I am sleeping beside a thumper bumper jumper with the unerring capacity to launch him self across the vast plain of a queen-size and nuzzle into me like a mossie honing in on its target.
I am perched on the edge a hot wriggler jiggler biggler wrapped around me. Is this sleep I wonder in the wee hours of the night.
Thru the filmy drapes of the mossie net I watch the night press its self against the windowpanes.
A few nights after full moon the sky is clear and the forest is backlit with shrubs trees and stars standing out in sharp relief.
The tableau appears frozen but the air carries the buzz rustle squeak murmur of creatures meandering thru their activities of living – tawny frogmouth…. possum….. bat…. sugarglider…. rat…. wombat ….bandicoot……owl…
In real time the forest never sleeps – is never still not by night nor day. Always in all sorts of ways life is explored burrows are dug , claws are sharpened , nests are rearranged , food is swooped upon, young are cared for and stories are swapped.
‘Just move him over’ Jess says when I complain about lack of bed room . I pull the covers back and clumsily I admit lift the dreaming weight of a 103cm 3 and a half year-old lad and shove him onto the far side. I fret then about the possibility of him head banging the bedside table so I wedge one of his dogs into position.
I stretch out and tune into the waking sleeping dreams of forest and valley. From far away a fox yips a dog barks a vehicle moves along the main road.
Will sleep claim me now? The heat missile returns in a series of tackles worthy of any AFL player and once again we are skin to skin breath-to-breath.
It is a gift I mutter to my self.
The night winds on, a bat flitters around the room and in the bedroom next door a rat scampers in and races about, John tells me the next morning.
I sleep at some point because I awake and it is morning. there is a louder chorus of activity taking place outside. Lots of pips twitters whips chuckles whistles oodles loodles caws and whoooos.
Wallaby delicately picks up a fallen peach leaf and munches. on the other side of the house another wallaby reaches deep into the dog rose and eats . They are unfussed by the house and its occupants clanging and banging chopping and slamming calling out radio chit chattering.
They eat what they will. And why wouldn’t they?
Wild is their true nature – their true heart and for that we should envy them .
They have not forgotten their way.
Unlike us the interlopers invaders intruders who are lost and fear we have ruined the only good home we have.
It beggars belief that so many realities can exist side by side and still the planet turns on its axis.
Over the mountains and far to the west of this state uranium leaks into water held within the Earth. Chemicals are routinely pumped underground to achieve a dollar a continuance of the stock market and remnant forests are cleared for more coalmines while solar panels line up on roofs.
People protest . I wish I was there with them. I wish you were too. I wish we were all standing straight and strong and saying STOP !!!! enough ..no more… And people are, they are chaining themselves to heavy machinery living outside of their norm in an attempt to make the world a better place.
What world will exist for this wriggler biggler boy?
He needs the wallaby the tree the turtle and the spider . They are our teachers they show us how to live and it is said that when we lose them we lose a part of ourselves.
Perhaps the key is humility and we must find it fast because arrogance has led us astray taking us into quicksand and we are sinking.
Maules creek is calling you. Leach forest is calling you.The Pilliga is calling you.
Mother earth is calling us – come home come home come home …
Let us do it together afterall we have no other home than this one.
There is no time left for that second cuppa no time available for another drink .
the faerie embassy 
Beautiful post. Kingston and I sat and read it together. Kingston did disagree with a couple things, he kept saying “i didn’t do that!” and “i didn’t say that, red dog said that!” btw – i forgot to leave a note that Bec called to pass on love, can you let bonnie know? x x greg and little k
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