Tasmanian cottage

Caught my eye – thought it looked cute!

Magpies

The quintessential sound of Australia to me is the magpie. They are everywhere and they sing constantly. They have a very rough cawing noise (like a crow) at times, but they also sing in chorus very beautifully. I love listening to them – it is just the sound of the Aussie bush to me. Even now it brings back memories of camping in the bush as a child. On my morning walks they are everywhere. I have them in my back yard as well – they are ubiquitous.

I couldn’t find any really good quality sound of the magpies song so have posted three clips here. None of them really do it justice – and you have to hear them in chorus to really appreciate them. Anyway, I love them. They are intelligent birds and not too scared of humans.

Heat wave

We are in the middle of a record heat wave. I don’t know the exact statistics but we’ve already had over a week of scorching weather (up around and over 38C or 100F) and we have a week still to go at least. Hot and dry. It is very draining after a while. Apparently this is the longest run of hot weather since 1930 or something.

I am not a fan of hot weather. I don’t quite know why I live in such a hot climate. Been here since I was five and it is home I guess.

We desperately need rain too. We are on water restrictions which means so many plants are dying because we aren’t allowed to water them. It is a real problem.

The other day driving home I had a sudden vision of this place turning into the Sahara Desert. Not a nice thought but I can envision it in my gloomier moments.

I see on the news that the American Northeast is having unseasonable snow storms and ice. Please send some of it our way and we’ll give you some heat

I give thanks to whoever invented air conditioning. It is my saviour.

Fern symbology

I love new growth and buds on plants. This fern lives on Sarah Island in Tasmania – an old convict settlement. Set in a very beautiful but inhospitable area near Strahan on the West Coast; I marvelled at how people survived there hundreds of years ago. The island itself was extended by hand to increase its size. It really was incredibly beautiful if you stopped by as a visitor on a day trip. To live there with no hope of leaving? I don’t think I’d have liked that. Nobody likes to be imprisoned and many of the convicts to Australia were sent so far from home for minor or imaginary crimes.

I wonder if they took any joy and pleasure in the nature all around them or if they longed for home and family? It makes me appreciate so much the liberty I have and the people in my life. Looking at plants like this gives new hope for fresh starts and new growth. We are all a work in progress, just like this fern. As long as we too, keep on growing, we will survive.

Dinner time

I love Australia! I’ve just been lucky enough to watch these guys eating dinner in my front garden

 

Grief

Today I have been overtaken by overwhelming grief and sorrow. All day I have either been in tears or fighting them. I attended an event run by Indigenous Australians on this, Australia Day. They call it ‘Survival Day’. It has also been called ‘Invasion Day’. While most Australians are celebrating Captain Cook arriving at Botany Bay, the Aboriginal people are remembering the unspeakable things white man has done to them ever since.

I don’t know if it was their grief I was tapping into. The vibe at the event was pretty upbeat and they were asking for peace and reconciliation. Yet I felt such sorrow. A friend gave me some healing while we sat under the tree and I was caught between the energy she was giving me and the otherworldly sound of the didgeridoo. Later we looked at some artwork and there were three pieces in particular, done in mandala style by an artist called Julie Tucker, that were absolutely stunning. I would love to have bought one of them but they each cost AUD$1490. They spoke directly to some part of me that is not conscious.

When I finally got home I just collapsed onto the bed and sobbed for an hour uncontrollably. I have often felt at times that I’ve tapped into the pain of the world – it feels so much more than just my own pain. And I had no clear idea of what I was grieving. At times like these I just have to let it roll through me without trying to identify exactly the cause. Certainly the Indigenous Australians have experienced immense pain and grief over the past 200 years. As have so many other peoples around the world.

Today I am not celebrating, I am grieving…

It’s raining – hooray!

You can tell you live in the driest state on the driest continent when a sudden downpour of rain sweeps through. Everyone here at work stops what they are doing and rushes to the window to stop and stare. “What is that wet stuff coming out of the sky?” one person joked.

We all get so excited. We are on water restrictions and can only water our gardens one evening per week within a three hour timeslot. We cannot put the sprinkler on and leave it – we have to hand water. Right now I can imagine my garden heaving a sigh of relief as it gets its thirst slaked for the first time in months.

The levels in our dams and reservoirs get lower and lower. We have a severe water problem in Australia. Our main water artery, the Murray River, is drying up and increasing salinisation is a real problem. We are the last State it flows through and many farmers upstream have used its waters to irrigate their crops.

Often when it does rain we only get a smattering of precipitation that doesn’t really have any impact. So days like today, when it pours down, are cause for celebration and excitement.

Bird Talk

This evening on my daily walk I stopped in awe to watch and listen to a tree-full of crows. They are very raucous and they were wheeling about and settling in one particular gum tree. There were maybe 20-30 of them cawing loudly. I so wanted to know what they were talking about to each other and what was going on. I thought of the Indigenous Australians who used to live here and I bet they would have known the significance of it all. I just wanted to open my mind to let them in to tell me their stories.

There was a gorgeous breeze, it was not too hot and was just sublime out there this evening. I love evening light and sunsets – my favourite time of day somehow. The birds are all having one last fling before they settle to bed for the night. I’m so privileged to live here – on my walk I could be out in the bush away from suburbia and I just adore listening to the magpies – they are my favourites with their warbling.

It seemed somehow that only a thin barrier kept my mind from understanding what those crows were communicating. I quite often have a sense that if I could just break through some veil in my mind I’d be able to see all sorts of things that others can’t – devas and nature sprites and auras and all those sorts of things. I sometimes feel I could understand what the birds are calling to each other and what the trees are whispering.

I think if we harness the powers of the mind we’ll be able to do all those things. And its not as far off as we might think. Imagine if we could all become real Dr Doolittles and ‘talk to the animals’? I think we would learn a lot!