From the window I see four horses exchanging gossip around the water trough. Two tails swish; perhaps they're not happy about the subject. "Is it a rumour that we'll have to stay in this over eaten paddock because She says we're too fat? Surely not. I can still see my knees."
Barely. Freya and Dakota both have crests of fat on their neck. My forefinger sinks into flab before I can find a rib on Drifter and Pagan has no waist. Only Balthazar, being the streamlined thoroughbred that he is, looks about right. They'll just have to tough it out. The only other alternative, and one which will have to be introduced later in the summer, is shutting them up in the yards for most of the day. Everyone, including me, hates that. But it's better than foundering.
On another subject altogether. I was thinking about the nature of truth today. Yeah, the big philosophical subject. Truth and how little of it I manage to write. Was it Hemingway that spoke about the difficulty in writing one true sentence. His writing is so spare yet powerful (must reread him one day). But I'm skirting around the subject. I don't write the truth in here. I haven't learned how. Sure, I write about this and that, the outward happenings but as soon as I start to zero in on what I'm really thinking or feeling, the censor raises it's mighty head and silences me with a 'what if'. What if someone read this. What if I'll be judged. What if I'm not really a nice girl with nice thoughts and nice intentions? I wouldn't know the truth if it reared up and bit me. Sometimes I think of something that I think I'll write about; something of importance (at least to me - because it's the Truth) and just as quickly I'll forget about what it was I was going to write about. I am concerned with vanity and other people's opinions (did I write about, truthfully write about my well-deserved humiliation and shame of a few weeks ago? No, it made me look bad. Because I was bad and it's important to myself that I lie enough to keep the illusion alive).
How difficult can it be? Bloody difficult. Nigh impossible. But I'll never write one good sentence unless I can rip the veneer away. It takes more bravery than I possess to be an honest human being - and I'm not talking about garden variety honesty. I've no difficulty with that kind of honesty. It's the honesty within myself that I don't access.
Woke from a nightmare last night. Driving along at night with the headlights illuminating a verge teeming with big red bears. Bears and wolves? Bears and wolves and moose? There were two other frightening critters on this one lane road but I don't remember what they were. Got to a house, my house although I didn't recognize it, and somehow made it inside. Went into my sister's room. White bedspread on a neatly made bed. Two scarves, one red, one dark hanging from one of the posts of the fourposter. Something, I don't know what, on the foot of the bed. But she wasn't there. Hadn't been there for quite a while. It felt empty and abandoned. Went to my room which had a bathroom/shower attached. Closed and locked the doors, drew the curtains but could hear the bears snuffling and crashing through the shrubbery outside. I was so frightened I woke up. Yet the bears, as I drove through them and while in the house, didn't try and attack. No broad bear paws swiping at the car. No yellow bear teeth tearing at the house. Just me and the dark and the sounds of bears being bears.
Now I think dreams that are powerful enough to wake me have a powerful message. Not that I know what that message is, I don't. Bears, bare? Nakedness. The nakedness of truth-telling? What about my sister and that spartan bed. I remember thinking at the time that it was like a blank sheet of paper, waiting to be written on. Yet it was abandoned. Who abandoned it? Me. I don't live up to my sisters expectations. I love her yet I feel distant from her too (now here's a bit of truth). We found during our last trip together, how we tiptoe around one another. Here I was thinking she was the one with the chip on her shoulder (and I was the good girl with the easy going temperament) and she thought the exact same thing of me. I don't get it. I really don't. Tiptoeing around my sister. Impossible. Unheard of! She's the only person who really knows me. But perhaps not so much any more. We have spent too much time apart, led lives that are vastly different so although our beginnings were shared (and no one understands the family home like a sibling), it is no longer the majority of our lives. And what about those scarves, although they were more like squares of cloth than scarves that were meant to be worn. What is the significance of them?
Many years ago I kept a dream diary. I dutifully wrote down every dream I remembered, and I remembered lots! Kept a notebook by the bed and wrote down key words and passages as soon as I awoke. Transcribed them into the journal and then attempted to interpret them. It was abysmal. I think I successfully interpreted one dream from the hundreds I recorded. How do I know? There was a Eureka feeling. Unmistakable. I just knew it was true. A warm wash of success and release. All I ever got from the other dreams was frustration.
But it made me think. Who dreams these dreams? Why are the dreams so inaccessible? Why is it important that they are impossible to interpret and understand? What danger is there in understanding dreams? What am I hiding from myself that is so dangerous? No suppressed memories here. I wasn't abused by either parent or any other person until I was 17 - and by then even though it knocked me for six for a few years, I eventually recovered. My life is happy and well rounded. I don't suffer from bouts of depression. I'm generally happy and content - so why the mystery?
There was another snippet too, of me thrusting my face into another face and saying, "Boy-yea, not Boy-er." My middle name is Boyer, like Charles Boyer, French not English. So, what was all that about?
Thursday, December 3, 2009
Friday, November 27, 2009
Bats, Birds and the Golden 'Keet
Back from the gym, that delicious lethargy from muscles well used. Outside a white horse stark against the dark green shadowed grasses. But it's hot and going to get hotter. 36 the radio man says. Was thinking on the drive home how I would like to build an enclosed bird verandah on the north side of the house. The birds are on the western side and although shaded by torreliana trees it is still far too hot. The aviary birds have the benefit of the huge shady poinciana tree and are cooler there than we are in our unair-conditioned house.
The bats in the colony on the edge of town were already waving their leathery wings in an effort to cool off. They look like hundreds of black eggplants hanging from the branches. Spoke to one of the bat carers this week. Dozens die from the heat, he said. Mums leave their babies behind when they venture off to feed at dusk. Many don't return and the babies, unprotected, die. The old age home which borders the colony won't let carers in to rescue the babies. I don't see how they can deny them as the creek and creek edge is crown land. Or so I thought. It seems odd that bats which are native to Australia have so much trouble coping with the heat. But imagine being black, hanging in full sun (the trees provide very little shade as although they are tall, their leaves are sparse) with your head wrapped inside your black leather cloak.
Dimitri and I were doing really well. He was staying put when I'd walk onto the verandah and hardly moving when I offered him millet. Then disaster. When I gave him a sunflower seed he lost his balance and fell, sliding off the wide metal hooks which anchor the wood bird ladder to the tree perch. Then later, he fell off the end of the table branch when it tipped under his weight. My fault. I'd done the big clean up and untied the end so I could properly clean the table. I thought it was heavy enough on the large end not to budge under his weight. I was wrong. He slid right off. Thankfully both times he was unhurt. But he was unnerved and frightened and as I was present on both occasions I was linked with 'bad things'. He was very edgy this morning and wanted nothing to do with me. I accept that and realise we've just taken a few steps backward. We'll be fine. I gave him some millet when I got home and he was less anxious than he was earlier. R has replaced the metal hooks with sturdy wood and I've retied the branch. I want no more accidents!
I'm saying 'Millet' in a happy clear voice whenever I feed him now. Just finished reading Alex and Me, Dr. Irene Pepperburg's book on her 30 years with Alex, the famous grey parrot. Although I won't be training Dimitri to speak with the rival/model method used in the book, there's no reason I can't label everything I offer him in the hopes that one day he may make the connection. I've never been keen that any of my birds should talk. Caruso, the S. C. Cockatoo, spoke a few words but it was more a parroting of what was said to him. I'm not sure he knew what the words meant - yet when I ask Marvin, the galah, to kiss me, he does. He obviously makes the connection between the words and the action required.
Released Amos, the juvenile galah, this morning. He still favours that leg a little but he can walk, perch and, boy, can he fly. I couldn't see the advantage in keeping him any longer. If he can walk on the ground to feed (he can), and perch (on the overhead wire no less) and fly (like an expert) than he's got as good a chance as any juvenile galah - which isn't all that great. Only one out of ten make it through their first year. Terrible odds. I've put out seed and water on top of his aviary. Troppo, another released galah, stays here alot, even spending the odd night inside the aviary with the others (I think he regards it as a little holiday; food laid on and protection from predators so he doesn't have to stay hypervigilant all the time) . Maybe he will buddy up with Amos. A galah on his own doesn't have near the protection as a galah in a flock with many eyes scouring the skies for predators.
Saw something extraordinary a couple of days ago. We've had probably 70 rainbow lorikeets hanging around in the mornings interspersed with a couple of dozen scaly breasted. I was walking down the driveway when I glanced up at a commotion in the silky oak above me. There were half a dozen screaming rainbows and in their midst was a yellow one. Bright daffodil yellow from head to tail with a head the colour of the inside of a ripe guava. By the time I'd attracted R's attention it had flown. Saw it again the next day. Saw the back of it was also yellow but with a hint of khaki green. I know those people who can't leave things well enough alone have to breed colour mutations to improve on nature so the bird might be an escaped pet or aviary bird. Or it might just be a natural mutation. Unfortunately with colouring like that it is a marked bird. The dark green backs of rainbows and scaly-breasted make them almost invisible from the air. Not so a bright yellow bird. At least he's a strong flier. He's the Golden 'Keet, related in name to the elusive Golden Fleece.
We have a white throated gerygone nesting in the potted umbrella tree right next to our front door. She and her husband spent two weeks building the nest. Well, she built it and he encouraged her with song. She is all of two inches long with a white throat, yellow breast and grey brown back. We were amazed that with all our comings and going and the whippets living permanently on the deck that she would chose that as a nest site. Perhaps our proximity was part of the plan for no hawk or cuckoo (which lay eggs in their nest) would dare an assault. Yet now that she's laid her eggs and is nesting she's become quite flighty and leaves the nest when we step onto the deck. R has put up a sign, 'Bird Nesting, Go Around' with arrows to deter visitors from coming up the steps. I hope she hatches and raises them successfully.
The bats in the colony on the edge of town were already waving their leathery wings in an effort to cool off. They look like hundreds of black eggplants hanging from the branches. Spoke to one of the bat carers this week. Dozens die from the heat, he said. Mums leave their babies behind when they venture off to feed at dusk. Many don't return and the babies, unprotected, die. The old age home which borders the colony won't let carers in to rescue the babies. I don't see how they can deny them as the creek and creek edge is crown land. Or so I thought. It seems odd that bats which are native to Australia have so much trouble coping with the heat. But imagine being black, hanging in full sun (the trees provide very little shade as although they are tall, their leaves are sparse) with your head wrapped inside your black leather cloak.
Dimitri and I were doing really well. He was staying put when I'd walk onto the verandah and hardly moving when I offered him millet. Then disaster. When I gave him a sunflower seed he lost his balance and fell, sliding off the wide metal hooks which anchor the wood bird ladder to the tree perch. Then later, he fell off the end of the table branch when it tipped under his weight. My fault. I'd done the big clean up and untied the end so I could properly clean the table. I thought it was heavy enough on the large end not to budge under his weight. I was wrong. He slid right off. Thankfully both times he was unhurt. But he was unnerved and frightened and as I was present on both occasions I was linked with 'bad things'. He was very edgy this morning and wanted nothing to do with me. I accept that and realise we've just taken a few steps backward. We'll be fine. I gave him some millet when I got home and he was less anxious than he was earlier. R has replaced the metal hooks with sturdy wood and I've retied the branch. I want no more accidents!
I'm saying 'Millet' in a happy clear voice whenever I feed him now. Just finished reading Alex and Me, Dr. Irene Pepperburg's book on her 30 years with Alex, the famous grey parrot. Although I won't be training Dimitri to speak with the rival/model method used in the book, there's no reason I can't label everything I offer him in the hopes that one day he may make the connection. I've never been keen that any of my birds should talk. Caruso, the S. C. Cockatoo, spoke a few words but it was more a parroting of what was said to him. I'm not sure he knew what the words meant - yet when I ask Marvin, the galah, to kiss me, he does. He obviously makes the connection between the words and the action required.
Released Amos, the juvenile galah, this morning. He still favours that leg a little but he can walk, perch and, boy, can he fly. I couldn't see the advantage in keeping him any longer. If he can walk on the ground to feed (he can), and perch (on the overhead wire no less) and fly (like an expert) than he's got as good a chance as any juvenile galah - which isn't all that great. Only one out of ten make it through their first year. Terrible odds. I've put out seed and water on top of his aviary. Troppo, another released galah, stays here alot, even spending the odd night inside the aviary with the others (I think he regards it as a little holiday; food laid on and protection from predators so he doesn't have to stay hypervigilant all the time) . Maybe he will buddy up with Amos. A galah on his own doesn't have near the protection as a galah in a flock with many eyes scouring the skies for predators.
Saw something extraordinary a couple of days ago. We've had probably 70 rainbow lorikeets hanging around in the mornings interspersed with a couple of dozen scaly breasted. I was walking down the driveway when I glanced up at a commotion in the silky oak above me. There were half a dozen screaming rainbows and in their midst was a yellow one. Bright daffodil yellow from head to tail with a head the colour of the inside of a ripe guava. By the time I'd attracted R's attention it had flown. Saw it again the next day. Saw the back of it was also yellow but with a hint of khaki green. I know those people who can't leave things well enough alone have to breed colour mutations to improve on nature so the bird might be an escaped pet or aviary bird. Or it might just be a natural mutation. Unfortunately with colouring like that it is a marked bird. The dark green backs of rainbows and scaly-breasted make them almost invisible from the air. Not so a bright yellow bird. At least he's a strong flier. He's the Golden 'Keet, related in name to the elusive Golden Fleece.
We have a white throated gerygone nesting in the potted umbrella tree right next to our front door. She and her husband spent two weeks building the nest. Well, she built it and he encouraged her with song. She is all of two inches long with a white throat, yellow breast and grey brown back. We were amazed that with all our comings and going and the whippets living permanently on the deck that she would chose that as a nest site. Perhaps our proximity was part of the plan for no hawk or cuckoo (which lay eggs in their nest) would dare an assault. Yet now that she's laid her eggs and is nesting she's become quite flighty and leaves the nest when we step onto the deck. R has put up a sign, 'Bird Nesting, Go Around' with arrows to deter visitors from coming up the steps. I hope she hatches and raises them successfully.
Friday, November 13, 2009
writing and a strange coincidence...and Dimitri
Where to start. I've been writing, not much but enough to get going again. My secret? I joined a writers online group. Simple really. Reading all these posts from aspiring (and published) writers and it occurs to me sitting on my great acre complaining does not get the book written. Then too, today there were a couple of posts, sample writings from other group-ies, and well, they were bloody awful. Not that I'm good, even okay, but my fiction isn't abysmal. Really. I do believe in it and myself enough to say that. It is bad form to compare oneself with others. I'm hot, you're not. Not good I know but I admit I'm shallow enough to be encouraged by other's sad attempts.
Good writing is something I want to emulate. I read it and enjoy it then re-read it trying to figure out how they did it (and made it look so effortless). Don't re-read bad writing, that would be fruitless torture, like going to the dentist to fill in a spare hour. But bad writing serves a purpose too. Not to say bad writers don't improve. This second book of mine is better than the first. The fifth book should be better than this one.
Here's an eerie coincidence. Several xmases ago I was given a notebook with a hand tooled leather cover as a place to write ideas in. I used it once. When I was looking for something the other day to jot something down in I found it again. The only thing I had written in it was an idea about a woman who jumps from a bridge, a man who grabs her skirt and manages to hang on and a third man who assists the first man in pulling her over the parapet and onto the bridge. I was thinking of something along the lines of The Bridge Over San Luis Rey, a book about people who die when a bridge collapses. I read it so long ago I don't remember the details except it was a sort of question posed to the universe, why were these people chosen to die on this bridge on this day? In my idea I was thinking of the separate stories of the 3 people leading up to the meeting on the bridge and what happens to them afterward. The weird part is this. There is a cop show on television showing real cops being filmed going about their cop business by onboard squad car cameras. This particular segment dealt with a woman attempting to commit suicide by jumping off a bridge, the cop who grabs her skirt and keeps her from falling and another guy who helps pull her back onto the bridge. I didn't even remember writing the idea down but when I read it I certainly remembered the cop show segment.
The other thing I have done is sign up for an online course with Dr. Susan Friedman on parrot behaviour analysis for caregivers. Unfortunately there won't be an opening until 2012. Fortunately there is an online sort of mini-course which helps prepare one for the real thing. I've joined that group too. Have also ordered a couple of books, Don't Shoot the Dog by Karen Pryor (which will help me help clients at work) and Clicker Training for Birds by ... a Menopausal Moment. Can't remember her name. Have also ordered a book by Dr. Irene Pepperburg about her relationship with Alex (not the scientific tome).
As for my relationship with Dimitri. Same-o, same-o. We are no closer to being friends than we were when I wrote last. What is different is my attitude. I've stopped trying so hard. Nor am I taking it personally. We'll go at his speed. I'm sure this course and the mini-course will help immensely. But in reality it's not vitally important that we be friends at this point. As I write he's sitting on the t-stand perch just outside the office. I put it there for him. There are many other places he could choose to sit but he's chosen that one. Interesting...although as it's time for their afternoon seed (Tach is on the monitor glowering) I shouldn't feel too complimented.
Good writing is something I want to emulate. I read it and enjoy it then re-read it trying to figure out how they did it (and made it look so effortless). Don't re-read bad writing, that would be fruitless torture, like going to the dentist to fill in a spare hour. But bad writing serves a purpose too. Not to say bad writers don't improve. This second book of mine is better than the first. The fifth book should be better than this one.
Here's an eerie coincidence. Several xmases ago I was given a notebook with a hand tooled leather cover as a place to write ideas in. I used it once. When I was looking for something the other day to jot something down in I found it again. The only thing I had written in it was an idea about a woman who jumps from a bridge, a man who grabs her skirt and manages to hang on and a third man who assists the first man in pulling her over the parapet and onto the bridge. I was thinking of something along the lines of The Bridge Over San Luis Rey, a book about people who die when a bridge collapses. I read it so long ago I don't remember the details except it was a sort of question posed to the universe, why were these people chosen to die on this bridge on this day? In my idea I was thinking of the separate stories of the 3 people leading up to the meeting on the bridge and what happens to them afterward. The weird part is this. There is a cop show on television showing real cops being filmed going about their cop business by onboard squad car cameras. This particular segment dealt with a woman attempting to commit suicide by jumping off a bridge, the cop who grabs her skirt and keeps her from falling and another guy who helps pull her back onto the bridge. I didn't even remember writing the idea down but when I read it I certainly remembered the cop show segment.
The other thing I have done is sign up for an online course with Dr. Susan Friedman on parrot behaviour analysis for caregivers. Unfortunately there won't be an opening until 2012. Fortunately there is an online sort of mini-course which helps prepare one for the real thing. I've joined that group too. Have also ordered a couple of books, Don't Shoot the Dog by Karen Pryor (which will help me help clients at work) and Clicker Training for Birds by ... a Menopausal Moment. Can't remember her name. Have also ordered a book by Dr. Irene Pepperburg about her relationship with Alex (not the scientific tome).
As for my relationship with Dimitri. Same-o, same-o. We are no closer to being friends than we were when I wrote last. What is different is my attitude. I've stopped trying so hard. Nor am I taking it personally. We'll go at his speed. I'm sure this course and the mini-course will help immensely. But in reality it's not vitally important that we be friends at this point. As I write he's sitting on the t-stand perch just outside the office. I put it there for him. There are many other places he could choose to sit but he's chosen that one. Interesting...although as it's time for their afternoon seed (Tach is on the monitor glowering) I shouldn't feel too complimented.
Sunday, November 8, 2009
Rescued Baby Galah
November 7, 2009. This post was lost in the draft folder. So it actually predates the previous post. Don't know how to switch them so....Yesterday R went down to the yards to make up the evening horse feeds. I heard him calling my name, that urgent note permeating his voice that one hears only when something's amiss. Met him on the deck. "Come quickly, it's a galah." And it was, a soaking wet juvenile sitting forlornly on a stone near the horse trough. Everything but it's head was wet. When I picked it up I discovered it had an injured leg. The leg was stuck out straight and the toes, two forward, two back, seemed frozen in a forward position. It did have feeling however as when I gently pinched one of the toes it drew it back. The bird was also extremely thin, a sign of coccidiosis. When I saw its first poo later I didn't need a microscope to confirm the diagnosis. Dark vivid green and very watery.
We don't know whether the leg injury came about from a fight to survive in the water trough or is an existing one. It's obviously had the coccidiosis for awhile because it's so thin.
Don't want to call him an 'it' anymore. I've named him Amos. Of course, Amos may be an Amy but Amos will do for now. Having to crop feed him as he's so juvenile. In the wild Mum and Dad would be feeding him. I loathe crop feeding. Always fear that I will get the needle in the wrong place and kill him. As it was I overfilled his crop today and he aspirated a little formula. I felt like crap afterwards. Too much too soon and I should have known better. It's just that his thinness is a worry. If they are too thin for too long their liver is affected and there is no coming back.
The good news is he is far stronger and his poos are looking marginally better. I'm erring on the side of caution with the crop feeding so that's a good thing ... for awhile. Later on we'll have to up the ante so that he actually gains weight instead of just being maintained. It is so hard on them, however. Who would want some long steel tube thrust down their maw? Not me! Everyone stresses; Amos, me and R, who holds him while I mess around with size 8 crop needle and 20ml syringe.
Had a couple of bad days with Dimitri. Not with him. He hasn't changed. He's still as unpredictable as ever; accepting treats one minute and terrified for his life and limb the next. It was me, depressed and anxious, that was the problem. It is such a learning process about myself and the many many things I need to work on (like grow up for instance!).
We don't know whether the leg injury came about from a fight to survive in the water trough or is an existing one. It's obviously had the coccidiosis for awhile because it's so thin.
Don't want to call him an 'it' anymore. I've named him Amos. Of course, Amos may be an Amy but Amos will do for now. Having to crop feed him as he's so juvenile. In the wild Mum and Dad would be feeding him. I loathe crop feeding. Always fear that I will get the needle in the wrong place and kill him. As it was I overfilled his crop today and he aspirated a little formula. I felt like crap afterwards. Too much too soon and I should have known better. It's just that his thinness is a worry. If they are too thin for too long their liver is affected and there is no coming back.
The good news is he is far stronger and his poos are looking marginally better. I'm erring on the side of caution with the crop feeding so that's a good thing ... for awhile. Later on we'll have to up the ante so that he actually gains weight instead of just being maintained. It is so hard on them, however. Who would want some long steel tube thrust down their maw? Not me! Everyone stresses; Amos, me and R, who holds him while I mess around with size 8 crop needle and 20ml syringe.
Had a couple of bad days with Dimitri. Not with him. He hasn't changed. He's still as unpredictable as ever; accepting treats one minute and terrified for his life and limb the next. It was me, depressed and anxious, that was the problem. It is such a learning process about myself and the many many things I need to work on (like grow up for instance!).
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Joni Mitchell's writing and Progress with Dimitri
Just went to my dashboard page and suddenly really noticed what photo I'd chosen for this blog. It's of me driving. Driving a motorhome a couple of years ago, cross country from the west coast to the east. In this case the country was the USA, not Australia.
I love Joni Mitchell. I've always loved Joni Mitchell. Her lyrics speak to me. Today I was listening (yet again, for the 1029th time, to Hejira, my favourite album). Partly I think I relate to her lyrics because she's always on the road,' travelin' travelin' travelin'. My formative years, beyond the childhood years, were when I began to discover who I really was, not what I thought I was. That interior journey came about as a result of an exterior journey. I left family, friends and familiar shores and shifted about strange Antipodean shores. I didn't settle in any locale for more than two years. I learned to rely on myself. I got into sticky situations and got myself out again. I learned I could be brave, that I was strong and resilient. I learned that I liked my own company. If I hadn't left one continent and moved to another I think I would be a very different person today.
When no one knows you or your history or your antecedents, you scent the trail which may lead you (if you're really lucky and assiduous) to who you really are. You become more iron and less froth. Joni, it seems, is always on the road. She became 'porous with travel fever' yet the 'slightest touch of a stranger could set a tingling in my bones'. These songs always resonate with me. It's not that I spent years and years and years traveling solo but enough to know the freedom - and the cost. Maybe I'm only nostalgic for the road, set as I am now with husband, home and animals. I do not wish it any other way but for every choice one makes, other choices sink into oblivion.
Joni's many layered lyrics blow you away with a minimum of words, pointed and true. When I listen to her lyrics I despair that I can ever convey such imagery with so little. For instance, in her 'Song for Sharon', is 'A woman I knew just drowned herself. The well was deep and muddy. She was just shaking off futility or punishing somebody." Unfortunately, I've met people who have suicided. One was shaking off futility and the other was punishing someone.
But enough of that. Good day today. Making steady progress with Dimitri. Was, of course, pushing him too hard, so have backed right off. Now he's following me into the office and I'm c/t'ing for him to come closer. Eventually he'll take millet from my fingers while he's on the floor and I tower over him in an office chair. His whole demeanor is different; less watchful, more trusting. I am so happy!
We've had to cut his tree perch in half. Day before yesterday I was in here and heard a loud thump. He came down to this end with blood on his beak. Found two more drops on the floor. He'd lost his balance and fallen. Now instead of his perch being head height (I'm 5'4") it is waist height. He could still lose his balance and fall but if he does it shouldn't be as bad. Have also piled towels behind the perch, between the perch and the wall. He must have somehow fallen there to have hit hard enough to bite his tongue. I thought I had the crash sites covered but obviously not. Have also put him on pellets today (will give him seed in a few minutes) and both he and Tachimedes are on coccivet as I don't like the colour of their poos. Too green and loose. Tach is having a hard time as he's been gorging on Dimitri's seed for 2 months and ignoring his pellets. It's back to the regimen today and he's not happy. But he'll come around.
I love Joni Mitchell. I've always loved Joni Mitchell. Her lyrics speak to me. Today I was listening (yet again, for the 1029th time, to Hejira, my favourite album). Partly I think I relate to her lyrics because she's always on the road,' travelin' travelin' travelin'. My formative years, beyond the childhood years, were when I began to discover who I really was, not what I thought I was. That interior journey came about as a result of an exterior journey. I left family, friends and familiar shores and shifted about strange Antipodean shores. I didn't settle in any locale for more than two years. I learned to rely on myself. I got into sticky situations and got myself out again. I learned I could be brave, that I was strong and resilient. I learned that I liked my own company. If I hadn't left one continent and moved to another I think I would be a very different person today.
When no one knows you or your history or your antecedents, you scent the trail which may lead you (if you're really lucky and assiduous) to who you really are. You become more iron and less froth. Joni, it seems, is always on the road. She became 'porous with travel fever' yet the 'slightest touch of a stranger could set a tingling in my bones'. These songs always resonate with me. It's not that I spent years and years and years traveling solo but enough to know the freedom - and the cost. Maybe I'm only nostalgic for the road, set as I am now with husband, home and animals. I do not wish it any other way but for every choice one makes, other choices sink into oblivion.
Joni's many layered lyrics blow you away with a minimum of words, pointed and true. When I listen to her lyrics I despair that I can ever convey such imagery with so little. For instance, in her 'Song for Sharon', is 'A woman I knew just drowned herself. The well was deep and muddy. She was just shaking off futility or punishing somebody." Unfortunately, I've met people who have suicided. One was shaking off futility and the other was punishing someone.
But enough of that. Good day today. Making steady progress with Dimitri. Was, of course, pushing him too hard, so have backed right off. Now he's following me into the office and I'm c/t'ing for him to come closer. Eventually he'll take millet from my fingers while he's on the floor and I tower over him in an office chair. His whole demeanor is different; less watchful, more trusting. I am so happy!
We've had to cut his tree perch in half. Day before yesterday I was in here and heard a loud thump. He came down to this end with blood on his beak. Found two more drops on the floor. He'd lost his balance and fallen. Now instead of his perch being head height (I'm 5'4") it is waist height. He could still lose his balance and fall but if he does it shouldn't be as bad. Have also piled towels behind the perch, between the perch and the wall. He must have somehow fallen there to have hit hard enough to bite his tongue. I thought I had the crash sites covered but obviously not. Have also put him on pellets today (will give him seed in a few minutes) and both he and Tachimedes are on coccivet as I don't like the colour of their poos. Too green and loose. Tach is having a hard time as he's been gorging on Dimitri's seed for 2 months and ignoring his pellets. It's back to the regimen today and he's not happy. But he'll come around.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Dice, Dimitri and The Deluge
I'm using the die, as in the Diceman by Luke Rhinehart, again. It seems I blither the day away and don't accomplish a whole lot. Rolling the dice after making a list of things to do is a sure way to get things done. So I made a list of six things (as I've only one die, the other die, all colours and sizes, have disappeared over time). Here it is. 1. Wash windows (always include at least one thing you definitely don't want to do). 2. Listen to The Visitor, a CD made by the Robert Monroe guys, a guided meditation to meet 'The Visitor' which I assume will be someone or something of importance to my psyche. I haven't been able to listen to it in its entirety yet so haven't met him/her/it. The friend who introduced me to it listened many many times before finally meeting his visitor. So it may be awhile. 3. Write (the book). 4. Yoga. Have already done some, trying out a new yoga CD. It was okay but a little too easy. Thought it wouldn't hurt to do some more. 5. Plants. We had 51mm or rain yesterday. Took all the plants out for a drink and a wash. Because it rained so hard, they have debris splattered up the sides. Have brought some back in already but there are more plus one palm I want to repot. and 6. Blog, hence this. It rolled a 6.
I was exhausted by 8:30 last night. Went to bed at 9:30 then couldn't sleep thinking about Dimitri. We had a good ending as I wrote yesterday for he was curious, and perhaps made nervous about the storm (10,000 lightning strikes and power outages), and hung around to the entrance to this room off the verandah. I thought this morning that I would try and get him to target a prop, in this case a plastic weave ball with a bell in it. Dismal failure. I held it and he did touch it but he was so focused on getting out he kept offering the behaviour of getting on the forward perch. When I held the ball up to him again he ignored it and bit my finger - twice. Not hard but hard enough to let me know he wasn't happy. The first rule of birdkeeping and training is don't get bitten so I didn't hold it out again. Instead I got a coop cup which hangs on the inside of the cage and put the ball in it. I clicked for him looking at it, for getting closer (in his mad rush to get onto that forward perch) but in truth it didn't click with him at all. He got cranky and went to the back of the cage. Hmmm. I left him in and went outside and did something else (and felt tears of frustration pricking my eyes - why is this so hard for me?). Overdoing it, no doubt. Should have quit while I was ahead. He got frustrated and annoyed and so did I.
When I returned we'd both calmed down. I clicked for getting near the cup, made a big fuss and then let him out. He's still running for the opposite end of the perch when I go out, unless I'm holding millet but I am backing right off and not letting it annoy me. If this is where we are, this is where we are.
He got on the floor a couple of times, even following me to the opposite end of the verandah. I knelt and offered corn and millet treats for coming nearer. He did get pretty close so that's something.
Must say everything looks so scrubbed and fresh after the rain. It has been so dry - grass the colour of a peroxide blonde. The horses were so rejuvenated they galloped back and forth in the peach paddock which is in front of the windows behind the monitor. Even Freya, nearly 30, was in the throng, sometimes leading the way. After the sixth go she veered off to refresh herself at the water trough but the others kept going. Radar, the whippet x, joined in. Even from here I could see his laughter. That dog loves to run, even more than Jamaica, the purebred whippet. He runs for sheer joy. The galahs, dusty with months of dry weather, hung upside down from the wires and shrieked. Even the aviary galahs found toeholds on the mesh and screamed and fluttered and shook their feathers. Wish Dimitri could have had a bath too but that will have to wait. One day....
I was exhausted by 8:30 last night. Went to bed at 9:30 then couldn't sleep thinking about Dimitri. We had a good ending as I wrote yesterday for he was curious, and perhaps made nervous about the storm (10,000 lightning strikes and power outages), and hung around to the entrance to this room off the verandah. I thought this morning that I would try and get him to target a prop, in this case a plastic weave ball with a bell in it. Dismal failure. I held it and he did touch it but he was so focused on getting out he kept offering the behaviour of getting on the forward perch. When I held the ball up to him again he ignored it and bit my finger - twice. Not hard but hard enough to let me know he wasn't happy. The first rule of birdkeeping and training is don't get bitten so I didn't hold it out again. Instead I got a coop cup which hangs on the inside of the cage and put the ball in it. I clicked for him looking at it, for getting closer (in his mad rush to get onto that forward perch) but in truth it didn't click with him at all. He got cranky and went to the back of the cage. Hmmm. I left him in and went outside and did something else (and felt tears of frustration pricking my eyes - why is this so hard for me?). Overdoing it, no doubt. Should have quit while I was ahead. He got frustrated and annoyed and so did I.
When I returned we'd both calmed down. I clicked for getting near the cup, made a big fuss and then let him out. He's still running for the opposite end of the perch when I go out, unless I'm holding millet but I am backing right off and not letting it annoy me. If this is where we are, this is where we are.
He got on the floor a couple of times, even following me to the opposite end of the verandah. I knelt and offered corn and millet treats for coming nearer. He did get pretty close so that's something.
Must say everything looks so scrubbed and fresh after the rain. It has been so dry - grass the colour of a peroxide blonde. The horses were so rejuvenated they galloped back and forth in the peach paddock which is in front of the windows behind the monitor. Even Freya, nearly 30, was in the throng, sometimes leading the way. After the sixth go she veered off to refresh herself at the water trough but the others kept going. Radar, the whippet x, joined in. Even from here I could see his laughter. That dog loves to run, even more than Jamaica, the purebred whippet. He runs for sheer joy. The galahs, dusty with months of dry weather, hung upside down from the wires and shrieked. Even the aviary galahs found toeholds on the mesh and screamed and fluttered and shook their feathers. Wish Dimitri could have had a bath too but that will have to wait. One day....
Monday, October 26, 2009
Dimitry, always and forever
Well, Dimitri and I aren't getting on very well. No progress, even regression and I'm having to rethink my entire plan (there was a plan?). Like that wise sage, Dr. Phil asks supplicants at the altar of his self-help show - 'Is that workin' for ya?' Nope, it ain't.
So maybe I can think this out loud. A bit of free flowing stream of consciousness description of what's going on. I've read and read files on taming wild birds, gaining their confidence, I've slow-blinked and breathed deep. I've endlessly beat a hasty retreat at any sign of nervousness. I've rewarded any sign of confidence by beating a hasty retreat. There's a track through the french door floor boards as deep as Death Valley. Yet and yet and yet, he's still terrified. Soon as I come through the door, slowly slowly, not looking at him, making my way by a circuitous route to an area of the verandah nowhere near him, he's off like a rabbit to the end of the perch. From the perch onto another perch which spans, what is laughingly referred to as, the training table. If I am still too close (by this time I'm using binoculars to see him), he will threaten to jump from the edge onto the blankets I've put on the floor for just this eventuality. As for clicker training. He targets like a champion and then flees before he gets the treat. No way was he going to venture onto the training table to follow the target stick. I longed for arms like Rubberman so that I could indicate the training table perch while still remaining in the bad girl corner sans dunce cap. Not that it mattered. As far as Dimitri is concerned taking any step beyond gnawing the end of the perch is only for stupid birds and he isn't one of them.
Okay, so the targeting isn't really getting us anywhere as I can't get him onto the training table to begin playing with props. Using props is a way to get the bird so enthusiastic about working with you for treats that he forgets to be scared. Yeah, right. (I'm sorry, I'm frustrated and so am writing with alot of ... frustration. I don't mean it). So he can target. He knows targeting. He's got targeting. I'll just get him used to the idea that anytime I'm in the vicinity he gets something yummy. If he doesn't want it from my hand, fine, I'll throw it in his direction. He adores millet. Who would've thought a big lumberjack of a bird like Dimitri would like millet. Anyway, when he is on the floor and heads in my direction, throw a millet bunch, or a bunch of millet. Give corn, sunflower seeds, millet, whatever he wants and is in the mood for.
But that didn't work, did it. He seemed even more afraid of me, snatching the treat and beating a hasty retreat to Timbuktu.
Patience is what is required. I know that. Lots of patience, oceans of patience, an infinity of patience. Still I would like to see some progress. I'm on holiday. I can spend time with him (and I do, taking a book and reading quietly in a chair well away from him, doing yoga first thing in the morning, making short treat trips as in the aforementioned description). I erroneously thought we'd get a wee bit closer to, if not friendship, at least acquaintances of a civil sort. Instead it's the KGB meets MOSSAD and the KGB forgot their ammo.
So what then is the new plan. R suggests I don't let him out of the cage in the morning until we've done some serious 'getting to know you, getting to know all about you'. That is one area we have made progress. He will get onto the most forward perch. Even to getting him on the forward perch was a milestone, now he gets on in less time and gets the BIG reward - freedom. R thinks yeah, but he needs to get used to my nearness and start getting hand trained. I naively thought when he was getting onto the forward perch with me on the outside that he wouldn't be able to do that without accepting my presence to some degree, but I guess his desire for freedom overrules, in this instance, his instinctive fear.
How to approach this then? His cage now sits on a table with legs and it's a little lower than the previous table. Instead of standing, perhaps I can use a chair so that a) I'm a bit more comfortable and b) I'm not looming over him like Kilimanjaro with hair. Maybe I need to be a little tougher and not be in such a big hurry not to let him out of his cage in the morning. Another 30 or 40 minutes in the cage won't hurt him. If he's in the cage, he can't injure himself. I don't have to force him to accept my presence. I can still do the advance and retreat thing. We can just be a bit more consistent. In that half hour we can have 2 or 3 or 4 short sessions. He'll still be free at the end of it.
I've just done a stint of advance and retreat from halfway up the verandah, coming through the end door instead of the middle french doors. Dimitri was actually coming to the end of the perch and even though he didn't stay there, I left the room as a reward for him staying calm.
I've vented now and feel much better. Found my patience again. Of course I have to go at his pace and there's nothing worse than being sad and upset and frustrated when I'm around him, which is why this blog is so good. I can get it all out of my system and go to him the calm, serene, loving person I really am...most of the time. NEWS FLASH: He's hanging around this end of the verandah where he can see me (at the computer). I don't have any treats. I'm sitting and not retreating but he's still coming for a look-see. Good, huh?
So maybe I can think this out loud. A bit of free flowing stream of consciousness description of what's going on. I've read and read files on taming wild birds, gaining their confidence, I've slow-blinked and breathed deep. I've endlessly beat a hasty retreat at any sign of nervousness. I've rewarded any sign of confidence by beating a hasty retreat. There's a track through the french door floor boards as deep as Death Valley. Yet and yet and yet, he's still terrified. Soon as I come through the door, slowly slowly, not looking at him, making my way by a circuitous route to an area of the verandah nowhere near him, he's off like a rabbit to the end of the perch. From the perch onto another perch which spans, what is laughingly referred to as, the training table. If I am still too close (by this time I'm using binoculars to see him), he will threaten to jump from the edge onto the blankets I've put on the floor for just this eventuality. As for clicker training. He targets like a champion and then flees before he gets the treat. No way was he going to venture onto the training table to follow the target stick. I longed for arms like Rubberman so that I could indicate the training table perch while still remaining in the bad girl corner sans dunce cap. Not that it mattered. As far as Dimitri is concerned taking any step beyond gnawing the end of the perch is only for stupid birds and he isn't one of them.
Okay, so the targeting isn't really getting us anywhere as I can't get him onto the training table to begin playing with props. Using props is a way to get the bird so enthusiastic about working with you for treats that he forgets to be scared. Yeah, right. (I'm sorry, I'm frustrated and so am writing with alot of ... frustration. I don't mean it). So he can target. He knows targeting. He's got targeting. I'll just get him used to the idea that anytime I'm in the vicinity he gets something yummy. If he doesn't want it from my hand, fine, I'll throw it in his direction. He adores millet. Who would've thought a big lumberjack of a bird like Dimitri would like millet. Anyway, when he is on the floor and heads in my direction, throw a millet bunch, or a bunch of millet. Give corn, sunflower seeds, millet, whatever he wants and is in the mood for.
But that didn't work, did it. He seemed even more afraid of me, snatching the treat and beating a hasty retreat to Timbuktu.
Patience is what is required. I know that. Lots of patience, oceans of patience, an infinity of patience. Still I would like to see some progress. I'm on holiday. I can spend time with him (and I do, taking a book and reading quietly in a chair well away from him, doing yoga first thing in the morning, making short treat trips as in the aforementioned description). I erroneously thought we'd get a wee bit closer to, if not friendship, at least acquaintances of a civil sort. Instead it's the KGB meets MOSSAD and the KGB forgot their ammo.
So what then is the new plan. R suggests I don't let him out of the cage in the morning until we've done some serious 'getting to know you, getting to know all about you'. That is one area we have made progress. He will get onto the most forward perch. Even to getting him on the forward perch was a milestone, now he gets on in less time and gets the BIG reward - freedom. R thinks yeah, but he needs to get used to my nearness and start getting hand trained. I naively thought when he was getting onto the forward perch with me on the outside that he wouldn't be able to do that without accepting my presence to some degree, but I guess his desire for freedom overrules, in this instance, his instinctive fear.
How to approach this then? His cage now sits on a table with legs and it's a little lower than the previous table. Instead of standing, perhaps I can use a chair so that a) I'm a bit more comfortable and b) I'm not looming over him like Kilimanjaro with hair. Maybe I need to be a little tougher and not be in such a big hurry not to let him out of his cage in the morning. Another 30 or 40 minutes in the cage won't hurt him. If he's in the cage, he can't injure himself. I don't have to force him to accept my presence. I can still do the advance and retreat thing. We can just be a bit more consistent. In that half hour we can have 2 or 3 or 4 short sessions. He'll still be free at the end of it.
I've just done a stint of advance and retreat from halfway up the verandah, coming through the end door instead of the middle french doors. Dimitri was actually coming to the end of the perch and even though he didn't stay there, I left the room as a reward for him staying calm.
I've vented now and feel much better. Found my patience again. Of course I have to go at his pace and there's nothing worse than being sad and upset and frustrated when I'm around him, which is why this blog is so good. I can get it all out of my system and go to him the calm, serene, loving person I really am...most of the time. NEWS FLASH: He's hanging around this end of the verandah where he can see me (at the computer). I don't have any treats. I'm sitting and not retreating but he's still coming for a look-see. Good, huh?
Sunday, October 18, 2009
writing, dimitri
My days off started well with 1200 words written. Thought I was on a roll yet here it is Sunday and I've written nothing else. Emails but they don't count. Should just leave the darn thing open on the computer and add a word or two each time I walk by. Might have an entire sentence by the end of the day. Oh well. I could use the excuse of waiting for some details requested of someone in the know who hasn't replied yet. That doesn't really wash however for I can gloss over those details and return to them later. It's not that I'm even stuck. If not being stuck means I'm no worse off than before - in that I don't know what's going to happen next until I've written it. Not sure that's a good way to write but if I knew where the story was going from start to finish I wouldn't have any interest in writing it. Perhaps that's why so many American films are such a yawn. I already know what's going to happen. The journey to The End may be quite good but there are few surprises.
I'm gazing out at 5 fat horses on parched pasture. When will the rains come? Luckily we bought lots of hay so they are in good nick. The eldest gelding just had a piddle. He stretches out then stands on tiptoe with one hind foot. Such a delicate darling!
Dimitri is starting to come around. Oh, we still have our mini-panics when he has to get away but I notice generally he is accepting my presence more easily, more often and at closer proximity. It helps that at any sign of nervousness I'm outtathere. I think he's starting to figure out that he doesn't need to worry that I'll approach into his comfort zone unless he's...comfortable.
I've put what will be our training table between the tallest tree perch and his cage. Cut a nice bark-covered (very chewable) branch from the fallen wattle tree branch in the horse yards. He's already walked across it and jumped onto the table, which I thought might be problematic as it's so slick. When I tried to approach it put him off so I backed away and just left him to it. It is something new after all.
I've written to bird-click re Dimitri and have had two great replies. One of them directed me to a file on bird-click which I hadn't seen (actually I had trouble even finding it which in hindsight seems rather daft - it was right there). Anyway, this woman trained a feather-picked wild goffins 'too. He could have been regarded as a hopeless case but this woman, with patience, experience and c/t, brought him around to the point where he is fully feathered and happily re-homed. I suspect he may be a bit more courageous than Dimitri. Not that it really matters, the principles are the same. I've bookmarked the page and will use it as a guide.
Dimitri accidentally chomped into the pellets I put down before giving him seed at 8am. He didn't go back for a second bite but he did taste one so that's a start. He also had a bit of apple (as did Tachimedes) which is stupendous. So want him to have a more varied diet. Once the rains come and things start growing again he can have choice bits of stuff from outside. Not that my efforts have been very successful. I've offered him the same things the galahs eat and he takes no notice. But even those small morsels have dried up and died. It was interesting to note that with the increase of training, the goffins ate a bigger variety of foods.
I'm gazing out at 5 fat horses on parched pasture. When will the rains come? Luckily we bought lots of hay so they are in good nick. The eldest gelding just had a piddle. He stretches out then stands on tiptoe with one hind foot. Such a delicate darling!
Dimitri is starting to come around. Oh, we still have our mini-panics when he has to get away but I notice generally he is accepting my presence more easily, more often and at closer proximity. It helps that at any sign of nervousness I'm outtathere. I think he's starting to figure out that he doesn't need to worry that I'll approach into his comfort zone unless he's...comfortable.
I've put what will be our training table between the tallest tree perch and his cage. Cut a nice bark-covered (very chewable) branch from the fallen wattle tree branch in the horse yards. He's already walked across it and jumped onto the table, which I thought might be problematic as it's so slick. When I tried to approach it put him off so I backed away and just left him to it. It is something new after all.
I've written to bird-click re Dimitri and have had two great replies. One of them directed me to a file on bird-click which I hadn't seen (actually I had trouble even finding it which in hindsight seems rather daft - it was right there). Anyway, this woman trained a feather-picked wild goffins 'too. He could have been regarded as a hopeless case but this woman, with patience, experience and c/t, brought him around to the point where he is fully feathered and happily re-homed. I suspect he may be a bit more courageous than Dimitri. Not that it really matters, the principles are the same. I've bookmarked the page and will use it as a guide.
Dimitri accidentally chomped into the pellets I put down before giving him seed at 8am. He didn't go back for a second bite but he did taste one so that's a start. He also had a bit of apple (as did Tachimedes) which is stupendous. So want him to have a more varied diet. Once the rains come and things start growing again he can have choice bits of stuff from outside. Not that my efforts have been very successful. I've offered him the same things the galahs eat and he takes no notice. But even those small morsels have dried up and died. It was interesting to note that with the increase of training, the goffins ate a bigger variety of foods.
Saturday, October 10, 2009
writing, finally and yes, dimitri
At last I've done a little writing on the book. A very little but at least I've done something. It's been weeks since I've even looked at it. There was a pleasant surprise for as I was searching for a fact I'd written previously, to see where I'd left a certain person, of course I had to reread what I'd written - and damn, there was a fine descriptive sentence. Original too. Sometimes I surprise myself. Then, of course, I read on and there was a lot of dreg.
Part of the problem was I'd written a certain scene, a key player being found unconscious at a local country dance, and had no idea (and still don't) who or what or why they were found thus. I'm staying positive and trusting that my unconscious will supply the what who and why but at this point I can only write the description. Here they are, it looks like this, smells like this, these people were present and these were not. The book is not a whodunnit but a mystery was posed at the very beginning and this episode deepens it....so much so that I don't even know why - yet.
For the first book I used to go for walks and take a notebook and pencil with me, tucked into my back pocket. This was sans dogs. Walking is excellent for plot points, loose ends and signposts. Now, with the two whippets straining at the leash I can think of nothing other than being with them. I'd go for walks on my own but it seems somewhat selfish not to take them. So plot points and such must come while I'm actually at the computer. No, that's not entirely true. I will be doing other things; showering, vacuuming, anything that engages the body but not the mind and will think of something to further the story or remember something I must clarify or correct. It's a funny thing, the mind. It is not what we perceive it to be. It is much much more. Obviously it has a mind of its own -- if that's not too far fetched. While we think we are in control of what we're thinking and aware of who and what we are, it leads this separate hidden mysterious existence that makes its presence known by eureka moments - or clarified plot points.
Now, for Dimitri. More successful targeting with c/t. Then a minor, if not breakthrough, at least indicator of things to come. I took my chair and placed it in front of the tree perch so that the tree perch ladder rested on the floor near my left side. Dimitri quite freely made use of the ladder and also helped himself to the food near the base of the ladder while I was sitting there. How wonderful was that. I'd glance down at him eating and he'd look up at me. We were thisclose. Then I tried targeting while he was on the ground. He didn't beak the chop stick but he did look at it, knowing full well what was being asked, so I clicked and threw a seed down. It was very good, very much a step in the right direction. I am so chuffed.
Part of the problem was I'd written a certain scene, a key player being found unconscious at a local country dance, and had no idea (and still don't) who or what or why they were found thus. I'm staying positive and trusting that my unconscious will supply the what who and why but at this point I can only write the description. Here they are, it looks like this, smells like this, these people were present and these were not. The book is not a whodunnit but a mystery was posed at the very beginning and this episode deepens it....so much so that I don't even know why - yet.
For the first book I used to go for walks and take a notebook and pencil with me, tucked into my back pocket. This was sans dogs. Walking is excellent for plot points, loose ends and signposts. Now, with the two whippets straining at the leash I can think of nothing other than being with them. I'd go for walks on my own but it seems somewhat selfish not to take them. So plot points and such must come while I'm actually at the computer. No, that's not entirely true. I will be doing other things; showering, vacuuming, anything that engages the body but not the mind and will think of something to further the story or remember something I must clarify or correct. It's a funny thing, the mind. It is not what we perceive it to be. It is much much more. Obviously it has a mind of its own -- if that's not too far fetched. While we think we are in control of what we're thinking and aware of who and what we are, it leads this separate hidden mysterious existence that makes its presence known by eureka moments - or clarified plot points.
Now, for Dimitri. More successful targeting with c/t. Then a minor, if not breakthrough, at least indicator of things to come. I took my chair and placed it in front of the tree perch so that the tree perch ladder rested on the floor near my left side. Dimitri quite freely made use of the ladder and also helped himself to the food near the base of the ladder while I was sitting there. How wonderful was that. I'd glance down at him eating and he'd look up at me. We were thisclose. Then I tried targeting while he was on the ground. He didn't beak the chop stick but he did look at it, knowing full well what was being asked, so I clicked and threw a seed down. It was very good, very much a step in the right direction. I am so chuffed.
Friday, October 9, 2009
Dimitri, some more good news
Dimitri and I are reading each other a little better I think. Of course, he's read me perfectly from the start. I'm the one who has to interpret his body language. We have made some progress. We are c/t'ing sometimes. He's even targeting a chopstick. It was interesting to watch him learn from Tachimedes. Tach is very motivated to earn his quarter sunflower seed. Tach was on a lower branch. He caught on quickly and was very keen. Then I tried Dimitri. Admittedly he had done it before but in hindsight I don't think he made the connection like he did yesterday (and today). He has stepped to the right, to the left, stretched up and stretched down to earn his treat. Most of the c/ting was just so he'd target without having to exert himself at all. When he seemed to understand I asked for a little more. He shows clearly when he's had enough by walking to the end of the branch and starting to climb. Today we've done some more and I'm quitting before he walks away. I want him to be keen.
I also sat with him an hour or so and read. Just read. I'd glance at him occasionally and although I sat near him that was all I did. He actually moved down to the fork and sat. Dare I think it was because he wanted to be a little closer? I think I do dare. Yes, he moves away if I move too near him with what he regards as intent (although I am very clear now about not intending anything and what he at first perceives as intent he quickly realises is only me doing chores) but he is also quick to resume his place when he understands I am ignoring him.
I read Sally Blanchard's article on patience and how she tamed one of her birds - a cockatoo I think. She stressed the importance of lowered head and lack of eye contact. She eventually won the bird over so that he stepped up onto her hand. She did this by putting a perch in front of her cage with treats in it. The bird learned there were treats and eventually used her hand as a bridge to get from the perch back into the cage.
I've been trying to think of a way to get Dimitri onto my hand. There is a screw in cup for the t-stand which I can use but I think the heights differ from the t-stand to the cage. Perhaps I could target (much later) for Dimitri to step across my hand on the tree stand to get to the treat. If he gained confidence that way (and human moveable skin must feel very different, in addition to the other challenges of just trusting the hand) that might work. But I don't want to jump the gun and ask too much too quickly. All of this will have to wait until he routinely stays in position when I enter the room. When he is fully relaxed about my presence we can move onto something else.
In the past I've been disheartened by our lack of progress. No doubt in the future we will have days or moments when we seem to revert back to former fears and anxieties. But I must remember that we are making progress, that when I look back to how he was a month ago, we have come a long way. I think how he behaved in the surgery started me off on the wrong foot. I believe Dimitri was so overcome with all that had happened to him, all that he was currently experiencing (lots of people, strange noisy environment, handling) he just shut down and behaved like a bird that had had lots of interaction with people. Once he came home and lived with us for awhile all the normal behaviour of a fresh caught wild bird re-emerged. Of course, there is part of me that believes he had some good human contact before he came to the surgery. Although he threw himself off perches and was very afraid, he wasn't as afraid as I've seen some wild caught galahs behave. Then too, maybe it's just him. I dealt with another corella (since released) who was wild and very very fearful.
One other thing before I close. Dimitri has started to vocalise a little more. He has been quietly hooting for some time now in the mornings. Today he actually honked a little. Algernon was nearby and perhaps that triggered it although he's never shown much interest in Algernon before. Algernon is often here making noise. Anyway, I think his willingness to draw attention to himself by honking is a good sign.
I also sat with him an hour or so and read. Just read. I'd glance at him occasionally and although I sat near him that was all I did. He actually moved down to the fork and sat. Dare I think it was because he wanted to be a little closer? I think I do dare. Yes, he moves away if I move too near him with what he regards as intent (although I am very clear now about not intending anything and what he at first perceives as intent he quickly realises is only me doing chores) but he is also quick to resume his place when he understands I am ignoring him.
I read Sally Blanchard's article on patience and how she tamed one of her birds - a cockatoo I think. She stressed the importance of lowered head and lack of eye contact. She eventually won the bird over so that he stepped up onto her hand. She did this by putting a perch in front of her cage with treats in it. The bird learned there were treats and eventually used her hand as a bridge to get from the perch back into the cage.
I've been trying to think of a way to get Dimitri onto my hand. There is a screw in cup for the t-stand which I can use but I think the heights differ from the t-stand to the cage. Perhaps I could target (much later) for Dimitri to step across my hand on the tree stand to get to the treat. If he gained confidence that way (and human moveable skin must feel very different, in addition to the other challenges of just trusting the hand) that might work. But I don't want to jump the gun and ask too much too quickly. All of this will have to wait until he routinely stays in position when I enter the room. When he is fully relaxed about my presence we can move onto something else.
In the past I've been disheartened by our lack of progress. No doubt in the future we will have days or moments when we seem to revert back to former fears and anxieties. But I must remember that we are making progress, that when I look back to how he was a month ago, we have come a long way. I think how he behaved in the surgery started me off on the wrong foot. I believe Dimitri was so overcome with all that had happened to him, all that he was currently experiencing (lots of people, strange noisy environment, handling) he just shut down and behaved like a bird that had had lots of interaction with people. Once he came home and lived with us for awhile all the normal behaviour of a fresh caught wild bird re-emerged. Of course, there is part of me that believes he had some good human contact before he came to the surgery. Although he threw himself off perches and was very afraid, he wasn't as afraid as I've seen some wild caught galahs behave. Then too, maybe it's just him. I dealt with another corella (since released) who was wild and very very fearful.
One other thing before I close. Dimitri has started to vocalise a little more. He has been quietly hooting for some time now in the mornings. Today he actually honked a little. Algernon was nearby and perhaps that triggered it although he's never shown much interest in Algernon before. Algernon is often here making noise. Anyway, I think his willingness to draw attention to himself by honking is a good sign.
Sunday, October 4, 2009
Dimitri again
Dimitri and I have ultimately had a good day today. It started rather miserably. We seem to take two steps forward and four steps back. It is sad and frustrating but I have to remember to see things from his point of view. He couldn't care less what I'm thinking or feeling. He is behaving exactly as he should behave; showing anxiety and fear and a readiness to exit his position at the first sign of (perceived) danger. Spent much of this afternoon reading articles and letters on mytoos.com which strengthened my resolve to be patient and give him the time and understanding he needs. Frustration and disappointment are useless emotions. He certainly is sensitive enough to pick up on them and as they are negative it would confirm his suspicions about this strange biped which looms so frequently in his territory.
This morning he wouldn't have a bar of me. My first step onto the verandah was enough to send him scrambling from his tree perch. Thankfully I can say he hasn't hit the deck in days which is some consolation. I'd either exit or quickly go to the other end of the verandah and show an interest in something else, like c/t Tachimedes (who is a whiz kid with the targeting) .
Perhaps food is part of the issue, beyond his natural fear of humans. It is not easy to try him on different foods as he recognizes very little as food. I tried him on almonds. Split one into 4 pieces. He had 1/4 and nothing else. Tried oats and barley; they were uninspiring. Then I tried kernels from corn on the cob. He has a piece every day. When I first brought him home he wouldn't eat it. Now he's discovered he likes it. I withheld it and fed him a kernel at a time. Well, he was leaning forward ready for the next one before I had it torn from the cob. Didn't try anything else but c/t'ing that over and over again.
This afternoon I went foraging with a will and a pair of secateurs. Cut things I know the galahs love and brought them into his forage box. Ho hum. ' He's just not that into' weeds. He is getting the idea of the forage box as I've put in thistles (the non-pointy kind) and he's eaten the seed heads. Of course there are seed heads which burst while on the verandah so we have a kind of seed 'snow' which floats around. While we grazed the galahs this afternoon I watched with particular interest what they were eating. I'd already tried him on some of their delicacies which he has ignored. Noticed Marvin was eating the seeds from shepherds purse so I've brought some of that in and tied it to his tree perch. He'd already put himself to bed (good bird!) so he won't see it until tomorrow.
Also read some of the recipes on mytoos.com and will purchase the ingredients tomorrow to make some hopefully delectable meals for him. I do want to convert him from seed to pellets but don't think now is the right time. He is still too stressed as evidenced by his reaction to any invasion of his territory. Conversion from seed to pellets is stressful as seed is withheld until the afternoon so he doesn't need that extra stress at this point. Should say that I've never found mixing pellets into the seed mixture and reducing the seed has ever been successful for me. The birds eat the seed and leave the pellets. We've had a little success (but not much) with making 'rissoles' of dampened pellets with seed mixed in. It is easier and less stressful in the long run to do the pellet thing all day, then allow seed for the afternoon feed. Usually (but not always) the bird will realise, with a little hunger as incentive, that the food offered in the usual food dish is actually edible.
Now of course I go to work for 2 and a half days and that always sets things back for by the time I get home at night he has gone to bed. I only get to see him in the morning and even then for just a few minutes. But we'll persevere. I do think we've made progress. He has gone from one end of the verandah to the other while I've been sitting in a chair. He has approached me on the ground quite freely when I've been fiddling at the opposite end of the verandah. Naturally, if I turn around and look at him while he's waddling (and he does, bless him, waddle) towards me, he skedaddles. All in all, however, we make tiny baby steps towards trust, despite appearances of this morning. For that I am grateful. He is a lovely lovely soul.
One other thing, he's 'hooting' more. I'm not sure how to interpret it. It's a quiet hoot but still a hoot. He hoots before he starts climbing down his tree perch. Not every climb down is a 'bad' climb. Sometimes he just wants to investigate what goodies may be on the ground. I answer each hoot with a 'hoot' of my own.
I love this little guy - so overwhelmed with his new life and so brave in spite of everything. I am confident that with time, and whatever time that is, he will be a happy and participating member of the family.
One other thing; mytoos.com. This is the hardest, saddest yet most beneficial bird site I've ever found. I cannot bring myself to read much of it for I just cry and cry. There are so many sad sad cockatoos out there. We've seen them, we've rescued and released some. Algernon is a case in point. He's a free bird. A solo bird at the moment but as they are so long-lived surely he'll meet his fourth wife at some point. We're trying to get another cockatoo now. We have offered to rehome a cockatoo (for eventual release) and are hoping the owners will decide to give us the bird - if they can overcome the plea of their teenage daughter who wants it to come live with her in Brisbane while she attends university! If I had my way I'd tell the daughter to stick it and think of the welfare of the bird -- but we have to be patient, give the information to the owners and hope they make the right decision. Haranguing them will only make them turn against us and therefore kill any chance of them releasing the bird to us. Anyway, here's hoping there will be a good outcome and not another mytoos.com horrific story in the making.
This morning he wouldn't have a bar of me. My first step onto the verandah was enough to send him scrambling from his tree perch. Thankfully I can say he hasn't hit the deck in days which is some consolation. I'd either exit or quickly go to the other end of the verandah and show an interest in something else, like c/t Tachimedes (who is a whiz kid with the targeting) .
Perhaps food is part of the issue, beyond his natural fear of humans. It is not easy to try him on different foods as he recognizes very little as food. I tried him on almonds. Split one into 4 pieces. He had 1/4 and nothing else. Tried oats and barley; they were uninspiring. Then I tried kernels from corn on the cob. He has a piece every day. When I first brought him home he wouldn't eat it. Now he's discovered he likes it. I withheld it and fed him a kernel at a time. Well, he was leaning forward ready for the next one before I had it torn from the cob. Didn't try anything else but c/t'ing that over and over again.
This afternoon I went foraging with a will and a pair of secateurs. Cut things I know the galahs love and brought them into his forage box. Ho hum. ' He's just not that into' weeds. He is getting the idea of the forage box as I've put in thistles (the non-pointy kind) and he's eaten the seed heads. Of course there are seed heads which burst while on the verandah so we have a kind of seed 'snow' which floats around. While we grazed the galahs this afternoon I watched with particular interest what they were eating. I'd already tried him on some of their delicacies which he has ignored. Noticed Marvin was eating the seeds from shepherds purse so I've brought some of that in and tied it to his tree perch. He'd already put himself to bed (good bird!) so he won't see it until tomorrow.
Also read some of the recipes on mytoos.com and will purchase the ingredients tomorrow to make some hopefully delectable meals for him. I do want to convert him from seed to pellets but don't think now is the right time. He is still too stressed as evidenced by his reaction to any invasion of his territory. Conversion from seed to pellets is stressful as seed is withheld until the afternoon so he doesn't need that extra stress at this point. Should say that I've never found mixing pellets into the seed mixture and reducing the seed has ever been successful for me. The birds eat the seed and leave the pellets. We've had a little success (but not much) with making 'rissoles' of dampened pellets with seed mixed in. It is easier and less stressful in the long run to do the pellet thing all day, then allow seed for the afternoon feed. Usually (but not always) the bird will realise, with a little hunger as incentive, that the food offered in the usual food dish is actually edible.
Now of course I go to work for 2 and a half days and that always sets things back for by the time I get home at night he has gone to bed. I only get to see him in the morning and even then for just a few minutes. But we'll persevere. I do think we've made progress. He has gone from one end of the verandah to the other while I've been sitting in a chair. He has approached me on the ground quite freely when I've been fiddling at the opposite end of the verandah. Naturally, if I turn around and look at him while he's waddling (and he does, bless him, waddle) towards me, he skedaddles. All in all, however, we make tiny baby steps towards trust, despite appearances of this morning. For that I am grateful. He is a lovely lovely soul.
One other thing, he's 'hooting' more. I'm not sure how to interpret it. It's a quiet hoot but still a hoot. He hoots before he starts climbing down his tree perch. Not every climb down is a 'bad' climb. Sometimes he just wants to investigate what goodies may be on the ground. I answer each hoot with a 'hoot' of my own.
I love this little guy - so overwhelmed with his new life and so brave in spite of everything. I am confident that with time, and whatever time that is, he will be a happy and participating member of the family.
One other thing; mytoos.com. This is the hardest, saddest yet most beneficial bird site I've ever found. I cannot bring myself to read much of it for I just cry and cry. There are so many sad sad cockatoos out there. We've seen them, we've rescued and released some. Algernon is a case in point. He's a free bird. A solo bird at the moment but as they are so long-lived surely he'll meet his fourth wife at some point. We're trying to get another cockatoo now. We have offered to rehome a cockatoo (for eventual release) and are hoping the owners will decide to give us the bird - if they can overcome the plea of their teenage daughter who wants it to come live with her in Brisbane while she attends university! If I had my way I'd tell the daughter to stick it and think of the welfare of the bird -- but we have to be patient, give the information to the owners and hope they make the right decision. Haranguing them will only make them turn against us and therefore kill any chance of them releasing the bird to us. Anyway, here's hoping there will be a good outcome and not another mytoos.com horrific story in the making.
Friday, October 2, 2009
Some progress with Dimitri
Have spent much of this hot day on the computer reading up on clicker training and viewing training videos. Realised that I had to do more (which in a funny way also means doing less - very Zen) to woo Dimitri. I've been using my voice as a clicker but thought perhaps it's not precise enough at a time when the bridge to the reward must be crystalline so dug out my Black Dog clicker. The noise spooked him at first but after I got close enough to hand feed him, I just clicked and treated, clicked and treated until it seemed he had the idea.
Then, after reading an article in the files of the bird click group about clicking and leaving the room for a shy bird I decided to incorporate that into our getting acquainted scenario. Dimitri, when I come through the door, will shuffle on his tree perch, head for the tallest spike branch and then, if I stay still, resume his position on the central crosspiece. I decided to click him when he stayed or, if he did move, to click and leave when he returned to his original position. I even clicked when he didn't move after I said hello (thus singling him out for attention and therefore making him nervous) without opening the door. Click and retreat, click and retreat.
I'm feeling a bit more hopeful as he hasn't leapt to the floor for a few days (I'm better at reading his body language and exiting fast). Also he seemed a little more relaxed with me around. I took my yoga mat out and did an hours yoga with him only a few feet away. It is so obvious what makes him anxious -- attention. Because I was practicing yoga, despite the odd body positions, he wasn't concerned because I wasn't focused on him. As soon as I make eye contact - bang, he's on red alert. Ditto the vacuuming, general cleaning, food and water replenishing for Tachimedes and Cornelius and, come to think of it, him. He likes being ignored. Of course, that's not ideal hence the c/t. All in all it was a good day.
I am following a blogger I found through bird click; fur'n'feathers'training. Obviously knowledgeable yet humble and still learning as her imbroglio with Peebles (think it was Peebles) proves. He bit her and instead of blaming him she looked at what's been happening in his life that might contribute to such unusual behaviour. We are so quick to blame the animals, aren't we? Ten years ago my approach to 'the kids' was entirely different, less informed for instance, than it is today. I loved them as I do now but I struggled with inexperience and ignorance. I assume in ten years time I will look back at this period as one of darkness and ignorance. At least I hope so for then it will mean I'm still learning.
In hindsight it was ridiculously easy to teach the galahs (Marvin and Fern) to step up, to 'eagle', to spin, say yes and no (no was harder) with c/t -- but based on my short acquaintance with Dimitri, galahs seem a bit more solid, less flighty - even when they're new and terrified, than a Little Corella. Actually, when I think of it, the galahs that came into care from the wild were quite ready to be really aggressive - 'one step closer and you're history' while Dimitri only retreats, or when he's in his cage in the morning, quietly hisses. When he's had an opportunity to bite me, he's only mouthed my fingers. He really is a gentle and sensitive soul and deserves the kindest, most patient and empathetic interaction. I am sure he will teach me far more than I will ever teach him. Oh, but I am excited and hopeful by the prospect.
Then, after reading an article in the files of the bird click group about clicking and leaving the room for a shy bird I decided to incorporate that into our getting acquainted scenario. Dimitri, when I come through the door, will shuffle on his tree perch, head for the tallest spike branch and then, if I stay still, resume his position on the central crosspiece. I decided to click him when he stayed or, if he did move, to click and leave when he returned to his original position. I even clicked when he didn't move after I said hello (thus singling him out for attention and therefore making him nervous) without opening the door. Click and retreat, click and retreat.
I'm feeling a bit more hopeful as he hasn't leapt to the floor for a few days (I'm better at reading his body language and exiting fast). Also he seemed a little more relaxed with me around. I took my yoga mat out and did an hours yoga with him only a few feet away. It is so obvious what makes him anxious -- attention. Because I was practicing yoga, despite the odd body positions, he wasn't concerned because I wasn't focused on him. As soon as I make eye contact - bang, he's on red alert. Ditto the vacuuming, general cleaning, food and water replenishing for Tachimedes and Cornelius and, come to think of it, him. He likes being ignored. Of course, that's not ideal hence the c/t. All in all it was a good day.
I am following a blogger I found through bird click; fur'n'feathers'training. Obviously knowledgeable yet humble and still learning as her imbroglio with Peebles (think it was Peebles) proves. He bit her and instead of blaming him she looked at what's been happening in his life that might contribute to such unusual behaviour. We are so quick to blame the animals, aren't we? Ten years ago my approach to 'the kids' was entirely different, less informed for instance, than it is today. I loved them as I do now but I struggled with inexperience and ignorance. I assume in ten years time I will look back at this period as one of darkness and ignorance. At least I hope so for then it will mean I'm still learning.
In hindsight it was ridiculously easy to teach the galahs (Marvin and Fern) to step up, to 'eagle', to spin, say yes and no (no was harder) with c/t -- but based on my short acquaintance with Dimitri, galahs seem a bit more solid, less flighty - even when they're new and terrified, than a Little Corella. Actually, when I think of it, the galahs that came into care from the wild were quite ready to be really aggressive - 'one step closer and you're history' while Dimitri only retreats, or when he's in his cage in the morning, quietly hisses. When he's had an opportunity to bite me, he's only mouthed my fingers. He really is a gentle and sensitive soul and deserves the kindest, most patient and empathetic interaction. I am sure he will teach me far more than I will ever teach him. Oh, but I am excited and hopeful by the prospect.
Sunday, September 27, 2009
The Search for Enlightenment and Creativity
I'm reading Perfect Madness by Donna Lee Gorrell. Very thought provoking book detailing her journey to enlightenment with numerous quotes from zen masters and the like. There is much to be learned from her book yet there is something that doesn't quite ring true - like how should I know as I am far from enlightened? Still, and perhaps it's the innate weakness of the written word which always fails to convey real meaning (describe the colour yellow for instance), there is always this quiet and insistent jangling underlying the text, as if it is written by someone who has done extensive research but doesn't really know the unknowable. I don't know. Maybe it's the cynic or the green eyed monster (I'll have what she's having). Maybe it's just guilt as I've done nothing creative or constructive in weeks. My book languishes on the hard drive. I haven't even looked at it. I'm not painting or drawing anything. I read, play with Dimitri and hide from the dust (a second dust storm swept through yesterday and everything is again covered with a reddish brown film). It's self-disgust- such a useless emotion except when it gets to be too much one is finally motivated to get off one's arse and do something. Ah, notice how I went from using the word 'I' to the word 'one'? A quick and easy way to distance myself from aspects I don't like about myself. Okay, so when it gets to be too much I am finally motivated to get off my arse and do something. Much better. I'm not meditating either despite many opportunities to do so. What is this self-defeating system that I believe I share with many other people. Lack of self-discipline? Perhaps but I suspect it stems from fear. Not doing anything means I'm not putting myself out there. I can't fail because I haven't tried. Each time my days off roll around I swear it will be different. I'll get stuck in; write, paint, meditate, do yoga, all the things that make me feel better for having done them. And then I disappoint myself. It is easy to stay busy with housework and things that appear to be constructive but are really empty. Creativity is akin to God (I still have trouble with that word, that concept - I like the Power That Is, The Source, etc. but they are wordy). God created the world and the universe and God created me with the ability to create. Isn't that a terrific gift? The most marvelous gift - and I sit on it and do nothing.
I work with a kid once a week who is in a band. A heavy metal band. This school holiday he and his mates are putting together a clip to put on You Tube. We were talking about it and he said I probably wouldn't like his type of music. I said he was probably right but that didn't matter. The most important thing was he was making something with his friends that hadn't existed before. They were creating something totally new. Each of us has wisdom to share or we teach best what we most need to learn. So on that note, I'm going to go do something creative even if it's just a pencil sketch of Dimitri leaning into this dusty dry wind.
I work with a kid once a week who is in a band. A heavy metal band. This school holiday he and his mates are putting together a clip to put on You Tube. We were talking about it and he said I probably wouldn't like his type of music. I said he was probably right but that didn't matter. The most important thing was he was making something with his friends that hadn't existed before. They were creating something totally new. Each of us has wisdom to share or we teach best what we most need to learn. So on that note, I'm going to go do something creative even if it's just a pencil sketch of Dimitri leaning into this dusty dry wind.
Friday, September 25, 2009
Dust Storms, Dimitri and The Eternal Now
September 25, 2009. Have to hurry as we've company coming for drinks and munchies in a bit over an hour. We had a dust storm come through a couple of days ago. It hit Sydney and moved north through Brisbane and further up the coast. I looked out through the surgery window and it was like I'd put red cellophane over my eyes. Very weird. Not scary weird like the light looks before a tornado or a severe storm, or even during a partial eclipse, just weird. 18,000 tons an hour dropped over the land -- all from South Australia so they say. The dust covers everything. In this old Queenslander, full of gaps and holes, it entered without any hindrance despite the house being 'shut up'. In a house over a 100 years old you can't make it airtight. I've dusted and mopped and dusted some more and sort of succeeded in smearing it around a bit. I cleaned the keys on this keyboard yet can still feel it, slippery like talcum powder, beneath my fingers. I can smell it too. When it is dampened it smells a little like it does before rain. Apparently it is possible we'll have another one coming in the next day or two, hopefully not as severe. What drove the dust was the wind.
I'm concerned about Dimitri as he took a header this morning from the perch and bit his tongue (I think). His beak appears intact but there was blood dripping from his mouth. He will take the odd sunflower seed but very tentatively. I've piled padding all around the perch so if he decides to try and fly at least he'll have a softer landing. R says take the tree perch away and perhaps it should be removed yet it is his favourite spot. He is up high (when he's on it he's just above eye level with me) and can see out and about. I think it's important that he learns to live effectively with his disability. Perhaps I'll change my mind and remove it but I don't think so.
I've been trying to live consciously, my mantra (when I think of it!) The Eternal Now. The eternity of the present. There is no other time, no other reality but this endless Now. It does help to center me when I become agitated. Like when Dimitri hurt himself. I was bitten this week by a dog suffering from tick paralysis who just went beserk. I was trying to lower him to the ground from the table as he was thrashing so hard I thought if he broke free he'd fling himself to the ground. I had him by the scruff but he managed to twist around and lock onto my arm. I didn't center myself very well then. It bloody hurt too much. Later however, when it was aching and I had trouble flexing my hand (bruising to the tendons I think) I did much better. I do believe one can heal oneself through the power and energy of thought. I know I have done so sometimes. I'm pretty useless with headaches and nausea but have had success with other things. Anyway, I sent healing energy to my arm and it's looking pretty darn good now. And feels pretty darn good too.
Best get cracking and feed up. You know, it's quite a miracle being alive and breathing. Makes me happy.
I'm concerned about Dimitri as he took a header this morning from the perch and bit his tongue (I think). His beak appears intact but there was blood dripping from his mouth. He will take the odd sunflower seed but very tentatively. I've piled padding all around the perch so if he decides to try and fly at least he'll have a softer landing. R says take the tree perch away and perhaps it should be removed yet it is his favourite spot. He is up high (when he's on it he's just above eye level with me) and can see out and about. I think it's important that he learns to live effectively with his disability. Perhaps I'll change my mind and remove it but I don't think so.
I've been trying to live consciously, my mantra (when I think of it!) The Eternal Now. The eternity of the present. There is no other time, no other reality but this endless Now. It does help to center me when I become agitated. Like when Dimitri hurt himself. I was bitten this week by a dog suffering from tick paralysis who just went beserk. I was trying to lower him to the ground from the table as he was thrashing so hard I thought if he broke free he'd fling himself to the ground. I had him by the scruff but he managed to twist around and lock onto my arm. I didn't center myself very well then. It bloody hurt too much. Later however, when it was aching and I had trouble flexing my hand (bruising to the tendons I think) I did much better. I do believe one can heal oneself through the power and energy of thought. I know I have done so sometimes. I'm pretty useless with headaches and nausea but have had success with other things. Anyway, I sent healing energy to my arm and it's looking pretty darn good now. And feels pretty darn good too.
Best get cracking and feed up. You know, it's quite a miracle being alive and breathing. Makes me happy.
Thursday, September 17, 2009
More Dimitri and, darn it, the quarry
This could get a bit boring for non-bird people. I have Tachimedes, the normal male cockatiel, sitting on the CPU singing. I've just sat down after 15 minutes of working with Dimitri, the new Little Corella I wrote of in my last post. Having to work for two and a half days interrupts the training/getting acquainted. Only get to say hello in the morning. He's in bed by the time I get home. Yesterday, however, was a half day and that was most fruitful. I used the Power Pause, found on You Tube. It is a method of gaining the trust of fearful birds. Basically it means when Dimitri shows any sign of nervousness when approached, I stop moving until his body language indicates he has relaxed again. I also incorporate some of the body language I use with horses. I look around with soft eyes, soften my leg joints, move my legs about a bit (without shifting my feet), use my arms in a relaxed low key manner. Most importantly I stop staring. It is so easy to become fixated on gaining his trust, it becomes a competition; fixed hard eyes, fixed hard body - looking exactly what I don't want to look like, a predator. This morning he was taking seeds from me while on his tree perch. Yippee. He freaked a bit when I moved to the other side (is it like horses, that you have to introduce new things to both eyes as each eye is aligned - in a sense - with the two halves of the brain?). Anyway, he threatened to jump which is very bad as he just crashes. He could shatter his breast bone doing that so it's very important that he never has any reason to feel that afraid. I moved as far away as I could and when he was still upset, just left the verandah altogether. Later, I tried again but only asked him to take seeds while I was directly in front of him. That worked much better.
Dimitri has been sitting on his tree while I've been in here. The office is off the verandah, like the short end of an 'L'. He didn't know it existed before as the door has always been shut. Thought I'd let him know there was another room so went out, said g'day, gave him a couple of seeds (no big deal attitude mirrored beautifully by Dimitri) and then returned. He just walked up this end and looked in. I said hello and he left again, too much pressure. Would've been better if I'd just glanced and said nothing. He can roam around the verandah without supervision as it's pretty bird safe, even from his strong beak, but in here he must be supervised as all the computer wiring is on the floor.
We have a new hiccup in that the released Sulphur Crested Cockatoo, Algernon, who's been free for four or five years now?, has taken interest in Dimitri. He hangs off the gutter looking for all the world like a white bat. He has even tried to chew his way through the screen. We are sitting on this problem for the moment. We hope Algernon will recognise that Dimitri is a corella and not a S.C. Cockatoo. If he doesn't then we may have to think about capturing Algernon and re-releasing him at the original release site -- where there are many local cockatoos, unlike here where there are none. The pressure is on Algernon as we approach breeding season.
Just got the very bad news that the company which applied to quarry the mountain has appealed against the decision by council to refuse the application. We are registering as respondents by election to appear in the Planning and Environment court to fight this. So it goes on, as it has since 1993. I'm so tired of it but think there's a reason it's happening now - because we have endured, we have fought it and will continue to do so. There are others who care and who fight but no one has put as much effort and time in it as R. I've done my bit too but he has been phenomenal. Of course, the council will bear the brunt. Most of it is out of our hands. We can only add our voices to those who wish to see the end of this saga. In the grand scheme of the world it is only a little thing - but that remnant vegetation is worth the fight. The word remnant is the key. Lose this piece of endangered habitat and remnant may change to extinct.
Dimitri has been sitting on his tree while I've been in here. The office is off the verandah, like the short end of an 'L'. He didn't know it existed before as the door has always been shut. Thought I'd let him know there was another room so went out, said g'day, gave him a couple of seeds (no big deal attitude mirrored beautifully by Dimitri) and then returned. He just walked up this end and looked in. I said hello and he left again, too much pressure. Would've been better if I'd just glanced and said nothing. He can roam around the verandah without supervision as it's pretty bird safe, even from his strong beak, but in here he must be supervised as all the computer wiring is on the floor.
We have a new hiccup in that the released Sulphur Crested Cockatoo, Algernon, who's been free for four or five years now?, has taken interest in Dimitri. He hangs off the gutter looking for all the world like a white bat. He has even tried to chew his way through the screen. We are sitting on this problem for the moment. We hope Algernon will recognise that Dimitri is a corella and not a S.C. Cockatoo. If he doesn't then we may have to think about capturing Algernon and re-releasing him at the original release site -- where there are many local cockatoos, unlike here where there are none. The pressure is on Algernon as we approach breeding season.
Just got the very bad news that the company which applied to quarry the mountain has appealed against the decision by council to refuse the application. We are registering as respondents by election to appear in the Planning and Environment court to fight this. So it goes on, as it has since 1993. I'm so tired of it but think there's a reason it's happening now - because we have endured, we have fought it and will continue to do so. There are others who care and who fight but no one has put as much effort and time in it as R. I've done my bit too but he has been phenomenal. Of course, the council will bear the brunt. Most of it is out of our hands. We can only add our voices to those who wish to see the end of this saga. In the grand scheme of the world it is only a little thing - but that remnant vegetation is worth the fight. The word remnant is the key. Lose this piece of endangered habitat and remnant may change to extinct.
Sunday, September 13, 2009
bare eyed corella
Writing has come to a halt. Most of my days off have been spent on the verandah trying to reassure and befriend a Little Corella I've named Dimitri. He was captured with a broken wing (dead bone protruding from the wing) after spending a week in a park, earthbound. The wing could not be saved and was amputated. He appears to be a juvenile and although understandably wary and shy does not panic when approached. He lives in a cockatoo cage with the other birds on the verandah. At night, because it's so cold (real desert weather, clear skies and minimal humidity make for warm days and frigid nights) he is taken, cage and all, into the spare room with a heat lamp. Because of having his wing removed a palm sized area of skin is exposed to the air so he can't control body temperature. In the mornings, when it has warmed up, he's brought back to the verandah.
R has built him a ladder which leads from the cocky cage to the ground, and a 'tree' made up of a branch inserted into the stand of an old floor fan. I wrapped the bottom of the stand with rope so he can climb it which he did finally today.
Taming birds is a study in patience. It's a very good prescription for me as I'm not the most patient of people. But birds motivate me. If I can be patient for anything, it's animals (and conversely the most impatient, especially when a dog which knows the command to come, nicks off anyway!). So rather than writing, or doing anything 'worthwhile', I've spent most of my days off sitting on the verandah with Dimitri. Just sitting for the most part. Sitting near him reading a book, lying on the floor near him (hiding behind a pot plant) gazing out at the torelliana trees, perched on a doormat gazing at him. It will take weeks, perhaps months before he trusts me. Even though he takes sunflower seeds from my hands and will allow me to touch his feet and breast (preparatory to the step up command) and has even allowed me, albeit reluctantly, to scratch his head it is more good manners and a mild temperament rather than trust or friendliness. I have to prove myself to him, not the other way around. The carer said he bites but he hasn't bitten yet. He 'mouths' my fingers sometimes, a way parrots have of exploring something new.
Tomorrow is a concern. Dimitri doesn't like it in the cage - and why would he? He's in prison in a prison. Even when he's loose on the verandah, the verandah is still enclosed. He doesn't know why he can't fly. He doesn't understand why he's gone from a wild free flying bird to a flightless bird in captivity. He doesn't know that these huge upright beings mean him no harm. It's a prison sentence without reason. When I'm home he spends most of the day loose because I stay out there with him. R is unwilling to let him out of his cage while I'm at work because he, understandably, doesn't want to hang around monitoring him all day. If I was the kind of person who took a sickie because of having other plans I'd do it. Dimitri is a strong reason to do so but I can't. Not fair on my workmates. Anyway, he'll just have to tough it out. The interesting thing is he didn't get into any trouble today. He doesn't show any signs of wanting to chew - not that there's much to chew on anyway. He wants to sit quietly and I think with the tree that's exactly what he'd do. Just sit and be as close to a wild bird, sitting in a tree, as he could. Might be an idea to rig up food and water for him somehow. Poor Richard, I always come up with bigger and better plans.
R has built him a ladder which leads from the cocky cage to the ground, and a 'tree' made up of a branch inserted into the stand of an old floor fan. I wrapped the bottom of the stand with rope so he can climb it which he did finally today.
Taming birds is a study in patience. It's a very good prescription for me as I'm not the most patient of people. But birds motivate me. If I can be patient for anything, it's animals (and conversely the most impatient, especially when a dog which knows the command to come, nicks off anyway!). So rather than writing, or doing anything 'worthwhile', I've spent most of my days off sitting on the verandah with Dimitri. Just sitting for the most part. Sitting near him reading a book, lying on the floor near him (hiding behind a pot plant) gazing out at the torelliana trees, perched on a doormat gazing at him. It will take weeks, perhaps months before he trusts me. Even though he takes sunflower seeds from my hands and will allow me to touch his feet and breast (preparatory to the step up command) and has even allowed me, albeit reluctantly, to scratch his head it is more good manners and a mild temperament rather than trust or friendliness. I have to prove myself to him, not the other way around. The carer said he bites but he hasn't bitten yet. He 'mouths' my fingers sometimes, a way parrots have of exploring something new.
Tomorrow is a concern. Dimitri doesn't like it in the cage - and why would he? He's in prison in a prison. Even when he's loose on the verandah, the verandah is still enclosed. He doesn't know why he can't fly. He doesn't understand why he's gone from a wild free flying bird to a flightless bird in captivity. He doesn't know that these huge upright beings mean him no harm. It's a prison sentence without reason. When I'm home he spends most of the day loose because I stay out there with him. R is unwilling to let him out of his cage while I'm at work because he, understandably, doesn't want to hang around monitoring him all day. If I was the kind of person who took a sickie because of having other plans I'd do it. Dimitri is a strong reason to do so but I can't. Not fair on my workmates. Anyway, he'll just have to tough it out. The interesting thing is he didn't get into any trouble today. He doesn't show any signs of wanting to chew - not that there's much to chew on anyway. He wants to sit quietly and I think with the tree that's exactly what he'd do. Just sit and be as close to a wild bird, sitting in a tree, as he could. Might be an idea to rig up food and water for him somehow. Poor Richard, I always come up with bigger and better plans.
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Antares to Arcturus, its a matter of perspective
Windy Sunday. Howling wind Sunday. I knew the exact minute this change came through. We were outside with guests yesterday. A friend, her husband, their daughter. She is a vet at at the clinic where I work. Showing them the aviaries with the galahs, greenies and rainbows when this hot sharp wind charged in the from the west. It burnt all hint of moisture from the air. The tiny leaves of the poinciana shot into us like rat shot, driven by this ferocious wind. My skin seemed to frizzle and even my eyeballs dehydrated.
The wind continued through the night. A hot summer night in late August when officially we're still in winter. This is the second heat wave this month. What is happening with our weather? Could it be, can it be, global warming? The pundits are still out there saying global warming is a huge conspiracy. I don't know. Every spring our storms are fiercer, more damaging. We're getting less rain in the summer when we need it and now this. I know two hot spells don't make a catastrophe but I think we're naive to assume we are not making an impact on this planet.
If I could operate a computer with any kind of grace, I'd be able to upload photos (I can hear the guffaws from here, thank you very much, but it's true I am completely bamboozled by the simplest of technological tasks). Someone sent me an email entitled The Universe, How Big is It? It starts with a comparison of earth to the other planets, then the earth to the sun, the sun to Arcturus, which is relative to comparing earth to the Sun, then Arcturus to Antares, which might be comparable to comparing the moon to the sun. In the last shot of the sun and Antares, the sun was one pixel, so not visible, to this huge ripe tomato of a star called Antares. It was huge and earth and all of us, only a memory of matter. In the scale of things earth, and me least of all, to quote Joni Mitchell, did not exist. The last shot is of galaxies made up of billions of suns (stars from Arcturs' to Antares') in deep space. It does tend to put things in perspective.
One time, when I was really depressed about how we were slowly but surely crapping over this miracle of a planet, my sister reminded me that although we may be destroying one miracle, there are billions of other miracles in the universe. It would be a catastrophe for this living ecosystem and all the things on it but just because we got it wrong does not mean creation and change and opportunity would end. We would just be one little experiment that went wrong.
I try and remember that. Everything dies. I'll die. Hopefully having done something life-enhancing and creative while I'm here. It won't be the end of creation if Earth dies. Energy means change. Everything changes but energy is not lost. The next experiment of sentient intelligence might get it right.
Don't want to spend this day whinging and whining about how bad things are. That just pepetuates the problem. Just watched 'Who Do You Think You Are' on SBS. Ian Hislop researching his great grandfathers who came from Scotland and fought in the Boer War, among other things. Then I think I know nothing of Dad's dad, whose name I share. My middle name is Boyer. He died when I was an infant so I never new him. Dad didn't talk of him but then being a self-involved teenager I didn't ask either. Now that I'm older I am curious about my relatives. There are question marks about my maternal grandfather, that he came into Canada being born on the 'wrong side of the blanket' in the UK. My sister and I think he has a resemblance to the late Lord Mountbatten, Prince Philip and less so, Prince Charles in the shape of his head. So it's a tiny romantic notion that means nothing. Just had a quick look at some genealogy websites. One could spend a heap of money, which I'm unwilling to do at this point. My third cousin once removed sent over reams of paper detailing her side of the family tree. She was a diligent researcher. Unfortunately most of it was double greek to me especially as we were so distantly related. I'm ashamed to say that after years of shifting it from one disused drawer to another I shifted it into the bin. Perhaps it's wiser at this point in my life to look where I'm going rather than where my forefathers (and mothers) have been.
The wind continued through the night. A hot summer night in late August when officially we're still in winter. This is the second heat wave this month. What is happening with our weather? Could it be, can it be, global warming? The pundits are still out there saying global warming is a huge conspiracy. I don't know. Every spring our storms are fiercer, more damaging. We're getting less rain in the summer when we need it and now this. I know two hot spells don't make a catastrophe but I think we're naive to assume we are not making an impact on this planet.
If I could operate a computer with any kind of grace, I'd be able to upload photos (I can hear the guffaws from here, thank you very much, but it's true I am completely bamboozled by the simplest of technological tasks). Someone sent me an email entitled The Universe, How Big is It? It starts with a comparison of earth to the other planets, then the earth to the sun, the sun to Arcturus, which is relative to comparing earth to the Sun, then Arcturus to Antares, which might be comparable to comparing the moon to the sun. In the last shot of the sun and Antares, the sun was one pixel, so not visible, to this huge ripe tomato of a star called Antares. It was huge and earth and all of us, only a memory of matter. In the scale of things earth, and me least of all, to quote Joni Mitchell, did not exist. The last shot is of galaxies made up of billions of suns (stars from Arcturs' to Antares') in deep space. It does tend to put things in perspective.
One time, when I was really depressed about how we were slowly but surely crapping over this miracle of a planet, my sister reminded me that although we may be destroying one miracle, there are billions of other miracles in the universe. It would be a catastrophe for this living ecosystem and all the things on it but just because we got it wrong does not mean creation and change and opportunity would end. We would just be one little experiment that went wrong.
I try and remember that. Everything dies. I'll die. Hopefully having done something life-enhancing and creative while I'm here. It won't be the end of creation if Earth dies. Energy means change. Everything changes but energy is not lost. The next experiment of sentient intelligence might get it right.
Don't want to spend this day whinging and whining about how bad things are. That just pepetuates the problem. Just watched 'Who Do You Think You Are' on SBS. Ian Hislop researching his great grandfathers who came from Scotland and fought in the Boer War, among other things. Then I think I know nothing of Dad's dad, whose name I share. My middle name is Boyer. He died when I was an infant so I never new him. Dad didn't talk of him but then being a self-involved teenager I didn't ask either. Now that I'm older I am curious about my relatives. There are question marks about my maternal grandfather, that he came into Canada being born on the 'wrong side of the blanket' in the UK. My sister and I think he has a resemblance to the late Lord Mountbatten, Prince Philip and less so, Prince Charles in the shape of his head. So it's a tiny romantic notion that means nothing. Just had a quick look at some genealogy websites. One could spend a heap of money, which I'm unwilling to do at this point. My third cousin once removed sent over reams of paper detailing her side of the family tree. She was a diligent researcher. Unfortunately most of it was double greek to me especially as we were so distantly related. I'm ashamed to say that after years of shifting it from one disused drawer to another I shifted it into the bin. Perhaps it's wiser at this point in my life to look where I'm going rather than where my forefathers (and mothers) have been.
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
shame and anger
Shame. Even the word is ugly, it starts with a hiss and ends with a sneer. Ugh. I don't like the word. Nevertheless I find I am never too old to feel it. Which brings up another problem. Regret and letting go. I find it's easy to say 'what's done is done, now move on' but moving on is a little more troublesome. Certainly one has to feel the shame, to know that it isn't something one wants to experience, so that it can be learned from. No point in rolling it around and around, reliving it ad nauseum. That doesn't help. So I am hopeful that in writing it here I will have finished with it and will actually move on.
And the shameful act? I lost my cool, my temper, my equilibrium. I raised my voice. I ordered someone to leave the building. I was very angry.
Anger. Such a dangerous state of being. I want peace in the world. I want peace in my workplace, in my home, and especially in my soul. Anger, such sudden anger, overwhelms me, reminds me that I am only as civilized as my self-control. It has been many years since I've been that angry. That I was verbally abused and accused is no excuse. Others may resort to shouting and comments arising from emotion, but not me. Or so I thought. It was a very humbling experience. The veneer is thin. I've coasted along not because I'm such a *good* person but because I've not really been challenged.
I am hopeful that if this sort of experiences arises again I will remember the shame I felt afterwards and behave differently. And that I'll remember to breathe! So much for yogic breathing in times of crisis. I completely forgot. I was breathing all right, more like hyperventilating. A co-worker, who was also being verbally abused, said the skin on my face was vibrating. A real visceral experience. Wore me out. Adrenaline rushes are one thing, uncontrolled emotion quite another. I know people who are always angry. Maybe one gets addicted to that sort of emotional rush. I don't know. I don't think anyone ever seeks out shame though. Live and learn. Live and learn.
And the shameful act? I lost my cool, my temper, my equilibrium. I raised my voice. I ordered someone to leave the building. I was very angry.
Anger. Such a dangerous state of being. I want peace in the world. I want peace in my workplace, in my home, and especially in my soul. Anger, such sudden anger, overwhelms me, reminds me that I am only as civilized as my self-control. It has been many years since I've been that angry. That I was verbally abused and accused is no excuse. Others may resort to shouting and comments arising from emotion, but not me. Or so I thought. It was a very humbling experience. The veneer is thin. I've coasted along not because I'm such a *good* person but because I've not really been challenged.
I am hopeful that if this sort of experiences arises again I will remember the shame I felt afterwards and behave differently. And that I'll remember to breathe! So much for yogic breathing in times of crisis. I completely forgot. I was breathing all right, more like hyperventilating. A co-worker, who was also being verbally abused, said the skin on my face was vibrating. A real visceral experience. Wore me out. Adrenaline rushes are one thing, uncontrolled emotion quite another. I know people who are always angry. Maybe one gets addicted to that sort of emotional rush. I don't know. I don't think anyone ever seeks out shame though. Live and learn. Live and learn.
Saturday, August 22, 2009
a different perspective
Sometimes you see something, while not unusual in itself, touches you in a surprising and unexpected way. I was driving home from town this morning. We are having a heat wave in the middle of winter so the quality of the light was hazy and hot. If I was plonked down in my air conditioned car at midday and not told what season of the year I would've guessed summer even though the sun is still too far north. The light bleached colour from the paddocks, from the sky, from the bitumen streaming to infinity from the front of the car. There was a flash of white to the west. I looked and it was gone. Then it came again. I watched and saw a column of birds spiraling up a thermal. White then blue, white then blue. When the sun wasn't reflecting off their whiter than white wings, they were invisible.
For a moment I was with them, silent and still, riding a current of air with the vastness of the earth diminishing beneath me. The vision didn't last long. I was driving after all.
I have often played the shifting of perspective game. There'll be a blowfly touring the rooms like a fat house detective, on the hunt for contraband food. In those idle moments I'll pretend I'm seeing what the blowfly sees as he buzzes from one square bordered space to another. Or one of our cats, or an ant or even trying to sense the consciousness of the poinciana tree outside this window.
There's something about trees, that slow steady life, their experience of time. Humans must look like film on fast forward to them, scuttling about in seconds before the vastness of their existence. Of course, one could argue that trees aren't conscious. They're alive but dumb, having about as much consciousness as a fence post. I can't explain why I feel differently but I do. It's a feeling. Like trying to define love. We know love exists but we can't prove its existence in a lab. It's a feeling. With the same faulty reasoning I know that trees are so much more than mere trees. Trees know the answers to the big philosophical questions. It's there in their shape, their bark, the movement of their leaves, the roots hidden beneath the ground. Trees are deep.
For a moment I was with them, silent and still, riding a current of air with the vastness of the earth diminishing beneath me. The vision didn't last long. I was driving after all.
I have often played the shifting of perspective game. There'll be a blowfly touring the rooms like a fat house detective, on the hunt for contraband food. In those idle moments I'll pretend I'm seeing what the blowfly sees as he buzzes from one square bordered space to another. Or one of our cats, or an ant or even trying to sense the consciousness of the poinciana tree outside this window.
There's something about trees, that slow steady life, their experience of time. Humans must look like film on fast forward to them, scuttling about in seconds before the vastness of their existence. Of course, one could argue that trees aren't conscious. They're alive but dumb, having about as much consciousness as a fence post. I can't explain why I feel differently but I do. It's a feeling. Like trying to define love. We know love exists but we can't prove its existence in a lab. It's a feeling. With the same faulty reasoning I know that trees are so much more than mere trees. Trees know the answers to the big philosophical questions. It's there in their shape, their bark, the movement of their leaves, the roots hidden beneath the ground. Trees are deep.
Thursday, August 13, 2009
The Quarry
August 13, 2009. We won! We won! We won! I haven't written of this long time battle (since 1993) before probably because it has gone on for so many years and I'm sick of talking/writing/thinking about it. Still, today is a day of celebration. It may be short-lived but enjoy the moment is all I can say.
We live in the country on a dead end dirt road, half of which is bitumen, the other half dirt. When you drive along the straight toward our house you can see in the distance what looks like a miniature volcano, a perfect cone. It is a basalt plug. For years we have fought to keep it from being dismantled and quarried. The basalt plug supports remnant vine scrub, an endangered habitat in SE Queensland. To quarry for basalt the vine scrub, all 23 hectares of it, would be destroyed.
When we first began fighting this it was all about protecting our lifestyle and the ambiance of the country. Now, 16 years later, it is so much more. Certainly I don't want 80 + trucks a day hurtling up and down our road. I don't want the dust, the noise and the traffic but more than that, far more than that, I want that remnant habitat preserved. There is nothing like it around here. I've ridden Balthazar past it many times. It can't be ridden on, even climbed as it is so thick and steep. But even from the ground it is mysterious; dark dark green, a source of birdsong and flashes of colour as king parrots and other birds fly in and out and around it. Heaven knows what else could be there. The important thing is, whatever is there is safe for the time being. The developer may decide to appeal as he did all those years ago when Council approved it providing he met with certain conditions. We don't know why he didn't proceed, why he waited so many years he had to start the process all over again. Perhaps it's a tax dodge. Whatever it is, council voted 3 to 2 against the development. Due in no small part to my submissions but especially to my tireless husband who worked the phones, who buttonholed councillors and the mayor at every opportunity, who never gave up when everyone else did.
We're going to enjoy our victory, savour it, treasure it. And enjoy as long as we can the respite from that black cloud which has loomed over us for so many years. We may have to take up keyboard, pen and telephone again if the developer appeals but for now....We won!
We live in the country on a dead end dirt road, half of which is bitumen, the other half dirt. When you drive along the straight toward our house you can see in the distance what looks like a miniature volcano, a perfect cone. It is a basalt plug. For years we have fought to keep it from being dismantled and quarried. The basalt plug supports remnant vine scrub, an endangered habitat in SE Queensland. To quarry for basalt the vine scrub, all 23 hectares of it, would be destroyed.
When we first began fighting this it was all about protecting our lifestyle and the ambiance of the country. Now, 16 years later, it is so much more. Certainly I don't want 80 + trucks a day hurtling up and down our road. I don't want the dust, the noise and the traffic but more than that, far more than that, I want that remnant habitat preserved. There is nothing like it around here. I've ridden Balthazar past it many times. It can't be ridden on, even climbed as it is so thick and steep. But even from the ground it is mysterious; dark dark green, a source of birdsong and flashes of colour as king parrots and other birds fly in and out and around it. Heaven knows what else could be there. The important thing is, whatever is there is safe for the time being. The developer may decide to appeal as he did all those years ago when Council approved it providing he met with certain conditions. We don't know why he didn't proceed, why he waited so many years he had to start the process all over again. Perhaps it's a tax dodge. Whatever it is, council voted 3 to 2 against the development. Due in no small part to my submissions but especially to my tireless husband who worked the phones, who buttonholed councillors and the mayor at every opportunity, who never gave up when everyone else did.
We're going to enjoy our victory, savour it, treasure it. And enjoy as long as we can the respite from that black cloud which has loomed over us for so many years. We may have to take up keyboard, pen and telephone again if the developer appeals but for now....We won!
Friday, August 7, 2009
Crop Circles, UFOS, Sasquatch
While researching Bigfoot/Sasquatch for my novel (not the main focus but a part of the mysterious occurrences in the country town of White Cedar) I was led to You Tube videos of crop circles (something I have been interested in and have found simply stupefying) and UFO footage. Naturally some of the UFO footage is CGI (and very well done too. Full kudos to the creators), other footage is questionable, is it real or created? Ditto the crop circles.
Crop circles. The very phenonemon is strange. Why would other world beings choose to communicate in such a strange way; making images in fields of grain? Surely, with their technological advantages (if they can get to earth they are obviously technologically advanced) why not communicate directly into the Internet or make huge Sky signs or write on the moon or have a world wide vocal communication, similar to the loudspeakers at a footy match. Crop circles seem such an unwieldy way to communicate. But. And it's a big But. The circles are far too complex now to be the product of an overnight effort by uni student pranksters. Yes, I'm aware there are people out there who say they can duplicate crop circles. Perhaps they can, the more simplistic of the designs. But can they duplicate the very intricate, detailed and large crop circles which are a factor of the crop circle phenonemon in 10 or 12 hours of darkness? I doubt it. Then again, if we suddenly had a global communication via ET loudspeaker or simultaneous TV coverage, there would most likely be mass hysteria or, in this era of complete cynicism, mass yawning. Perhaps crop circle communication is the cleverest way to introduce us to the idea
that there is something out there besides ourselves.
Another interesting factor is the complete silence of mainstream media regarding crop circles, UFOs, ghosts, telepathy, ESP, Cryptozoology, the list goes on. We're given pablum, the powers that be obviously deciding that either a) we're too immature and excitable to cope with the truth, or b) we're best left in the dark in case we start demanding that our leaders behave in a responsible manner, ie stop making war on each other, ensure everyone has enough to eat and a roof over their head and most importantly, ensure that the earth will be viable as a living planet.
It's not so much to ask, is it? In my own tiny corner of the world, with the environment being on the six o'clock news night after night after night, the local council still chooses to rape and pillage the environment. It is unbelievable. Is there someone out there with balls enough to stand and say STOP? Stop with the focus on money and profits? Stop with the aggrandizement of power and prestige, stop with the BS? I'm waiting.
I have no children of my own yet I am appalled that people that do have children and grandchildren make such godawful decisions. Maybe we need a shake-up of an extra terrestrial intelligence, a stern ET to make us grow up, play politely with our toys, to share our toys, and clean up our play space afterwards.
Crop circles. The very phenonemon is strange. Why would other world beings choose to communicate in such a strange way; making images in fields of grain? Surely, with their technological advantages (if they can get to earth they are obviously technologically advanced) why not communicate directly into the Internet or make huge Sky signs or write on the moon or have a world wide vocal communication, similar to the loudspeakers at a footy match. Crop circles seem such an unwieldy way to communicate. But. And it's a big But. The circles are far too complex now to be the product of an overnight effort by uni student pranksters. Yes, I'm aware there are people out there who say they can duplicate crop circles. Perhaps they can, the more simplistic of the designs. But can they duplicate the very intricate, detailed and large crop circles which are a factor of the crop circle phenonemon in 10 or 12 hours of darkness? I doubt it. Then again, if we suddenly had a global communication via ET loudspeaker or simultaneous TV coverage, there would most likely be mass hysteria or, in this era of complete cynicism, mass yawning. Perhaps crop circle communication is the cleverest way to introduce us to the idea
that there is something out there besides ourselves.
Another interesting factor is the complete silence of mainstream media regarding crop circles, UFOs, ghosts, telepathy, ESP, Cryptozoology, the list goes on. We're given pablum, the powers that be obviously deciding that either a) we're too immature and excitable to cope with the truth, or b) we're best left in the dark in case we start demanding that our leaders behave in a responsible manner, ie stop making war on each other, ensure everyone has enough to eat and a roof over their head and most importantly, ensure that the earth will be viable as a living planet.
It's not so much to ask, is it? In my own tiny corner of the world, with the environment being on the six o'clock news night after night after night, the local council still chooses to rape and pillage the environment. It is unbelievable. Is there someone out there with balls enough to stand and say STOP? Stop with the focus on money and profits? Stop with the aggrandizement of power and prestige, stop with the BS? I'm waiting.
I have no children of my own yet I am appalled that people that do have children and grandchildren make such godawful decisions. Maybe we need a shake-up of an extra terrestrial intelligence, a stern ET to make us grow up, play politely with our toys, to share our toys, and clean up our play space afterwards.
Thursday, August 6, 2009
Blog Search and Pinning Broken Wings
I would like to do a search on this site for bloggers of interest to me. There is, of course, the Blogs of Note feature (Tach is standing on his cage door showing off with wings outspread. He does this squeak when he's annoyed. I haven't put in his seed yet - he's on pellets and does'nt really need seed anymore but I do give him access for 30 minutes or so in the afternoon). Anyway! The Blogs of Note feature is fine. As many subjects as there are people -- so many interests out there and people writing about them -- but not quite what I'm looking for. I am following a blog and that's fine but it seems that there would be some way to type in a few key words in a search box and come up with some likely blogs. People title their blog and put in labels. What for if not for the rest of us to do a search?
Maybe there is an obvious way to do a search and I'm so technologically illiterate I can't see it. That's a very real possibility. I need the bleedin' obvious set out in neon sometimes. What I'm really doing of course is procrastinating. Finished work yesterday (an hour late. Helped K while she pinned a galah's wing. I do the anaesthesia while she pins. It's a horrible thing to watch. Always thought orthopedics would be delicate and finicky and precise but it's not. Even with dainty little bird bones. First she has to pluck the feathers around the affected area. This is of course after the bird is gassed by placing its head in a punctured surgical glove which is wrapped around a small animal mask. When the area is plucked she isolates the break more precisely than when the bird was first assessed. Then a thin wire is entered into the hollow bone at the break and pushed in. The bone and wire has to be lined up with the bone on the other side of the break. It's not always pretty to watch as it can be a matter of controlled strength and force. The excess wire is cut and the skin is sutured over the access point. It writes out more neatly than the surgery. It's not through lack of skill. K has done hundreds of successful pinnings. I've released birds she's saved. It's a miracle. After a couple of weeks, usually 2, the pin is removed and the bird is rehabilitated. It needs to heal, build up muscle and fitness for flying.
While the bird is on the table it is given antibiotics and kept warm. The wing is taped in place around the body. The tail is also taped closed so that the affected wing is kept immobilized. It's amazing that these delicate wild creatures cope so well with capture, captivity, injury, illness (they often succumb to coccidiosis and must be treated) and the long rehabilitation afterwards. But what a buzz when they are released. Naturally not all succeed. Some die during surgery or worse, afterwards. If they live through the surgery and anaesthetic you kind of expect them to make it so it's very disheartening for them to die when they've already come so far.
Which is a long way from the original subject of blogging. Such is the way my brain works!
Maybe there is an obvious way to do a search and I'm so technologically illiterate I can't see it. That's a very real possibility. I need the bleedin' obvious set out in neon sometimes. What I'm really doing of course is procrastinating. Finished work yesterday (an hour late. Helped K while she pinned a galah's wing. I do the anaesthesia while she pins. It's a horrible thing to watch. Always thought orthopedics would be delicate and finicky and precise but it's not. Even with dainty little bird bones. First she has to pluck the feathers around the affected area. This is of course after the bird is gassed by placing its head in a punctured surgical glove which is wrapped around a small animal mask. When the area is plucked she isolates the break more precisely than when the bird was first assessed. Then a thin wire is entered into the hollow bone at the break and pushed in. The bone and wire has to be lined up with the bone on the other side of the break. It's not always pretty to watch as it can be a matter of controlled strength and force. The excess wire is cut and the skin is sutured over the access point. It writes out more neatly than the surgery. It's not through lack of skill. K has done hundreds of successful pinnings. I've released birds she's saved. It's a miracle. After a couple of weeks, usually 2, the pin is removed and the bird is rehabilitated. It needs to heal, build up muscle and fitness for flying.
While the bird is on the table it is given antibiotics and kept warm. The wing is taped in place around the body. The tail is also taped closed so that the affected wing is kept immobilized. It's amazing that these delicate wild creatures cope so well with capture, captivity, injury, illness (they often succumb to coccidiosis and must be treated) and the long rehabilitation afterwards. But what a buzz when they are released. Naturally not all succeed. Some die during surgery or worse, afterwards. If they live through the surgery and anaesthetic you kind of expect them to make it so it's very disheartening for them to die when they've already come so far.
Which is a long way from the original subject of blogging. Such is the way my brain works!
Sunday, August 2, 2009
The Galah and the Bald Man
Sarah's gone. The balding man with missing front teeth came to get her today. I knew she had to leave. I've no room for her and she couldn't stay where she was, all alone. She only lived with us for two weeks but in that time I saw she was a sensitive and intelligent soul. I think she'll be all right. The bald man wasn't pretty but he assured me that the other bird living with him is well looked after.
Sarah is a galah. She came into the surgery with a fractured wing, broken beyond repair. It had to be amputated. She is an adult wild caught female. Well, caught because with a useless wing it was either be captured or die. She also had a bad case of coccidiosis. I've had her on coccivet since she came home with me. The first two nights she spent in the spare room with the terracotta heat lamp. When she coped well and seemed stronger I moved her onto the verandah with Tach and Cornelius. She improved steadily until it was obvious she needed more room to exercise than is provided by a cocky cage. We moved her out into the spare aviary then. By herself still as I didn't want her to bond with any of the other rescued galahs. A foot separated her aviary from theirs so she did have some companionship. She could watch the wild galahs at the feeder as well.
Still, it was hard to let her go. I put together a care package; Coccivet and a 1 ml syringe for her coccidiosis, a single typed sheet of basic granivore care, two vegetable skewers (one for her mate as she's going to live with another bird, a male) and a corn cob. I also provided a cover sheet as they were going to transport her in an uncovered cocky cage. That is such a common mistake. Don't people see how stressed birds are when they are subjected to every visual stimulus?
Some adult wild galahs come into the surgery and you just know they will never adjust to being in captivity. We humanely euthanise them. Sarah, happily, was hissing and frightened but also showed a steadiness of character that indicated she would be a good candidate for rehoming.
While she was inside or on the verandah I had to change her food, water and papers daily. She naturally didn't like it and hissed and moved away from my hand but she didn't panic either. Outside she was quite brilliant. She soon ceased moving to the other side of the aviary when we walked past. She stayed calm while we put food and water in or took them out. She was even good to catch this afternoon. I had to towel her of course and she didn't like it but again, she handled it well.
Despite his missing teeth and kind of male attitude I think he'll be kind to her. It says something that he wants a companion for his resident male galah. He also has a ringneck which goes for car rides with him. He understands it will take many months before she trusts enough to accept overtures. I know she'll be okay and it's arrogant to think I'm the only person who can look after birds properly. Still, I miss her.
Sarah is a galah. She came into the surgery with a fractured wing, broken beyond repair. It had to be amputated. She is an adult wild caught female. Well, caught because with a useless wing it was either be captured or die. She also had a bad case of coccidiosis. I've had her on coccivet since she came home with me. The first two nights she spent in the spare room with the terracotta heat lamp. When she coped well and seemed stronger I moved her onto the verandah with Tach and Cornelius. She improved steadily until it was obvious she needed more room to exercise than is provided by a cocky cage. We moved her out into the spare aviary then. By herself still as I didn't want her to bond with any of the other rescued galahs. A foot separated her aviary from theirs so she did have some companionship. She could watch the wild galahs at the feeder as well.
Still, it was hard to let her go. I put together a care package; Coccivet and a 1 ml syringe for her coccidiosis, a single typed sheet of basic granivore care, two vegetable skewers (one for her mate as she's going to live with another bird, a male) and a corn cob. I also provided a cover sheet as they were going to transport her in an uncovered cocky cage. That is such a common mistake. Don't people see how stressed birds are when they are subjected to every visual stimulus?
Some adult wild galahs come into the surgery and you just know they will never adjust to being in captivity. We humanely euthanise them. Sarah, happily, was hissing and frightened but also showed a steadiness of character that indicated she would be a good candidate for rehoming.
While she was inside or on the verandah I had to change her food, water and papers daily. She naturally didn't like it and hissed and moved away from my hand but she didn't panic either. Outside she was quite brilliant. She soon ceased moving to the other side of the aviary when we walked past. She stayed calm while we put food and water in or took them out. She was even good to catch this afternoon. I had to towel her of course and she didn't like it but again, she handled it well.
Despite his missing teeth and kind of male attitude I think he'll be kind to her. It says something that he wants a companion for his resident male galah. He also has a ringneck which goes for car rides with him. He understands it will take many months before she trusts enough to accept overtures. I know she'll be okay and it's arrogant to think I'm the only person who can look after birds properly. Still, I miss her.
Friday, July 31, 2009
To cuss or not to cuss
July 31, 2009. Tachimedes is perched atop the CPU. The mickey birds are shrilling alarm calls. No way will Tach relax while so much danger lurks outside. This office has a large bank of windows facing onto a spreading poinciana tree (one of the reasons I wanted to buy this house). Jamaica, the black whippet, is soaking up the warm winter sun. Ah, I just got a glimpse of the threat; a snowy ibis. Anything large which glides rather than flaps is possibly a predator at least in the minds of small cockatiels and mickeys.
Having trouble settling to anything today. Been to the gym, done yoga, should write but as I haven't written in almost a week I'm having trouble. Even here. This warm-up is a stuttering mess. Keep referencing yoga sites (wish there was a decent yoga class in this tiny town!) to avoid facing up to stiff stilted writing effort. Insomnia too lately which doesn't help. Beating myself up while at the same time letting myself off the hook. Master of self-sabotage. It's already 3:30 in the afternoon and I've written nothing. Ack! I really could scream I get so frustrated with myself at the same time as I know frustration just shuts things down. It's not a positive anything! R in and out banging doors. Should've tried to meditate while he was gone but didn't do that either.
Some positive things, have been off the spider solitaire for a couple of weeks now. I feel cleansed, like an addict kicking heroin. No more cards floating behind my eyes when I close them at night. When I do write I stick to the task and write. No more switching windows between the book and the spread.
I suspect yoga practice is having an insidious unexpected effect. Just little things, like trying to clean up my act a little and not swear so much. Working at a veterinary clinic is no excuse but it can get somewhat stressful. I blow stress by swearing, mostly under my breath but out loud too (not in front of clients however which shows I have the willpower and focus to control it if I want). I haven't thought about swearing for years. It was just a fact. Now, however, I think it's not such a good thing. I could still swear but swear creatively. Or bring back into fashion some of the old swear words from generations ago. Like jeepers or criminently or even blast it! Swearing is really lazy thinking, a refusal to find an appropriate adjective to describe something troublesome. Better yet would be to be in that state of mind where I am no longer troubled. But until I reach that sweet spot I will try and curb the cussing or at least cuss creatively.
Having trouble settling to anything today. Been to the gym, done yoga, should write but as I haven't written in almost a week I'm having trouble. Even here. This warm-up is a stuttering mess. Keep referencing yoga sites (wish there was a decent yoga class in this tiny town!) to avoid facing up to stiff stilted writing effort. Insomnia too lately which doesn't help. Beating myself up while at the same time letting myself off the hook. Master of self-sabotage. It's already 3:30 in the afternoon and I've written nothing. Ack! I really could scream I get so frustrated with myself at the same time as I know frustration just shuts things down. It's not a positive anything! R in and out banging doors. Should've tried to meditate while he was gone but didn't do that either.
Some positive things, have been off the spider solitaire for a couple of weeks now. I feel cleansed, like an addict kicking heroin. No more cards floating behind my eyes when I close them at night. When I do write I stick to the task and write. No more switching windows between the book and the spread.
I suspect yoga practice is having an insidious unexpected effect. Just little things, like trying to clean up my act a little and not swear so much. Working at a veterinary clinic is no excuse but it can get somewhat stressful. I blow stress by swearing, mostly under my breath but out loud too (not in front of clients however which shows I have the willpower and focus to control it if I want). I haven't thought about swearing for years. It was just a fact. Now, however, I think it's not such a good thing. I could still swear but swear creatively. Or bring back into fashion some of the old swear words from generations ago. Like jeepers or criminently or even blast it! Swearing is really lazy thinking, a refusal to find an appropriate adjective to describe something troublesome. Better yet would be to be in that state of mind where I am no longer troubled. But until I reach that sweet spot I will try and curb the cussing or at least cuss creatively.
Thursday, July 23, 2009
The Blog, the Journal and the Painting
Haven't touched the book yet (warm up here) but will get to it later. Last week I wrote heaps. With one and a half glasses of wine, enough to censor the internal censor but not kill her, the words and ideas flowed. It was great. And as much as I love R, it is SO much easier to write when he's not home. He has gone to T'ba today and won't be home until this afternoon so I've a few hours in which to get stuck in.
I was thinking how different my writing is here than in my handwritten journal. As much as I would like to say I write as freely, I don't. Although no one has read my blog, it is possible they might. Writing for an audience is one thing but trying to write as if you aren't is another. Writing fiction I write for myself. I am trying to write the kind of book I would enjoy reading. It isn't possible, at least for me, to write as if a potential publisher was looking over my shoulder. I guess that means I'm not writing for publication -- but of course I am. Just not now. Like painting for a potential buyer. I paint for me. If someone likes what I paint and wants to buy it, then that's a bonus.
I had a show with 3 other women many years ago on Worth Avenue in Palm Beach, Florida. I don't know if it's the same now but back then it was Florida's version of Rodeo Drive. Posh. The opening was very swish; chandeliers, black baby grand, wine and cheese and classical music. Lots of people. I sold nothing. My teacher at the time said if I painted using a different colour scheme I would probably sell as it would fit in with client's decor. He was a portrait painter for the hoi-polloi. Very successful. Lovely house in a ritzy district. His lover would pose for us while Queen blasted out of speakers on the garden studio walls.
I remember having a conversation with him about the satisfaction his work brought him. It didn't. He was a very good artist but he'd decided on a comfortable living rather than exploring his artistry. Perhaps he had a room where he painted for himself, paintings which never saw the light of day. I don't know. I do know he was sad. Successful but sad. I never did re-paint those paintings.
I don't regret not chasing the sale. I would be nice to sell some but I'm just not motivated enough to get myself out there. HOWEVER. Saw a program on the ABC how a group of artists in Byron Bay got together and had a speed dating event, only it was a speed artist-meet-gallery event. Four minutes to present their paintings and then move on to the next. What a brilliant idea. I could go for that. Get someone to photograph my paintings, make prints to put in a binder and present them that way. Four minutes is not enough time to get nervous. Well, not too nervous anyway.
Part of the problem is framing. I've so many paintings stuck in one of those huge ledger things. I just can't afford to get paintings framed and again, am not motivated enough to teach myself (I really am quite lazy. I like doing the things I like to do as there are so many things I have to do, adding another project just overwhelms me). R would be willing to frame my work but he has so much on his plate it would not be fair to slop on another helping.
I was thinking how different my writing is here than in my handwritten journal. As much as I would like to say I write as freely, I don't. Although no one has read my blog, it is possible they might. Writing for an audience is one thing but trying to write as if you aren't is another. Writing fiction I write for myself. I am trying to write the kind of book I would enjoy reading. It isn't possible, at least for me, to write as if a potential publisher was looking over my shoulder. I guess that means I'm not writing for publication -- but of course I am. Just not now. Like painting for a potential buyer. I paint for me. If someone likes what I paint and wants to buy it, then that's a bonus.
I had a show with 3 other women many years ago on Worth Avenue in Palm Beach, Florida. I don't know if it's the same now but back then it was Florida's version of Rodeo Drive. Posh. The opening was very swish; chandeliers, black baby grand, wine and cheese and classical music. Lots of people. I sold nothing. My teacher at the time said if I painted using a different colour scheme I would probably sell as it would fit in with client's decor. He was a portrait painter for the hoi-polloi. Very successful. Lovely house in a ritzy district. His lover would pose for us while Queen blasted out of speakers on the garden studio walls.
I remember having a conversation with him about the satisfaction his work brought him. It didn't. He was a very good artist but he'd decided on a comfortable living rather than exploring his artistry. Perhaps he had a room where he painted for himself, paintings which never saw the light of day. I don't know. I do know he was sad. Successful but sad. I never did re-paint those paintings.
I don't regret not chasing the sale. I would be nice to sell some but I'm just not motivated enough to get myself out there. HOWEVER. Saw a program on the ABC how a group of artists in Byron Bay got together and had a speed dating event, only it was a speed artist-meet-gallery event. Four minutes to present their paintings and then move on to the next. What a brilliant idea. I could go for that. Get someone to photograph my paintings, make prints to put in a binder and present them that way. Four minutes is not enough time to get nervous. Well, not too nervous anyway.
Part of the problem is framing. I've so many paintings stuck in one of those huge ledger things. I just can't afford to get paintings framed and again, am not motivated enough to teach myself (I really am quite lazy. I like doing the things I like to do as there are so many things I have to do, adding another project just overwhelms me). R would be willing to frame my work but he has so much on his plate it would not be fair to slop on another helping.
Sunday, July 19, 2009
Synchronicity and Cary Grant
Sometimes things happen that have no logical explanation. R and I took the whippets for a walk on our dead end dirt road. Beautiful sunny day, warm after a cold winter night. So warm I removed my sweatshirt and hung it on a roadside reflector to pick up on our return trip. Which I did. The old royal blue sweatshirt has a hole in the back, no doubt the result of climbing through a barb wire fence. Stuck into this small hole was a many branched twig, some kind of Australian native. It has five small twigs jutting out from the central branch. It's only about 10" long. It is also covered with tiny deep blue, almost purple flowers. I've never seen anything blooming in the bush with flowers that colour, nor did I see anything around where I'd hung my sweatshirt resembling it.
So where did it come from and why was it placed so precisely in the hole of my shirt? Only one car passed us on the road and I'm sure the occupant wouldn't have done it. Just not his style. Besides, he would've had to have the plant with him and he's just not that interested in nature.
So it sits beside me on the desk, wilting slightly but with the colours of the tiny flowers still vivid. Is it a sign?
I'm a great believer in signs and synchronicity. When I am in the right frame of mind I see the Universe speaking all the time. Speaking to me in a language which is pertinent to me. That may sound mad yet if the stuff of the universe is mind stuff, why not? What is a thought but a form of energy. Everything solid is a form of energy. It has to be malleable. It has to be coherent. One wavelength amplifying or cancelling out another or just making white noise. It is all so mysterious but at the same time so bloody obvious.
For instance I was born on the 29th (11) day of the 11th (11) month in 19 (1) 55 (1). Elevens and twenty-twos have figured prominently in my life. Strictly speaking 1955 would be a 2 but for purposes of this I prefer to see it as I've set out. Today I was looking at Cary Grant (who wouldn't?). I'd gone there after looking up something else and one thing led to another and then there I was with Cary. Turns out he died in Davenport Iowa on November 29, 1986 at 11:22pm. I hadn't met to find that but I still think it's significant. Significant of what I don't know. My own particular idiosyncracy?
Unfortunately I am often out of touch with the Language and signs. I am too caught up in the white noise of my own mind chatter to see the bleeding obvious. One of the things I hope yoga will teach me is how to lose some of that, to be aware of the moment, to be IN the moment. To be still and know God or whatever you want to call it. Powers That Be works for me. There is Something but I've too many negative connotations associated with the word God.
I've been trying to meditate off and on for years. Much more off than on. Who would've thought simply following one's breath and focusing on that to the exclusion of anything else would be so hard? It is damned hard! I may get one or two breaths where I actually follow the breath, I am in the breath and then bang! I'm thinking that it's time to change birds (change in that it's time for Cornelius to go in his cage so Tachimedes can come out) or remembering some snippet of conversation from work. It seems my mind has a brilliant work ethic. It does not want to sit idle and watch the breath go in and out. It's got places to go (flights of fancy), people to see (ancient history or wishful thinking). Bludging on the job while awake is not in its job description. However. I am determined to rein in my over zealous workaholic brain and convince it that calm quiet attention is not in breach of its Lifetime Contract.
So where did it come from and why was it placed so precisely in the hole of my shirt? Only one car passed us on the road and I'm sure the occupant wouldn't have done it. Just not his style. Besides, he would've had to have the plant with him and he's just not that interested in nature.
So it sits beside me on the desk, wilting slightly but with the colours of the tiny flowers still vivid. Is it a sign?
I'm a great believer in signs and synchronicity. When I am in the right frame of mind I see the Universe speaking all the time. Speaking to me in a language which is pertinent to me. That may sound mad yet if the stuff of the universe is mind stuff, why not? What is a thought but a form of energy. Everything solid is a form of energy. It has to be malleable. It has to be coherent. One wavelength amplifying or cancelling out another or just making white noise. It is all so mysterious but at the same time so bloody obvious.
For instance I was born on the 29th (11) day of the 11th (11) month in 19 (1) 55 (1). Elevens and twenty-twos have figured prominently in my life. Strictly speaking 1955 would be a 2 but for purposes of this I prefer to see it as I've set out. Today I was looking at Cary Grant (who wouldn't?). I'd gone there after looking up something else and one thing led to another and then there I was with Cary. Turns out he died in Davenport Iowa on November 29, 1986 at 11:22pm. I hadn't met to find that but I still think it's significant. Significant of what I don't know. My own particular idiosyncracy?
Unfortunately I am often out of touch with the Language and signs. I am too caught up in the white noise of my own mind chatter to see the bleeding obvious. One of the things I hope yoga will teach me is how to lose some of that, to be aware of the moment, to be IN the moment. To be still and know God or whatever you want to call it. Powers That Be works for me. There is Something but I've too many negative connotations associated with the word God.
I've been trying to meditate off and on for years. Much more off than on. Who would've thought simply following one's breath and focusing on that to the exclusion of anything else would be so hard? It is damned hard! I may get one or two breaths where I actually follow the breath, I am in the breath and then bang! I'm thinking that it's time to change birds (change in that it's time for Cornelius to go in his cage so Tachimedes can come out) or remembering some snippet of conversation from work. It seems my mind has a brilliant work ethic. It does not want to sit idle and watch the breath go in and out. It's got places to go (flights of fancy), people to see (ancient history or wishful thinking). Bludging on the job while awake is not in its job description. However. I am determined to rein in my over zealous workaholic brain and convince it that calm quiet attention is not in breach of its Lifetime Contract.
Friday, July 17, 2009
Maiden Mother Crone
There's a strange dichotomy to growing older. I've left the Maiden years far behind, and have recently bid adieu to the Mother and am now standing firmly if somewhat querulously on the shifting sands of The Crone. I see the deepening lines on my face, the map of my life. Part of me, the public part, says yeah, I'm proud of every one of them.
I remember photos I saw once of Georgia O'Keefe and Helena Rubenstein. Georgia O'Keefe had her haired pulled back into a severe skull-hugging bun. Frankly I don't remember how Ms. Rubenstein was wearing her hair although I suspect it was in a styled society matron helmet. Ms. O'Keefe's face was a network of lines, crossing and criss-crossing her face. Ms. Rubenstein was well-preserved, pampered and young (for her age). But it was Georgia's face that was beautiful. Full of life, experience, it was a reflection of her inner being. Helena's lifelong attempts to preserve her youthfulness succeeded in preserving, to a degree, that illusion, but the success meant she had constructed a mask and her inner being was hidden.
So publicly I affirm that my face is what I've got after more than half a century of life and I'm proud of it. Inwardly, or privately looking in the mirror, I lament the loss. It's shallow and somewhat sad. Can I blame the fixation on youthfulness in today's society for my dissatisfaction? No, despite the daily inculcation that only the young matter I do know better.
The loss of beauty and youth is the price I pay for living. OTOH, I do fight against the loss of physical strength and suppleness. The gym and yoga help, especially yoga.
When I first started yoga it was so hard and so painful it seemed as if I'd begun too late. But every day there is some small improvement in flexibility. My back hurts less, I'm stronger and more flexible than I was. Mentally I don't meditate enough to notice improvement. That's something I need to address. Even allocating 5 minutes to following my breath, there is a second or two when my ceaseless mind chatter stops long enough to touch that still calm center. And then off I go again on another tangent of chittering chattering mindspeak.
I began this post because I was thinking about books and reading books. Twice in 2 weeks I've borrowed a book from the library and then after reading a few pages decided it wasn't worth reading. Is that incipient loss of mental power or the ability to concentrate or is it that my time is more precious now and I don't have to read everything I get just because I got it? I used to read everything. Even if I didn't like a book I'd read it. Now I can't be bothered.
I should be out riding today. Haven't ridden B since last week but it's cold and windy and quite miserable. I've got a painting to work on and The Book, which I haven't added a word to in 2 weeks. R is away until late tonight and gone again tomorrow which gives me the opportunity to work uninterrupted. I should also spend time with little Tach but it's not very comfortable to open this room to the winds coming in off the verandah (and feeling like they're rolling off the glaciers of the Antarctic!) so I go out and make quick visits and long for summer.
I remember photos I saw once of Georgia O'Keefe and Helena Rubenstein. Georgia O'Keefe had her haired pulled back into a severe skull-hugging bun. Frankly I don't remember how Ms. Rubenstein was wearing her hair although I suspect it was in a styled society matron helmet. Ms. O'Keefe's face was a network of lines, crossing and criss-crossing her face. Ms. Rubenstein was well-preserved, pampered and young (for her age). But it was Georgia's face that was beautiful. Full of life, experience, it was a reflection of her inner being. Helena's lifelong attempts to preserve her youthfulness succeeded in preserving, to a degree, that illusion, but the success meant she had constructed a mask and her inner being was hidden.
So publicly I affirm that my face is what I've got after more than half a century of life and I'm proud of it. Inwardly, or privately looking in the mirror, I lament the loss. It's shallow and somewhat sad. Can I blame the fixation on youthfulness in today's society for my dissatisfaction? No, despite the daily inculcation that only the young matter I do know better.
The loss of beauty and youth is the price I pay for living. OTOH, I do fight against the loss of physical strength and suppleness. The gym and yoga help, especially yoga.
When I first started yoga it was so hard and so painful it seemed as if I'd begun too late. But every day there is some small improvement in flexibility. My back hurts less, I'm stronger and more flexible than I was. Mentally I don't meditate enough to notice improvement. That's something I need to address. Even allocating 5 minutes to following my breath, there is a second or two when my ceaseless mind chatter stops long enough to touch that still calm center. And then off I go again on another tangent of chittering chattering mindspeak.
I began this post because I was thinking about books and reading books. Twice in 2 weeks I've borrowed a book from the library and then after reading a few pages decided it wasn't worth reading. Is that incipient loss of mental power or the ability to concentrate or is it that my time is more precious now and I don't have to read everything I get just because I got it? I used to read everything. Even if I didn't like a book I'd read it. Now I can't be bothered.
I should be out riding today. Haven't ridden B since last week but it's cold and windy and quite miserable. I've got a painting to work on and The Book, which I haven't added a word to in 2 weeks. R is away until late tonight and gone again tomorrow which gives me the opportunity to work uninterrupted. I should also spend time with little Tach but it's not very comfortable to open this room to the winds coming in off the verandah (and feeling like they're rolling off the glaciers of the Antarctic!) so I go out and make quick visits and long for summer.
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