early morning on Dinsdale road – the orange street lights peer thru the cracks in the venetians and bypass the mustard curtains reaching my eyelids. I wake and it is quiet…. briefly … I cannot see the clock face to know the time but no whistles clicks or gurgles of the starlings – must be pre dawn then.

I have the window open as far as it can go which is about 6 inches -this offers me a little fresh damp Waikato air but also carries the noise of busy road traffic loud and strong.

I don’t know what it is but Mum and Dad have always lived on a main road – so convenient Dad says, handy to everything.

my sister lives around the corner in a quiet cul de sac and I am thinking of going and having a sleep over at her place but just for this moment my waking world is soft and silent .

I am in Hamilton New Zealand’s fourth largest city and one of the fastest growing – something like 150,000 people hereabouts. It is the main city of a region known as the Waikato about half a million people strong  and famous for its prime agricultural land.

Wai – water

kato- the pull of the river current into the sea

or flowing water and that is what New Zealand’s longest river the Waikato does for 425 kms . Along the way it supports 8 hydro dams and 19 native species of fish as well as a few ring ins. At least half of this number is endangered and all species are threatened surviving in small declining breeding populations.

Once there was black flounder ( patiki), mullet,members of the bully family (pako), shrimps ( kouraura) and crayfish( koura) lamprey, torrentfish, mudfish .

the river rises out of Lake Taupo and the quality begins well with clarity and effervescence but as it moves along halting in the hydro dams, picking up farm chemicals and sewage, stormwaters the quality slides downhill dramatically. Here as it passes the main street of Hamilton flowing thru the suburbs and under a multitude of bridges it has become a deep sullen turgid darkness with little vitality left to recommend it to fishes or humans.

despite its dark stolid appearance and questionable additives it holds a majestic energy and is sacred to the Maori culture   –   every bend of the river is guarded by a taniwha ( mythical water spirit )and has been recognised in law as an important taonga (treasure ) to the Tainui tribe. They say the spirits of the ancestors mingle in these waters and that the Waikato is the land is the people is the river – there  is no separation.

I admit to a certain fascination with this treasure and any excuse to get out of Dinsdale and cross the river or amble along its banks is fine with me. Along the way I look for sightings of the kaka (parrot) the kereru (pigeon) the korimako (bellbird) and the tui (parson bird and honeyeater). The council has asked to be notified if we see any of these four – because they are ‘key distributors and pollinators of native plants.’ Some of them have been reintroduced and an effort is being made to rehonour the wetlands of this region. I am hopeful but have nothing to report yet except for blackbirds starlings mynahs and thrushes . I wish my birdy mates were here with their binocs and then we might find a bit of action in the skies.

The bellbird is terrific on the dawn chorus apparently and I am a big fan of early morning chorale singing. The tui is also a sweet singer and as a child I liked to stop at Mrs Wells place next door and watch the tui supping from the yellow kowhai flowers.

Dad has put up a starling nesting box next to his bean fence in the front yard . he is good at building things Dad –so far they haven’t taken up the offer but it is there waiting for them. Originally introduced into NZ for insect control they are a noisy bird appearing black  but  in closer reveals iridescent purple and green feathers tipped with white spots. This songbird is very common and a great imitator of birds police sirens and telephones. Their diet ranges –  caterpillars spiders grains nectar and fruit – a sort of whatever is on offer I’ll grab it diet.

Dad tells me that they love pulling letters out of mailboxes which is why he had a steel one made.

I am also keeping an eagle eye out for any hedgehogs -those tiny little prickly folk that were introduced here from England. I can remember putting out saucers of milk for them when we were kids and them wandering around our garden. Sometimes you could ever so gently pick them up ouchy ouchy pricking yourself along the way -them curled up tight  and hold them in the palm of your hand. a little nose then face would peep out and tiny eyes blinking .

Bumblebees are another treasure here that we don’t see at home in Oz – some 5 or 6 species here – they are bzzzing around my sisters garden but here unfortunately Dad ripped out the garden after Mum died. too much work he said much neater now . Lucky Mum isn’t around to see it we say to Dad.

it is late at night now and traffic still hurries along sometimes rattling the windows , a dog barks and peoples voices drift in as they walk the streets.  no night birds in this suburb just the rumble of the fridge  and the click tock of the clocks.

the time of migrants returning is one of the many joys of spring.

storm birds riding the shirt fronts of the big weather systems rolling down from up north.

screeching and cannonballing thru the forest playing mind games with resident ravens magpies and currawongs  – drawing them from their nests so they can deposit an egg .

the channel billed cuckoo (stormbird) true to the form of all cuckoos does not stay around to bring up their young.

best left to another they think.

it doesn’t look the same, sound the same or act the same, but stoically the raven or magpie or currawong will parent the usurper into adulthood.

the dollar birds have turned up in our forest this year -a little mob of maybe eight or ten.

John reminds  me that they didn’t come last year and so far they haven’t told us where they were instead.

goodness what a cackling buzz over our heads -their silvery blue-white discs on the wings flashing and glinting in captured sunlight.

we had stepped outside into the warm early evening air – they were dipping and diving swooping grabbing insects showing off their considerable acrobatic skills . on the menu was  termites swarming after a long hot  day – often a ‘reliable but not always sign’ of rain pending.

sure enough later in the night a loud definitive clap pierced my dream and I bolted awake.

back to sleep with the light then heavy sustenance falling on our roof.

the dollar bird so named because the disc  resembles an American silver dollar coin. well I will have to take ‘their ‘word for it because I have never seen one.

brown of head green-blue teal wings and belly, a bright orange beak they fly down south from New Guinea find a good cubby in a tree bring up their young and depart when the autumn bell tolls.

both the stormbird and the dollar bird are at their southern most range at our place not that they mention our forest specifically in the bird book but I feel a sort of warm fuzzy special pride that their long journey each year stops here.

turtles bask on logs beside the dams .

if the last couple of years is anything to go by soon they will be digging holes in the sandy sections of our track and laying their eggs.

and then we will be putting logs and rocks around the site in an attempt to avoid driving over them.

seems kinda weird how they have taken to the road to lay down their progeny and I wonder if there is a deeper meaning.

like whoa !!! stop !!! do not pass !!!  your car is enemy no 1 – a dysfunctional piece of apparatus advancing the general dismantling of our earths systems.

then again maybe they like the baked heat and the soft silt that has gathered.

the swallows hatched out their four on the equinox as they do every year and are already preparing their mud nest outside the kitchen door for the second batch.

by Christmas this pair will have raised eight young and they do this every year. puts our parenting into some other perspective.

 once they nested in the house and we cohabited – a sort of new take on a group house I thought at the time . apparently as a child John had always fantasized about living inside an aviary so here we were.

they zoomed around we ducked our heads and wiped their poopy business off the couch . we loved it and not even a poop on the table in the middle of lunch caused much of a stir.

my bedroom has four old nests up near the roof and the mud walls are a delightful splatter of guano art.

the children’s bedroom has two nests as well as the white peppershot artwork and though Kingston will never know this time his mother has the story of it within her. in the lounge room there is one.

they have not been in use now for many a year.

how did they come and go you ask?

well for a time there were sections of wall that we took a sledge-hammer to pushing  mud bricks out of the way. we are guilty of this in all of these rooms and then like the dollarbird we would disappear and head north for the winter avoiding the cold that snuck around whatever heavy drape or tarp I had managed to sling up.

just follow the sun and we did until…  oh dear …. school raised its ugly head and children wanted to go.

can you believe it ?

I still have difficulty.

here we were offering a childhood dream -a grand adventure complete with playground embedded in the natural world and they wanted to go sit in a classroom.

well we forgave them as parents do when their children disappoint and they forgave us as children do when their parents are so out of kilter with ‘normal reality’.

 the open spaces got filled in with  glass – windows and doorways.  no longer did the swallows have  access to the house so they settled for the  verandahs instead.

it seems like a good idea to learn from nature – from plants and birds and animals, from rocks and trees and wind, from rivers and mountains and oceans.

it is no surprise to me that just like the swallow and the chough I too nest in a mud home.

and  still  I wonder  why the Earth is not respected as our school and teacher.

 if we hadn’t turned our backs on the Earth,  if we hadn’t put up walls and sat on chairs ignoring her wisdom, if we hadn’t denied our spiritual interconnection to the fabric of existence then would our planetary systems be in the breakdown they are???

but really I should know better than dabble in the what if game…….

“this is how it is “

or “things are as they are”

known as  the practice of equanimity ( upekkha)

and then there is metta (loving kindness )

“may all beings be safe and protected.

may all beings be free of mental and physical suffering.

may all beings  live in the world at ease and in great joy.

compassion ( karuna)

“may you dear  Earth be free of pain”

and to you all of you whoever wherever you be

sympathetic joy (mudita)

“may your happiness and success never end”

in deep gratitude to Mother Earth

Rain      Rain    Rain

we have had two weeks of it,

pouring cats and dogs   bucketing    drumming    lashing    driving    teeming    beating    pelting    showering   drizzling  dripping    splashing  

on and on and on….

yep flooded in so we cancelled the outside world with a big smile and snuggled in ….listening….

making the odd dash outside to the loo or the lemon tree or the herb garden.

watching the ponds fill

the water falling – cascading off the roof spilling over the gutters and splatting puddling soaking and sloshing into the ground.

sometimes a walk along the sodden track between torrents with a spade to assist a gutter here and there.

cloudy misty grey and then a glimmer – the  sun blinking

patches of blue then quick as a flash back to grey black and big fat drops.

thank you we say.

thank you rain.

if you find yourself in the local village or by some fluke in town, everyone is grinning

gumboots and muddy cars.

the rivers are running and paddocks are under water.

this morning over tea and toast John said ‘well we made it thru the night without a shower’ and so we did.

it is backing off now the bureau tells us.

that’s good, we need to dry out a little

allow the track to settle

the clothes on the line to dry

the firewood to stop being so wet.

shovel in hand walking along our track this morning I clear out a few chock a block drains,

over all the track is holding up well.

the forest is saturated

branches still bent with the weight of water

and the air alive with spring time birds singing and gathering, building and chasing.

the dawn chorus has increased in tempo and the frogs have regained their songs and turn to the business of laying eggs.

the daphne has had its run ( oh it was a delight ) and now its little waxy flowers discolour and drop away.

it is the turn of the daffodil and the violets , great splashes of golden yellow and tiny drifts of purple amid the green.

tomorrow in various towns and cities around australia people are marching/ protesting.

what for?  what about ?

http://www.marchaustralia.com/

 what ever you like?

‘perhaps we are never happy’ John says this morning.

perhaps,

but then again perhaps we have been taken too far down the path of no return that our only choice is to march

perhaps our only choice now is to to rise up and walk together

to stand and pray in solidarity

to make another dream come true.

I got an email from Skye

 titled March Saturday Bega Valley,

“Hi friends 

“the time is now .. “

that was it

on point.

‘surrounded by idiots’ I say to Glenda  who is freshly returned from a sojourn around the isle of Tasmania.

the ex- mining towns on the west coast are so sad she tells me.

the land raped plundered destroyed with happy shareholders  living far far away.

what remains – disillusioned  people in an ugly environment.

I cannot quite decide what to place on my banner or whether I will even carry one.

I said to John the only thing I would really like to hold is the rainbow flag

the symbol for me of the unification of the warriors of Mother Earth

the warriors of courage and kindness of hope and peacefulness.

there is so many issues – all with equal weight…

our disgusting shameful treatment of asylum seekers

our continuing expansion of the coal industry, the uranium mines the proposed nuclear waste dumps…

our refusal to acknowledge the impact of Human Doings upon our landscape

cutting down our forests and processing them into little chips and sending them offshore for paper making…

our gross poisoning of our land our food our bodies.

our contempt for organic biodynamic respectful gardening, solar power wind energy

our comittment to follow the warmongering of the US 

our rotten to the core medical system that pimps for the pharmaceutical companies and denies all other healing modalities

our failed education system that programs children into boxed thoughts and denies creative expansive colourful Beingness

our narrow minded religions that speak and act with forked tongues.

our so called leaders stealing truth and lining their pockets.

lets face it …it is not better government I want.

it is better awareness –  a change a shift …another paradigm another agenda.

I want a world of loving kindness

a world of respectful honouring of all Beings including the fly the platypus the fern and the dolphin.

where authority is vested within because we know,  we are mature we are grown up AND  we are capable of being proper people caring learning loving , creatively exploring our spiritual experience on Earth.

there is not A problem

rather there is systemic and entrenched abuse of land and energy

of children women and men, of creatures rivers lakes and forests.

it is justified by economics profits and money.

I will march with the people because enough is enough

because I care

because I want a difference

because together you and I  can make this difference

we can

we are

we will.

P.S.

I reckon I will march for Beauty

for Art

for HeartSong

for Earth

and for Tenderness.

Sun day

Raining – good steady without pause rain.

somewhere else the sun shines this day.

the frogs gave notice a week ago .

Kingston was in residence and I gave him the hose and asked him to fill the pond by the lemon tree.

I had noticed a wallaby the evening before trying to find water below the thick mulch of algae.

‘The wallabies need a drink’ I tell him.

It takes him a long while and he hums a little tune splashing water onto rocks and flicking it over the stinging nettle that is threatening to engulf the pond. We have trouble agreeing on when to turn the hose off and it requires much negotiation of which he is already top of the class.

The bright green mossy matt now perches on top of a base of water.

‘wa wa can drink now’ he tells me proudly.

A day later a frog starts up ‘hear that Kingston the frog is happy there is water back in the pond.’

He runs off to see but it goes silent,quiet stalking is not on his nearly four year old radar.

Next day there is a chorus happening and I say ‘there will be eggs being laid next.’

He checks ‘cant see any yet.’ Another day or two and we hear croaking from the dam down in the orchard.

‘The frogs know something’ I tell Kingston.

‘What?’ he asks.

They just know.

I don’t recall when last it rained, the countryside has been looking very browned off what with dry and heavy frosts .

I visited Carole yesterday and found her up in the yards doing some sort of filling of containers.

She moaned and groaned at me over the fence,’ flu’ she said ‘been flat on my back. My cousin came over with a bag of grapefruit and blahhh everywhere.I said to her what did you come and see me for? it’s no good sandy I can’t afford to be sick – too much to do. and I haven’t got you those bags of manure  yet’ and the tears spill over.

‘ don’t worry about it’ I tell her ‘I have brought you some tights’ and then we chat about the neighbours who are making her life miserable and our friend Cheryl who broke her arm recently.

We are standing smack bang in the middle of her paddocks. I gaze fondly up at the Dumpling which gently rises and then steepens into a knoll some few hundred metres high. A place of so many adventures for us over the years.

Sheep with bells and tails are baa ing about and the creek disappears in a curving line of trees up into the Illawambra valley. This is Caroles landscape her walking tracks her home and she knows every inch of it. You want to talk about UFOs she has seen them here hovering over the Dumpling.

‘Rain is coming’ she tells me as I am leaving, ‘all the signs are here.’

‘goodo’ I wave and turn the car around scattering sheep hens and roosters.

Once there was a brown frog and a white frog that took turns inhabiting her kitchen sink and depending which one was about meant rain or dry.

A pee wee peeee weeee ing from the pines near her house is foretelling rain.

A flock of yellow tailed black cockatoos flying over yelling out spells rain.

When the ants come inside making their journey along the sink and down the cupboards rain is not far away.

And if the springs around the Dumpling start filling up that is a sure sign of lots of rain coming.

And if I am wondering what sort of season it will be I ask for the lambs born ratio – more ewes than fellas means a fertile summer and more guys than girls means a dry time a lean time a drought time.

And over the years well… she has my vote I can tell you that.

Years of observation and learning directly from nature

hard to beat really.

Despite Carole, despite  Barry at the Co-op predicting 200mls and the Bureau of Meterology forecast and despite friends calling in rain I did not get in much-needed kindling.

It was on my list of things to do yesterday I tell John when he comes home from a trip away. Giving the bench full of dishes a glance he says not the only thing on your list that you didn’t get round to.

mmmm it is Sunday and I am practicing a day of rest. Mum always did.

Doing nothing is my mantra this day and the rain is the perfect companion. Drumming loudly on our tin roof I lie on the couch under a snuggy rug unperturbed by dishes or kindling.

A smile creeps over my face from time to time and I wonder if doing nothing is actually a real possibility or am I just having myself on?

yep that is exactly what is happening , having a lend of myself.

once again

which makes me smile even more.

I put on gummies and pick up the brolly and go for a wet walk in the dripping glistening forest.

I love that smell.

Raindrops hang poised on the tips of leaves and tree trunks add other colours to their palate.

I sing – making up a tune about rain and puddles and trees.

Ah ha. That is what I am feeling this day – a surging unstoppable uncontrollable sense of lightness and joy flooding my body my mind my heart and my spirit.

That is what rain can do for a gal give you a deep sense that all is well with the world;

that fertility is assured

that everything is being nourished

that vigilance can be relaxed in this moment

and all I can say is

Thank you

and thank you again.

Friday morning at the park in Bega is the fortnightly South Coast Producers Ass Markets. Elsie with Chloe in harness and I wandered over  to check  it out. We stopped at the SCPA stall, John Champagne our permaculture guru and one of the initiators of this local homegrown chemical free market is sitting relaxed. His deeply tanned face filled with crinkles of outdoor life under a beaten up akubra hat smiled up at me … ‘found your way out of the bush for a big town day.’  our big town of only a few thousand people.

‘yes’  we laugh. Thea working behind a table laden with spring seedlings greens citrus and brochures of this and that wanders over … ‘isn’t it funny… you know it is only just up the road- not so far at all.’

‘Aaaa hhh …  but it is a dimensional shift as well Thea,  it cannot be measured solely in physical distance ( 6o odd kms) – it is more the movement thru dimensions to get here’ I tell her as we hug.  John grins ‘that’s it ‘ he says. Thea tilts her head on the side and studies me as if I am a previously unencountered specimen and replies ‘of course, I hadn’t considered it like that.’

I leave home deep within a forest and travel in a car along a two laned “highway” narrow in places with an occasional passing lane. The speedo ticks over the miles and so much fuel is used. I stay in my lane keep my seatbelt on and do not speed. ( yes I did get a ticket recently ) …..( but it was my first ever.) The countryside of hills and valleys farms blurrrrr  past, sometimes a sharp outline from a fleeting glance  – a cloud a tree or a rock formation or flowering hedge imprints it self.

In town I park between two white lines  pay parking hasn’t arrived yet and leave the car unlocked. I enter the concrete scape of densely packed buildings shops offices advertising and inhale car exhaust perfume and old silage. People busy busy in a lay back south coast kind of way .

Skye comes up to us . We clasp each other warmly tightly lovingly – a friendship of warrior women, a shared spiritual sisterhood of many years and many ceremonies.

‘Tell me’ I demand.’

‘it was great’ she said shading her eyes from the warm august sun over our heads. ‘it was …’

‘Was it hard …doable’ I ask?  hungry not so much for details but the feeling. ‘I have been thinking of you  Bern Peter Jane.’

‘We walked for two days then had a rest day walked two more than rest –like that  so totally doable’ she said.

‘The first two days were the hardest – climbing high rocky dry rugged mountains and the view…  for ever …you can see forever ‘ she said widening her arms ….‘at night sleeping under the stars…   it is expansive   opening  but  in a very grounded way… just being a part of that landscape.’

‘Yes’ I nod. I can feel that.

Skye has just walked a section of the 220km long  Larapinta Trail. She was on a yatra -10 days of silence in Central Australia where the land is vast and red and brown and dry and oasis appear in gorges like a surprise on your birthday.

Elsie and I buy lettuce and mizuna seedlings for her new garden bed that a recent visit from her Dad has produced. She is very excited by this development and we buy the seedlings at my next door neighbours stall.

‘I have four more camels now’ says Christa.

‘ Wow ’  I shake my head and laugh with her.

‘How many do you need?’ asks  Elsie.

‘come over and see them.’

‘I will next time Kingston is visiting.’

wow seven camels…

‘if you want a couple of camels in your bush’ she says…

mmmm what on earth would the wallabies say to that ?

There is a piece of fabric with a couple of ‘working things’ on it -a digger and tractor , a scrap left over from a shirt or quilt belonging to Kingston. I had blue tacked it up at his height on the brick wall of the chimney. Last week when he was here he moved it over a bit and when he left it fell down. I picked it up reworked the dried out blue tac and put it back up.

I noticed and not for the first time green paint splodges on the bricks  as if some little person has had a daub or ten or cleaned their brush along  the wall.  And I thought about the freedom involved in this very small action. Admittedly it is a basic freedom – but even so it surely stands up there with other greater acts of rebellion like permaculture, like growing your food with love and mulch, like practicing loving kindness.

For so many people a home is a piece of real estate where the inside and outside must conform to an idea of ‘niceness’ a societal value .The walls cannot be marked by the brush or the pen or nail or staple gun. Following trends and brochures taking out second mortgages and maxing out the credit card to re do re paint re carpet modernise make bigger get new. Surrounded by  gardens that showcase  pebbles straight lines and tricky plants. Inside there are  cupboards of cleaning agents and the television is the main focus of family life.

here I am with  mud walls mud floor –  mud associated with  dirt and disgust. Always dirt beneath my nails. Walls painted oddly haphazardly or not at all. Secondhand living quirky and eccentric.A well lived worn  house indeed , everyone who has ever been here has left their mark in some form or another.

I am telling Thea this story – of this basic freedom of living within a canvas in which we the family are the living artists.

‘I am so blessed to be able to live this way.’

‘We are indeed’ she replies.

what a freedom what a radical call to arms.

subversion dissent revolution civil disobedience all have their honourable place within the human  story. And yet oppression still squats heavily upon us choking spontaneity creativity and the zest for wild unpredictable behaviour.

I take up my arms my fingers my body. I embrace my heart and remove their tacky claws from my skin. I switch off their voices on the radio and leave the papers in the newsagent.

When a plate breaks it is a good thing because another if needed can be acquired from the op shop .

how subversive how defiant to the consume get rich have more world.

a basic freedom  a small action and yet it is these small things that garner a change  that grow our community in cultural richness – that bring forth creative solutions and engender  feelings of deep connection.

There is time in our days to be present not with a future self but with now  with the moment.

This morning in Cobargo Saturday market day a  gentleman sitting in a car called us over and asked about the Women’s Refuge. It is a long story but after 20 years it closed in July. It got “forgotten about “ in the last state budget and ahem we do live in a country with a strong denial of domestic violence.

In a sleight of hand it has been given to Mission Australia a religious organisation with no background in women’s services  to run as a  refuge/ homeless shelter. ?????    They are renovating it and their staff admit to zilch training in domestic  violence issues . He said he has a woman camping near his place with nowhere to go . What could she do?

A  couple of my friends introduce themselves to her one of them the coordinator of our Bega Women’s Resource Centre with her pulse firmly on the ground in women’s services in our area. On ringing for assistance the woman had been told  that the nearest refuge for her in this moment is Darwin several thousand kms away.

The circle has returned and  grass-roots appears to be the answer , once again.Over coffee we notice a sign on a community  noticeboard for a caravan at  a friend’s place in return for a days work and it will be suggested to this woman.  Her face wearing the marks of abuse looks hopeful and  she is grateful that  women stop and care about her in the street. We hope the community can hold her together in some way until she finds her independent feet.

small actions basic freedoms – not to be shortchanged .