Monthly Archives: June 2014

Adventures

The big question is whether you are going to be able to say a hearty yes to your adventure.
Joseph Campbell
Do you look forward to your next adventure with excitement or trepidation?
I rather like the beginnings of new adventures …most probably because I’ve been adventuring for most of my life.
As a young child, I spent my early years in Malaya, as it was called then, celebrated my 3rd birthday in Bombay and arrived in England only to feel quite out of place.
We stayed for a short period of time in an old castle that had been converted to apartments and my mother, who was of Scottish descent (and had the “second sight”) told me of times when I could be found chatting to imaginary friends in my bedroom.
After my younger brother was born, I frequently holidayed with my grandparents who lived in a 17th Century manor house in Kent. The adventures there included sitting on Grandfather’s tiger skin rug, always wary of those big sharp teeth and listening to Granny playing Debussy on her baby grand piano and getting up to mischief with my cousins in the apple loft.
There were plenty of other adventures had before emigrating to Australia.
So different from England!
The light, the smells, the atmosphere!
We arrived at Fremantle on the West Coast, via the Fairsea as Ten Pound Poms, on a hot, bright November morning… a bright new world to adventure in!
Heaven
A couple of years in suburban Adelaide and then off to Tarcoola some 420 km north west of Port Augusta.
Here I was free to roam.
With only 6 other families there, we made our own fun.
I used to ride my pushbike along the road which followed the railway line, often coming across great swathes of Sturt Desert Peas which the train drivers used to pick and take back to Port Augusta.
Here I grew to love the red dirt, the plants of the remote areas and to see and be aware of the energies in this old and beautiful land.
Freedom came to an end at the end of Year 7 and another adventure began…. I caught the train down to Port Augusta and met the family I was to stay with, a couple of days before starting high school.
Talk about a square peg in a round hole…. not one of the happier adventures…..
But that came to an end and off we went again….. catching the Tea and Sugar train to Kalgoorlie in Western Australia and yet another adventure…
3 secondary schools in one year was a challenge, but I enjoyed the core subjects and did well in them, and was the recipient of a Commonwealth Scholarship for the final two years.
Moving house became an art form and still to thR60/5 American modelis day, there is a certain anticipation in getting the boxes and newspaper ready to pack up the household effects.
Eventually my parents settled, but at 19, it was time for me to head off on my Honda 450cc for new adventures of my own, eventually replacing it with my distinctive BMW.
There were many more adventures as I moved up and down the East Coast… Brisbane to Melbourne…. Melbourne to Brisbane…. New Zealand…. Brisbane to Perth……Perth to Melbourne….The Nullabor was traversed by road about 16 times over a ten year period.
Interesting people and some fun times…and some scary times (maybe one day I’ll write more about these events). In those cases, it was my intuition that kept me safe and I developed a strong sense of when it was time to move on….
As I moved into more sedate circles that intuition was gradually suppressed. A little too “woo woo” for some of the people I was mixing with….
Working in church schools also helped to shut it down… I didn’t feel safe in discussing the spirituality that I felt or the intuition around events… Although it was at one school I met a person who introduced me to Reiki and began this amazing adventure!
Now I’m opening up to the metaphors in my dreams and tapping more frequently into the intuitive and spiritual experiences. You may have noticed in some of my recent posts…
I’m feeling slightly vulnerable as I’m writing this….. exposing my history…..yet not telling you all.
And that will be another adventure as I open up to myself and allow the good and bad feelings that accompanied all these adventures to flow out onto a different page… perhaps a book for later on……

Observing the environment

 

Prejudices, it is well known,are most difficult to eradicate from the heart whose soil has never been loosened or fertilized by education; they grow firm there, firm as weeds among stones.

Charlotte Bronte
Another all too brief sojourn up at the retreat, with some more clearing of bushes, tending to the labyrinth and the beginnings of a walking track (fire break) around the perimeter.
Mound of Biddy Bush alight in the overflowClearing the Biddy Bush or Chinese Bush has just about been completed and the debris was pushed into a large pile in the damp area of the dam overflow to minimize the fire spreading.
Whilst it was sad to see so many tiny Blue Wrens and other little bush birds displaced and homeless, the ongoing fire risk is too great to let the bushes stay. They kept busy collecting twigs from previously slashed bushes and rebuilt during the day.
Just one small section of the debris was lit and within seconds, this inferno took off. Some 5 hours later – after burning red-hot, the pile was reduced to ashes, which will be added to a composting area.
AshesEventually deemed safe to leave, we made periodic trips to check on it during the evening (& the Yabbie nets). On one of these trips, not only kangaroos were sighted in the headlights, but a large hare. This is the third time I’ve caught a glimpse of it!
The evenings are spent thinking about building projects. Now the proud owner of a metal bath, which originally was sourced to have as an outdoor bath heated by a small fire under it, it will most probably reside (still outside) on a verandah to built at the front of the cottage.
A bath with a view!
The first of the fruit trees has gone in  – a lemon tree and although kangaroos and wallabies have inspected it, so far it seems to be off their menu.
A passionfruit vine was gifted to me and it will possibly be installed as part of a green fence around the labyrinth.
Other trees in pots are waiting to make the trip up to the retreat.  There are half a dozen pomegranate trees – a result of planting out the spent seeds from a pomegranate feast 3 years ago. Quite small still, but hardy as they have been in a crowded spot, they should take off now they have been potted up. They should do quite well  and I’m intending to hedge them in front of the labyrinth, which should also offer a little more privacy as people walk.
There is also a 7 year old Avocado tree that has been on the deck for some time and is calling to have its roots set free and the half dozen or so Oak seedlings are progressing well.
Just yesterday, a small almond tree was given to me and that will be planted out on the next trip.
As with all projects, enthusiasm needs to be balanced with practicality… but there is the trap of over intellectualizing and doing nothing…