winter solstice

‘Never believe that a few caring people can’t change the world. For, indeed, that’s all who ever have. ” Margaret Mead cultural anthropologist 1901 -1978

We retire stuff all the time, shoes, cars, bicycles, kitchen appliances, homes, pets, jobs, friends, families, marriages, phones, conversations and stories. Some times because they are broken and fragile and sometimes because our needs change.

All the time we are in the process of discarding and adding.

Willingly and unwillingly over the course of my life time I have had occasion to abandon all of the above and some, with the response varying between suffering and hurt to great relief.

Along the way the lessons placed in front of me served as the driver to let go of held beliefs propelling me into a deep inquiry of who what how where I am????]

Have you ever challenged your local council over garbage collection or public toilets, street lighting or medical centres, written letters to the editor, politicians, joined rallies, marched in the streets, protested outside parliament, taken part in strike action, signed petitions, filed submissions over any number of issues.

Quietly and hopefully we have participated in this idea of democracy with the held idea that the powers that be will listen and change course. And admittedly there have been occasions in history where this has been validated.

Injustice remains embedded as we in this country cast our votes within an adversarial system rooted in debate and discord. Fear spirals, suspicion reigns, conflict spills over and people/creatures/ Earth systems are suffering. The government /business model has power, money and measures in place to keep the people in checkmate.

Perhaps we are being asked to do less rather then more, perhaps it is time to disappear within our Selves and discover the truth of Being.

Perhaps we could turn off the news cycle, unplug the device, spin around and look in the street, the park, the neighbours yard, the sky.

We could engage in the inner world courting our creative heart , encouraging family, community, making happy times, acting creatively, meditating, gardening cooking and eating together. Check out the waterfalls, rugged headlands and dangle feet in sweet rollocking rivers singing of love and gratitude. Seek out the stories of people making the world a better place.

Gather with community, make a dream come true ,a skate park, gardens of food, regenerate the banks of a creek or paint murals in dreary grey places.

Grass roots activism is a valid and powerful reply to a world we find disturbing. It is radical, subversive, creative and begins when we quit looking for answers from government.

Abandon conflict and fear by not looking for an enemy.

Renounce hopelessness and despair by connecting and building loving relationships.

Stop complaining .

Abandoning the estate can create a space in which we look around, take notice and allow deep appreciation to dominate our thoughts. A crow sitting on the wire, a bee disappears inside a flower, a tree waves, a cloud looks like a whale, a tiny mushroom pokes up on the side of the pavement, a smile beams across the counter at you.

Make this the real narrative – immersing fully intentionally completely in nature and there we will learn how to be here, how to live, how to love, how to hope and how to give.

Letting the old story go awakens something dormant within allowing a vital energy to bubble forth, a deep sense of kinship reignited in which the love of life, of earth of each other , in which the whole crazy zany quirky rumbling tumbling leaping dancing skittering twittering of Life Being Lived is felt.

Will this change the world? It changed mine, it is transforming mine, it can transform our past and our future.

It is warm and funny on the other side of the estate, peaceful and creative, timeless and welcome, inclusive and encouraging. Only a breath away to your inner Being, where we find our Selves at Home.

As simple as that. Yes and No.

It does require sacrifice, courage and resilience.

Honestly what else have you got going on today that is more important then coming in tune with Your Spirit, planet Earth, and the Heart of the Universe.

Abandon the estate and sing yourSelf back into existence.

happy solstice dear mother Earth and all her Beings .

how short our days

and doubly so here in the forest as year by year

the trees grow taller wider and claim ever more of our winter sun.

yet already we are at the turn

the Sun having gone as far down as it can possibly go has STOPPED

is having a bit of a think about its journey considering its passage and the general state of affairs

and then later on in the weekend will take off again upwards

climbing back up thru the sky little by little a minute here and there.

and so we too reflect this year past

it hasn’t been so bad says John this morning over a cuppa on a sunny east verandah.

the garden takes my attention neatly snipped al la wallaby style.

what is a bad year anyway I ponder?

a state of mind

a grief without end

a manner of speaking.

this year has had its share of ups and downs

if anything the truth of the “we are at sea and no one is steering the boat away from the reef “ is striking home…

our captain grins vacuously down a deep fracking well cuts the ribbon of expansion on new coal mines and

makes it his plan to remove precious wild diversity places from protection.

I wake early and look around

some vague level of lightness.

the moon is waning so this could be moon light

I listen for that first scuffle tweet twitter or rustle.

they are still sleeping

it is winter they say

no need to hurry to be sooooooo busy

time for another dream another snooze .

oh whatever I say and climb out of bed.

two feet hit the floor simultaneously

someone told me it promoted balance as opposed to one foot then the other.

taking my torch I wander out of the chill bedroom

past the hanging curtain that closes off cold from the loungeroom

the room feels warm and nymphy is still going.

I praise her service add a few more bits of wood and leave the door open.

a short while later I hear the satisfying sound of fire launching into activity.

thank you forest and thank you trees that die that I may claim your wood to warm my body and nourish my soul.

I leave closed the heavy drapes that are keeping at bay the cold lurking in the glasshouse

and pad into the kitchen to light Stanley.

out on the verandah gathering sticks I pause …. a nose twitch a smell of the new day ….an ear cocked…… listening…

there is Venus in the east and I sing out good morning

and while there I shout out hello to Forest and Dawn Sky.

kettles on I bask in the beginning time

keeping my awareness tuned to the way the light increases

changing from opaque white grey and vague into shaper more defined….

detail emerges and songs are tweeted from every branch.

back in the bedroom John lies still watching a black swamp wallaby on the verandah eating the pink salvias

pulling the slender stems close and nibbling a leaf and another oh a pink flower delicious

eating slowly swiveling its head to check out its domain

I enter and absorb the scene.

I wondered why I hadn’t pruned that bush back this year.

wonder no more.

more and more the wallabies are enjoying verandah space

do they want to come inside ???

is this the direction of our /my evolution ???

today I picked every orange

I could reach off our tree

possums are munching happily each night safe in the knowing that I will not venture out

and chase them with my witches broom.

brr ing brr ing

hello

hello Grandma its Kingston John

the sweet little sing song voice slides directly into the chambers of my heart and sends pure joy racing along neuron pathways.

hello Kingston John I say

hello he says

we kinda softly murmur together then

it is like an over the phone hug – as if if we are touching as if our heads are tipped into each other and

we are breathing deeply of this well of love.

once we get that out of the way we get into the business off having a chat.

I tell him about wa wa (wallaby ) he tells me about red dog.

I tell him granddad has hooked up our new (second hand ) deep cycle solar batteries

added in our new regulator that will tell us everything we need to know about our system

once we figure out how to use it

and he tells me that they are cleaning up but cleaning is boring

and he would much rather play with his toot toots.

I wish Tony would take the Stetson that Texas gave him exit stage left and play toot toots but seriously he isn’t even the problem despite all his brave talk.

I joined a group of people on a beach a few days ago for a meditation and they were really keen on putting tony in the middle of our circle and showering him with love and light.