE property. But I could be wrong. It all is in the viewing.
Which hopefully I'll be going to do next week. Once we've signed the contract, I'm contacting realtors and Helen (for a bed to stay in).
Tuesday, July 19, 2016
Is the House Sold or Is it Not
Waiting to see if we've sold the house. A woman viewed it, loved it. I liked her, felt the house would fit her and vice versa. Wanted to see her in it rather than that hard-edged woman we'd had before who was fine about her dogs 'sorting out the bandicoots' - but that's another story. Anyway, this woman; whippet owner, Egyptian Mau cat owner, said up front she couldn't afford the $399,000. Told the realtor she'd make an offer of $360,000, which after toting up the numbers, we accepted, just to see the house 'go to a good home' so to speak.
Blow me down, she reneged. Said all she could give us was $350,000. We said no even though (despite her saying previously she had to check with her bank) that the $350,000 was a 'cash' buy. Then today, she offered $355,000. Said no. Finally came up with $357,500. Said no. Why can't people say what they mean and mean what they say? We dropped $39,000 to meet her. In response, she drops another $10,000! Told D last time he rang to tell her 'good luck with her house hunting.' He rang back immediately after we'd hung up to ask would I still accept $360,000 or was I just pissed off and done with her? Yes, I would accept but must say I've got a bad taste in my mouth. The gloss has rubbed off and now I wish I'd stuck to my guns about price. If her eyes were bigger than her stomach, that's not my problem. The price is clearly marked on all the ads. It's not a secret.
Anyway, waiting for that final call. Think she'll have her panties in a twist now and won't come up with the extra cash.
Blow me down, she reneged. Said all she could give us was $350,000. We said no even though (despite her saying previously she had to check with her bank) that the $350,000 was a 'cash' buy. Then today, she offered $355,000. Said no. Finally came up with $357,500. Said no. Why can't people say what they mean and mean what they say? We dropped $39,000 to meet her. In response, she drops another $10,000! Told D last time he rang to tell her 'good luck with her house hunting.' He rang back immediately after we'd hung up to ask would I still accept $360,000 or was I just pissed off and done with her? Yes, I would accept but must say I've got a bad taste in my mouth. The gloss has rubbed off and now I wish I'd stuck to my guns about price. If her eyes were bigger than her stomach, that's not my problem. The price is clearly marked on all the ads. It's not a secret.
Anyway, waiting for that final call. Think she'll have her panties in a twist now and won't come up with the extra cash.
Sunday, July 10, 2016
Acceptance with Enthusiasm, Thank You Grace Speare
Re-reading Grace Speare's Everything Talks to Me after mentioning it to a friend. For some reason it seemed time to visit this book again. I hadn't realized that I've been in the doldrums. Coasting. To help combat this I've returned, somewhat sporadically, to journaling. I needed a place to 'talk' without having to care whether it read well or not. Also, there's something quite blissfully basic about grasping a pen and making marks on a page. I'd forgotten how satisfying it is.
Back to Grace Speare's book. Ah, she's a good one for helping me to re-focus. One of the phrases that leaped out was 'accepting with enthusiasm'. There is often this dichotomy with me; one of accepting all that is knowing everything is as it should be or trying, with positive thinking or visualization or just plain wishing, to make things happen. In the first instance it is plain gratitude without desire. Great in theory but I can't sustain it. I want change. I want improvement. I want something else.
And there's the crux: wanting.
In the second instance. I think positively of the present (gratitude) while visualizing a different future (moving house for instance). I can juggle this a bit better. Every day I can and do appreciate the beauty of this place yet I visualize moving to a place near the sea. Another example is being grateful for the health and strength of my body now while going to the gym to increase strength and change my physique for the future.
I know I've written about this before and I'm no closer to having an answer, only varying degrees of leaning one way or another depending upon what is needed at the moment.
Like "Acceptance with enthusiasm". It's kind of an excited twinkle in the eye that looks with bubbling joy at the present.
I feel as though I've got my mojo back. Another thing that helps is not taking on board other people's 'stuff'. The world will continue to do what the world will do without me getting caught up in the cruelty, stupidity and blindness of it all. I know we are all connected, that the Dallas shootings, for instance, somehow affect me directly but if I succumb to the negativity, does that help? Surely there is a way to feel for all those involved yet at the same time try see it with love and compassion, even the shooter whose mind must have been a horrible maelstrom of hate and negativity.
Admittedly I am not strong enough to cope with wave after negative wave. I've unsubscribed from many animal welfare sites and I avoid looking at graphic images or reading graphic accounts of horror. I know The Horror exists. That's enough. I know we need more love and I think we need more beauty. And I'm sure we need more laughter. Lots more laughter.
While being connected and part of All That Is, my tiny little mind can't grasp the enormity of it. What I can do is keep my own house in order. That's hard enough. Learning to live in changed circumstances and stay cheerful, optimistic, patient and kind is a big challenge for this selfish, impatient and too often spiteful person. It's a big challenge to my particular weaknesses and one I suspect I'll be working on until my last breath.
Yet it's not all guilt and failings and railing against present reality. I decided to retire from riding a couple of weeks ago. Had the farrier pull Balthazar's shoes. After a spell Balthazar needs to be ridden consistently, day after day, to help him get over separation anxiety. I just couldn't manage it. Consequently every ride was a challenge and definitely not fun for either of us. Balthazar turns 18 next month. I've been riding more or less consistently for 40+ years. For the past 5 I've ridden alone. I've no desire to compete so have no goals except to enjoy the bush by riding through it. As that seemed out of reach, I retired both of us.
As soon as I made that decision, I felt better. Had no idea I carried this burden of guilt because I wasn't being fair to Balthazar by getting him through the Separation Anxiety phase. Suddenly too, there is more time. And I'm not so tired either.
If I'd been listening, to myself as well as Balthazar, I'd have come to this decision sooner. Every day is different. Everything talking to me may as well be speaking Urdu if I'm not listening.
Back to Grace Speare's book. Ah, she's a good one for helping me to re-focus. One of the phrases that leaped out was 'accepting with enthusiasm'. There is often this dichotomy with me; one of accepting all that is knowing everything is as it should be or trying, with positive thinking or visualization or just plain wishing, to make things happen. In the first instance it is plain gratitude without desire. Great in theory but I can't sustain it. I want change. I want improvement. I want something else.
And there's the crux: wanting.
In the second instance. I think positively of the present (gratitude) while visualizing a different future (moving house for instance). I can juggle this a bit better. Every day I can and do appreciate the beauty of this place yet I visualize moving to a place near the sea. Another example is being grateful for the health and strength of my body now while going to the gym to increase strength and change my physique for the future.
I know I've written about this before and I'm no closer to having an answer, only varying degrees of leaning one way or another depending upon what is needed at the moment.
Like "Acceptance with enthusiasm". It's kind of an excited twinkle in the eye that looks with bubbling joy at the present.
I feel as though I've got my mojo back. Another thing that helps is not taking on board other people's 'stuff'. The world will continue to do what the world will do without me getting caught up in the cruelty, stupidity and blindness of it all. I know we are all connected, that the Dallas shootings, for instance, somehow affect me directly but if I succumb to the negativity, does that help? Surely there is a way to feel for all those involved yet at the same time try see it with love and compassion, even the shooter whose mind must have been a horrible maelstrom of hate and negativity.
Admittedly I am not strong enough to cope with wave after negative wave. I've unsubscribed from many animal welfare sites and I avoid looking at graphic images or reading graphic accounts of horror. I know The Horror exists. That's enough. I know we need more love and I think we need more beauty. And I'm sure we need more laughter. Lots more laughter.
While being connected and part of All That Is, my tiny little mind can't grasp the enormity of it. What I can do is keep my own house in order. That's hard enough. Learning to live in changed circumstances and stay cheerful, optimistic, patient and kind is a big challenge for this selfish, impatient and too often spiteful person. It's a big challenge to my particular weaknesses and one I suspect I'll be working on until my last breath.
Yet it's not all guilt and failings and railing against present reality. I decided to retire from riding a couple of weeks ago. Had the farrier pull Balthazar's shoes. After a spell Balthazar needs to be ridden consistently, day after day, to help him get over separation anxiety. I just couldn't manage it. Consequently every ride was a challenge and definitely not fun for either of us. Balthazar turns 18 next month. I've been riding more or less consistently for 40+ years. For the past 5 I've ridden alone. I've no desire to compete so have no goals except to enjoy the bush by riding through it. As that seemed out of reach, I retired both of us.
As soon as I made that decision, I felt better. Had no idea I carried this burden of guilt because I wasn't being fair to Balthazar by getting him through the Separation Anxiety phase. Suddenly too, there is more time. And I'm not so tired either.
If I'd been listening, to myself as well as Balthazar, I'd have come to this decision sooner. Every day is different. Everything talking to me may as well be speaking Urdu if I'm not listening.
Thursday, June 23, 2016
America Yawns, Starts to Wake Up
I'm starting to feel proud to be an American again. Today the Democrats are staging a sit-in in the House to protest the lack of action concerning the accessibility of guns. To most of the world it seems a no brainer. Too many guns available to people who should not be allowed access to them. But in the name of the 2nd amendment, everyone, whether they are on a no fly list or not, should be allowed a gun.
But
The sleeping giant is waking up. Hypnotized too long by a combination of inertia, apathy and fear, the powers that be in Washington lay in thrall to the Right to Bear Arms cult, promulgated by the NRA to be as sacred as the Ten Commandments. But the 2nd amendment says more than the 'right to bear arms'. It starts with the words, a well-regulated militia. Not a free for all militia.
It also states: The fifth and last auxiliary right of the subject...is that of having arms for their defence, suitable to their condition and degree, and such as are allowed by law.
Suitable to their condition and degree. So a person on a terrorist watch or no fly list is suitable? I think not. I may not be the brightest LED light in the room but I feel pretty confident in saying a would be terrorist is not suitable gun ownership material.
I watched some of the live coverage from the House. It was wonderful. I don't know who was speaking, don't know what time of day or night it was, don't know the names of the gun victims whose photos were held up by other sit-in sittees were, but I do know, rather than cringing and feeling ashamed to call myself a Yank, I was proud.
It is a small step the Democrats are taking but they are taking that first step - and they ain't sleep-walking!
But
The sleeping giant is waking up. Hypnotized too long by a combination of inertia, apathy and fear, the powers that be in Washington lay in thrall to the Right to Bear Arms cult, promulgated by the NRA to be as sacred as the Ten Commandments. But the 2nd amendment says more than the 'right to bear arms'. It starts with the words, a well-regulated militia. Not a free for all militia.
It also states: The fifth and last auxiliary right of the subject...is that of having arms for their defence, suitable to their condition and degree, and such as are allowed by law.
Suitable to their condition and degree. So a person on a terrorist watch or no fly list is suitable? I think not. I may not be the brightest LED light in the room but I feel pretty confident in saying a would be terrorist is not suitable gun ownership material.
I watched some of the live coverage from the House. It was wonderful. I don't know who was speaking, don't know what time of day or night it was, don't know the names of the gun victims whose photos were held up by other sit-in sittees were, but I do know, rather than cringing and feeling ashamed to call myself a Yank, I was proud.
It is a small step the Democrats are taking but they are taking that first step - and they ain't sleep-walking!
Sunday, June 5, 2016
The Drumstick
Taking 15 minutes to start this blog. Of late I always seem to be doing something else. In 15 minutes we have to take the dogs for a walk. Otherwise, on this really miserable cloudy, cold and windy day (with the odd stinging rain added just to illustrate how truly awful the day is), we run out of daylight. No one likes plunging about in the mud (yes, we've had rain) in the dark. Especially me.
It's not as though I've not thought about posting. I've had blog soliloquies trailing words through my head. One began with the sight of a discarded drum stick lying on the sidewalk outside the gym. I was on the cross trainer. A nice place to think, anything to avoid the pain of the 30 seconds of going flat out torture that are endured in the hopes of getting fit. So I stared at the drum stick and the more I stared at it the sadder it looked.
It probably came from the local Kentucky Fried Chicken. Is there any good-sized town anywhere in the world that is KFC free? And that drumstick. Symbol of a short miserable life and the unremarked death of a living creature, whose remains, after being stripped of flesh, were tossed onto the sidewalk.
Not many people are lucky enough or interested enough to get to know a chicken. A chicken is a stupid animal, yes? Without intelligence, feeling, emotion or sensitivity. It eats, shits, squawks out some eggs, if it is lucky to live that long, and dies without a murmur. It is merely a commodity, created only to give it's life to us.
But of course that is the easy attitude. Reality is different. We indulge in species-ism. Humans are at the top of the species pyramid and every other creature was created to serve us either with their toil or with their lives. Or both. That is their fate. That is their obligation because they were not born human. And that ultimate sacrifice is our due. No matter how deserving or undeserving we might be. The most craven and despicable among us are Gods compared to a mere chicken.
Bloody awful it is too.
There is a video of a chicken being hugged by a young boy http://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/entry/little-boy-hugs-chicken_n_5173773.html?section=australia. The chicken not only initiates the hug but stretches her head along his shoulder while he strokes her back. The chicken is happy and, it's so apparent, loved and loving. So too the boy. This white chicken, wrapped in the arms of her boy friend, is not a commodity.
The discarded drumstick was a sad, tragic reminder of what we miss by refusing to see what miracles are in front of us if we will only open our eyes. It still makes me sad when I think of it. Sad? It breaks my heart - so I will end this now before I cry again for crying will not bring that chicken back. But at least I can salute her. And apologize for the ignorance and callousness of the human race.
It's not as though I've not thought about posting. I've had blog soliloquies trailing words through my head. One began with the sight of a discarded drum stick lying on the sidewalk outside the gym. I was on the cross trainer. A nice place to think, anything to avoid the pain of the 30 seconds of going flat out torture that are endured in the hopes of getting fit. So I stared at the drum stick and the more I stared at it the sadder it looked.
It probably came from the local Kentucky Fried Chicken. Is there any good-sized town anywhere in the world that is KFC free? And that drumstick. Symbol of a short miserable life and the unremarked death of a living creature, whose remains, after being stripped of flesh, were tossed onto the sidewalk.
Not many people are lucky enough or interested enough to get to know a chicken. A chicken is a stupid animal, yes? Without intelligence, feeling, emotion or sensitivity. It eats, shits, squawks out some eggs, if it is lucky to live that long, and dies without a murmur. It is merely a commodity, created only to give it's life to us.
But of course that is the easy attitude. Reality is different. We indulge in species-ism. Humans are at the top of the species pyramid and every other creature was created to serve us either with their toil or with their lives. Or both. That is their fate. That is their obligation because they were not born human. And that ultimate sacrifice is our due. No matter how deserving or undeserving we might be. The most craven and despicable among us are Gods compared to a mere chicken.
Bloody awful it is too.
There is a video of a chicken being hugged by a young boy http://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/entry/little-boy-hugs-chicken_n_5173773.html?section=australia. The chicken not only initiates the hug but stretches her head along his shoulder while he strokes her back. The chicken is happy and, it's so apparent, loved and loving. So too the boy. This white chicken, wrapped in the arms of her boy friend, is not a commodity.
The discarded drumstick was a sad, tragic reminder of what we miss by refusing to see what miracles are in front of us if we will only open our eyes. It still makes me sad when I think of it. Sad? It breaks my heart - so I will end this now before I cry again for crying will not bring that chicken back. But at least I can salute her. And apologize for the ignorance and callousness of the human race.
Tuesday, May 24, 2016
Edgar and the Mice
We have had to start setting mouse traps. Wintertime always sees a population boom. I wouldn't mind as I actually like mice but they do tunnel into the aviaries making nice snake sized holes for nice snakes to come in and feast on nice budgerigars. Yesterday we had 3 mice in two traps. Think our mouse population is healthy. Anyway, thought these freshly dead mice would make a nice meal for Edgar. And oh, he was excited by the prospect of Mouse Tartare!
Oh, he crunched those little mouse skulls. He pulled at their little mouse feet. He carried them here. He carried them there. He turned them over and turned them back again. He picked them up and put them down. He flew them into the trees and flew them back down again. He checked to see if they would fit between two rocks. He checked to see if they fit in the rubber matting (they did). He held them proudly in his beak while turning to look beguilingly over his shoulder at me.
He did everything but eat them.
Finally, bored, he stuffed them back into the rocks and came over to see what other tidbits I had for him to eat.
While waiting for me to unwrap the meat he snapped ferociously at a gnat. It was so small I don't know if he killed it or not.
After he'd eaten I gathered the moist rumpled bodies of the mice and carried them into the paddock. Another game! Edgar came too. I put the mice down and left. He can stuff them into mouse-sized holes away from the house because if I don't find where he puts them (if he puts them near the house) they are going to stink in a few days.
Another morning, another mouse. I called him and gave him the mouse in the paddock.
He's also getting a small dog bone two or 3 times a week. More excitement. He pins it down with his toenails and pulls the meat with his beak. He does it very well. No doubt after having much practice on the clothes pegs. Am now drying the clothes on the verandah. Thank you, Edgar.
Saturday, May 7, 2016
The Passing of Rev. Daniel Berrigan
Reverend Daniel Berrigan has died. His life makes cowards of us all. When he came to prominence, burning draft cards with his brother, Philip in Cantonville Ohio, it barely made a blip on my teenage radar. I was 13. But having just read about him in conjunction with Dorothy Day and Thomas Merton in An American Pilgrimage, I can't say there is renewed interest but there is interest.
He spent his life in writing books, poetry and activism. He said during his trial in Philadelphia for destroying government property after he and six others took hammers to the (unarmed) nosecones of nuclear missiles: "The only message I have to the world is: We are not allowed to kill innocent people. We are not allowed to be complicit in murder. We are not allowed to be silent while preparations for mass murder proceed in our name, with our money, secretly...It’s terrible for me to live in a time where I have nothing to say to human beings except, “Stop killing.” There are other beautiful things that I would love to be saying to people. There are other projects I could be very helpful at. And I can’t do them. I cannot. Because everything is endangered. Everything is up for grabs. Ours is a kind of primitive situation, even though we would call ourselves sophisticated. Our plight is very primitive from a Christian point of view. We are back where we started. Thou shalt not kill; we are not allowed to kill. Everything today comes down to that — everything." Italics mine.
Those who do not know their history are doomed to repeat it - or words to that effect. Maybe humans just haven't been human long enough to evolve past their reptilian hindbrain. But that statement is a sham for we have free will, we can and do learn from our mistakes, we are capable of creating the most sublime beauty, of deliberate selflessness. We can laugh at ourselves, we have a sense of humour, we experience gratitude.. We experience awe. I'm certain other creatures have a sense of humour, can love, can even create despite their lack of opposable thumbs, but is any creature capable of awe? Rather than repeating our doleful violent murderous history, why do we not replicate situations where we are likely to feel awe or, as Jung described, that 'oceanic feeling'?
Finished reading Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky. She was a Russian half-Jew whose family escaped nearly penniless from the socialist revolution in Russia and resettled in France. She was a writer and Suite Francaise is the first 2 of 3 books she had planned to write describing the French experience through the eyes of several families under Nazi occupation. Unfortunately she was gassed at Auschwitz before she could complete them, She was a well known writer. Her husband, her publisher and others tried in vain to rescue her, even just to contact her, to send her some food and blankets not knowing even as they tried she was already dead. She had a brief respite at Auschwitz (while she was part of a slave labour force?) before she died. Her husband was picked up, transported to Auschwitz and gassed straight away.
When her voice came through S. F. so clearly it was difficult to read the appendices at the end. In fact, I couldn't finish them. When I watch the evening news and hear 27 people were killed in a bomb attack in Afghanistan I feel a frisson of regret but then wonder how I'm going to prepare that eggplant we're having for dinner. Rev. Daniel Berrigan never let go that regret over innocent deaths. I, a woman sitting safely at a desk where I sign petitions and write politicians, well fed in my middle class WASP-ish existence, salute him.
He spent his life in writing books, poetry and activism. He said during his trial in Philadelphia for destroying government property after he and six others took hammers to the (unarmed) nosecones of nuclear missiles: "The only message I have to the world is: We are not allowed to kill innocent people. We are not allowed to be complicit in murder. We are not allowed to be silent while preparations for mass murder proceed in our name, with our money, secretly...It’s terrible for me to live in a time where I have nothing to say to human beings except, “Stop killing.” There are other beautiful things that I would love to be saying to people. There are other projects I could be very helpful at. And I can’t do them. I cannot. Because everything is endangered. Everything is up for grabs. Ours is a kind of primitive situation, even though we would call ourselves sophisticated. Our plight is very primitive from a Christian point of view. We are back where we started. Thou shalt not kill; we are not allowed to kill. Everything today comes down to that — everything." Italics mine.
Those who do not know their history are doomed to repeat it - or words to that effect. Maybe humans just haven't been human long enough to evolve past their reptilian hindbrain. But that statement is a sham for we have free will, we can and do learn from our mistakes, we are capable of creating the most sublime beauty, of deliberate selflessness. We can laugh at ourselves, we have a sense of humour, we experience gratitude.. We experience awe. I'm certain other creatures have a sense of humour, can love, can even create despite their lack of opposable thumbs, but is any creature capable of awe? Rather than repeating our doleful violent murderous history, why do we not replicate situations where we are likely to feel awe or, as Jung described, that 'oceanic feeling'?
Finished reading Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky. She was a Russian half-Jew whose family escaped nearly penniless from the socialist revolution in Russia and resettled in France. She was a writer and Suite Francaise is the first 2 of 3 books she had planned to write describing the French experience through the eyes of several families under Nazi occupation. Unfortunately she was gassed at Auschwitz before she could complete them, She was a well known writer. Her husband, her publisher and others tried in vain to rescue her, even just to contact her, to send her some food and blankets not knowing even as they tried she was already dead. She had a brief respite at Auschwitz (while she was part of a slave labour force?) before she died. Her husband was picked up, transported to Auschwitz and gassed straight away.
When her voice came through S. F. so clearly it was difficult to read the appendices at the end. In fact, I couldn't finish them. When I watch the evening news and hear 27 people were killed in a bomb attack in Afghanistan I feel a frisson of regret but then wonder how I'm going to prepare that eggplant we're having for dinner. Rev. Daniel Berrigan never let go that regret over innocent deaths. I, a woman sitting safely at a desk where I sign petitions and write politicians, well fed in my middle class WASP-ish existence, salute him.
Thursday, April 7, 2016
The Stand Up Comedy of Trump and the Panama Papers
The world sure is a funny event. Trump is so outlandish (punish women who have had abortions! Even the Pro-Lifers take offense) that there is nothing for it but to laugh. Genuinely laugh. The absurdity that is Trump is funny, especially as he takes himself so seriously. While he takes himself so seriously he doesn't take the electorate seriously at all, except for its use as a vehicle with which to make his fondest dream come true. President Donald Trump. The Donald with The Hair in the White House. I feel a guffaw coming on.
I believe Trump is disdainful of 'the people', that he thinks they are stupid precisely because they fall for his schtick. And that's funny. Really funny. How it will play out is anyone's guess but I can guarantee it will be hilarious. For all the wrong reasons.
And then, thank God! there are the Panama Papers. Here is a divine opportunity to take corruption seriously, to shine a light on it and to do something about it. All those hard-working investigative journalists who have been dredging through thousands of documents, following leads, deciphering what is supposed to be indecipherable. We owe them the debt of doing something about those who never seem to have enough money so must corruptly go about their business of hiding it and making more of it while leaving a trail of chaos and instability, poverty and impoverishment in their wake.
I believe Trump is disdainful of 'the people', that he thinks they are stupid precisely because they fall for his schtick. And that's funny. Really funny. How it will play out is anyone's guess but I can guarantee it will be hilarious. For all the wrong reasons.
And then, thank God! there are the Panama Papers. Here is a divine opportunity to take corruption seriously, to shine a light on it and to do something about it. All those hard-working investigative journalists who have been dredging through thousands of documents, following leads, deciphering what is supposed to be indecipherable. We owe them the debt of doing something about those who never seem to have enough money so must corruptly go about their business of hiding it and making more of it while leaving a trail of chaos and instability, poverty and impoverishment in their wake.
Tuesday, March 29, 2016
Edgar, The Insufferable
Today it hit me why Edgar (who packs quite a feathered sledgehammer!) came into my world. For years, for some unfathomable reason, I've drawn crows. One would think, because of the parrots in my life, and because of their jewel-like colouring begging to be painted, that they are the ones which would people, rather bird, my sketchbook. But no, although I have drawn the odd galah and scaly-breasted, a crow is my bird of choice.
And so one chose me, in a plausible demonstration of sympathetic magic. Which is a good a way as any to lead into an Edgar update. In short, he's doing very well. He's fed as often as he wails for food and is in glamorous black plumage. He has a bath every few days when I put the birdbath in his aviary to keep his black top hat and tails in tip top condition.
But he's also becoming somewhat overbearing, or should I say overcrowing. When I'm under the gazebo, at the bird table, trying to make up everyone's feed in the morning, or dismantling it in the afternoon, he's walking all over the coop cups, stealing the green scratchie used to scrub the water dishes, nicking the plastic coated wire used to affix Dimitri's water dish to the mesh. Marching with his size 14 dirty crow feet over and through everything I'm trying to do, while keeping up a continuous grumbling complaint. I've taken to picking him up, which he hates, and dropping him onto the ground. Of course he doesn't hit the ground as he can fly but at least he's off the table.
When I put the food out in the morning, despite the fact that he has been fed first (and sat with and cajoled just to make sure he's had enough and he's full), he follows me from aviary to aviary, landing with a solid thump (a delicate ballet dancer he ain't) on top of the cages. Poor Dimitri and the budgies don't cope as well as the galahs to his heavy footed marches across the aviary roof. The galahs watch, raise their crests, sometimes give little cries of alarm but Dimitri flops to the ground (with one wing he has no choice but to flop) and scurries for a cover that isn't there. I have put a large solid tin box (that won't disintegrate in the rain) on the aviary floor which he has used once or twice so maybe he's getting the idea. The budgies fly from one end of the aviary to the other while Edgar races across the top chasing them. (He has a similar reaction to the advent of a blow fly, this fevered excitement and giving chase. Of course, like the budgies protected by wire, a blowfly easily outmaneuvers him).
Edgar frequently puts things in things. He picks up bits of bark or a stick or food, if I let him, and puts it in whatever hole he can find, even if the hole is one he makes at the base of a grass clump. Cracks in the concrete, the holes in a brick, the hole in a screw-on food dish, the gap between my toes - anything where he can push his prize in with his surprisingly strong beak.
The other day he had a conversation with a crow and flew off in its direction. Here we go, I thought, he's made contact. But he was soon back with no crow in tow. I feel bad sometimes as it is obvious he is often trying to tell me something important that has nothing to do with food. But I, being a thick human, have yet to translate what he says with such fervour. Which is all quite sad. I spend a fair amount of time with him if I can. He seems to like having his head massaged and seems to relax while my fingers back stroke his head feathers. Edgar makes it obvious when he doesn't want me to leave by running/flying in front of me as I head to the house. One misstep would be disastrous so I am very careful.
When I am working outside I hope he will hang around then for companionship but as working outside usually means I have something in my hand; a rake, a bucket, a wheelbarrow, a chipping hoe, he doesn't come near me. Guess crows have been prosecuted so long by long narrow exploding things, it is hardwired into them to stay away.
Wonder what would happen if I started drawing elephants?
And so one chose me, in a plausible demonstration of sympathetic magic. Which is a good a way as any to lead into an Edgar update. In short, he's doing very well. He's fed as often as he wails for food and is in glamorous black plumage. He has a bath every few days when I put the birdbath in his aviary to keep his black top hat and tails in tip top condition.
But he's also becoming somewhat overbearing, or should I say overcrowing. When I'm under the gazebo, at the bird table, trying to make up everyone's feed in the morning, or dismantling it in the afternoon, he's walking all over the coop cups, stealing the green scratchie used to scrub the water dishes, nicking the plastic coated wire used to affix Dimitri's water dish to the mesh. Marching with his size 14 dirty crow feet over and through everything I'm trying to do, while keeping up a continuous grumbling complaint. I've taken to picking him up, which he hates, and dropping him onto the ground. Of course he doesn't hit the ground as he can fly but at least he's off the table.
When I put the food out in the morning, despite the fact that he has been fed first (and sat with and cajoled just to make sure he's had enough and he's full), he follows me from aviary to aviary, landing with a solid thump (a delicate ballet dancer he ain't) on top of the cages. Poor Dimitri and the budgies don't cope as well as the galahs to his heavy footed marches across the aviary roof. The galahs watch, raise their crests, sometimes give little cries of alarm but Dimitri flops to the ground (with one wing he has no choice but to flop) and scurries for a cover that isn't there. I have put a large solid tin box (that won't disintegrate in the rain) on the aviary floor which he has used once or twice so maybe he's getting the idea. The budgies fly from one end of the aviary to the other while Edgar races across the top chasing them. (He has a similar reaction to the advent of a blow fly, this fevered excitement and giving chase. Of course, like the budgies protected by wire, a blowfly easily outmaneuvers him).
Edgar frequently puts things in things. He picks up bits of bark or a stick or food, if I let him, and puts it in whatever hole he can find, even if the hole is one he makes at the base of a grass clump. Cracks in the concrete, the holes in a brick, the hole in a screw-on food dish, the gap between my toes - anything where he can push his prize in with his surprisingly strong beak.
The other day he had a conversation with a crow and flew off in its direction. Here we go, I thought, he's made contact. But he was soon back with no crow in tow. I feel bad sometimes as it is obvious he is often trying to tell me something important that has nothing to do with food. But I, being a thick human, have yet to translate what he says with such fervour. Which is all quite sad. I spend a fair amount of time with him if I can. He seems to like having his head massaged and seems to relax while my fingers back stroke his head feathers. Edgar makes it obvious when he doesn't want me to leave by running/flying in front of me as I head to the house. One misstep would be disastrous so I am very careful.
When I am working outside I hope he will hang around then for companionship but as working outside usually means I have something in my hand; a rake, a bucket, a wheelbarrow, a chipping hoe, he doesn't come near me. Guess crows have been prosecuted so long by long narrow exploding things, it is hardwired into them to stay away.
Wonder what would happen if I started drawing elephants?
Sunday, March 20, 2016
Mini-Mysticism and Yard Work
Sometimes the answer(s) to the Universe and the strange mystery of my existence at this time, in this place, with this particular consciousness seems very close. A flash of illumination flickering behind the veil of the everyday. So close I almost get it at the same time as it remains as distant as a star.
It happened again this morning, picking up fallen poinciana seed pods, walking to the box trailer, throwing them in and going back for another load. The every day. Doing without thinking of anything in particular when suddenly, like a wash of sun-lit warmth, it is there. Or here.
It is a strange feeling, the commonplace threaded through with Mystery. I am very small and very ego-constrained and very me labelled at the same time as this immensity of Being courses through and around me. And this immensity does not conform to labels or description or words.
Yet it is as comfortable as an old shoe. A reminder that despite the Trumps, global warming, Parkinsons, aging and the house not selling, it really is all right in the end.
There's nothing I can do, or am capable of doing, to enhance it or take it further. Chasing it is like staring hard at a dim star in a black night. The more you look, the less you see. Because it is fleeting and as swift as a white-tailed deer, the only way I can feel it is peripherally; an acknowledgement, a mist of gratitude and love. Then it's gone and I am picking up seed pods and trudging to the trailer.
It happened again this morning, picking up fallen poinciana seed pods, walking to the box trailer, throwing them in and going back for another load. The every day. Doing without thinking of anything in particular when suddenly, like a wash of sun-lit warmth, it is there. Or here.
It is a strange feeling, the commonplace threaded through with Mystery. I am very small and very ego-constrained and very me labelled at the same time as this immensity of Being courses through and around me. And this immensity does not conform to labels or description or words.
Yet it is as comfortable as an old shoe. A reminder that despite the Trumps, global warming, Parkinsons, aging and the house not selling, it really is all right in the end.
There's nothing I can do, or am capable of doing, to enhance it or take it further. Chasing it is like staring hard at a dim star in a black night. The more you look, the less you see. Because it is fleeting and as swift as a white-tailed deer, the only way I can feel it is peripherally; an acknowledgement, a mist of gratitude and love. Then it's gone and I am picking up seed pods and trudging to the trailer.
Mini-Mysticism and Yard Work
Sometimes the answer(s) to the Universe and the strange mystery of my existence at this time, in this place, with this particular consciousness seems very close. A flash of illumination flickering behind the veil of the everyday. So close I almost get it at the same time as it remains as distant as a star.
It happened again this morning, picking up fallen poinciana seed pods, walking to the box trailer, throwing them in and going back for another load. The every day. Doing without thinking of anything in particular when suddenly, like a wash of sun-lit warmth, it is there. Or here.
It is a strange feeling, the commonplace threaded through with Mystery. I am very small and very ego-constrained and very me labelled at the same time as this immensity of Being courses through and around me. And this immensity does not conform to labels or description or words.
Yet it is as comfortable as an old shoe. A reminder that despite the Trumps, global warming, Parkinsons, aging and the house not selling, it really is all right in the end.
There's nothing I can do, or am capable of doing, to enhance it or take it further. Chasing it is like staring hard at a dim star in a black night. The more you look, the less you see. Because it is fleeting and as swift as a white-tailed deer, the only way I can feel it is peripherally; an acknowledgement, a mist of gratitude and love. Then it's gone and I am picking up seed pods and trudging to the trailer.
It happened again this morning, picking up fallen poinciana seed pods, walking to the box trailer, throwing them in and going back for another load. The every day. Doing without thinking of anything in particular when suddenly, like a wash of sun-lit warmth, it is there. Or here.
It is a strange feeling, the commonplace threaded through with Mystery. I am very small and very ego-constrained and very me labelled at the same time as this immensity of Being courses through and around me. And this immensity does not conform to labels or description or words.
Yet it is as comfortable as an old shoe. A reminder that despite the Trumps, global warming, Parkinsons, aging and the house not selling, it really is all right in the end.
There's nothing I can do, or am capable of doing, to enhance it or take it further. Chasing it is like staring hard at a dim star in a black night. The more you look, the less you see. Because it is fleeting and as swift as a white-tailed deer, the only way I can feel it is peripherally; an acknowledgement, a mist of gratitude and love. Then it's gone and I am picking up seed pods and trudging to the trailer.
Sunday, March 13, 2016
The Grand Old Party Isn't Grand Anymore
My parents were Republican. Politics was often discussed at home although as a child I found the subject boring and didn't listen. They voted for Barry Goldwater and circulars from the John Birch Society used to come in the mail. Politics was something they agreed on and when it was the subject of conversation the atmosphere was congenial. Too often nothing was discussed in the family home and the atmosphere was charged with unspoken antipathies. Therefore, in a strange sort of way, I associated being Republican with being family.
I remained Republican until I started to travel. There was no epiphany, no great revelation when I switched from conservative thinking to a more liberal viewpoint. It just happened over time. Even so, I still have a fondness for the lumbering elephant that is the Republican icon.
Until now. Well, that's not entirely true. Republicans seemed to lose their way with Reagan and his political love affair with the Iron Lady Margaret Thatcher. Republicans lost the ability to empathize. If people were doing it tough, too bad. The American Dream is that anyone, no matter their circumstances or background, can aspire to be President. If you didn't raise yourself from the mire by your bootstraps then you weren't trying hard enough.
I grew up a little and started paying attention to world affairs and the States part in them. I saw that we put on our combat boots when American interests, usually oil interests, were threatened. With a seemingly endless supply of money to convince the subject country to see things our way, we used the military, the CIA, sanctions, diplomatic pressure, assassinations and skullduggery to get what we wanted. Americans, so proud and powerful, arrogant with power, didn't pay enough attention. We were the honourable nation. If we were doing this overseas, than we had to be in the right. The USA could do no wrong. But we did and we are.
We got away with it and it worsened until we had Guantanamo Bay; government sanctioned torture and the flaunting of the Geneva Convention. And we weren't even ashamed enough to try and hide it. Guantanamo Bay and all that it meant to our decaying morals was flaunted. It was the first time I was ashamed to be an American.
And this is just world politics. We also have the legalized corruption of the Super Pacs, Big Business and the thing which will kill us all, climate change, which Rubio, the baby-faced poster boy of 'moderation' said is not man made because temperature change is normal
I used to envision the GOP as being made up of venerable white-haired old men, rather like my childish image of God (mom asked me once to draw what I thought God might look like. I drew a white haired white man inside a big heart). The Grand Old Party isn't grand any more. It's not even Great. It's Grubby and mean.
Now there's a kind of morbid fascination watching it's death throes. The dreadful thing is, it is taking the USA with it. That that suntanned, fairy-flossed, middle-aged Ken doll has made it this far without being chucked out on his ear, illustrates how deep the rot goes.
Poor Fellow, My Country.
I remained Republican until I started to travel. There was no epiphany, no great revelation when I switched from conservative thinking to a more liberal viewpoint. It just happened over time. Even so, I still have a fondness for the lumbering elephant that is the Republican icon.
Until now. Well, that's not entirely true. Republicans seemed to lose their way with Reagan and his political love affair with the Iron Lady Margaret Thatcher. Republicans lost the ability to empathize. If people were doing it tough, too bad. The American Dream is that anyone, no matter their circumstances or background, can aspire to be President. If you didn't raise yourself from the mire by your bootstraps then you weren't trying hard enough.
I grew up a little and started paying attention to world affairs and the States part in them. I saw that we put on our combat boots when American interests, usually oil interests, were threatened. With a seemingly endless supply of money to convince the subject country to see things our way, we used the military, the CIA, sanctions, diplomatic pressure, assassinations and skullduggery to get what we wanted. Americans, so proud and powerful, arrogant with power, didn't pay enough attention. We were the honourable nation. If we were doing this overseas, than we had to be in the right. The USA could do no wrong. But we did and we are.
We got away with it and it worsened until we had Guantanamo Bay; government sanctioned torture and the flaunting of the Geneva Convention. And we weren't even ashamed enough to try and hide it. Guantanamo Bay and all that it meant to our decaying morals was flaunted. It was the first time I was ashamed to be an American.
And this is just world politics. We also have the legalized corruption of the Super Pacs, Big Business and the thing which will kill us all, climate change, which Rubio, the baby-faced poster boy of 'moderation' said is not man made because temperature change is normal
I used to envision the GOP as being made up of venerable white-haired old men, rather like my childish image of God (mom asked me once to draw what I thought God might look like. I drew a white haired white man inside a big heart). The Grand Old Party isn't grand any more. It's not even Great. It's Grubby and mean.
Now there's a kind of morbid fascination watching it's death throes. The dreadful thing is, it is taking the USA with it. That that suntanned, fairy-flossed, middle-aged Ken doll has made it this far without being chucked out on his ear, illustrates how deep the rot goes.
Poor Fellow, My Country.
Thursday, March 10, 2016
Music, Parkinsons and Dementia
On ABC the Catalyst program was Music on the Brain. It was about the power of music to help those with severe Parkinsons and dementia. A man with advanced Parkinsons could hardly walk. It was as though his feet were stuck to the floor. Music was played, music he chose that was meaningful to him. The man who could hardly walk began to waltz, slowly but smoothly.
A woman with advanced dementia, who rarely smiled, spoke or interacted was played music through an ipod. She sang along with the music, she smiled and afterwards had a meaningful conversation about the music.
The Catalyst episode can be viewed here: http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/4421003.htm
Years ago I noticed that people who composed, conducted or played music seemed to live longer than non-musical folks. Live longer and keep all their marbles. George Martin, the fifth Beatle, died today aged 90.
Music is the only art form that moves with and through time. It moves through our blood with the rhythm of our beating heart. Music moves us to tears or creates that 'oceanic feeling' of awe and joy.
Music has power. To music we march to war. With music we are stopped in our tracks to listen to its transient beauty.
I listen to classical music every day. Mostly, I admit, it is the quiet backdrop to reading or drawing or computing. I've stopped listening to it when I do yoga finding that I am quieter and deeper within the practice without the distraction. When much-loved pieces come on, I stop what I'm doing, crank up the sound and stand in the sweet spot in front of the speakers to absorb it through my skin as well as my ears. Like most people I love music. I love classical but I also love Joni Mitchell and Ella Fitzgerald, 'world music' (India, Spanish, African, Middle Eastern) and favourite movie soundtracks.
But imagine if my life was music. What if I wrote, played or somehow created music. I notice that I feel better after singing for any length of time. I used to sing all the time. I rarely sing now which is sad. To sing with all one's might requires total privacy. At least for me.
Did music come before language? Why then do we love birdsong so much? And the music of crickets and the slow deep music of the sea? Does it resonate in our blood?
When I saw the awakening through music of those who had been lost in the dim wilds of dementia I cried. When I saw the man who couldn't walk dance, I cried. I didn't look at Richard but I began to mentally list his favourite songs.
A woman with advanced dementia, who rarely smiled, spoke or interacted was played music through an ipod. She sang along with the music, she smiled and afterwards had a meaningful conversation about the music.
The Catalyst episode can be viewed here: http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/4421003.htm
Years ago I noticed that people who composed, conducted or played music seemed to live longer than non-musical folks. Live longer and keep all their marbles. George Martin, the fifth Beatle, died today aged 90.
Music is the only art form that moves with and through time. It moves through our blood with the rhythm of our beating heart. Music moves us to tears or creates that 'oceanic feeling' of awe and joy.
Music has power. To music we march to war. With music we are stopped in our tracks to listen to its transient beauty.
I listen to classical music every day. Mostly, I admit, it is the quiet backdrop to reading or drawing or computing. I've stopped listening to it when I do yoga finding that I am quieter and deeper within the practice without the distraction. When much-loved pieces come on, I stop what I'm doing, crank up the sound and stand in the sweet spot in front of the speakers to absorb it through my skin as well as my ears. Like most people I love music. I love classical but I also love Joni Mitchell and Ella Fitzgerald, 'world music' (India, Spanish, African, Middle Eastern) and favourite movie soundtracks.
But imagine if my life was music. What if I wrote, played or somehow created music. I notice that I feel better after singing for any length of time. I used to sing all the time. I rarely sing now which is sad. To sing with all one's might requires total privacy. At least for me.
Did music come before language? Why then do we love birdsong so much? And the music of crickets and the slow deep music of the sea? Does it resonate in our blood?
When I saw the awakening through music of those who had been lost in the dim wilds of dementia I cried. When I saw the man who couldn't walk dance, I cried. I didn't look at Richard but I began to mentally list his favourite songs.
Wednesday, March 9, 2016
It Is What It Is and Natalia Pencil Drawing
Waiting to head into town for the second of our third weekly appointment with the gym. How things have changed. Richard used to have to wait for me while I made myself ready for an outing. Now I wait for him. No matter.
It is what it is. I love that sentence. It is what it is. Like Stein's 'A rose is a rose is a rose'. Stating the obvious? Obviously. But what depths of meaning, like reflections of mirrors in other mirrors. It is what it is. One can rail, whine, complain, laugh, curse or cry but it still is what it is.
I know that I colour situations, reality, with my opinions, formed through the particular coloured lenses I wear that day, or even that moment. On a good happy day, when I am confident, well rested, with optimism wafting around me like a sweet perfume, minor annoyances aren't even annoying. It is what it is. On a bad day, when I am tired, worried, fearful, minor annoyances become major. Yet it still is what it is. My perceptions change, my reactions change but still it is what it is.
So, I actually started this post to show an ongoing pencil sketch of Natalia. But as usual, Sidetrack Sally, got sidetracked. Nevertheless, here it is.
Looking at a photo of my work is as telling as looking at it in a mirror. There is obviously a bias in my vision which causes me to see things askew. Rather like how I ride. Yoga and the better familiarity with the unevenness of my body illustrates how crooked I am when I ride even though I feel straight. At least photos and the mirror can help me to find the faults and correct them - if they are not too severe. I've made changes since those photo. I'll post the final version when it's complete.
At least it does look like Natalia. Richard, her besotted 'Dad', should be well pleased.
It is what it is. I love that sentence. It is what it is. Like Stein's 'A rose is a rose is a rose'. Stating the obvious? Obviously. But what depths of meaning, like reflections of mirrors in other mirrors. It is what it is. One can rail, whine, complain, laugh, curse or cry but it still is what it is.
I know that I colour situations, reality, with my opinions, formed through the particular coloured lenses I wear that day, or even that moment. On a good happy day, when I am confident, well rested, with optimism wafting around me like a sweet perfume, minor annoyances aren't even annoying. It is what it is. On a bad day, when I am tired, worried, fearful, minor annoyances become major. Yet it still is what it is. My perceptions change, my reactions change but still it is what it is.
So, I actually started this post to show an ongoing pencil sketch of Natalia. But as usual, Sidetrack Sally, got sidetracked. Nevertheless, here it is.
At least it does look like Natalia. Richard, her besotted 'Dad', should be well pleased.
Monday, March 7, 2016
Edgar the Free, sort of
Edgar is a free bird ... sort of. He hated being confined to the aviary at night. As soon as the door closed he grumbled, whined and called continuously until dark and began again at first light in the morning. Of course he isn't free as he hasn't shown the slightest skill in food foraging and is completely dependent upon me for food.
He is growing in confidence and skill with flying. I think he's almost got it and then he demonstrates he hasn't by flying into the side of the house this morning. Otherwise he is going from tree to tree, from tree to top of aviary and top of aviary to ground to be fed inside the aviary. (I think it is worth keeping that habit going as, if we were to suddenly sell the house, he has to come with us when we move).
Edgar is a handsome and healthy bird. The right wing droops a little when he is relaxed and is still about 6 inches shorter than the left. He flies well but hasn't shown the desire to fly high and long so don't know whether it's because there's no need or because he cannot. I do feel sorry for him as he should be with other crows and here he is on his own with us. I tell him every day what a marvelous little being he is and try to convey how much I love him but I'm not a crow so what value is that to him? I'm not outside all day every day either so most of the time he is on his own. If I'm outside he hangs around, even running after me sometimes which is a bit dangerous as he's so quick and tends to get too close to my feet. Other times I'm outside doing things and he is doing his own thing elsewhere so he's not emotionally dependent upon me in a clingy sort of way.
Heck, I just don't know what to do with him. I can't teach him crow and he can't learn human so guess we'll just bumble along as best we can.
He is growing in confidence and skill with flying. I think he's almost got it and then he demonstrates he hasn't by flying into the side of the house this morning. Otherwise he is going from tree to tree, from tree to top of aviary and top of aviary to ground to be fed inside the aviary. (I think it is worth keeping that habit going as, if we were to suddenly sell the house, he has to come with us when we move).
Edgar is a handsome and healthy bird. The right wing droops a little when he is relaxed and is still about 6 inches shorter than the left. He flies well but hasn't shown the desire to fly high and long so don't know whether it's because there's no need or because he cannot. I do feel sorry for him as he should be with other crows and here he is on his own with us. I tell him every day what a marvelous little being he is and try to convey how much I love him but I'm not a crow so what value is that to him? I'm not outside all day every day either so most of the time he is on his own. If I'm outside he hangs around, even running after me sometimes which is a bit dangerous as he's so quick and tends to get too close to my feet. Other times I'm outside doing things and he is doing his own thing elsewhere so he's not emotionally dependent upon me in a clingy sort of way.
Heck, I just don't know what to do with him. I can't teach him crow and he can't learn human so guess we'll just bumble along as best we can.
Monday, February 29, 2016
Newly Listed and the Stirring Speech of L. DiCaprio
Today we listed the house with Elders and a woman who seems keen and capable. One thing she said made me think perhaps she'll be the one that finally moves it. She said the other realtors should have been keeping in touch. They haven't. So we'll see. Three of them are coming out on Wednesday to have a look so the round of cleaning begins anew although frankly, the place is always neat and tidy enough and it's more a sop to my need to feel as though I merit a sale more than a need to make it clean that gets me to hit the mop and sponge and rake and broom.
The other thing of note. Watched the last half of the Oscars. Leonardo DiCaprio gave the best acceptance speech for Best Actor. After graciously thanked all involved in the making of the movie and the making of him as an actor, including his parents, he concluded with this:
And lastly I just want to say this: Making ‘The Revenant’ was about man's relationship to the natural world. A world that we collectively felt in 2015 as the hottest year in recorded history. Our production needed to move to the southern tip of this planet just to be able to find snow. Climate change is real, it is happening right now. It is the most urgent threat facing our entire species, and we need to work collectively together and stop procrastinating. We need to support leaders around the world who do not speak for the big polluters, but who speak for all of humanity, for the indigenous people of the world, for the billions and billions of underprivileged people out there who would be most affected by this. For our children’s children, and for those people out there whose voices have been drowned out by the politics of greed. I thank you all for this amazing award tonight. Let us not take this planet for granted. I do not take tonight for granted. Thank you so very much.
The audience gave him a standing ovation. A large Indian in the audience, who obviously was in The Revenant, had the biggest widest whitest grin I've ever seen. I cried.
Millions, perhaps billions, of people watch the Oscars. Surely this message can no longer be ignored. A groundswell of feeling will eventually overwhelm and render inert those who harm our planet on such a grand scale with impunity.
The other thing of note. Watched the last half of the Oscars. Leonardo DiCaprio gave the best acceptance speech for Best Actor. After graciously thanked all involved in the making of the movie and the making of him as an actor, including his parents, he concluded with this:
And lastly I just want to say this: Making ‘The Revenant’ was about man's relationship to the natural world. A world that we collectively felt in 2015 as the hottest year in recorded history. Our production needed to move to the southern tip of this planet just to be able to find snow. Climate change is real, it is happening right now. It is the most urgent threat facing our entire species, and we need to work collectively together and stop procrastinating. We need to support leaders around the world who do not speak for the big polluters, but who speak for all of humanity, for the indigenous people of the world, for the billions and billions of underprivileged people out there who would be most affected by this. For our children’s children, and for those people out there whose voices have been drowned out by the politics of greed. I thank you all for this amazing award tonight. Let us not take this planet for granted. I do not take tonight for granted. Thank you so very much.
The audience gave him a standing ovation. A large Indian in the audience, who obviously was in The Revenant, had the biggest widest whitest grin I've ever seen. I cried.
Millions, perhaps billions, of people watch the Oscars. Surely this message can no longer be ignored. A groundswell of feeling will eventually overwhelm and render inert those who harm our planet on such a grand scale with impunity.
Friday, February 26, 2016
Suffering for the Common Good
Read a couple of passages about Flannery O'Connor's thoughts as a Catholic regarding suffering in Paul Elie's book An American Pilgrimage and they've stuck in my craw for days. I'm not a Catholic, know next to nothing about Catholicism nor am I a philosopher. Haven't read Kant or Kierkegaard or Hegel. Nevertheless I think therefore I have opinions and O'Connor's thoughts on suffering, if they reflect Catholic thought, are so far removed from compassion as to verge on the cold bloodedness of a scientist studying the reactions of a lab rat.
She opines that the Believer is a realist. Elie writes of her that, "the nonbeliever prides himself on his realism, his willingness to recognize suffering and to ponder the problem of evil directly. In human deformity {suffering}, the Believer sees "the raw material of good." The Believer sees the grounds of our common humanity, recognizing that it is through suffering that human beings are stirred to the love of one another and to the love of God, who showed his love for humanity through his willingness to suffer as one of us."
Suffering, if O'Connor is to be believed, is the finger pointing at the moon, not the moon itself. Never mind the deformity or the pain or the starvation, it is a metaphor so that the rest of us can have a think about it and what it means to our relationship with each other and to God.
Which kind of leaves out the poor suffering slob who is thrust into the role of martyr for the betterment and peace of mind of the Believers.
O'Connor suffered herself. She was diagnosed with lupus as a young woman and so led a life circumscribed by her infirmity (she took cortisone for the lupus which over time softened her bones). Nevertheless, I prefer Dorothy O'Day's (also in Elie's book) approach to suffering. She took the direct approach and tried to alleviate it. It was not a philosophical conundrum to be solved over tea. O'Day lived alongside the poor and disenfranchised, suffered alongside them. She took the unbeliever's stance and pondered the problem of evil directly by doing something about it.
So, I've had my rant. Easy to pontificate away from the ease and comfort of my good health and comfortable home. Nevertheless....
She opines that the Believer is a realist. Elie writes of her that, "the nonbeliever prides himself on his realism, his willingness to recognize suffering and to ponder the problem of evil directly. In human deformity {suffering}, the Believer sees "the raw material of good." The Believer sees the grounds of our common humanity, recognizing that it is through suffering that human beings are stirred to the love of one another and to the love of God, who showed his love for humanity through his willingness to suffer as one of us."
Suffering, if O'Connor is to be believed, is the finger pointing at the moon, not the moon itself. Never mind the deformity or the pain or the starvation, it is a metaphor so that the rest of us can have a think about it and what it means to our relationship with each other and to God.
Which kind of leaves out the poor suffering slob who is thrust into the role of martyr for the betterment and peace of mind of the Believers.
O'Connor suffered herself. She was diagnosed with lupus as a young woman and so led a life circumscribed by her infirmity (she took cortisone for the lupus which over time softened her bones). Nevertheless, I prefer Dorothy O'Day's (also in Elie's book) approach to suffering. She took the direct approach and tried to alleviate it. It was not a philosophical conundrum to be solved over tea. O'Day lived alongside the poor and disenfranchised, suffered alongside them. She took the unbeliever's stance and pondered the problem of evil directly by doing something about it.
So, I've had my rant. Easy to pontificate away from the ease and comfort of my good health and comfortable home. Nevertheless....
Sunday, February 21, 2016
Edgar the Crow,
There's something quite different to knowing a crow and knowing a galah. The most obvious thing is the face which gazes back at you. Parrots are granivores. They don't prey on other creatures. Rather they flee from those who would prey on them. Their eyes are on either side of their head. When Marvin, for instance, looks at me, he looks with one eye. When he's checking out a possible predator overhead (and galahs have an uncanny ability to spot a hawk circling so far above that he is the merest speck to my weaker eye), he checks with one eye. He might double check by switching and looking with the other eye. I assume in flight galahs have a greater range of vision behind and above them rather like the placement of a horse's eye.
Edgar, on the other hand, has eyes more towards the front of his head. When he looks at me he is looking with both very blue eyes. He looks with both eyes down the long pointer of his black beak. It is a gaze both direct and discretionary. There's a keen intelligence in those blue eyes. I've noticed Edgar does share the excitement factor with parrots of pinning his pupils.but whether they pin when excited or relaxed will take more observation. Something happens, that's for sure.
Later: Took him out twice today. The first time under the poinciana tree where he has been more than a few times, starting when he was still confined to his babycontainer. He's fairly relaxed there although the open mouth breathing does make an appearance sooner or later. In the afternoon, he hopped on his stick and accompanied me to the horse yards. I squatted down near the tank overflow. The air pressure must have dropped since yesterday for the overflow was dripping much to the delight of mud dauber wasps who quequed up for a sip and a dab of mud. Edgar took some time to have a look around before he felt bold enough to leap off the perch stick.
He couldn't understand why he was getting lightly splashed with the water hitting the concrete overflow. He watched the water flow off the concrete onto the mud but thankfully didn't try and catch the wasps. He did bring me another leaf. And another. He's quite affectionate in his grumbling complaining way.
But crows must be genetically wired not to trust long thin sticks held by humans. I was 20 feet away when I picked up the manure fork. Edgar panicked. Had to take it to the far side of the yard and scrap ineffectually at nothing before he was convinced it meant him no harm. Even in his panic he could not fly.
He never relaxed in the yards but it was his first visit. I put him atop the wooden part of the fence which stands between the horse yard and the enclosed veggie garden. He did relax enough to squat down like crows do when resting while I finished the yards. That was enough of an ask for him. Tomorrow is another day.
Edgar, on the other hand, has eyes more towards the front of his head. When he looks at me he is looking with both very blue eyes. He looks with both eyes down the long pointer of his black beak. It is a gaze both direct and discretionary. There's a keen intelligence in those blue eyes. I've noticed Edgar does share the excitement factor with parrots of pinning his pupils.but whether they pin when excited or relaxed will take more observation. Something happens, that's for sure.
Later: Took him out twice today. The first time under the poinciana tree where he has been more than a few times, starting when he was still confined to his babycontainer. He's fairly relaxed there although the open mouth breathing does make an appearance sooner or later. In the afternoon, he hopped on his stick and accompanied me to the horse yards. I squatted down near the tank overflow. The air pressure must have dropped since yesterday for the overflow was dripping much to the delight of mud dauber wasps who quequed up for a sip and a dab of mud. Edgar took some time to have a look around before he felt bold enough to leap off the perch stick.
He couldn't understand why he was getting lightly splashed with the water hitting the concrete overflow. He watched the water flow off the concrete onto the mud but thankfully didn't try and catch the wasps. He did bring me another leaf. And another. He's quite affectionate in his grumbling complaining way.
But crows must be genetically wired not to trust long thin sticks held by humans. I was 20 feet away when I picked up the manure fork. Edgar panicked. Had to take it to the far side of the yard and scrap ineffectually at nothing before he was convinced it meant him no harm. Even in his panic he could not fly.
He never relaxed in the yards but it was his first visit. I put him atop the wooden part of the fence which stands between the horse yard and the enclosed veggie garden. He did relax enough to squat down like crows do when resting while I finished the yards. That was enough of an ask for him. Tomorrow is another day.
Saturday, February 20, 2016
Edgar and Natalia Sketch
Blanche was released two days ago and haven't seen her since. Opened the aviary door in the morning. She left sometime between the 3 and 5pm feeding. Edgar was a bit upset at first but didn't leave. In fact he's a bit cage bound. He has learned, very quickly, to hop on a free standing perch. I've started to take him, on his perch, out of the aviary. It makes him nervous but I am hopeful that if we increase *trips* incrementally he'll gradually gain confidence.
Had another look at his wing. The keratin still covers the shaft of his secondary feathers. I can't see why he hasn't removed them. The wing is about 6 inches shorter than his other wing because he has no primary flight feathers. If he hasn't got them now, when he's fully and beautifully feathered, it is doubtful whether he'll ever get them. It also tends to confirm why he was booted from the nest. Once he was old enough for his parents to sense or see his deformity, he wasn't worth their time and energy.
Whether he'll ever be able to fly is questionable. I have seen him hop/fly upward from the ground to a low hanging perch. The perch was about 18 to 24" from the ground. Saw him try on a second occasion and miss. He still exercises his wings but not as much. He tends to flap more when he's out of the aviary. Can't have him give up. Crows are way too intelligent to live alone in a boring old aviary. He needs to get out and explore the environment.
Have started a large pencil sketch of Natalia. After the rather sad watercolour attempt of a cat I need to do something that has a chance of turning out well. And I need an ongoing project. The drawing is taken from a photo I took with the phone (not many years ago this sentence would've made no sense at all!). Copied the photo which has turned out rather blurry but is okay to use. So I'm doing a sad (at least for me) copy of a photo drawing. Would much rather be doing something out of my head but at least, if this turns out okay, Richard will be pleased. Haven't seen him so besotted with an animal since Caruso.
Had another look at his wing. The keratin still covers the shaft of his secondary feathers. I can't see why he hasn't removed them. The wing is about 6 inches shorter than his other wing because he has no primary flight feathers. If he hasn't got them now, when he's fully and beautifully feathered, it is doubtful whether he'll ever get them. It also tends to confirm why he was booted from the nest. Once he was old enough for his parents to sense or see his deformity, he wasn't worth their time and energy.
Whether he'll ever be able to fly is questionable. I have seen him hop/fly upward from the ground to a low hanging perch. The perch was about 18 to 24" from the ground. Saw him try on a second occasion and miss. He still exercises his wings but not as much. He tends to flap more when he's out of the aviary. Can't have him give up. Crows are way too intelligent to live alone in a boring old aviary. He needs to get out and explore the environment.
Have started a large pencil sketch of Natalia. After the rather sad watercolour attempt of a cat I need to do something that has a chance of turning out well. And I need an ongoing project. The drawing is taken from a photo I took with the phone (not many years ago this sentence would've made no sense at all!). Copied the photo which has turned out rather blurry but is okay to use. So I'm doing a sad (at least for me) copy of a photo drawing. Would much rather be doing something out of my head but at least, if this turns out okay, Richard will be pleased. Haven't seen him so besotted with an animal since Caruso.
Friday, February 12, 2016
Feel a bit sheepish about all my whining yesterday. Think part of it is due to this damned drought. At a time when we should be drifting through a living emerald we are instead shuffling about in a dust bowl.
But there are compensations. This photo is at the end of the Gatton Clifton Road where it meets the Toowoomba Gatton Road, at a T section. Some wag thought it would be funny to put up a 100kph sign about 50 feet from the yield sign.
But there are compensations. This photo is at the end of the Gatton Clifton Road where it meets the Toowoomba Gatton Road, at a T section. Some wag thought it would be funny to put up a 100kph sign about 50 feet from the yield sign.
Thursday, February 11, 2016
I'll Carry On Until I Can't
I have to give myself permission to have a day off. Richard is away until sometime after lunch so have the morning to do (or not do!) whatever I want. Have stumbled through most of the chores although still have to vacuum, especially as Natalia and Nairobi both demanded to be brushed and wisps of grey or black hair floated down the hall before I could catch them. But I'm not in a hurry to vacuum. I'm not in a hurry at all. My next 'must do' is the noon crow nosh up. Until then I can bludge.
I remember after Mom died my then husband Wayne dreamed of her. He dreamed she was in a beautiful place where she could rest from the rigours of life. A phrase which has been running through my head is, 'I'll carry on until I can't'. I'm afraid if I let any one of these balls juggling in the air above me fall, then a Bad Thing will happen. A Bad Thing would be letting Parkinsons have its way with Richard without opposition. A Bad Thing would be for something to happen to Richard (a fall, a faint) and me not know. A Bad Thing would be loss of mental acuity or physical ability in me. A Bad Thing would be shame because I'd stopped trying to be this and that and whatever, that I'd just stopped trying. A Bad Thing would be to give in to fear, to depression. A Bad Thing would be to Surrender. Tears form in my eyes as I write this. I'm tired and a bit sad. I understand why after someone dies they just get to stop and catch their breath for awhile. Life is lovely, life is adventure, but unless you're comatose, it's exhausting too.
I think a vivid dream I had this morning is leaving an aftertaste. In the dream I met a man. He was articulate, intelligent, compassionate and very interested in me. I didn't have an affair, there was no sex but I did kiss him and when I kissed him I clung to him like a drowning woman clings to a lifeboat. In the dream Richard was away overnight. I was so tempted to sleep with this man and I did, fully clothed, get into bed with him, but nothing happened except that I was ashamed and exhilarated at the same time.
I love Richard. I admire him. I will see us through all this and do whatever it takes to try and keep him well and happy for as long as I can. But there is a personal toll. I'm no longer a lover and a wife. I am a carer. I am watchful all the time. I am on guard all the time. On his good days, I relax a little. On his bad days, I man the ramparts and march. Conversations are of the garden variety. There are areas we do not go. There are many areas we cannot go. I do not talk down to him but I simplify.
It's lonely and I feel sorry for myself which brings guilt when I have so much and most people in the world have so little. Lonely, self-pitying, guilt-ridden and ashamed. It's a slippery slope to climb. I am of a cheerful nature and this state of mind does not sit well yet it is difficult to change by an act of will.
I suppose that's the crux. I have brought my will to bear on so many things and changed them. Energy, effort and belief. If I want to do something badly enough I can do it. (Think that's why I'm so fierce at the gym. Working out Really Hard is something I can control). But I cannot will away the Parkinsons which has robbed me of my husband. I cannot will this house to sell sooner rather than later. I cannot will my sadness away.
So do I surrender? I read uplifting posts from The Tattooed Buddha and Rebelle; warrior posts about fierce priestess types who grab Life by the throat and wring it dry with their Mach II creative power, divinely inspired posts about the Divine in all of us, pragmatic posts about the life we chose and the lessons learned.
It makes me tired. So do I surrender? Maybe I'll just vacuum and feed the crows.
I remember after Mom died my then husband Wayne dreamed of her. He dreamed she was in a beautiful place where she could rest from the rigours of life. A phrase which has been running through my head is, 'I'll carry on until I can't'. I'm afraid if I let any one of these balls juggling in the air above me fall, then a Bad Thing will happen. A Bad Thing would be letting Parkinsons have its way with Richard without opposition. A Bad Thing would be for something to happen to Richard (a fall, a faint) and me not know. A Bad Thing would be loss of mental acuity or physical ability in me. A Bad Thing would be shame because I'd stopped trying to be this and that and whatever, that I'd just stopped trying. A Bad Thing would be to give in to fear, to depression. A Bad Thing would be to Surrender. Tears form in my eyes as I write this. I'm tired and a bit sad. I understand why after someone dies they just get to stop and catch their breath for awhile. Life is lovely, life is adventure, but unless you're comatose, it's exhausting too.
I think a vivid dream I had this morning is leaving an aftertaste. In the dream I met a man. He was articulate, intelligent, compassionate and very interested in me. I didn't have an affair, there was no sex but I did kiss him and when I kissed him I clung to him like a drowning woman clings to a lifeboat. In the dream Richard was away overnight. I was so tempted to sleep with this man and I did, fully clothed, get into bed with him, but nothing happened except that I was ashamed and exhilarated at the same time.
I love Richard. I admire him. I will see us through all this and do whatever it takes to try and keep him well and happy for as long as I can. But there is a personal toll. I'm no longer a lover and a wife. I am a carer. I am watchful all the time. I am on guard all the time. On his good days, I relax a little. On his bad days, I man the ramparts and march. Conversations are of the garden variety. There are areas we do not go. There are many areas we cannot go. I do not talk down to him but I simplify.
It's lonely and I feel sorry for myself which brings guilt when I have so much and most people in the world have so little. Lonely, self-pitying, guilt-ridden and ashamed. It's a slippery slope to climb. I am of a cheerful nature and this state of mind does not sit well yet it is difficult to change by an act of will.
I suppose that's the crux. I have brought my will to bear on so many things and changed them. Energy, effort and belief. If I want to do something badly enough I can do it. (Think that's why I'm so fierce at the gym. Working out Really Hard is something I can control). But I cannot will away the Parkinsons which has robbed me of my husband. I cannot will this house to sell sooner rather than later. I cannot will my sadness away.
So do I surrender? I read uplifting posts from The Tattooed Buddha and Rebelle; warrior posts about fierce priestess types who grab Life by the throat and wring it dry with their Mach II creative power, divinely inspired posts about the Divine in all of us, pragmatic posts about the life we chose and the lessons learned.
It makes me tired. So do I surrender? Maybe I'll just vacuum and feed the crows.
Tuesday, February 9, 2016
Crow update, Edgar, Blanche and Blackie
Yesterday I released the two wild crows. They had been here a week, had had long vocal discussions with the local crows and were flying as well as they could in a limited aviary. Opened the door and Blackie flew out straight away. He flew heavily but competently and didn't stop until he'd made a tree across the creek. Whitie however snagged at the door. I'd pushed the door open as wide as it would go but he still got stuck behind the door. I went to the front of the aviary to herd him out of the dead end he'd got himself into. By the time he was clear he couldn't fly. He got to the garden around the deck and lost momentum. I caught him again and put him back in the aviary where he seems to fly quite well from one end to the other.
Nevertheless I'll hang onto him for another week as Edgar has graduated from the spare room to being Whitie's (should rename him/her Blanche) roommate. Much better for him to be out in the world with lots to interest him while still having the protection of the cubby built into the aviary. I'd put him in a cocky cage the day before as he'd discovered he didn't have to stay in the container. Life was much more interesting from atop the stored boxes. That was fine except for the copious amounts of poop Edgar generates. The cocky cage was a short term solution. Poor guy, he sat in one spot on one perch for 24 hours. Not scared, just not knowing how to get around and onto the other perches. In the aviary he soon worked out how he could climb along the branches to get from one end to the other. I put gum tree limbs from the ground to the perches in case he falls so he can climb up again. He's old enough now to start tackling some of the physical aspects of a crow's life. Flying is another matter entirely but one step or crow hop at a time.
Seeing the two crows together, despite the difference in age, they appear quite different. Edgar's head shape is rounder and fuller than Blanche's head. Whether it's baby fluff I don't know. His eyes seem smaller too. Blanche's eyes are paler while Edgar's are definitely blue. Of course the white feathers of Blanche throw off identification as well. Looked up crows and ravens in the bird book today and don't know whether they are Australian Ravens or Torresian crows. The immature descriptions aren't much help - and they all seem to be distantly related anyway.
Nevertheless I'll hang onto him for another week as Edgar has graduated from the spare room to being Whitie's (should rename him/her Blanche) roommate. Much better for him to be out in the world with lots to interest him while still having the protection of the cubby built into the aviary. I'd put him in a cocky cage the day before as he'd discovered he didn't have to stay in the container. Life was much more interesting from atop the stored boxes. That was fine except for the copious amounts of poop Edgar generates. The cocky cage was a short term solution. Poor guy, he sat in one spot on one perch for 24 hours. Not scared, just not knowing how to get around and onto the other perches. In the aviary he soon worked out how he could climb along the branches to get from one end to the other. I put gum tree limbs from the ground to the perches in case he falls so he can climb up again. He's old enough now to start tackling some of the physical aspects of a crow's life. Flying is another matter entirely but one step or crow hop at a time.
Seeing the two crows together, despite the difference in age, they appear quite different. Edgar's head shape is rounder and fuller than Blanche's head. Whether it's baby fluff I don't know. His eyes seem smaller too. Blanche's eyes are paler while Edgar's are definitely blue. Of course the white feathers of Blanche throw off identification as well. Looked up crows and ravens in the bird book today and don't know whether they are Australian Ravens or Torresian crows. The immature descriptions aren't much help - and they all seem to be distantly related anyway.
Saturday, February 6, 2016
Edgar, coiffed and ready to go.
Just a quick post so that I can attach the latest picture of Edgar - who is, after all, entering his cute fuzzy crow stage.
He actually took food from my fingers twice today. At his choosing If I hold a tidbit of food out to him he does the baby crow routine; head back, mouth agape, accompanied by the Baby Crow Grumble, a continuous complaint which is not at all displeasing.
Notice the flight feathers of his deformed right wing break off half way up the shaft and that he has not removed the keratin sheath on any of them unlike his left normal wing which is flight ready.
The two wild crow juveniles are flying well enough to be released now. Not sure what the benefits are of keeping them caged. The local crow population, or a representative of the local crow population, stops in the nearby silky oak tree at dusk for a good old chin wag. Is he welcoming or warning them.
I lean toward releasing them sooner rather than later. If they are still obviously youngsters perhaps the adults will see them less as a threat and more of something needing their protection. Not sure the juveniles will benefit by keeping them in captivity but have come up with a plan. Edgar is close to being too big for his carrier. He can't fly (and I'm not sure he ever will) but he is so tall now that he sometimes poops over the edge. If he decides he is ready to leave 'the nest' than he will have to be removed to the snake safe aviary. A cocky cage is too small and of course he can't just wander around loose. So the day he stumbles into the adult world, the resident wild juveniles will be released (after a hefty breakfast and lunch),
He actually took food from my fingers twice today. At his choosing If I hold a tidbit of food out to him he does the baby crow routine; head back, mouth agape, accompanied by the Baby Crow Grumble, a continuous complaint which is not at all displeasing.
Notice the flight feathers of his deformed right wing break off half way up the shaft and that he has not removed the keratin sheath on any of them unlike his left normal wing which is flight ready.
The two wild crow juveniles are flying well enough to be released now. Not sure what the benefits are of keeping them caged. The local crow population, or a representative of the local crow population, stops in the nearby silky oak tree at dusk for a good old chin wag. Is he welcoming or warning them.
I lean toward releasing them sooner rather than later. If they are still obviously youngsters perhaps the adults will see them less as a threat and more of something needing their protection. Not sure the juveniles will benefit by keeping them in captivity but have come up with a plan. Edgar is close to being too big for his carrier. He can't fly (and I'm not sure he ever will) but he is so tall now that he sometimes poops over the edge. If he decides he is ready to leave 'the nest' than he will have to be removed to the snake safe aviary. A cocky cage is too small and of course he can't just wander around loose. So the day he stumbles into the adult world, the resident wild juveniles will be released (after a hefty breakfast and lunch),
Black and White, Who Knew?
The brighter the light, the blacker the shadows.
The blackness in the world seems blacker than usual, although beheadings are probably less cruel than drawing and quartering - our well-honed talent for cruel and unusual punishments is breathtaking. History is no more or less cruel than what is displayed via computer or television today. We just have better access to the creative psychopaths than before the advent of modern media.
At the same time however, our capacity for giving, for compassion, for love is greater than ever. No matter how awful the world seems - and watching the news which thrives on and indeed is a venue for the Theatre of the Cruel, it is matched, even exceeded by goodness. People donating time money and effort to helping the millions of refugees left adrift in the world. Governments can be merciless and cold (witness Australia's treatment of refugees held like criminals in 'detention centres' - prisons is a more accurate description) but individuals shine.
If our collective dreaming was of good happy things would reality be any less real? Is Heaven boring and is that why we dream the shadows as well as the light? Is there any point in being good when goodness cannot exist without evil to measure it against? Is goodness relative to the density of evil?
The universe cannot be black despite the absolute blackness of deep space because of the presence of starpricks of light. There is no atmosphere to diffuse the light or to soften the blackness. Absolute light and absolute black.
I get worked up about things. Lots of things, from the knuckle dragging Neanderthal Roosh Valizadeh who advocates the legalization of rape on private property to the head in the sand mentality of governments, corporations and multinationals in regard to climate change. My neighbours rile me with their cavalier attitude to the animals in their charge or their environmental vandalism credentials (which are five star!). Like a mainsail buffeted by wind, at the mercy of an unattended tiller I lurch from one aghast and disgusted episode to another.
This has to stop.
It's wearing me out.
The next stage is to figure out how. I suspect it has to do with meditation and the stillness of the unbuffeted center.
The blackness in the world seems blacker than usual, although beheadings are probably less cruel than drawing and quartering - our well-honed talent for cruel and unusual punishments is breathtaking. History is no more or less cruel than what is displayed via computer or television today. We just have better access to the creative psychopaths than before the advent of modern media.
At the same time however, our capacity for giving, for compassion, for love is greater than ever. No matter how awful the world seems - and watching the news which thrives on and indeed is a venue for the Theatre of the Cruel, it is matched, even exceeded by goodness. People donating time money and effort to helping the millions of refugees left adrift in the world. Governments can be merciless and cold (witness Australia's treatment of refugees held like criminals in 'detention centres' - prisons is a more accurate description) but individuals shine.
If our collective dreaming was of good happy things would reality be any less real? Is Heaven boring and is that why we dream the shadows as well as the light? Is there any point in being good when goodness cannot exist without evil to measure it against? Is goodness relative to the density of evil?
The universe cannot be black despite the absolute blackness of deep space because of the presence of starpricks of light. There is no atmosphere to diffuse the light or to soften the blackness. Absolute light and absolute black.
I get worked up about things. Lots of things, from the knuckle dragging Neanderthal Roosh Valizadeh who advocates the legalization of rape on private property to the head in the sand mentality of governments, corporations and multinationals in regard to climate change. My neighbours rile me with their cavalier attitude to the animals in their charge or their environmental vandalism credentials (which are five star!). Like a mainsail buffeted by wind, at the mercy of an unattended tiller I lurch from one aghast and disgusted episode to another.
This has to stop.
It's wearing me out.
The next stage is to figure out how. I suspect it has to do with meditation and the stillness of the unbuffeted center.
Tuesday, February 2, 2016
Two more crows arrived today. They are flighted, wild and very skittish. Karen has been looking after them for a few weeks. I'll keep them for a few weeks, let them strengthen their flight muscles while they panic trying to get away from me. The resident wild crows have already been talking to them which is great. The galahs, sharing the other half of the double aviary, absolutely panicked when the crows were let go in the other half. I'm sure they thought they were hawks put there to devour them. They've settled down since this morning.
One of the crows has white in some of his flight feathers. Hard to get a good look as they are so wild and panic fly/crash when I enter the aviary. Have been in twice, once to put in a bowl of water and a second time to leave some food. The black crow gobbled up most if not all of the food. Not sure if the other one got any or not. Will put out more food soon. They have to get used to me at least to the point where I can put food and water in. Don't want them injuring feathers or wings in their effort to get away from me.
Karen had a look at Edgar. Thinks the wing might be deformed. As I thought there is no broken bone to account for it. She has no more idea than I whether he will fly or not. Asked if the droopy wings are normal and she said yes, her crows also had trouble keeping them folded to their body when they were his age. They are much older and look like adult crows save for a certain gangliness.
Karen and I worked on a couple of art projects. She is drawing a pencil sketch of one of her daughters. I started another watercolour project involving a cat. Am not using the techniques taught in the watercolour pencil book partly because I'm not using any pencils. And I'm sure the way I'm doing is not the way watercolour should be used. Nevertheless, so far so good. I do like the subtlety of watercolour, the palest of pale shading. Because it's so slow (I'm using the smallest brush - what is the number? See, I never remember details like that) I can work the details. So far, in mistakes I've made (and they've been legion) I've been able to mop up the offending bit with paper towel.
Fun!
One of the crows has white in some of his flight feathers. Hard to get a good look as they are so wild and panic fly/crash when I enter the aviary. Have been in twice, once to put in a bowl of water and a second time to leave some food. The black crow gobbled up most if not all of the food. Not sure if the other one got any or not. Will put out more food soon. They have to get used to me at least to the point where I can put food and water in. Don't want them injuring feathers or wings in their effort to get away from me.
Karen had a look at Edgar. Thinks the wing might be deformed. As I thought there is no broken bone to account for it. She has no more idea than I whether he will fly or not. Asked if the droopy wings are normal and she said yes, her crows also had trouble keeping them folded to their body when they were his age. They are much older and look like adult crows save for a certain gangliness.
Karen and I worked on a couple of art projects. She is drawing a pencil sketch of one of her daughters. I started another watercolour project involving a cat. Am not using the techniques taught in the watercolour pencil book partly because I'm not using any pencils. And I'm sure the way I'm doing is not the way watercolour should be used. Nevertheless, so far so good. I do like the subtlety of watercolour, the palest of pale shading. Because it's so slow (I'm using the smallest brush - what is the number? See, I never remember details like that) I can work the details. So far, in mistakes I've made (and they've been legion) I've been able to mop up the offending bit with paper towel.
Fun!
Monday, February 1, 2016
I should write two separate posts as what I want to write about today are unrelated, but as I don't always get here when I want to (or should!) I'll combine the two.
First of all, Edgar. He continues to thrive. He has supermodel legs. They go on forever and are comically topped with this scruffy pin feathered little (in comparison) body. There are photos of baby crows in Pinterest; all black and fluffy in duck-like down. He's nothing like that. He has adult feathers, most of them still encased in keratin somewhere along the shaft. His eye is pale blue and as he grows and grows stronger, he is more responsive.
Two days ago I was present when he had a wing flap. It was then I noticed one wing is noticeably shorter than the other. Not only shorter but some of the flight feathers are partially turned outward rather than lying flat against his body. Don't know whether this will affect his ability to fly or not. Don't know whether it was the reason he was screaming in the long grass. For such a vocal baby there wasn't a crow in sight - and we have many local crows. Was he kicked from the nest because he was imperfect? Nature is not sentimental. Staying alive is too hard. Anything that is compromised from birth is ejected/rejected without moral reflection.
There was a reason he was found by us. He put everything he had into that metronomic squawking and there was very little left to live upon when he was found which is why he was so weak and ill to begin with. But I thought Rupert (the rainbow lorikeet) and Lionel (the galah) were fostered by me for a reason too. I thought they would live - and they did until they were released and then, in a longer or shorter time, they were killed. No use pondering why (he was found) or if (he can fly), best just do my best for him and see what happens. In the meantime he makes me smile.
The other thing I want to cover isn't nearly as jolly. Much of Tasmania has been on fire. World Heritage areas on the west coast have burnt to a crisp. Thousand year old pencil pines gone forever. An interviewed scientist (just tried to find the article and can't) said it was a sign of 'system collapse'. Another article (http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-01-29/glikson-the-dilemma-of-a-climate-scientist/7123246 ) states that up to a third of climate change scientists believe the situation is far worse than what is fed to the public and that if we don't stop using fossil fuels now we are doomed.
This kept me awake most of the night. Not because I'm doomed. I'm 60. I'll probably eke out another few decades before the planet becomes unlivable (or perhaps, in an effort to save the planet, everyone over 60 will be euthanized). What kept me staring into the darkness was the plight of all those that don't have a voice. From the unborn to all the creatures; land, sea and air, which will die through no fault of their own. It breaks my heart. If we want to destroy one another, so be it, but must we drag everything else down with us?
So it started me thinking. Despite the human capacity for self-sacrific, despite our intelligence, our urge to beauty, our creativity, spirituality, generosity - we are a species seemingly doomed to failure. In the scheme of things, meaning the Infinite Universe, it's not a big deal. Other beings no doubt have come into existence, shone for a while and dimmed into oblivion for various reasons. Inborn hubris leads me to think humans are rather special. We have the ability to ponder, to reflect, to learn and to know joy. It would be lovely if those attributes were the ones that carried the day. For us and every other living thing. Unfortunately it seems greed, hubris, selfishness, fear and short-sightedness carry the day. And the earth.
On the other hand, if it's only a dream of Maya, we'll all wake up and shake our heads at the strangeness and overriding sadness of the dream. I wonder which reality is true.
First of all, Edgar. He continues to thrive. He has supermodel legs. They go on forever and are comically topped with this scruffy pin feathered little (in comparison) body. There are photos of baby crows in Pinterest; all black and fluffy in duck-like down. He's nothing like that. He has adult feathers, most of them still encased in keratin somewhere along the shaft. His eye is pale blue and as he grows and grows stronger, he is more responsive.
Two days ago I was present when he had a wing flap. It was then I noticed one wing is noticeably shorter than the other. Not only shorter but some of the flight feathers are partially turned outward rather than lying flat against his body. Don't know whether this will affect his ability to fly or not. Don't know whether it was the reason he was screaming in the long grass. For such a vocal baby there wasn't a crow in sight - and we have many local crows. Was he kicked from the nest because he was imperfect? Nature is not sentimental. Staying alive is too hard. Anything that is compromised from birth is ejected/rejected without moral reflection.
There was a reason he was found by us. He put everything he had into that metronomic squawking and there was very little left to live upon when he was found which is why he was so weak and ill to begin with. But I thought Rupert (the rainbow lorikeet) and Lionel (the galah) were fostered by me for a reason too. I thought they would live - and they did until they were released and then, in a longer or shorter time, they were killed. No use pondering why (he was found) or if (he can fly), best just do my best for him and see what happens. In the meantime he makes me smile.
The other thing I want to cover isn't nearly as jolly. Much of Tasmania has been on fire. World Heritage areas on the west coast have burnt to a crisp. Thousand year old pencil pines gone forever. An interviewed scientist (just tried to find the article and can't) said it was a sign of 'system collapse'. Another article (http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-01-29/glikson-the-dilemma-of-a-climate-scientist/7123246 ) states that up to a third of climate change scientists believe the situation is far worse than what is fed to the public and that if we don't stop using fossil fuels now we are doomed.
This kept me awake most of the night. Not because I'm doomed. I'm 60. I'll probably eke out another few decades before the planet becomes unlivable (or perhaps, in an effort to save the planet, everyone over 60 will be euthanized). What kept me staring into the darkness was the plight of all those that don't have a voice. From the unborn to all the creatures; land, sea and air, which will die through no fault of their own. It breaks my heart. If we want to destroy one another, so be it, but must we drag everything else down with us?
So it started me thinking. Despite the human capacity for self-sacrific, despite our intelligence, our urge to beauty, our creativity, spirituality, generosity - we are a species seemingly doomed to failure. In the scheme of things, meaning the Infinite Universe, it's not a big deal. Other beings no doubt have come into existence, shone for a while and dimmed into oblivion for various reasons. Inborn hubris leads me to think humans are rather special. We have the ability to ponder, to reflect, to learn and to know joy. It would be lovely if those attributes were the ones that carried the day. For us and every other living thing. Unfortunately it seems greed, hubris, selfishness, fear and short-sightedness carry the day. And the earth.
On the other hand, if it's only a dream of Maya, we'll all wake up and shake our heads at the strangeness and overriding sadness of the dream. I wonder which reality is true.
Wednesday, January 27, 2016
Edgar, I am relieved to say, is without doubt getting stronger. He is standing more without splaying legs (I cover the bottom of the box with leafy twigs to provide traction), can eat on his own with food just dropped into his mouth rather than having a finger shove it down, and his attempts at walking are more frequent and better controlled. He has a long way to go yet improvement is obvious and welcome.
He is starting to grow into his black fluffy stage. Very cute. His eyes are fully open with bright intelligence and curiosity.
I have agreed to take Karen's three baby crows for four days while she goes to the coast. A couple of days ago she texted me that she had them and did I want them to which I said no - too much work and smell and IF we had an inspection I doubt I could mask the crow smell successfully. Did text back that perhaps, when they are older and nearing the time when they would fledge, they could come and live in the aviary with Edgar, form a bond so all four could be released together. That seems the best way to introduce them into the wild. Even wild crow babies don't always make it through their first year I read. Forty-two percent die. What are the chances of hand raised crows? I don't know but will just have to try our best. There is no other alternative.
Taking these three crows for a trial four days will be excellent for Edgar and perhaps I will find that I can manage them quite all right and can keep them until they fledge. They will entertain each other and behave as crows should behave rather than having their personalities warped by interacting with humans. (I find myself wanting to kiss Edgar's fuzzy black head, NOT conducive to keeping emotional distance from this wild creature).
On the home front - not one iota of interest since dropping the property price to $399,000. On Monday Richard, Anthony, Cameron and their families met at Laidley cemetery to affix the bronze plaque over David Anthony's grave, fully 44 years after he died. They also dug a small hole on his grave for Glynis' ashes. A major loose end finally tied off in a fitting manner. Richard is kind and very family oriented. Can't begin to imagine how David Anthony being in an unmarked grave all these years felt to him. But now he has done what any loving father, and he is a loving father, would do.
Now can we sell the house and move? Crass of me I know but there you go. I try not to want but I want nevertheless. Try not to feel guilty about wanting and feel guilty anyway.
Every day is a goulash of gratitude and guilt. Was reading up on the various species of Buddhism. My loo book is An American Pilgrimage by Paul Elie about four Catholics; Dorothy Day, Flannery O'Connor, Thomas Merton and Walker Percy. It is subtitled, The Life You Save May Be Your Own. The book details their Catholic conversion and their struggles with themselves, philosophy, the nature of good and evil, poverty, war, writing and much else that pertained to being alive as well as what it meant to be Catholic. One thing is for sure, none of them really had the answer. Even Thomas Merton, a Trappist monk who lived the penultimate Catholic life of seclusion and reflection, even he was riddled with the angst which is part and parcel of being alive.
I don't think the 'isms have it. Perhaps I just am not evolved or disciplined enough to understand what they offer yet it seems as soon as reality is filtered through the prismed opinions of someone else I am lost. Reality is so immediate. I sense that even if I don't know it. It is as close as my next breath and the universe behind my eyelids.
Oh, yes, read a report on how some people have negative reactions to mindfulness meditation. How interesting as sometimes I have felt, and I think I have written about it, this mild sense of panic, that if I don't open my eyes and move NOW. It is irresistible. There is a sort of external pressure which confines and frightens me. Am glad I'm not alone. Also glad it doesn't happen all the time. In future, if I experience it, having read of these bad experiences, I won't fight it or berate myself for being weak-willed and undisciplined.
He is starting to grow into his black fluffy stage. Very cute. His eyes are fully open with bright intelligence and curiosity.
I have agreed to take Karen's three baby crows for four days while she goes to the coast. A couple of days ago she texted me that she had them and did I want them to which I said no - too much work and smell and IF we had an inspection I doubt I could mask the crow smell successfully. Did text back that perhaps, when they are older and nearing the time when they would fledge, they could come and live in the aviary with Edgar, form a bond so all four could be released together. That seems the best way to introduce them into the wild. Even wild crow babies don't always make it through their first year I read. Forty-two percent die. What are the chances of hand raised crows? I don't know but will just have to try our best. There is no other alternative.
Taking these three crows for a trial four days will be excellent for Edgar and perhaps I will find that I can manage them quite all right and can keep them until they fledge. They will entertain each other and behave as crows should behave rather than having their personalities warped by interacting with humans. (I find myself wanting to kiss Edgar's fuzzy black head, NOT conducive to keeping emotional distance from this wild creature).
On the home front - not one iota of interest since dropping the property price to $399,000. On Monday Richard, Anthony, Cameron and their families met at Laidley cemetery to affix the bronze plaque over David Anthony's grave, fully 44 years after he died. They also dug a small hole on his grave for Glynis' ashes. A major loose end finally tied off in a fitting manner. Richard is kind and very family oriented. Can't begin to imagine how David Anthony being in an unmarked grave all these years felt to him. But now he has done what any loving father, and he is a loving father, would do.
Now can we sell the house and move? Crass of me I know but there you go. I try not to want but I want nevertheless. Try not to feel guilty about wanting and feel guilty anyway.
Every day is a goulash of gratitude and guilt. Was reading up on the various species of Buddhism. My loo book is An American Pilgrimage by Paul Elie about four Catholics; Dorothy Day, Flannery O'Connor, Thomas Merton and Walker Percy. It is subtitled, The Life You Save May Be Your Own. The book details their Catholic conversion and their struggles with themselves, philosophy, the nature of good and evil, poverty, war, writing and much else that pertained to being alive as well as what it meant to be Catholic. One thing is for sure, none of them really had the answer. Even Thomas Merton, a Trappist monk who lived the penultimate Catholic life of seclusion and reflection, even he was riddled with the angst which is part and parcel of being alive.
I don't think the 'isms have it. Perhaps I just am not evolved or disciplined enough to understand what they offer yet it seems as soon as reality is filtered through the prismed opinions of someone else I am lost. Reality is so immediate. I sense that even if I don't know it. It is as close as my next breath and the universe behind my eyelids.
Oh, yes, read a report on how some people have negative reactions to mindfulness meditation. How interesting as sometimes I have felt, and I think I have written about it, this mild sense of panic, that if I don't open my eyes and move NOW. It is irresistible. There is a sort of external pressure which confines and frightens me. Am glad I'm not alone. Also glad it doesn't happen all the time. In future, if I experience it, having read of these bad experiences, I won't fight it or berate myself for being weak-willed and undisciplined.
Saturday, January 23, 2016
Just starting to sprinkle. Was thinking this morning how we are slowly but inevitably contributing to the desertification of the Lockyer. Yes, it rains. Yes, there is the (dwindling) underground aquifer, but with continual land clearing and burning, the continual hoovering up of the underground water supply to irrigate the factory farms, it is turning into a desert. If I had photos of our drive into town from 1991, when we first moved here, and compared them to now, the changes would be significant. Little by little, slowly yet inexorably, patches of bush or entire swathes of bush have been cleared or burnt. It makes a difference. Having trees, lots of trees, attracts rain.
One hobby farmer down the road removed every tree from his one flat paddock so on the days when the temperatures sore, his cattle have no relief. It beggars belief. Doesn't need much in the way of common sense to know that cattle are happier and put on more weight if they are comfortable. He doesn't need to know, and obviously didn't, that the trees he removed are legumes and fix nitrogen in the soil, all great for growing grass. Tree prejudice is pervasive.
But this is an old and battered drum I beat and no one listens because I am living in the wrong place among the wrong people at the wrong time. Climate change doesn't exist here or if it does it's someone else's problem.
Going home to the Tweed, and it does feel like going home, just confirms my ardent desire to move there. Driving from the Tweed Art Gallery towards Stokers Siding or from Nobbys Creek to Cabarita I was struck by the amount of, the colour of and the lushness of trees. Green filtered light. How long since I've seen green filtered light? And I didn't have time to stop and just look at it. One day....
Edgar update: He's eating better, seems a little less weak (head not lolling backwards so much) and I don't worry when I open the door in the morning whether he will be dead or not....yet something doesn't seem right with him. Perhaps the weakness goes deeper than I thought. Perhaps his screaming when we found him was the last hurrah before he died as it is taking a long time for him to recover. He grumbles and calls when he's being fed but there is no crying out for food as I would expect. Magpies that I have raised scream the house down for food. He sleeps all the time and doesn't move much except to find a corner where he feels more secure and perhaps supported. So, it's wait and see. His eyes seem a little more open than previously and I think they will be blue which indicates he is probably a Torresian crow.
One hobby farmer down the road removed every tree from his one flat paddock so on the days when the temperatures sore, his cattle have no relief. It beggars belief. Doesn't need much in the way of common sense to know that cattle are happier and put on more weight if they are comfortable. He doesn't need to know, and obviously didn't, that the trees he removed are legumes and fix nitrogen in the soil, all great for growing grass. Tree prejudice is pervasive.
But this is an old and battered drum I beat and no one listens because I am living in the wrong place among the wrong people at the wrong time. Climate change doesn't exist here or if it does it's someone else's problem.
Going home to the Tweed, and it does feel like going home, just confirms my ardent desire to move there. Driving from the Tweed Art Gallery towards Stokers Siding or from Nobbys Creek to Cabarita I was struck by the amount of, the colour of and the lushness of trees. Green filtered light. How long since I've seen green filtered light? And I didn't have time to stop and just look at it. One day....
Edgar update: He's eating better, seems a little less weak (head not lolling backwards so much) and I don't worry when I open the door in the morning whether he will be dead or not....yet something doesn't seem right with him. Perhaps the weakness goes deeper than I thought. Perhaps his screaming when we found him was the last hurrah before he died as it is taking a long time for him to recover. He grumbles and calls when he's being fed but there is no crying out for food as I would expect. Magpies that I have raised scream the house down for food. He sleeps all the time and doesn't move much except to find a corner where he feels more secure and perhaps supported. So, it's wait and see. His eyes seem a little more open than previously and I think they will be blue which indicates he is probably a Torresian crow.
Thursday, January 21, 2016
Edgar the Crow
Two days ago we found a crow. A baby crow screaming its head off in the long grass by the side of the road. It sounded more like a frog being taken by a snake than a crow so when I investigated I walked really really slow, peering as best I could through the grass. Green snakes are harmless but browns are deadly. Even when the crow was at my feet he was difficult to see. When I did see him, I saw a bundle of black and grey spiky pin feathers and a yawning red cavern from which the squawks were coming.
Took him home and dug out the emergency rations of frozen mince. Squirted a bit of water in his mouth with a syringe as I suspect he was dehydrated (next day found his first poop buried in the folds of the cloth used as emergency bedding. It was pure poop with no urine and as big as the first joint of my little finger).
For two days I have put off writing about Edgar as I wasn't sure he'd pull through. He wasn't eating much and seemed very very weak as his head kept flopping backwards onto his back. That didn't seem normal. The heat hasn't helped. Today I've put a cloth covered ice bag in his basket which seems to help. Today he seems stronger, his head rarely flops back and he eats with more gusto and less coaxing. Oddly his eyes aren't fully open.
At first I thought he was a casualty of the Channel Billed Cuckoos. Thought the cuckoo nestlings either ejected the crow eggs or the crow nestlings but that's not what they do. They actually do nothing
but eat and as they are bigger, grow faster and are stronger than the crow babies, the parents feed them and neglect their own offspring until they starve to death and are thrown from the nest.
Looking up in the gum tree which looms over the area where Edgar was found, there was a nest on an outermost branch. It is so high up the tree I can't tell whether the nest is intact or whether there are other babies. It appeared to be empty. So I don't know whether Edgar was an accident or a victim.
In any case, the task now is to get him well enough and strong enough to move outside into half the galah's aviary. The less contact I have with him the better if he is to survive in the wild as a wild crow. The local crows, and there are at least two which live in the mugga ironbark, need to notice and accept him into their circle. A big ask.
If I can find that fine line between which he knows to come to me for supplemental feeding at the same time as he maneuvers his way into local society, I will have succeeded. The fate of tame crows, unless kept permanently in an aviary, is grim. They don't survive.
In the meantime, we'll just muddle through. He's still, compared to photos of other crows his age, very weak.
Took him home and dug out the emergency rations of frozen mince. Squirted a bit of water in his mouth with a syringe as I suspect he was dehydrated (next day found his first poop buried in the folds of the cloth used as emergency bedding. It was pure poop with no urine and as big as the first joint of my little finger).
For two days I have put off writing about Edgar as I wasn't sure he'd pull through. He wasn't eating much and seemed very very weak as his head kept flopping backwards onto his back. That didn't seem normal. The heat hasn't helped. Today I've put a cloth covered ice bag in his basket which seems to help. Today he seems stronger, his head rarely flops back and he eats with more gusto and less coaxing. Oddly his eyes aren't fully open.
At first I thought he was a casualty of the Channel Billed Cuckoos. Thought the cuckoo nestlings either ejected the crow eggs or the crow nestlings but that's not what they do. They actually do nothing
Looking up in the gum tree which looms over the area where Edgar was found, there was a nest on an outermost branch. It is so high up the tree I can't tell whether the nest is intact or whether there are other babies. It appeared to be empty. So I don't know whether Edgar was an accident or a victim.
In any case, the task now is to get him well enough and strong enough to move outside into half the galah's aviary. The less contact I have with him the better if he is to survive in the wild as a wild crow. The local crows, and there are at least two which live in the mugga ironbark, need to notice and accept him into their circle. A big ask.
If I can find that fine line between which he knows to come to me for supplemental feeding at the same time as he maneuvers his way into local society, I will have succeeded. The fate of tame crows, unless kept permanently in an aviary, is grim. They don't survive.
In the meantime, we'll just muddle through. He's still, compared to photos of other crows his age, very weak.
Monday, January 18, 2016
Down to the Tweed this weekend where I viewed this property http://www.realestate.com.au/property-acreage+semi-rural-nsw-nobbys+creek-120871409 at Nobbys Creek. The house is perfect. Lots of light, lots of wood, smells good, new, clean and an easy keeper - great kitchen with a walk in pantry and gas stove, high ceilings, generously wide hallways. Lovely. The land needs tweaking. Very steep, have to move fences and make some kind of arrangement for feed and tack a there are no suitable buildings. Also need to find way to separate Dakota to keep him from eating too much.
But as we've not even had a nibble since dropping the house price, all the above is a moot point. Suspect the house will sell long before we would be in a position to buy it. No matter.
As always, as soon as I left the M1 and drove towards Murwillumbah and the mountains came into view, my heart lifted. Actually my heart lifted before, as soon as I passed the exit to Tallebudgera Valley but as traffic was heavy and I needed to concentrate I couldn't really give in to it until I'd exited the motorway. I did sing along with Paul Simon at full volume however. Joy cannot be contained.
The contrast with the Lockyer is profound. The Tweed is lush, green, criss crossed and dotted with water (and of course has the sea as a lace fringed blue border) whereas the Lockyer, because we're experiencing an El Nino drought, is again turning brown despite it being January, normally our wettest month. The gums are skeletal and what water there is is mud brown, not clear and flowing like the creeks and rivers of the Tweed.
This confirms my already ardent desire to move. Surely, SURELY, the house will sell and we can move on.
When I left the house, following the real estate agent down the road, I gave it up to the Universe. The house, although beautiful, isn't perfect. It's 30 minutes from the sea, there is less bush around so birdlife won't be as abundant as it could be and the horse accomodation is problematic. The property is desirable and I very much doubt it will be on the market when we are in a position to buy. So be it.
But I wanted to blog today not because of house hunting and property buying but because of a tiny soft-bodied insect.
One mosquito can make sleeping a sleepless itchy hell. Woke up with bites on both legs, my back and my shoulder. Then heard the culprit buzzing around my face. The only way to combat a mosquito is to turn on the fan, unless poison is used which I don't like. So I got up to turn on the fan, thought I'd go to the loo at the same time. Fumbled around for the torch and couldn't find it. Decided I knew the way and if I walked slowly I'd get to the toilet without mishap. Got to the living room and saw a small green flash near the floor. It looked like the regular strobing of a In Sleep Mode bit of hardware. Except there is no bit of hardware at the base of a wooden plinth near the bookcase. I knelt down and swept my hands slowly over the light and felt nothing. Tried again, still nothing. I turned on a light and there on the floor was a small black bug. A firefly!
I've lived in Australia for 34 years and I've never seen a firefly. Tried to catch him to put him outside, after turning off the light to again enjoy his mating call, but he dropped down and out of sight in a floor crack. Maybe he was the only firefly around and now he's dead. Feel a bit sad about that but oh so chuffed that I saw him. Hadn't realized I missed them until seeing him.
But as we've not even had a nibble since dropping the house price, all the above is a moot point. Suspect the house will sell long before we would be in a position to buy it. No matter.
As always, as soon as I left the M1 and drove towards Murwillumbah and the mountains came into view, my heart lifted. Actually my heart lifted before, as soon as I passed the exit to Tallebudgera Valley but as traffic was heavy and I needed to concentrate I couldn't really give in to it until I'd exited the motorway. I did sing along with Paul Simon at full volume however. Joy cannot be contained.
The contrast with the Lockyer is profound. The Tweed is lush, green, criss crossed and dotted with water (and of course has the sea as a lace fringed blue border) whereas the Lockyer, because we're experiencing an El Nino drought, is again turning brown despite it being January, normally our wettest month. The gums are skeletal and what water there is is mud brown, not clear and flowing like the creeks and rivers of the Tweed.
This confirms my already ardent desire to move. Surely, SURELY, the house will sell and we can move on.
When I left the house, following the real estate agent down the road, I gave it up to the Universe. The house, although beautiful, isn't perfect. It's 30 minutes from the sea, there is less bush around so birdlife won't be as abundant as it could be and the horse accomodation is problematic. The property is desirable and I very much doubt it will be on the market when we are in a position to buy. So be it.
But I wanted to blog today not because of house hunting and property buying but because of a tiny soft-bodied insect.
One mosquito can make sleeping a sleepless itchy hell. Woke up with bites on both legs, my back and my shoulder. Then heard the culprit buzzing around my face. The only way to combat a mosquito is to turn on the fan, unless poison is used which I don't like. So I got up to turn on the fan, thought I'd go to the loo at the same time. Fumbled around for the torch and couldn't find it. Decided I knew the way and if I walked slowly I'd get to the toilet without mishap. Got to the living room and saw a small green flash near the floor. It looked like the regular strobing of a In Sleep Mode bit of hardware. Except there is no bit of hardware at the base of a wooden plinth near the bookcase. I knelt down and swept my hands slowly over the light and felt nothing. Tried again, still nothing. I turned on a light and there on the floor was a small black bug. A firefly!
I've lived in Australia for 34 years and I've never seen a firefly. Tried to catch him to put him outside, after turning off the light to again enjoy his mating call, but he dropped down and out of sight in a floor crack. Maybe he was the only firefly around and now he's dead. Feel a bit sad about that but oh so chuffed that I saw him. Hadn't realized I missed them until seeing him.
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