Tag: goanna

…inside the joy of another

On By faeriembassy5 Comments

Frankie is
seriously kooky
a character actor
a ragtag fun charged giggle
expert at play .
At four and a half she says
‘when I grow up I want to be a Koala’.
well ‘hallelujah’ I say.
At last, at long last perhaps the tide is turning
and humanity is growing up.

She wants to be a koala not a pop star or a teacher,
not a doctor or engineer, not a pilot banker or farmer .
Among all the influences of her first four years
it is Koala that grabs her attention.
We guess she will grow out of this notion
but what a great aspiration,
what a truth of the relevance importance significance and
worthiness of our Kin.

There is some thing irresistibly sweet about this
that amid the drama acting out
increased weaponisation of space land and sea,
this solid determination to be enemies,
a small child sees another picture.
One in which we share the planet with the koala
in which there is no divisive separation,
no compelling reason not to choose a life among the tree tops;
hanging around in the fork of a branch chewing eucalyptus leaves.

Life is lived in these moments
the moment when we see inside the joy of another
when it comes bursting out and knocks our senses with its purity.

I love that I am witness to the comings goings and doings of the many Beings that have no vote no pension card no shares no credit card.

The gate of our enclosed vege garden was left open and while we were busy with our lunch two goannas ventured in. Fat guts as Greg calls it (featured below) chases the smaller goanna around -trampling the peas broadbeans silver beet carrots cabbages and broccoli- absolute wreckheads round and round lifting their heads up against the wire trying to find the way out. John places a duck egg outside the gate – we sit and watch – eventually fat guts lumbers out and snaffles the egg – no breakage – down in one.

Thank you Rob Parnell who captured this pic last week while he and Glenda were staying with us.

I have to pinch myself sometimes that I have this ringside seat
even when they are in destructor mode ,
even when the fairy wrens drive us bonkers pecking all day at the windows and some unknown ( wallaby or was it possum?) scoffs the carnation seedlings
even in these moments it is a joy to be face to face with indigenous Earth natives.

Here they are going about business of life on earth; so too Frankie – doing what she does best – playing/Being the child and curiously highlighting an uncharted field of possibilities for human aspirations. What a grace to offer to hard wired domesticated grown ups. Somewhere within us- the child the wild the spirit – yearns to explore this sweetness of life unencumbered by the restrictive mores of a society modelled on dubious ideals.

Lead the way young ones- we have much to learn yet.

a seamless dance

On By faeriembassy4 Comments

dawn mist shifts reality

softens tall trees shrubberies,

plants of food and medicine.

autumn rain launches the ticks

no larger then a full stop.

 

sweet morning Songs

whip bird, kookaburra, lyrebird, magpie,

tuning the vibrations of Air Water Earth Sunshine

tweeting of love family and food

tiny notes of living.

 

a red belly black shares verandah Sun

as kindling is chopped,

we pass each other in the garden

no blinking, no poking tongue out,

a seamless dance.

 

a cuppa with friends

David points to my leg ‘what’s that?’

pulling the leech off ,

‘a gift’

I place it in their garden.

 

red necked wallaby soft eyes alert

grass stem poking from its mouth,

my heart listens and waits,

a tiny jelly wobble of the pouch

another addition to the tribe.

 

goanna clambers onto the verandah

tongue waggling toenails clicking,

through the open doorway

crash bump and bang

unable to find its way out.

 

in the room where I sleep a grandmother died

her body laid to rest

beyond the dam under the red gums.

babies are born, daughters wed,

placentas buried.

 

before menopause I bled on this land

red mark on my forehead,

earth heart meditation

a sacrament for the Mother,

honouring Her.

 

forest life is raw,

immediate

the forest IS without me,

a miracle I adore

a moment held within every breath I take .

 

 

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a new moon

On By faeriembassy7 Comments

 

 

 

so much rain again this summer

places an autumn air upon our mornings where mist and her attendants swirl around the hills dancing until after breakfast.

the valley shines emerald

and here in the forest we wrestle leeches off us everytime we step off the verandah.

goannas large and small harass our hens and like to commandeer the one egg we are almost getting every day. we cant buy eggs with a yolk colour like ours even when we source them free range from the neighbours down the road.

our three girls do enjoy a diet rich in wild greens, invertebrates and kitchen scraps and we thank them for adding that richness to our diet.

 

 

my bedroom verandah on the north west corner of the house has become a shortcut for creatures to use such is the wild growth all around us.

why fight your way thru that jungle when you can step onto the boards beside the bank of batteries and meander across exiting down a couple of steps near the paper maiche room?

in the night possums take time out from galloping along our iron roof to shimmy down a pole and muck up outside our bedroom. they have  so enjoyed the grapes this season.

wallaby and wombat make use of it  and if we forget to shut the hens in at night they will make a beeline for our verandah and cackle loudly until one or other of us blearily hunts them off.

early dawn also sees the swamp wallaby sitting on the verandah eating the leaves of the pink salvia.

quite a highway out there – just waiting for one of us to trip over someone when we go out for our nocturnal visits.

a rasping scratching sound on the boards had me looking out the window just now to see goanna has also cottoned on to this pathway.  I think it has fled hassling the hens because John went after it with the rake.

I got up and pulled the door shut so it wouldn’t get any ideas of joining me

perhaps I am mistaken but it does seem as if they are all very interested in what goes on this side of the glass and mudbrick walls. or maybe they are trying to find ways to avoid the leeches and the ticks.

we made a scoot for the kitchen door the other afternoon when Jess saw red belly black snake sidling along behind stanleys stove wood and I managed  to close it closed before it could take a slide  thru the fly screen  and investigate.

on two separate occasions we have had a red belly check out our pantry/kitchen and then there was the rather large  goanna that could not find its way out the door out of our lounge room for simply ages.

suffice to say the forest is in awesome form – wildly chaotic and flourishing pushing fungi thru in any number of places…

dams are full and frogs are plentiful

turtles have had a great breeding season and wallaby babies poke heads out of every pouch.

 

 

indeed this spring/summer has been the season of the baby

and we have been blessed to welcome two new beings into our family

two girls born to two sisters

will they be warriors like me? queries Kingston John who has an obsession with warriors star wars and lego.

he insists on warrior training with his dad carrying shield and wooden sword and both return sporting bruises,

obviously no quarter is given.

of course they will be earth warriors we tell him just like you but right now it is milky breasts and cuddles that they want .

the miracle of new life

of attending to the journey of nurturing a tiny being.

possibly one of the most awesome tasks we ever undertake and yet a career is deemed more valid.

the twenty four /seven sacrifice of parents with a baby lies unseen beneath the text of lives.

all of us have sprung from a womb some of us suckled and some of us were deeply loved .

not really something one thinks about as life takes us on into the next stage and the next and the next 

and then as a grandparent it all gets revisited  

and I observe  the girls doing it differently.

I become  privy to discussions about parenting ( oh how I went ‘wrong’) and learning new terms like ‘co- sleeping’ and ‘supervised tummy time’ and and .. ‘lactation consultants.’

whaaattt…the…

all a bit heady for me.

I am not sure how I did it but I ended up with healthy adult children despite ticking most of the no-no boxes.

 

 

the wee king has started school-

a steiner school with soft curves, grace and gentle harmonics splashed with colours of the rainbow and cubbies in the yard with chooks and veges and songs

rooted in the notion that the child is a spiritual being.

sort of wets my eyes to take him there and reinforces that change is possible when I contemplate my start at the age of five.

sobbing … in a long corridor without end and being yanked  off my mother and shoved  into a classroom where I was scared and nervous for the rest of my school days.

one early memory involves being made to stand in front of the class

– hold out your hand – and then wacked several times with a ruler because I had done the ‘wrong’ page of arithmetic for homework.

I thought I was five but others in the family insist I was six.

oh well thats alright then isn’t it?

and then at ten I was made to sit outside a classroom again that long austere corridor because I refused to take my cardy off when the teacher told me to.

yes always rebellious – never did like to be told what to do.

eventually got carted off to the principals for a chat where by virtue of being a girl I avoided the strap.

And so when goanna and wombat and wallaby like to make my verandah a short cut I secretly applaud them,  I admire their I’ll do it my way style and I absolutely wish for all creatures the right to Be 

 

the right to Be themselves.

 

 

A hollow is not an empty space –

On By faeriembassy10 Comments

 

spring notes

 

Stepping out side at night I hear the thumps and bounds of wallabies as they push away from my presence. In the gloaming they will twitch an ear, pause in chewing and watch me closely as I pick thyme and rosemary in the garden , empty the teapot of its leaves or pick a lemon .

The swamp wallaby is known to be a shy creature and it has taken many years for them to hold still with us around but something about the dark hours sends then scattering in all directions.

‘its only me’ I call out but they have moved deeper into the forest and will wait until I have returned inside to my lit castle. They are full of belly with babies and young ones frolicking  with games played and my herb garden shorn closely to the ground.

 

           Already the goannas have got out of bed after their big long winter sleep – a big fella some 2 metres long clambered up onto the kitchen verandah yesterday having a look around . John yelled out ‘is the door shut ? ’ . It was. We had one in the house one time and it was a devilish task getting it back out. We used one of the dogs bones to wave under its nose which it had pressed up against our glass windows in the living room moving its head back and forth trying to understanding this obstacle. You don’t want to get anywhere near their claws which are several inches of sharpness or their long tail that can whip about very quickly.

           Researchers believe now that goannas do have oral venom glands and so a bite could be a nasty business. The good thing is that so far we are not on their list of prey. They are scavengers eating small mammals birds lizards snakes – they also clean up anything left dead in the forest and  sometimes you may see a goanna on the roadside face buried into a roadkill. Eggs are a favourite which makes them hated by all birds in the forest who have a special goanna call and swoop them repeatedly pecking at their tough ole leathery skin.

           This fella watched John detail the car yesterday from the safety of the trunk of its home tree – an angophora some 15 metres high in which it has a hollow apartment up near the top. Their long claws grasp the trunk and they can literally hang on for ages.They use their long forked tongue to sniff out the air and we have seen them wrestle food bigger than their mouths – apparently their lower jaw unhinges but it looks a bit like they toss their head around over and over until the food goes down. After some time watching  the goanna gave a few harsh hissing sounds at which point John walked over to the trunk and hissed right back.

well that sorted something out I guess.

 

            last night the boo book owl marked the night. Boo book is the call though some hear woo hoo or mo poke and it can make 20 calls in under a minute. Aahh we say the boo book is out and about  tonight and a gladness steals thru our bones. This is one of the smallest owls in this country and its colour ranges  the shades of brown with grey and white markings out of which startled yellow eyes peer. The night is its friend and with powerful silent wing beats it strikes – feasting on rats birds beetles moths spiders frogs bats .Like the goanna it too nests in a hollow high up more often than not in an angophora.

 

 A top bar hive has moved into the garden standing proudly in  front of a grevillea hedge . This year was named as the year of the hive by John and as we approached spring he realised he had to pull his finger out and make it happen. We have had hives here long past when children were small and energy was high – along with chooks geese and guniea pigs -along with pigs goats orchards and vines. Way back in the time of starry eyed plans of sustainable living. Nowadays we plunder the wire netting from the chook yard for other projects – the bee boxes are stacked up in the shed and/or we find other uses for them and the wattles have taken over the orchard.

Aaahhh but we all remember the taste of our honey and the waxy chewing gum.

      This is a more bee friendly hive resembling the Kenyan model -lovingly and painstakingly built by John over many days and weeks- now it is waiting for the swarm that has been ordered.

        Australia has about 1500 native bee species of which 10 are stingless and we do have a little 3-5mm black stingless bee living here. It too enjoys  the hollows of our trees. I am looking to identify how many other species of native bee call this forest home.

 

 Jess sang out – a dead silver eye lay on the verandah with not a mark on it. ‘It must have crashed into the window’ I said as I cradled it gently and reverently in my hands. Funny these hands are old and wrinkled now worn of long use and inlaid with black – dirt that does not wash out anymore. Once I scrubbed and scoured until the realisation came that I am returning to the Earth even as this little bird has done.

      More formally their name is white eye because of a conspicuous circle of white around their pupil. Off setting the white circle is a ring of black against an olive green head and grey to buff underbelly. At only 11 -13mm they are eye catching and delightful flocks in the garden. Their nest is a teeny basket made of grass moss hair and woven with spider web suspended from  a branch  sometimes as high as five metres up. I see the nest when a wind brings it to the ground. They feed on insects berries fruit and nectar especially loving fig season – when the figs are big enough they are able to hop inside them and eat them out.

       I hand the silver eye over to Kingston and he cries as he holds it . The learning of death comes hard to us all and this is a beginning of that journey for him. After a while he spots an empty pot on the steps of the verandah. Whatever plant was in it has long been wallaby eaten and now there is only a ceramic bunny rabbit with a red ribbon around its neck left. Gently he eases it in and calls on the bunny to take care of it until he next comes down to visit.

‘The eagle wont get it ’ he asks all bottom lip quivery and eyes shining tears.

I have looked and it is still there though collapsing further and further ..…

 

belonging means to be rightly placed – in the old English it means ‘at hand , together with’ and I feel like I belong here with silver eye and goanna with wallaby and angophora.

 

to practice belonging I watch I listen I breathe

and I follow

…….