Thursday, October 17, 2013

Made in Australia: Part 2

It could be that Jeb has never woken after that moment; Rosetta may still be in a dreamy repose. The voyage continues and it is perfectly possible that they travel in a connected dream through natural perfection. The Mother lets down her hair and continues to show what gems are woven into her flowing locks.



Birds the size of a man and some the size of his hand come close enough to speak with. They are calm-blues and passionate-reds. Forests begin as scattered bushes and gather into dense walls of growth. Palms are sprawling fans catering to royalty and climbing vines escort rain drops gently to the forest floor. The tree gatherings, as wealthy as gold, are like a green endless sky.


There is a log across the path, with a teasing tongue. Of course it is a python, thick and long protecting her nest. The value of the diamonds curling down her back are unmatched in the human world. This world that still holds unimaginable streams of water leading their flow to sacred pools. A hidden gully in the rocks lets float a single lily sprouting a purple blossom. The flower hovering above the water is as auspicious as the final star that still remains in the early daylight. 



It all rises into view, just as lost treasure always comes up from the sea. Even the sea rises from her own depths when The Mother whispers. Jeb lays on a board pulling water with his arms and the wave lifts him as it approaches. Their momentum becomes one and Jeb stands to greet the wave. He glides across the surface of the wall of water. It still builds and he looks up to its peak as a boy looks up listening to his father speak. The rush takes him, the rush takes it all.



They arrive at dawn. Precise, persistent, pure fields of prairie bush sprawl and climb into a low mountainous range. Pale yellow light builds upon the scene and the land becomes as welcoming as the yellow drops in Rosetta's eyes. On the other side of this sun's cycle the yellow doesn't return. In the evening a radiant tiger's eye turns the day's youthful land into a limited sanctuary of the earth. The duo walk into the dazzling light to find hopping. Kangaroos, wallabies and wallaroos graze and bounce everywhere. They enter the field from every direction; it is a ballet of marsupials. Jeb has never seen such a show before and it even delights Rosetta as if she too were a foreigner. Awe continues.

Out in the back of the carnival of hopping, two Kangaroos stand tall in confrontation. One leaps off his feet and and lunges forward, springing himself off his tail. He extends both legs in a furious kick. The boxing partner defends the thrust with jabs from his stubby arms. This act goes back and forth and then as if there was no tension at all the grappling stops and there is no evidence that peace was disturbed. The dusk dance continues all around.

As Jebediah witnesses the boxer's interactions he forgets he is watching animals. He mistakenly projects the troubles of the human mind onto the Roos. He wonders; do they like the adrenaline rush of the fight? Are they frightened of the violence? Does the winner walk away feeling superior and perhaps having flutters of guilt? Does the loser feel ashamed and regretful? However as stillness returns, Jeb becomes disillusioned from his own mind. He sees that the regret and sorrow are only creations of the human mind, of his mind, and they do not exist in nature. The simplicity of being a beast is apparent to Jeb as he understands that the animals experience desire, excitement and pain, but they do not have the tragically complex thoughts growing off these feelings. As the Kangaroos stand down from their powerful postures the risings of the moment evaporate and dissipate. The encounter produces an insignificant effect on the environment and no evil spills into the next instant. To prevent intruding further on the peaceful grazing, Rose and Jeb leave the field; or maybe they leave to follow the attraction humans have to the setting sun. Either way they now head towards the beach to worship the heart of The Mother.



They sit on the cape and appreciate the adaptation to its place in the universe as being so unique that it can been mistaken for a different world. And with the going down of the sun the stage is set for the silhouettes of the sea to perform. The creatures of this place pop up out of the water as puppets drop from the rafters. Triangle fins run in waving lines through the amber reflections; a feeding frenzy brings fish twitching above the water in fright. Spouting streams of mist spray into illumination. Rolling arches from giants give partial form to the blowhole show. The incomplete secrets of the ocean reveal themselves, but when the eye (another world all together)  gets a glimpse of what is beyond it finds an infinite number of mysteries that are yet to be discovered.

The following morning, with snorkel mask and fins, Rosetta and Jebediah enter the water. From the shore the shallows seem like empty space. From inside it is apparent that they actually support many lives from a deep space. Coral clusters of poison-blue stick and stack like a pile of watery jacks. Others look like hundreds of violet brains and show the immense intelligence of it all. Further there is brilliant green-and-miniature Himalayan mountains. There are countless fish here as there are countless prayers repeated there. Rosetta sees an octopus defending its home with a swipe of the tentacle.She has a good eye for seeing the sea and Jeb hears her calling his name above the surface.  He looks towards the voice and sees her arm pointing through the water at a large sea turtle flapping its wings with a grace only found in this dimension. Jeb dives to see its face as one would when meeting someone new that they know they'll be spending much time with. The ancients used to think that the earth was a plate on the back of a turtle propelling through the universe. Jebediah wanted to rest on this shell and be carried away through the timeless space of the under-water.

In the infancy of another day Jeb sees the full-moon at dawn, a gold coin emitting reflected warmth into the brisk morning. He looks into a mirror showing the horizon at sunset half the globe away. He stares into the reflected eyes of those watching the spherical furnace lay down across the Americas.
Rose joins him and together they watch the sun and the moon trade places in the sky.



When experiencing things from awe, the memories remain in the compartment of the mind that has no patterns and nothing to relate with. These unique happenings bubble up in our backward looking thoughts in a way that makes us ponder if they ever actually occurred. This mystifying phenomenon gives Jebediah the continued impression that all of it is heavenly.





...Catch the final part soon and WATCH OUT!!!




Thursday, October 10, 2013

Made in Australia: Part One

When a person seeks out what they desire they follow a thread that takes them further and further away from the norm. Unless they desire the norm, of course, and this is not the case for Jebediah. On his great ship of travel, each change in current leads to a more exotic culture. Across the pond in Europe, language was a new song. Further into Eurasia, Christianity was still medieval without even the trace of a cross. In the Middle East, the womb of civilization, he found fellows who fell to and raised up from their knees in prayer. Far East and heading South from there, even basic life functions were new rituals to be learned. In Asia's dense sub continent worship was found where flowers floated on the surface of water, while frozen crystals of the Himalaya hold solid the fluttering offerings on the roof-top of the human world. Just a moment at that peak altitude is all Jebediah shared before heading back to sea-level and so far East that he stepped back into the West. After experiencing a life's worth of wonders, entering into something familiar seemed a bit strange.

Australia is a vast island with only a few plots of its' land occupied. Here the youth gather in the cities. After they have accumulated enough supplies and have begun to turn grey, they turn to the beauty that is this country. Respect and appreciation for the lands and waters of Australia is a deeply rooted ritual of this piece of Earth. The worship here is to go out to the back where the dirt glows ocher and is glorified as a giver of life.



Jebediah grew in independence and internal sustainability while in the East, however in the wild palace of Oz there is a local bird to show him the way. Rosetta nests when she needs to, soars when ever she gets the right winds and forages for a smile where ever her heart lands. This pair of warm-blooded creatures plans a road-trip and ignites the hum of adventure.

Rosetta and Jeb toast the moment with a look in the eye and sip in the commencement through grinning teeth. The compass spins around and the only plan is beneath them in the pavement. Slowly slowly, they move away from Australia's newly built-up cities. In a port town, that barley sizes up, there are veterans of the road and a rough weather front gives them all an excuse to get along for a while. In the creeping shadows they catch some stormy swells, cook some sup, and chat about a dash of the deeper things. It turns out to be the last fluent conversation with others there'd be for some time. Just before the rains fell their heaviest, an Osprey spread her wing tips wide, gliding in the shallow sky.

Little by little all the steel fades in the rear-view and the sun climbs. The sun peaks and the pint-sized caravan rests under some beach-pines. Resting is a source of life, but the day and tyres move on toward the rise of the stars. Just before the sun's final descent they rumble off the paved road into isolation. They find nothing but the most valued human contribution, footprints. From this moment they became embedded in awe for The Mother. This awe, our most primal instinct.



There's a sandy swamp, a salty grove of bush, and a camp-spot on the dune of a shelly beach. In a place just close enough to the high-tide mark Jeb and Rose lay looking out upon the scene. They lived and they watched.



Blue-charcoal clouds mask the sun and pink-pastel strokes reveal its ever presence. She focuses her eyes, unsheathes her talons and swoops into view. With sprawling wings she drops onto the ocean-world and lifts a motionless fish from its final swim. The pair drift to sleep in awe.

It could be that Jeb never woken after that moment; Rosetta may still be in a dreamy repose. The voyage continues and it is perfectly possible that they travel in a connected dream through natural perfection. The Mother lets down her hair and begins to show what gems are woven into her flowing locks.



....Continuing soon, unless this guy gets you...



Wednesday, May 15, 2013

Perthin' It


The Deli: House of creation and stimulation; home to the art, the music and the lives of Perth's young-finest 


The used-to-be delicatessen catered to a flow of sensual expression and gave the space for progressive partying, until now. 





All of life's demolishing-downs leave at least one wall standing to tag-up. The Deli is no more, but a pile of rubble is the perfect platform to build upon and jump off into the next dish.  














Between Walls

Within Memories

The Beat Lives








Surface Tension: the next dish


Thursday, April 25, 2013

Annapurna Piece








Selfless bursts of petals

A silent blooming mouth 

Showering this plain with great stillness








Monday, April 8, 2013

India Is

What is the human containing that gives us the power to think, 
that gives the brain the power to activate? 
Mysterious is the source of life, 
nothing is without the impulse that births the universe. 
India knows the sacred thread within all existence. 












...The Sun rises next in Nepal...


Tuesday, March 26, 2013

Thanks Friend

What is a friendship if it isn't a union of mutual teachers and learners? What is any relationship if not a mirror that reflects us as a lesson and shows us to be a student. It is the miracle and tragedy of societies; we all have something to teach and we all desperately need to learn.

Our evolution is a struggle  Within the community the lessons we can offer one another are too similar. We know the same things as our neighbors with only subtle differences in the knowledge. It is true when the subtleties surface, between our different understandings, the effect of the shared knowledge is profound. The moment that it becomes clear that our buddy sees from a different perspective, our own perspective changes. Perhaps it is just a hair-line alteration, but when it happens, when our vision shifts, it reveals that the ingrained idea we held just a moment ago is not the absolute. We detach one thread from the stitching of our beliefs and we experience the phenomena of learning.

The situations within daily society are repetitive and most of the experiences are shared. No matter how different we think we are from one another the truth is, at the blood-deep level, we agree. Success is important, lovers make us happy, what we think is who we are. In this homogenized-mix of interactions it can take a lifetime to learn even just a few new beauties. It takes a real brewing of people to put enough time into communication to uncover and accept the differences we do hold. It is slow and we know there is often suffering, but it is not the only way. The key to expedite the education is to meet your friends between the societies.

Fall into the cracks where our intellectual-quests rarely go and be a gora on the wall in the world's cities of adversity.  An uncomfortable condition can be the magnified glass placed over our subtle differences. In the confusion and chaos of uncharted cultures we can quickly see and agree on how we have been conditioned differently from our companions. On the dusty-crumbling-road the malicious bugs and murderous drivers are so unknown to us that we have no shared knowledge for an agreed upon response  Our differences are revealed in the one beat our heart skips when the blind-beggar grabs our shin, and the unmatchalbe universes of our dreams unfold in the time it takes to watch a human-body burn.

Our response to the unthinkable leaves our thoughts naked and to see a friends's bare-mind can undress all our own beliefs. Standing there vulnerable in the streets of a foreign land is the most efficient route for seeing that our way is not the only way. The education of companion-travel lets us know that what you belief is not the same as what I believe and we are both wrong. In-between all the societies no assumption holds true; if we can understand and accept that we've graduated the world...



The quality of experience is amazing while traveling with a friend and it is amazing how much I've traveled with some friends without ever leaving home.




Saturday, March 2, 2013

A Moment in Hampi


Wonder and ponder down to the ancient river-swamp. A poster-cow grazes, hooves deep in the muck. The black and white blotches, perfectly distributed over her bulk, are exploiting in the tremendous green. 

Rose-stone boulders pile everywhere along the banks and two birds stand on her back. Marvelous white cranes watch the scene. With clear eyes above a pal-yellow beak, a color most beautiful when found in nature, they look at me as I look at them. 

Head down, she munches grass as the three of us continue to look out and admire. One crane enters flight, but not from fear, soaring out of sight behind the line of coconut and banana trees. Then the looping flight reappears overhead completing a cycle. 

The sunlight penetrates through the wingspan and reveals the intimacies of each air-birthing feather. A shimmering-black butterfly dips about the breeze, open and gliding on its red and white speckled wings. 

As my observation is with this thin-winged animal of flight, the second crane finds a new point of interest too, and takes off. Between the rustling flows of palms and grasses these ears get a glimpse of the appetite of the cow. Her chewing is one song of happiness in these ancient interactions. 











Must the sun set to unveil the magnificence of a place...