...sometimes I want to run away.

I yearn for the pixies who discuss issues, not people. Who care about environmental sustainablilty, not getting the best deal.

The more I understand, sometimes I realise that there is much being said that I dont particularly care to understand.

"Just join in, speak!" They say. But I dont know anything about trucks, or cars, or machinery. And I think the meal that she lovingly prepared was wonderful, not missing salt or prepared incorrectly. Why must these things be spoken of? They do not interest me, I do not care to "join in".

Where are the gentle people of the world, the quiet people. People with their priorities a little flexibile. People with open minds, deeply rooted hearts and wings of courage?

sometimes I'm not certain of who I am, and sometimes it is astoundingly clear that I am not this - this place, of these people.

And time ticks by, and Im still here.

And I cant help but wonder why.

Fuck Im lonely.

a tantrum

I ... DONT ... WANT ... TO DO THIS!!!!

I dont want to.

It's too much. What the f***?!?! I dont even know HOW to do this and everyone's expecting me to! Its utter bulls***! I can't handle it! I cant do it! Im not smart enough! I dont have the experience or the training or the knowledge! I'm not OLD enough! NO! Wait! I'm TOO OLD! I'm too isolated! I don't know enough! I just can't! I can't! I can't I CAN'T!!!!!! What the F***!?!?!?! I CANT!!! I just CAAAANT! You cant make me!

I know. I cant make you. Just do it anyway.


... alright.

Hey you,

Well here we are. You're 30 years old today. We've known eachother for amost 9 years.

Happy freakin' B day babe. I wish soooo much I was there to give you a big hug and share a meal.

But first, here is a prezzie for you:

Sometimes, you tell me that I "made" you the person you are today (or something like that).
Ive been thinking about that a lot lately.
The times that we had back then, the essences, the dreams, the music, the love making and passionate romance
between us, within us, around us...

I need you to understand....
YOU need you to understand...

that YOU did it all.

You brought me into your life by the law of attraction.
The universe listened to your heart.
It saw your soul and saw what it was asking for, just as my soul saw you.
It saw the future, all our interactions and, like a recipe, ordered the ingredients...
and I was just one of them.

The rest were inside of you.

We heard each other
and reached out for each other
through the time and space
we danced and flirted in.

Like we were ready and waiting for eachother - hands open and arms outstretched, we landed in eachother's palms...
And the universe celebrated.

You breathed it all in -
Chester's words,
me telling you what I learned at school,
the essences,
the dreams,
the dizzy sensations,
the smell of lillies.

YOU took them into your heart willingly,
YOU invited them into your life experience
and held them in your reality
because YOU wanted to.
YOU felt it was right,
YOU trusted and
YOU had the courage
to come to understand YOU.

You made them real.
You made it all real.

...and I was there. I am SO lucky to have been there.
I am absolutely blessed to have been there.
To have witnessed and been a part of our coming into our knowledge of our reality,
of eachother.
Of ourselves.

We grew and stretched,
yawned and laughed
and rubbed our eyes
opening to a new universal language.
We danced and grooved and dreamt together.
We explored consciousness without consciously doing so.
Further and further we ed eachother down the rabbit hole.
Happily, with joy and love in our hearts.

And then, years later, while we tested our wings
we drew swords and cut eachother deep scars
feirce angels at battle
swords drawn
poised, slowly circling
boots high, wings outstretched
fighting for higher purpose
so that we may never forget
we challenged and destroyed eachother
as we scraped and made our way out of that rabbit hole

we bled we fought
and fucked and talked
and scabbed and healed
again and again
and pushed away

Please understand that it was a universal sincronicity.
It wasnt me.
and its time for my ego, the part of me thats enjoyed to ponder that perhaps it was me...
Its time to let this false claim of responsibility go.

We were there together,
it was YOU that made me certain that we were learning Truth,
it was YOUR confidence in me, in us, that gave us the strength to support eachother while we shed your skins...
you revealed everything to me, until your soul was stripped bare.
And I am honored and blessed to have witnessed you then,
and I am honored and blessed to still be a small part for your life...
almost nine years later.

Im not the only one with wings.
But you already knew that didnt you?

Happy Birthday Xtian. Many more to come.
Life only gets better.

pants
x

lay lines

I am a flexibly firm believer in place. The sense of place, how place defines us, how we define our place - how and when. How, when we're not watching, things happen within our space whith or without us noticing. But if we didnt notice, did it even happen? One hand clapping and all that.

Seriously though. If the Gaia-Earth is a giant organism that respires the hydrogen winds from the sun, sweats and perspires rain, shifts, moves grows and peels, with its rivers of aqua-blood and its tree alveoli... then surely the salts and crystal beneath the earths surface, the ley-lines of energy that wrap around and through it soily skin - these must be the things of meridians which we (as cumbersome and highly skilled as we are) are only just now beiginning to come to grasp with as being a scientific reality in the human body.

Metals, minerals, as do all things, hold a vibration determined by their chemical structure - ie the number of protons, neutrons and electrons they have. They have a signature, an energetic musical note, a name, a frequency, a personality. Millions of tons of these minerals in swirly strands and patterns through our earths crust make the lines of energy which could be likened to the meridian paths within the human body.

If we live on this land, dig through this soil removing precious minerals, metals and salts of countless types... what are we doing to her lay-lines? Her energy skeleton? Her vibrational well being?

And what of water? Water is special. It's molecules have the ability to capture and hold the energetic fingerprint of whatever they rub themselves against. For instance, the more the water molecules rub against a salt crystal (NCl)with its own particular signature, the stronger the imprint of this signature is within the water.

This is the basis of Homeopathic medicine and the foundation of many, many studies (remember the japanese guy?). so, I got to thinking... if each of us has a shower, every day in water that falls or is pushed against us, then, what is the likelihood of some of that water actually having captured part of our own molecular vibration r at least that of the cells it came into contact with? Would it take the vibration of the skin or hair that it touched? Or the personality? Or the emotional state of the human it moved against? And if this is so, is all the water we put down our drains imprinted with our energietic state? Is the waste we create ending up a massive pool of combined energetic human-ness?

Salt is the answer. It is only when the water hits the ocean that it is truely cleansed of its energetic memory. as are we.

How i miss the ocean...

the sweetness of friendship

There is a sweetness of friendship that comes with a deep marinating over time and space. When the temperature is right and the goodness is allowed to simmer, the richness of the flavour comes through and cuddles you like a nourishing, deeply nutritious soup of love, forgiveness, excitement and trust. Its delicious.

Other times it's just plain excrutiating.

the package

I knew he was coming. The little man, thin as a twig, with his feathered red cap and pointy shoes. I trusted he would come but when he crept to my door, pulled it from the pocket in his velvet cloak and slipped it through the crack between the door's weathered frame and the mezanine, I hadn't been fully prepared.

The package itself was flat and carefully prepared, as I had expected it would be. I noticed it immediately - it almost called to me the morning it arrived and its silver stitching glistened in the pink dawnlight. I plucked it from its place, it born of my preconceptions, laced with the kind of anticipation that only comes from simply not knowing.

The fine web, stiching the lips of the envelope together fell, away in my hand - the package was meant for me and the strands which fell on my hands and knees gained a reddish tinge, warmed and then burned, creating strange whips of rose coloured smoke. And I cringed as they burned where they fell, wondering now if I really wanted to hear what this package had to say...

But I had signed the contract, I had seen the future in quiet moments. This was my doing - I had planned it all! Panic rising in my throat as I watched the giant
mouth of the envelope begin to quiver and part. Panic in my jaw, clenching my teeth which tremble for fear of being crushed to dust. Strange sadness in my brow, a child in a fearful tantrum. Tightness in my solar plexus, where my sun shines from, as the clouds move to hide my confidence, my selfness, my strength. Fear in my spine, the coldness infecting my kidneys. My strength is gone, what is left is false.

My eyes widen as the envelope gapes its wide mouth open.

And I sit, with my disbelief. That the package was empty after all. The package itself was the gift, of knowing, of unknowing, of feeling fear and finding the courage, of trusting, of letting go. Of being, allowing and releasing. Remembering to breathe. Remembering to take the board and hit the surf when the swell is up. To understand that there was no clause in the contract that stated that to tie into this chaos is compulsory. Fear is just another word for excitement.

Just remember to have FUN.

Dissolution

So Im not the only one. I get it. But always attributed the dissolution of my family to the series of deaths that occurred - my grandfather and then, suddenly and unexpectedly, the death of my brother and then my Grandmother in the same year. Without the hieracical portion of my family, the family seemed to fall away, like the branches of the trees without the trunk.

Ive lloked at these things with precision. Ive prodded and poked from my side of the magnifying glass. Ive spent thousands of dollars on therapy and hours on analysis and pondeerment. It was a natural assumption - that all that death would take its toll on what was otherwise a pleasant and casual comradery. Death was easy to blame

Years of therapy have taught me that the sudden and unexpected death of a sibling causes tsunami of emotions, a few extra wrinkles and grey hairs.

Big ideas

I have big ideas. Always have.

In year 6, when I was 10 years old, I got it into my head to design a machine which recycled paper - in one end, out the other ready to go. It was ambitious but important to me as I was coming to terms (as the rest of the world seemed to be) with the in the environmental demise of the planet and man's role in it.

It looked a lot like a big photocopier but had odd handles, leavers and a funnel for adding the water necessary to make the pulp. My 10 year old mind obviously had considered the dangers of mixing water with electricity, so the whole thing was designed to be manual. It was more environmentally friendly that way anyway.

Eventually, in the blueprint, the machine got so big and un-doable that the drafts fell by the wayside to create the beginning of the "ah - thats never going to happen" pile of big ideas.

Vege patches, perfumery, countless cubby houses even a social action envirnomentalist group called "the greenies" I put together with teacher approval but without their support, again when I was merely 10.

With great gusto and optimism, my imagination would create worlds within worlds of what I saw "should be" but without the advantage of being able to create mature or well thought out ideas in the planning and development stage. Without information, experience, eductaion or support, my gigantic 10 year old dreams floundered and eventually the gusto fizzled, withered and mutated into "dont bother - its not going to happen."

And it still creeps into my life today - the "dont bother" attitude. It sits on my shoulder and says its piece now and again, fueling my aleady inflated sence of self doubt. But Im learning to keep it in its place.

And then it mutated. When the environmental group withered and died (not after planting some trees and starting a can recycling deposit) I decided that what I thought actually didnt matter so much. that trying to save the planet on my own just simply wasnt going to happen (ie dont bother etc etc etc)... and what I had to say on the subject isnt going to make a difference...

But, you know... I am remembering n this moment that I did speak up. I attended environmentalist group meetings at the highschool, went on camps to learn about permaculture and sustainability, planted trees, studied Biology... but then what happened? Puberty? Boys? Music?

TBC

...

I wish I could be someone else,
my shadow, my scar reminds me...

A sequence of sounds that
have no meaning
the words dont fit
and tell me nothing
all but that there was something else
there
once.

A picture, a photo
surely some other sized shoe,
fragments of rememberances,
I was like that - really?
A faint scent of something familiar
old sock drawer, mother's perfume,
strawberry scented school erasers
sweaty smell of the roller rink,
bruises and bitches,
little girl britches.

Fingerprints of my past
my memory an empty vase
now marked in chinks and flaws
but empty none the less.
an empty castle of locked doors.

My knowing calls like an old friend
12 missed messages
when will we catch up again?
I look for you in the sun lit field,
by the lake, by the water wheel.
Where are you old once-was-me?
we need a re-membering
and comforting against life's winds.

my hands age the fastest
my neck line too
days pass too quickly
and Ive still so much to do
but the re-membering is vital
to the youth of my heart and soul
to know thyself is thy power
and wisdom when I grow old.

Be Drunken

Be Drunken, always.

That is the point; nothing else matters.

If you would not feel the horrible burden of time weigh you down and crush you to the earth, be drunken continually. Drunken with what? With wine, with poetry or with virtue, as you please.

But be drunken. And if sometimes, on the steps of a palace, or on the green grass in a ditch, or in the dreary solitude of your own room, you should awaken and find the drunkenness half or entirely gone, ask of the wind, of the wave, of the star, of the bird, of the clock, of all that flies, of all that speaks, ask what hour it is; and wind, wave, star, bird, or clock will answer you: "It is the hour to be drunken!"

Be Drunken, if you would not be the martyred slaves of time; be drunken continually! With wine, with poetry or with virtue, as you please...

-Charles Baudelaire

La Zia and the case of the Giant Crap

Im sure its normal. Im sure it happens to everyone.

But today, it happened to me and that makes a biiiig difference.

I always get really nervous when Im babysitting, especially when its the daughter or son of someone I know. It seems that as you get older, people just assume that with an increase in maternity desire and waist girth comes this natural instinct, like all of a sudden you're a walking How To on child raising. You're old enough, you must know.

Well I don't and getting nervous just makes me feel ignorant and somewhat adolescent. Im not the girl next door, or down the road. You're not paying me to deal with tantrums, vomit and poop. And I didn't have to deal with any of that anyway. Oh, except the vomit - but that's another story.

Wiping another person's butt is bound to take some getting used to. Yes I know she's only two, but still... Fathers and Mothers in chorus now: "How can something so small produce so much sh*t?". Holy cow. As far as percentage of body weight goes - it is very impressive.

Andrea's niece is two. She's being toilet trained. This afternoon she was left in the hands of "the capable but somewhat terrified aunt" and "bis-nonno" her 86 year old great-grandfather. So when I saw her little brown friends pushing out of the sides of her new Hello Kitty knickers I knew it was going to be baptism by fire.

My first thought was "How the hell do you say 'Have you done a poo' in Italian?", but no time for that and what came out was "ahhhhhhhh crap!". I lifted her to her feet and she screamed so I let her walk to the toilet, following behind to watch for Hansel and Gretel style droppings. Got there without a trace. Phew!

Dacks to the floor and lift her to the seat. Mistake. In my panic I didnt notice that one side of her poop filled Hello Kitty knickers is still attached to her Hello Kitty sandals and before I can say anything, she's given her foot an almighty flick sending poop around the bathroom and on the back of her legs.

Fighting the urge to duck and cover, I plop her back down and look at her in astonishment. What the hell do I do now? She looks at me with those grey eyes and beams an intergalactic grin, pointing to the toilet paper. "Thats a bloody good idea" I think and grab a handful dabbing the walls. But as I do, she screams. I scoop up what I can and go to dispose of the ikkies in the loo, but that would mean lifting her. She's volatile - I know that much.

Ok. Im stressed out by this stage. I do something dumb. I give her the loaded paper and illustrate by mimic what to do with it: "Down there! Down there! I say". But no - the little sh*t, with sh*t in hand unravels the paper in one fell swoop, flicking it around the room again. Ive had enough. I grab it from her, do a quick clean and shove it down the loo. She screams - full tantrum this time pissing into the bottom of her unpinned jumpsuit. I pick her up by the armpits and we're face to face. She stops crying and points at my tattoo below my armpit. She stops wailing.

Eureka - DISTRACTION. She says sweetly "what is that?" in Italian. Somehow I understand it and answer "E una stampa" which means "it's a copy". Not correct but its the best I can do. Something kicks in. "Let's flush the toilet. You do it! Vai! vai!", "Come on! Let's wash your hands! Brava! Brava!". And while she's bent over the bidet (which works quite nicely as a child's basin, when the adults aren't using it), La Zia goes to work on her back end... and the backs of her legs... and the bits missed on the floor and walls.

Looking back in control now, Nonna arrives. "She's all yours Nonna" but she is now content - pantless, soggy and half a kilo lighter, playing with soap and chatting with herself quietly.

And there's no way in hell I'm going to try stopping her.

F
x

Ani Difranco - Coming Up

the slide...

Ubud 22nd March

I feel like a five year old standing at the top of a giant, enclosed and curly water slide out of some kids super water playground.

Clinging to the bars, watching the bigger, more experienced kids throw themselves into the unknown - its mesmerizing and terrifying. You know there will be moments where you slide too high and land on your ass, you know there will be dips and turns, you know you don't know whats coming - whats around the next bend.

But you know that if you don't just leap, you will never know what happens and where you end up. And by the time you're half way down you'll probably get the hang of not knowing and just go with the ride. Let go of control, of expectation and live moment to moment - and try not to choke on the water or come out bleeding.

I am still coming around the first bend, a few emotional bumps and scratches but holding on for the calm to come. Winding down, winding down. I didn't realise I was so tense!

And let's face it, there's no better place to be than where I am, right ...now.

Act

I used to refuse to list myself, to label and identify - so that you may "know me" as 'that'.

I shunned the thought that the nature of 'self' came from labels - job/career, education level and institution, family position, hobby.

It's much like those certain types who might say "Oooooh you're a Capricorn - well THAT explains EVEYTHING" - and you just want to punch them in the ear.

But what I have come to see is that, who I am is more about what I do than anything.

The action itself, the performance of the action by the human body and the nature with which it is done... THAT is what defines me. And therefore, I am defined and redefined in every moment.

The exchange of energy from universal to mental to physical to kinetic - transferrable between nonmaterial and material things. Action and reaction. Universal energy in the material world with our minds and bodies as conduit. What an incredible thought.

Intention without action is a wasted energy and words without action are merely words. A most powerful love can come from the committment to build a house, or to work 12 hour days to pay for education - perhaps THIS is where the substance is? Perhaps THIS is stronger than any poem or promise or doing the dishes now and again.

So is the action of love is greater than the word? The intention is perhaps eveything. Action is vital. It seems to me that to create the intention, state your word, follow your word and take your word into action with intention as the fire to drive - this is something powerful.

Words are addictive. To hear the love song that sends your heart a flutter. To hear the passionate utterances of lust - these are all the cake of meaning. Sweet to taste but will rot your teeth in the end. Dealings with my own addictions, but it seems I have strong teachers who live in action, who know that love is action.

I am sorry for every broken promise. For every vocalised intention which was never acted upon and was left floating in that almighty bog of uncertainty. I am grateful to be learning to see that the intention behind every action, is love. And I will endeavour to live my life, loving through action instead of words. That is who I want to know myself as - a woman of my word and loving intention.

And who I am seeing, is a wordsmith who can bedazzle but finds it difficult to act.

Lucky I have time.

How To Be Alone - Tanya Davis

That Soft Place

In the cleft of skin at the back of her neck,
the old woman tucked her finger where it was warm and soft.
Pensive, she thought, the box of tools and
rules of life are found inside a single shell,
on the shelf in an empty apartment somewhere else.
Tearful and fearful fat drops of dreary dreams
tumbled and rumbled down the kitchen glass mostly empty,
as she sat frightfully alone in amidst the hustle and bustle
of ancient and fierce family love.

Without a thought the chair it sank
and the britches of greying lace from the lady's skirt lift her
upward and floating high she could smell the ocean in her mind and
breathe the scent of mouldy damp forest undergrowth.
But the language pulled her back and with a thud she fell and
at once felt again ancient.
The frond and strands of confusion and frustration
tangling around her weary heart and fretting her mind
within its cranial cage.

"How do I get out of this mess?"
Again to find the soft fold beneath the line of her braided hair.
It is subtle, like suckling a nipple or being rocked
into the endless sleep she craved.
Her lips, mounds of flesh and rippled blood,
not parted for such a time as they begin to meld and
fold into one another.
"Will I ever speak again?"

Like blocking the exhaust to a fierce fire inside,
but now, without the air to breathe the fire dwindles
inside her and she fades.
Her colours are dim, the face she knew, pallid and drawn.
Storing emotion in pockets of fat and flesh
where no one sees, but everyone notices.

And thus, she waits and smokes
and prays to an angry god, her god, her self and
watches the clock tick its second hand away.
Life shouldnt be this way.

Why?

Why cant I seem to find any blogs that arent about babies or God? Maybe that sums it up - keep breeding and thinking someone else is going to take care of it and clean up the mess... Like its all in "the big plan". God help us... indeed.

The Dragonfly

The dragonfly on the bedroom ceiling
prefers the moist damp corner of the room
where the paint is splitting
and the mould
has stained
the corner
black.

Its 2am and Im lying, sleepless
in the bed I share
with my man,
watching the
insect
in the lamplight.

It rests there for a time
before trying desperately
to force itself through
the plaster,
bouncing off
the ceiling
again and again

and I wonder how those wings dont just crack and break.

And it occurs to me that this
beautiful and fragile insect
and I are not much
different from
one another.

Both flying aimlessly around a grand space,
segregated from what we feel is natural,
trapped but with too much space,
yearning for a window
or a safe place to land.
Getting tired.
Feeling alone.

And he sleeps.
No matter how I flutter,
how I curse,
how I struggle,
how I request or ask or guide.
He sleeps, deep in his dreamy oblivion.

Now, if he were awake,
he would mistakenly
swat me Im sure.
Im just a bug,
and he needs his sleep.

I wonder if he can see them,
My wings I mean.
I wonder if he knows that
the light
caught at the right angle
makes them shimmer
with all the colours
of creation.

I wonder if he
can hear the hum,
of me.

Ani Difranco, Red Letter Year, The Atom

sunflower fields

Its sunflower season.
Most of the fields are turning from gold to brown after the wheat harvest and soon it will all be brown and dry.
There are fields of soy still maturing which are a dark cooling green.
This patchwork landscape is changing quickly.
Im looking forward to Autumn and the oranges and reds.
We'll see.

Thank you

Written to an American Academic I have been reading about... and yes, he wrote back. :)

Hey.

I know you dont know me, but I just wanted to say thanks. Wait, dont reach for the delete button just yet. Im not sure if you will agree or relate. If not, just let the words move over you. But you, sir, have inspired me and I was in the mood to let you know.

I've had a look at what you've been doing in the areas of architecture and urban development, or, at least what media allows someone like me to see. And I want to say thanks.

Thank you for searching outside the room, for stretching and grinding your soul against the side of mental containment and seemingly breaking through. Thank you for taking time to find inspiration and move past bearers of intentional idiocy and innocent small mindedness.

Thank you for finding the gold and, with pockets seemingly full, digging some more. Past the desolate dryness and the stony uncertainty. Searching, searching. never satisfied. Thank you for your solitude and enduring, at times, what might have appeared to be cold isolation.

Thank you for seeing the big picture and taking your intellect on the journey toward innovation for, not against, the people of the future. Thank you for keeping in mind the absolute necessity of the health of this planet when so many people have surrendered hope and bedded down with resignation.

You're one of those people about whom I say "when I grow up, I want to be like you". (Un)fortunately, I have grown up and while options and scope are perhaps more limited, I still take inspiration from you and what you and your living creations, called businesses, have achieved. Now I say "When I grow up, I want to live in a living house. A house of trees and plants."

We humans give it to each other everyday. It spreads better than butter. Sometimes we beat ourselves with it, other times let it roll over our tongues like sugar barley candy. Inspiration.

So, thank you for inspiring me and, unbeknownst, countless others. Keep it up.

Fiona

A fresh beginning

The following blogs were created prior to April 2009.
It was a delicious juicy summer, full of realisations and gentle understandings.
Take it as you will, but dont be offended by the language.
It can get a little naughty at times. ;)
The first 3 that you will see are a short story about my experience when my brother passed away in 2003. Following those are a selection of poems.
So there's a little of everything here.
I hope you enjoy...