A Mighty Wind

[look....I know there is a movie called “A Mighty Wind”...starring our very own Jane Lynch...aka Sue Sylvester on Glee...but that movie was about music....this...is a very different story.]

As I lay in bed looking out the South facing windows, I see a storm brewing. Clouds bearing every shade of gray lurch and stumble clumsily toward our house.

Hmm-mm.

As the Mazda commercial so keenly says...”sump' thin' up”.

Rain starts to fall with a deliberate cadence...Wind winds up like a generator....something it learned from the many hurricanes and cyclones in this world...wait....

Rain is a frenzied staccato trying to either gain entry by constant knocking, or just pulverize the window into glass safety nuggets. Chaos is everywhere....there is no place for air, for people, for cars, for houses....this storm has our house in hand...it has control....Wind has charged through the trees and blasted down the street....it has grabbed Rain and slung it around...nature screams louder and louder...Wind and Rain grappling for control...Wind decides to play its upper hand and starts by sucking in an enormous breath....suddenly it explodes and sends a gust slamming down on Grandview Road...the house shudders and groans...just for a moment...and returns to its foundation.

Rain continues to shed itself, but the house is not fazed...it has taken the worst...it still stands. Rain and Wind, hand in hand, leave....heading North to its next venue.

I remain looking out at what was....thinking.

I have posted some pictures in my Picasa Web Album for you to thumb through.  Most of the pictures were taken the same day as "The Mighty Wind". Click on the photo below to enter Picasa.

January 2012 Australia

Christmas Thanks

Merry Christmas!

[To all my Northern Hemisphere friends..........I have lived your future (remember we are a day ahead), and it is all GOOD!]

Happy New Year!

As I sit here and think of Christmas, life, friends, and of course, weather....I realize once again how blessed I am....

I have seen the sun come up over the bend of the earth from the sky...I have watched birds soar and squawk and eat and sleep (yes, sleep...a baby magpie in our front yard...amazing...right on the ground!)....I have walked on land and bush and rock that has been here since time began...and I wonder, with wonder, how it is that I am so blessed. 

Thank you all, thank you each one...for each and every person I know...each and every one of you...has enriched my life...touched my very being...and...helped me forward in my very evolution.

I celebrate this day....not for the presents from a store...not even for scrumpcious food....I celebrate you...you are my present. 

Thank you. I love you.

[PS - If you click on the picture below, you will be directed to an online Picasa Web Album.]

ChristmasThoughts2011

Just a speck

I have to write this.  I have to write this so much that I am typing these words right into the blogger editor.  I never do that.  I always type blogs into Open Office Writer, then paste it into blogspot.  hmmmm.

Maybe I'm afraid I'm lose my train of thought...or maybe the train is small and quick and easily distracted.  Time is of the essence.

Enough of the intro.  Here's the train (of thought).  Clouds.

I was laying on the floor, resting after meditation yesterday, with my head to the East, and my feet to the West.  Opening my eyes, I looked out of the western window to see clouds.  Not odd, you say.  True.  But I looked at them differently.  I thought of them differently. 

I thought of the molecules that make up that cloud.  Water (H2O) vapor.  I thought of how water takes on so many manifestations.  Ice, Vapor, Liquid.  I really thought of how these random molecules of H2O came together to form a cloud.  And not just one cloud...mind you we have had our share of total overcast days recently....on this day there were many clouds...some touching...some just flying by others.  What I thought about was...how, or what, brought these molecules together to form a cloud. And, what kept them together? what kept them from running into one another and forming a bigger cloud? and then a bigger cloud...and so on?  I can hear my Florida friends saying....that's what we call a hurricane! But I have no time to stop!

Thoughts continued to tumble....here on Earth we have all these different clouds...cumulus, nimbus, stratus, cirrus....so not only do H2O molecules cling together to form a cloud....they form specific types of clouds....and for a random amount of time.

More thoughts...clouds are like humans....we are all made up of the same "stuff", but we look different...we move about...we change...we dissipate...dissolve...

How wonderful, and strange, this mystery of life is....how complex and simple...how the order of the universe doesn't need a laptop or smart phone to know to do next...how all the rumblings of science...the pontifications of religions...the promises of politicians....the guarantees of parents...how all of our gyrations fail to convince the universe to bend.  No matter that we point to our GPS, to show the way, we fail to alter that great movement. 

Resting....

I watched as clouds sped by my window. One chasing another.

An Unexpected Love Affair

Its happened. I have fallen in love with a non-living object. Yes, that's it...my senses have been captivated by a singular object.

My story begins in August of this year. It was a weekday...a beautiful blue winter's day in Oz. We had traveled to the Bunnings (ala Home Depot), and picked up everything we needed to welcome this new object into our lives. Hate to disappoint some of you, but it was not an iPad2, giant Plasma TV or a shiny new car. It was far simpler than that...definitely more endearing...practical in all ways...and....well, elegant.

What is this wunderkind, you ask? Its a Daytel rotary clothesline.

Yes, that was not a misprint....a clothesline. A well known brand of rotary clothesline is “Hills Hoist”...a Daytel is visually and virtually the same...far less plastic pieces...not as expensive. To paint you a picture, think of a pole in the ground with four extending arms (arms that reach out and welcome our laundry!) linked with plastic line which form a square....or, if you where up in the air looking down....you may see a man-made spiders web!

Now that I have you smiling...either at my seeming lack of sanity, or at your impulse to check to see if your leg is still being pulled...let's talk clothesline.

'Pure and simple' would constitute my definition. It's a sailing ship docked in my backyard waiting for passengers. Every slight breeze is celebrated with a turn, a twist of metal arms. I had a long think of why I am so enamored with this whirly-gig. For me, gathering the wind (in sheets/towels/clothes) reminds me of sailing on the Great South Bay off Long Island, where I grew up. I remember the first time I went on a sailboat. Her name was 'Pixie'...she was a 24' day sailer...no cabin, wooden (built in the 1930's), mainsail and jib, perfectly trained to turn into the wind when the tiller was released. But that beauty wasn't what captured me...it was the sound....of rather, the lack of it....the whoosh...the slicing sound of boat through water...the silence.

Hmmmmmm.

Prior to Pixie, I was fearful of sailboats. I told my Dad if he bought Pixie that I wouldn't go sailing with him. I was afraid of the boat capsizing, dragging and holding me under until I drowned. Amazingly, it wasn't anything that was said to me that changed my mind. It was what wasn't said. It was the silence. The silence of sailing erased every bit of anxiety trapped in my body. I embraced the peace...no outboard motor gurgling, revving...no noxious gas fumes...no shouting to be heard over the noise. It was just a hull, effortlessly carving a line in the water..........wait.........as the boat slips through...the water seamlessly heals itself.

While our clothesline doesn't carve a space in water, it plays with the wind as a sail may. The wind may not be strong enough to whistle or make tree branches groan, but it will be strong enough to fill a t-shirt or pillowcase...enough to make laundry blossom...the breeze will take those clothes and make them travel endlessly in a circle...now fast...now slower...always returning to where they began.

Weather the Whether or Whether the Weather

Weather

As defined by Collins Dictionary

whether : (1) used to introduce an indirect question

                (2) used to introduce a clause expressing doubt or choice

weather : (1) the day-to-day atmospheric conditions

                (2) to undergo or cause to undergo changes such as
                    discoloration, due to the action of the weather

                (3) to come safely through a storm

Wow. So many thoughts about these two words...in many ways they are similar – the WEATHER conditions in Melbourne and Torquay - maybe even all of Australia – can change moment by moment and therefore, in an atmospheric way, cause the greater part of the population here to think about WHETHER or not to bring the 'brelly (umbrella).

Hmmm...WEATHER is so changeable.....wait...I will not begin rambling on about time and change...that was the last blog!

I love that people tune into the Weather Channel or the news to get “the WEATHER”. When living in Florida, we watched the Weather Channel religiously at the first sign that the Tropics were conjuring up wicked WEATHER....we all wanted the same thing....to know EXACTLY where, when, and how strong....we wanted the Weatherperson to inform us of our fate.

But instead we got WHETHER.....we got IF...OR...ELSE...AND...words that hold great meaning to a computer programmer coding the next great application, but feel cold and distancing to Floridians, or for that matter, any person in the path of a great storm....these words brought doubt and endless possibilities....the unknown....ergo...WEATHER.

The thing about WEATHER is that, when spoken about in past tense; it can be quite soothing...we “WEATHER the storm” is an age old saying that will continue to be used because of its simple truth....it's meaning is clear to all that hear it...it conveys one's relief of surviving a bump in life....WHETHER it is WEATHER; or something else.

Once again, while mowing the lawn....probably one of the best times to let the mind wander...I thought about the WEATHER of Australia...

Torquay's June winter WEATHER played in the yard...Sun slipped in and out of clouds that were rolling across acres of sky...the wind orchestrated a magnificent opus using our chimes, trees, and leaves...the temperature inched down a degree. This started me thinking about the role WEATHER plays in my life and my connections with people...friends, family, and strangers....what better way to open a conversation...I realized I talk in terms of WEATHER (although I do sometimes talk in terms of WHETHER)...and I don't just limit myself to calamities....it could be June Gloom in California, or humidity choking everyone in Florida, or debilitating heat, wringing the energy from those in the Mid-West.

I think about my conversations with my family...how we look back on favorite trips by discussing the WEATHER... “Oh, do you remember how foggy and cold Maine was...and it was AUGUST!”...of course that is what I remember...my brother may have just remembered the small boat we took out each day!

We all tend towards WEATHER/WHETHER....looking at a broader perspective, the moon, sun, stars, and planets effect every aspect of life here on Earth...our own personal vibrations, our life essence, are encased in a human physiology made up of – well – predominantly water. So as the oceans move; so do we; as the oceans help create our WEATHER , it also may create WHETHER for us. And WEATHER/WHETHER impacts many, many aspects of our world...prices skyrocket when banana plantations are decimated by cyclones...oil goes up when hurricanes damage oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico...thunderstorms with their hail, lightning and rain, can bring transportation to a halt....heat waves burn up the crops....but then too...uncertainty in economies causes stock markets to roller coaster...the burden of repayment of debt creates country and global concerns...doubt about finding new pools of natural resources weighs on the minds of every generation.

There is a calmness to this uncertainty, this doubt...if one is able to accept the fact that we may be able to predict what MAY occur, but not EXPECT that it WILL occur...if one can cultivate a flexible mindset to the WEATHER/WHETHER in one's life....well then.....everyday can be a beautiful one.

Musings of the Nature of Change

One day, I caught myself pondering (as I do) about time, space and the different paths my life has taken. I found this quote by Albert Einstein:

“I sometimes ask myself how it came about that I was the one to develop the theory of relativity. The reason, I think, is that a normal adult never stops to think about problems of space and time. These are things which he has thought about as a child.”

This encouraged me to continue on the course of my musings.

What is change? A particular passage in time. And what is time? A relative measure of space. And what is space? Infinite.

And so we know that change is infinite. It is the constant behavior of nature itself. It is creation in all its subtly; maintenance in all its endeavors; dissolution in all its pandemonium. It is a waltz, a foxtrot, the dance of bedlam. Choreographed perfectly to match the level of ones consciousness. This is why, when many see one event, we get many different accounts of said event.

Unfortunately some of us may view chaos as an uncomfortable air sprinkling about us as a fog or morning mist...as the niggling of an older sibling...the additional workload so graciously given by a colleague...that uncontrollable driver in the car behind; following too close...oblivious to our safety or comfort. In addition to our self produced chaos, let us not forget nature's version....earthquakes, hurricanes, tsunamis, blizzards, heat waves, twisters....the list goes on...

Where does this leave us? Huddled in our houses buying everything from groceries to refrigerators online? Planning and saving and creating contingencies for all possibilities? Filled with fear and anxiety knowing that nature is uncontrollable?

We know what happens when we try to control nature....species die out, people become complacent, CO2 emissions rise, pollution becomes part of the landscape.

Forgive me. Please. It is not my intention to paint a bleak picture. I just wanted to think. Think about change.

I watched a program on “Free to Air” TV – yes, television can be watched with a rooftop antenna, no cable or satellite here in OZ – called “GREAT MIGRATIONS”. Talk about pandemonium! Life giving, death defying migrations by butterflies, water buffalo, zebra, crabs....these animals, driven by instinct, by habit, by some internal knowing...driven by nature....this show showed us this bedlam (in slow motion)....and..............

It was beautiful...nature in the raw....following the path of change, in this case, evolution...a necessary path, for without it...to deny or ignore it, a species might perish. So I thought...are we the only species to strive to control that which cannot be controlled?

We must remind ourselves it is knowledge of change, of growth, that allows us an extraordinary opportunity to gather experiences...of events in life that rock our foundations, our core, our soul...and from them we learn...we grow...we evolve. To gather these experiences, to share them, to pass them on to other generations...this is how we connect...how we form common,loving bonds with other people...not only our family and friends, but strangers and acquaintances too.

Then, I came back to earth....I thought about the previous day....it was a blustery winter's day...the rain came in torrents at times....the wind howled, pushed, prodded everything in its path, even reaching around corners to find a stray leaf....it was a day to rent a DVD and make popcorn, all the time being thankful for a heater and wool blankets. Then....change. This morning brought back shadows cast by sunlight and clouds that race and run across the sky. Nature, change, life....hmmmm....time to get back to the laundry!

Here are pictures of natural Australia for my American friends and family.

Natural

Close to the Edge (of the World!)

Hello!

No, I haven't fallen off the edge of the world...we are fine and still living in Australia! 

It's been a year since my last post.  Many, many things have come to pass, but I am not issuing any excuses.  I guess it wasn't time. Let's see....where to start.

If I was to start at the beginning, you would think me pedestrian...keeping you absorbed is a much better path to travel...so with that being said...let's start with the present!

Presently Yasmin and I are living in Torquay.  A coastal town, located a mere 100kms from Melbourne.  We are also a short 30 minute trip to Geelong, a thriving community located on the Southwestern portion of Port Philip Bay, so we have all the stores and theaters we need to survive close at hand!

The around and in Torquay is pristine....the water clear, the sky infinite, the air pure and fresh.  Everyday....and I mean this....everyday I am thankful for experiencing this place.

Torquay is at the Eastern start of the Great Ocean Road...this road was built by servicemen who had returned from WWI...it connected the small coastal communities along the rough coastline of Southern Victoria.  The road was opened in 1932, and is a tribute to all of Australia. If you would like to learn more about the Great Ocean Road, click on this link : Building the Great Ocean Road

Torquay is growing by leaps and bounds....many people come here in the summer months, and during school breaks for holiday.  Due to demand, many old homes are being torn down and replaced by Townhouses and Units.  It is interesting to be in a location that is currently involved in shaping new infrastructure...we will get involved in community actions and hope the growth is kept plausible.  I would be so disappointed if Torquay lost that freshness; the ease that a quaint town seem to exude.

Yasmin and I are adding to the growing community.  We are in the planning stages of a new house based on the ancient Indian principle of Sthapatya Veda.  We are incorporating sustainable options to every area we can....solar panels for conversion to electricity; rain water tanks to use for in our gardens, toilets, and laundry; no clothes dryer (Hills Hoist clothes line, thank you); wood stove for heat; double insulated windows, and ceiling and wall insulation to reduce heating and cooling.  The area we are building in requires all lots to be a minimum of 1 acre, and homes must keep to the "rural, coastal" look.  All homes must have a plan for trees and plants which must be native to this area.  

We designed our house, with the help of a Sthapatya Veda consultant, so it has taken us some time.  During this period we have dealt with health issues, selling Yasmin's home in Coburg, packing and moving, and all the things that go with living and growing.

Not to dwell on the past, but to move toward the future...this is my desire.  

One day we took a trip to our friends' cabin located in Barramunga, which is in the Ottways National Park.  Incredibly quiet, massive trees, king parrots...its all there.  I have included a link to some pictures of the area.  I hope you enjoy.

I also will start writing more....take more time to reflect on this beautiful place, wonderful life, and the bliss of living. 

To See some pictures from the Ottways, click on the photo.  This will open a new site called Picassa Web Albums. You can view the photos uploaded to this album.

The Ottways

Thank you all for your thoughts and love.  I will write more soon....promise.

Cheryl