Another year slides by, perhaps teaching me patience. A few steps forward, along with slow progress towards distant goals. Like the landscaping. As I spend more time here, the people are what pull me. Along with the solitude are developing friendships that provide balance and a feeling of belonging. It sometimes feels like I am embedded, both observer and participant. That is a good methodology for learning, and lots of learning is seeping in, so I hope. One symbol of change is the view off the kitchen, which no longer has a spotted gum so close up:
The view from the deck hasn’t changed much, except that the big chair is now visible by the dam, an attraction for climbing:
One of my ‘bespoke’ follies, it was done by a local guy who worked with me to get the proportions and structure right, and the placement. The timber was milled from trees (like the one in the picture off the kitchen) that were cut to keep us safe from wind and fire. Yesterday 3 teenage girls and their mothers enjoyed it with me. Creating that sort of fun has to gladden your heart.
The community gardening group is also very rewarding, and my picture appeared with the group in an edition of a green magazine about their efforts. Gardening guru Costa has visited, and the page we are all on is one of both pleasure and shared learning and values. How do you explain the quiet delight in having a surplus of grapefruit and lemon around the town, and a workshop on how to process the excess? So what if my attempts at a semi-commercial crop of corriander have come to naught? I am still getting enough every day to enhance every meal, baffled that some people find this herb unappealing. A shop in town was selling corriander seeds with my name on it, how cute is that?
We play table tennis daily, using Julian the Wikipuss as an occasional handicap. When I’m winning I do the ping-pong haka.
Another step forward has been the new kitchen, planned in my head for years and now a luxurious reality. It replaces one donated from a flat in Canberra and reassembled here 10 years ago. The tiling will have wait til spring, but the storage and use of space is a great success:
We have also continued to participate and learn as members of the local State Emergency Services, and my respect and admiration for this organisation continues to grow. Their skills and dedication for community benefit are impressive, and remind me of my minimal practical knowledge. I gave a brief climate change presentation, and hope to work with them on community education on my return.
For I am about to leave again, making up for travel not taken in my youth. Along with a history of Europe from 9000 BC to 1000 AD (by Barry Cunliffe), I have just finished reading a book by Australian author Peter Robb about Caravaggio. I will be chasing more of the paintings by the wild artist who broke through all the conventions of his time. His time was the counter-reformation, more violent and corrupt than we are now. The implication of the book is that Caravaggio, the most famous painter in Europe at the time, was hunted down and murdered for his sexual orientation.
I need that avenue into the past, as the present sometimes is distressing, if I look outside my own easy life. Moruya is a home for my idealism as well as my energies. How else can I deal with the bad news that is ‘out there’, but by having an ‘in here’ that is safe and comforting? Some disgusting reports of violence against women in Egypt and Pakistan (we won’t talk about Australian politics just now) leave me feeling powerless, and my only response is a collage:
The name is ‘woman torn by war’, but I don’t think anyone would tell their 7 year old daughter that.
When we return, there will be more building, road works and excavations, hopefully some serious planting, and the new water tank nearly full. I’ve got a lot of cuttings going, some of them will become bushes in the projected landscape patterns. Several more workers have instructions and tasks to get on with in my absence. Bit by bit I am progressing my agenda, which is something like an ecovillage by stealth, although I have fantasies of a cult. Maybe a cult headed by a woman is what the world needs. But first I have have to design the hats, can’t have a cult without good hats.
A flying fox over the dam might add to the fun, without destroying the budget.
A cargo net over the back of the chair would work, as would a basic slide alongside, albeit, one with a soft landing spot?
Say an old but still serviceable foam mattress. Neither prohibitively expensive?
A well built flying fox over the dam, will also include safety harnesses, that make it safe for even seven year olds. It could also be lowered for the hottest part of the summer months, so that part of the journey is through some of the water?
Perhaps the friends that built the particularly study looking chair, could help? All you really need is a couple of anchor points? Two mature trees?
Is there a clear space where backyard cricket or rounders or some such might be possible?
Kids get bored so easily and need variety to keep them interested, outdoors and away from the ubiquitous computer terminal, for a healthy amount of vitamin D, immune response improving absorption time.
A cult?
What about having a good in depth look at transcendental meditation on your travels, and then teaching a dogma free version, when you return?
It’s relatively easy to learn. Particularly if you studiously avoid the negative imperative!
You seem to have the right environment for an inexpensive outdoors shaded practise.
You just need a few plastic chairs in a circle, and maybe a couple of sunshade umbrellas to start.
And it does seem to help the traumatised and those trying to cope with/recover from Post Traumatic Stress.
I taught a guided dogma free version some years ago, which seemed very popular.
A well known Victorian vet, reportedly cured himself of incurable bone cancer, just through the practise of meditation?
The Peter McCallum cancer clinic in Melbourne, is on the public record, giving him just months to live.
Twenty years later, he and his orthodox doctor wife, were both healthy, living in an environment much like yours, and virtually self sufficient in organic food.
And people are looking for dogma free, westernised versions for the many reported health assisting benefits, rather than power tripping control freaks!
The best way to resolve an unresolved problem, in my experience, is to go into meditation.
Often we then find we come out knowing what to do, or feeling assured in our rejection or acceptance of various solutions; or, seeing another better way, which seems right; or that which makes much more sense; or, just letting go; or, no longer needing to be right?
Often we will say, why didn’t I see that before! It’s just too easy.
You might read up on Edgar Casey, the sleeping Prophet?
You could find it an interesting read, or travel companion?
Albeit, there’s a group completely convinced, he was both a charlatan and a fraud?
Even so, some of the answers he seemed to access, while in deep practised meditation, seemed completely at odds with his religious indoctrination, and reportedly, was a fairly constant source of consternation, in his earlier years?
And there are literally thousands of believable testimonials, where he helped others, while in deep meditation?
His unheralded wife helped by posing the Questions and recording the solutions he accessed, while in deep meditation?
Not that I’m suggesting you might ever follow suit! Just you might find meditation, [if your not already into it] both interesting and helpful, to yourself and as many others as you might care to teach/assist or repay, by providing a very useful for them, service?
It is said by older wiser heads than mine, when the student is ready, the teacher invariably appears.
I’m not sure that teaching meditation would make you a cult leader or make you some sort of new age Guru?
But it can only ever help all those you teach or touch with it, if that ever becomes your choice?
Cheers and return safe! Alan B. Goulding.
Comment by Alan B. Goulding — July 16, 2013 @ 7:11 pm
We have thought about a flying fox, but not confident of doing the safety aspects.
Edgar Cayce! Takes me back to my hippie youth, when he and Nostradamus were all the rage.
Will keep you posted on progress of the cult, must be a how-to manual somewhere online.
Comment by Ronda Jambe — July 16, 2013 @ 9:35 pm
Cults? Scientology comes to mind, as does the Moonies. Perhaps you could start something called the Moruya Moonies?
Maybe you could take your cue from the Scottish warriors in Braveheart, as they “saluted” the English King, Longshanks?
You could also imbibe some moonshine, once in a blue moon, under a full moon as a prelude to sprinkling moon-dust all over the place.
Like a group of virtual tinkerbells, wearing nothing but smiles and a few strategically placed moonstones? [That could be popular?]
Singing Moon river, Kimberly moon, Mataranka moon, Blue moon, Fly me to the moon, stairway to heaven, eine klien nactchmusik, serenade in the night, Moon shadow, age of Aquarius, higher and higher, Lunar dune, and star dust. There’s gotta be a couple of dozen more I haven’t thought of?
There’s an ancient Indian cult called the whirling dervishes, that whirl and twirl in a frenzy of dizzying circles. [It’s the cult that is ancient, not the devotees!]
This seems to throw them into an euphoric trance-like state, while they wait for some heavenly bodies to appear?
That’s just gotta be the cheapest celestial high on the planet?
All obvious levity aside, a well made flying fox is very safe and just the most fun ever!
Cheers, and a safe and fruitful trip.
Alan B. Goulding.
Comment by Alan B. Goulding — July 17, 2013 @ 11:14 am
good ideas, Alan. My cult will be more venal and bacchanalian, which I think is the most common approach.
Comment by Ronda Jambe — July 18, 2013 @ 11:36 am
Yes Ronda, it is the most common approach, and indeed, the most common reason for failure?
Perhaps you should look to the lecherous leprechaun, and the legendary pot of gold under the “rainbow”.
You will need to quite deliberately differentiate and be very selective, if you would grow a venal cult.
One can see you perhaps emulating druid tradition, with (flowers in long hair) civil ceremony and vestal celebration, replete with obligatory drinking horns and lots of finger food?
Comment by Alan B. Goulding — July 23, 2013 @ 12:25 pm