Fire and Forty.

Thank you everybody for coming and sharing the beautiful night. And all the well wishes from those who couldn't be there. Thanks to family and friends that helped with preparation, music, cake, food, warmth and wood.... and more wood.... to keep all the fires burning. Thank you Wayne for setting it all up and making everything amazing. And Leah who made the video with one of our all time fave songs,  I love it.

Ever since.

Ever since she was a child she had liked to make things. 

Creating her evolving thoughts onto the canvas of the earths surface. A garden, a drawing, a game, a life, a child, a gift. A story.

She stands now, as a grown woman in the open paddock. She turns back to look over what she has created. Behind her the mountain range sits silent and stoic, settled in it's own ancient place, right along side her almost forty year old heart. 

The mountain - that gave her binding breath.

She looks over the woven pile of sticks, interlocking and supporting each other. Just like life she thinks, noticing how some sticks are slipping through.

Closing her eyes she sees her babies faces, freshly born, and her husbands loving tears. She sees the daughters, beautiful and older, with their heads turned in the direction of their own futures, creating their own unique pathways. Her own parents faces are etched in her vision, just as the outline of the mountains are. She sees the trails of connections in each line of her face that have grown with her. Each path leading to the next event, the next story. Endless webs of interaction.

She looks down at her feet now, dusty and dirty with the fine sandy silt. Encased in sandals and no longer as tough as in the days when she could fly. They have the slight aches and pains of years of exposure to the earths elements. The cracks  and worn surface replicating the journeys they have taken.

The once baby soft souls of her feet have connected her to all roads traveled. Along the bush animal trails of her childhood to the endless city concrete. To some of the highest peaks with the coldest winds, to the edges of opal coloured oceans. Along the painful twisty paths of trauma and heartache. Where paths turn back in on them selves and loop around you, until you find that tiny stream of light, that may only lead you to another junction shaped track, where once again you hesitate about choice and direction. But taking that step makes you less afraid than returning and vainly trying to cover your tracks. As the path backwards always leads to regret and sorrow. 

She has built this thing now. A thing to burn. A fire to lead to the next journey. A passage of flames that will burn those sticks to the earth. With many steps yet to be taken and many directions yet to be made, those feet will carry her through.

Turning back to the mountain, she still wonders - what does it all mean.

My boys have just trekked four days on the Milford track in New Zealand. Today I wait to hear from them. It's agonizing. But I trust in their bodies and strength. The magic and beauty they would of seen will be life changing. I love them and miss them.

Ever since. Part 2.

...........She glanced down at her feet as she reached the shed entrance. She thought briefly about the nails and wood shavings scattered across the floor of the shed, but a long plank of wood was lying to the side, clear of any shavings. It took her close enough to the hook where the rope was hanging. 

She flicked and wriggled the rope free, thinking of how the same rope had been used to tie the dead goat up last week from the big tree. Remembering how the gut was slit open and all the warm insides spilled in to the wheelbarrow. She had held the heart and kidneys in her hands like jewels of the earth. Everything was attached by veins and sinew to the next organ. A trail of connection. Everything is connected she thought. This was what was in us all she had realized. She had ran her hands along the intestines, feeling the heat and smoothness. The thick grassy scent coming back to her now makes her lean in and smell the rope. Just a hint of the goat smell. Not enough to bother her. 

She climbed back up the bank along the path to the curved tree she had noticed before. It was bent so far over that it almost touched the ground. Climbing and sliding across the top she ties one end around the trunk and then let it drop holding on to the other end. Hoisting it to the right height she tied it again. 

She had tried to make it into a proper swing. A plank of wood with holes each end would be needed, but that would mean cutting the rope and she new that wasn't an option. If she wanted a proper one it would have to involve her brother or father. So she decided to leave it. 

She climbed into the hanging rope and had sat dangling her legs with her thighs squished in feeling unsatisfied. But knew she would adapt it into something else, everything is changeable she thought. She had been staring down the mountain when she heard her name called. "Beckaaa Beckaaa, ...... Becka!" 

Mum. 

"Coming" She called. Running down another steep path to the house she remembers her sandals sitting on the rock back near the tree. But she was flying now, it was too late, the momentum pushed her along and her tummy was skipping with delight. Her strong legs jumping over ditches and landing with the most stunning perfection..... She didn't even feel the scratchy bracken on her legs or the prickles to her arms.

Because she was flying.

Ever since. part 1.

The barefoot girl stood. What does it mean she thought.

She was tangled in the depths of her childish imagination. Playing out her minds thoughts. Creating. Making something out of sticks, stones and dirt. Maybe pathways and tracks to walk on, and through. Why are we here she thought. She was young. A small child, and as her eyes looked over her work and then out to the hazy view, another plan took place in her head, the next creation, a new adventure. But she needed rope for this one. So her feet took off along the swept track and down the steep bank to the big shed....

5.5 litres of blood. Food and Love.

Wayne showed me this last night. I came into the room complaining about how sore my muscles were after helping with some concreting on the weekend. I felt like I had done a zillion squats!

So he said stop complaining and watch this, you will forget about your sore arse. Now after watching this it did not make me feel better about my life, I will never agree with looking at people worse off to make me feel better about my life. I think that is piss-weak.

Although I did forget about my sore arse.

When I watched this I was so in awe of the beautiful spirit of people on this earth. It made me think about purpose and love and bravery. It just made me think. It did not make me feel better about all my privileges. It is reality. Everything in life is about the basic thing of food and love.


FOOD and LOVE.

So now what am I going to do?

What are you going to do?

Rain in my heart.

Often it feels, there is rain in my heart.

Drips and drops. 

 Sometimes just drizzle. Other times, stormy downpours.

Lately it's been dry in there though. Cracked and hard. Dusty and tired. 

Bone dry.

Just like the landscape around me. Reflecting off each other.

Heart - Landscape.

Then it rained.

Hard and heavy. literally. Filled our empty dam to over half full.

Such a respite. All the bush just sighed in relief. But it was short lived. It brought thunderstorms with it. Was quite a spectacular display of lightening bolts and thunder claps that shook the earth.

It ignited the bush with it's fire. So ever since there has been planes and helicopters passing over head. It's got bigger now. It's in the ranges, past the valley. Hard to get at it. It's dry in there. 

So dry. 

But, it rained in my heart.

Softened it, quenched it.

Now tiny green shoots are appearing across the ground.

But as the smoke pummels across the mountains, and the wind swings this way and that way pushing the fire over and across the rocky dry ridges, I am just wishing for some more rain.

To ease us all. 

What it is.

It is, the fire lit within my gut.

It is the soul of my hand, that works the earth and narrates the land.

It is my feet, that settle the ground, and clearly breathes out, each seductive sound. 

It is all the words that lay in the leaves, and are wrapped in bark, that flutter and spear, as they twirl to their mark.

It is, the planet that speaks the language, that fills our mind of all the creations, that we, shall eventually find.

That, is what it is.

Lend me your eyes I will change what you see.....

"Awake my soul." mumford and sons

 A friend said to me today "So, not much on the blog these days, what are you doing?"

Ha! 

This Barbie! 

Wayne and Jonah made a Lemon cart was made a few weeks back.

Ate all these!

Found this chair at the tip so Mana and I painted it, rainbow style.

Had a wonderful weekend at Cass and Jono's new home.
So beautiful and full of wonderful plans.

And this.....

"I'm fine. I'm fine.... I am going to die!" Mana's latest saying... stolen from Sid the sloth.

What about your blog missy!

A woman with no class.

I have never been classy. I have never aspired to be classy.
I have never admired anyone who is classy.

So why, would I assume I would need to breast-feed a baby in a way that's classy?

There is no classy way to breast-feed your baby.

There is no inappropriate place to breast-feed your baby.

I have breast-fed in malaysia, all over Africa......

On trains, on buses, on airplanes, in taxis, at beaches, at pools, at restaurants,
on streets, and in schools.

I have never had anyone tell me that I need to go somewhere else, or that I need to do it with a bit of class.

Are we clear?

Great.

Not my problem.

Again I have a draft packed folder going on here, everything is just too this or that or whatever.

I think the over riding issue here is I want to be more creative, but I just can't find or make that space, that I need to right now. I am caught in a limbo land thats making me feel like a floating cloud that's gradually separating and evaporating into nothing but thin air. That the things that are full up in my head can't literally get out. The millions of ideas, the thoughts, the motives are all stuck, Locked up and pushing and straining to come out. On the outside my stoic self sits quietly, ignoring the bubbling and juicy creativity with in me. It is brimming, but I use that separated part of me to keep it at bay.


I tell my self just DO IT. Just start. But where.....

I need to get a good grip. Even now I read this all back and I think it's daft. But I will force myself to post it. Because I don't want it to be just another internal thought locked up.

I look for my space, sometimes literally, sometimes mentally. I know, I have to make it, myself.

I am different. I am me.


I saw this quote written on the side of the car the other day.


"It's not really my problem, if they think I'm weird" Sid Vicious

Monday music. Red Hot!

Nothing like a bit of chili to spice things up.

I love the chili video's. They are just soooo good!

We don't let our kids watch too much video hits these days...

All that subliminal sexist shit, drives me nutty.

But this... YES!

Happy bloody monday!

Now go dance or something.

Life from here.

I have joined in with Pam from Blood Signs....  for a link up of photos showing a little of life from here. She is a beautiful, thoughtful, clever writer. I adore reading her words. Her world is a contrast to mine, as in... she's deep in snow at this moment, whilst we swelter it out here. The world is just plain weird sometimes.

Our home view.

All photos are taken in the last month. All at our home or close to
our home.

Pizza making herbs all picked from the garden. The smell was divine

Boysenberry and eggs to make
pancakes.

Jonah's sparkly brown trout he caught from a local lake.

Wayne relaxing and drumming to his own beat.

Where we spent a lovely New years eve. With friends and their beautiful
new land.

Today Wayne went back to work and that really sucked. But these holidays were filled with magic

and wonder. Just so beautiful.


It's also monday music here at a sculptured life..... so heres a little something....

transition.

So, another year has been lived.

And I continue to watch the moon at night as it glitters and shines through the grape vine over our bedroom window. I think it's one of the most beautiful sights to be had. It's intense and gentle at the same time.

There is changes in the air. I can feel it in my chest, in my heart, and right down to my gut.

I don't know how it got to be - that one child is planning a wedding for next year, another finished 4 years of university, one about to start a final year of primary school and another about to start prep.

So quick. The stages of our life move faster than I can comprehend.

So next year will be a BIG year. A transitioning year I would call it.

Me.. I will be looking for work...outside the home... it's been a while.

Wayne.... He needs to slow down, have a break.

Transitioning I tell you.....

Have a wonderful new year, be brave, be strong, be you. ( Is it possible to self brainwash?)

Monday music. Wayne's choice!

In the summertime....... lalalala.....

Enjoy!

Turn it up loud. Have a Jive. 

And merry xmas to you all!

I am a dancing to this song alllllll day.

Thanks Waynie, Great choice!

Now listen to it, and dance!

Monday music. Homeless.

We watched a beautiful documentary last night on this collaboration of music. It was inspiring to watch such amazing artists creating together.

"Somebody cry.. why, why, why?"