Currawong Love Song

On cool misty mornings

when we cuddle up deep in bed together

first thing in the morning

after the babies have said

good morning and

mummy mummy mummy and

squeebed over daddy and

rolled into the middle and

prised us apart and

sat on our heads and

layed with their heads on me while

pushing you away with their legs and

looked at the bush turkeys outside and

taken off their nappies and then

gone into the adventure of the rest of the house and

maybe one or two has gone away and come back and

cuddled in at the side and

I’ve probably already got up to do

various other

very very early morning things

But

I get to snuggle back into

the warm nest of our bed

next to you

the hard soles

of your feet rest

on the tops of mine and

my toes and

my knees are pressed into the back of yours and

your beautiful curved bum

gently pushed into my lap and

my breasts nestled into

your smooth skinned

brownly muscled back

with that huge red mole

right over the back of your heart and

my arm drapes around

your soft hard hairy chest and

my hand curls

around your shoulder

It feels so completely full

And perfect.

And like I’d never want to move again

if I didn’t have to

 Curled so beautifully

warming each other with our skin

your velvet skin

singeing a band of heat across my flesh

your smell that fills me

with all sorts of archetypal yearnings and wantings

your hair tickling my nose

wrapped in each other and our bednest

with our tangled limbs holding hard

My mind wanders as it usually does

and because I’m so full of love for you

it wanders all around you

how I love all of you

every bit of you

The grumpy stroppy acidic snark and

the fights we have and

the gentle days and

your spontaneous joker and

irrepressible romantic and

the times when you feel like my ancient teacher and

those when you feel like my biggest child

The adventures we’ve been on

the sights we’ve seen and

the depths that we’ve delved in each other

The babies we’ve made and

the births that they’ve had and

I love the reality of you and

the hard muscle of you and

the sun warmed skin of you and

every single thing of you

I love my loyalty and jealousy

how much I feel like I want to

hide you away

in a treasure box

with all your love just for me

 I love the profound moments

that we both have etched

on our souls in shared memories

I love the perfection of all our imperfections

I love your carnal lust and its echo in me and

I love how our search into that lust

no matter how many dark roads it may have taken us

always leads us to each other

Our search into sex

and desire and carnality

has taken us to that place

that many seekers search for……..

The world where you can let go

of your earthly thoughts and

worries and

ego and

just

be

pure

lust

Exist only in the moment

forget how we look

be

love and

wonderment

lost in the eternal now.

In fact

I love every detail so much

that I try to find us an eternity

cause it’s hard to feel so much love

without the knowing that one day it will end

one of us will die

and then the other

surely with this much love

wrapped up in our souls

it cannot die?

surely even after all the

universes and

suns and solar systems

have fit into our consciousnesses

we will still see each other and melt?

I go through all the things

I know about the world and

myself and

each other and

all the places I believe

we’ll all go when we die………

And I know that we’ll still love each other

Everytime I start to feel afraid

of death

or of loss

or of an unexpected and horrible thing happening

or of the future

I try to quick remember

that it’s all me

Everything is me

It always has been

Would I ever be really cruel to myself?

would I ever really hurt me?

without giving the balm with the pain?

and a reason for the cure?

And then I always relax

cause I know me and

 I’m pretty groovy

 I know

that wherever we may end up and

however we run into our next journey

beyond this one and

no matter in what form and

no matter what universes we have sitting within……..

That there will always be you and me and

this epic love between us and

that is all

there really is

Love

Eternal

Turn Your Dollars Into Sense.....

This concept has been on my mind for a long time now.  As a mix of all the things I've been a part of in my past that 'worked', and what I know from my experiences, I just reckon that this could at least be a beginning of a way to walk into our futures.  I wrote this flyer up, that I'm going to photocopy and leave around our community, to see what we can get together here.  So I thought I'd share it with you mob too, just in case it catches anyones attention. And I made a vlog about it also, that I've popped in at the end.  

I'd love some feedback on this idea, what you think works and may not about it, and any questions that may be had about the whole thing.......

.................

It seems this great and terrible time we’re occupying is all about making a choice.  Between whether we’re happy for things to go along on their usual cycle of swinging between one political extreme and another, while we’re all busy trying to forget the damages we’re creating with our lifestyles, or if we want things to evolve and change.  Accepting ourselves and our shadows and everything we touch and translate as a reflection of the macrocosm in the microcosm, or continuing to externalize our pain and our fear on ‘them’, and keep a culture of warfare thriving. 

Rather than imprison our energy and creativity in an eternal tug of war with all the things that ‘aren’t right’, we could instead use our precious energies to create a viable, sustainable, and alternative pattern of social interaction and trade.

As we collectively stand looking at issues of environmental destruction, tyranny, social injustice, poverty, corporate dictatorship, sexual violence, and the list goes on and on as we all know……..it’s easy to feel impotent, overwhelmed, and unimportant in the face of a monstrous wave that could swallow all life as we know it.

But it’s far more fun to instead turn your gaze towards creative endeavours that help us to connect with each other in our commonalities, can unify a group of people towards a way of living that is joyfully sustainable, and can potentially create  the change we’re hungering for.

To become the one’s we’ve been waiting for, and aid our species evolution.

And to be totally pragmatic about it, the greatest power we have in this world, beyond forming tribe and community and being ourselves, is our dollars.  I think we’re all aware of the double bind of knowing that corporations are running the world in an unhealthy way, yet still buying goods off them.

Solution.  How about we turn our dollars into sense?

By creating local webworks and networks of artisans, producers, inventers, farmers, and other skilled people, to fill all the places in our lives that corporations normally do.  And removing our focus and support from entities that are harming our planet, to instead place that focus on creating a harmonious, respectfull, and fair way of living.  Creating an alternative path while we’re showing corporations how to act with more compassion.  And educating them about what they need to do in order to win our dollars back.  And by giving our precious energy to being part of creative transformation, instead of tired old arguments.

The market that Currawong and I started in Macclesfield, South Australia, was such an exemplary example of a local government term ‘community capacity building’, that we had a tour of council workers from around the country come to visit and talk with us.  Community Capacity Building is essentially recognizing that many hierarchical structures are by their nature disempowering, whereas operating on the management structure of a wheel – wherein every spoke is equally essential and important to the whole – is an awesome way of letting community create itself, by engendering an atmosphere of respect, equality and acceptance.  When individuals are supported in who they are and their ‘thing’, with a focus on networks and interdependence, then a wholistic and sustainable community is formed on a strong foundation, because it’s merely supporting interests that are already there, rather than trying to instruct and enforce them.  This concept has been one of the most profoundly transformational ways I’ve ever been a part of, and far more naturally forming and easy to play with than a dogmatic heirarchical or spiritual structure.  Operating on a natural impulse to connect and live fulfilling lives.

Imagine if………

There was an alchemical marriage between L.E.T.S, Community Supported Agriculture, a Growers Market, the Peace Movement, Love, Environmental Activism, Anthropology, Chaos Theory, a Gifting Economy, and Honesty.  And it resulted in a newsletter/registry of skills, produce, and interests, and a regular meetup within a community.  And through the growth of that network, you could buy, trade or swap your bread, milk, butter, veggies, fruit, herbs, poultry, meat, clothes, gifts, furniture, and many other things. Build your house, fix your plumbing, help grow your garden, mow your lawn, and get advice on your composting toilet. Not to mention, access mind libraries of knowledge on alternative methods of creating power, refridgeration, ways to catch water, irrigation, gardening, animal husbandry and maybe even work towards creating a physical library.    Enjoy workshops and lessons from your talented community members, and attend poetry readings, plays, musicals, dance parties and exhibitions, as part of everyday life. Accessing alternative media and entertainment on the internet due to suggestions within the network, and creating all sorts of events, sports and games through spontaneous interest.  Maybe even community insurance and a bank.  The future is our community!!

And imagine if……….

The concept took off like a love virus, and infected the world with community cohesion, so that all the people wishing for change could turn their dollars into sense in a similar way, in any town, city or village, that then went on to network with each other.  And with our collective energy we created the solution to our worlds problems, by becoming old fashioned agrarian  communities in a new way, and just disengaging with the corporations and beauraucracies, until they behave better….while smiling lots.  Creating the antidote to the cancer of western civilisation, whilst also creating community, and boycotting what we know is killing us, without having to deprive ourselves. 

I think the whole idea is at least worth a try......

And for some strange reason,

this is the only way I can get the blogging fairys

to co-operate, and share my vlog with you....

The verandah at the Big Bamboo

So like I've said before, when we first got here, we had all sorts of stuff around the verandah to keep the babies from falling a fairly big height, and Currawong has masterfully created a verandah surround as his first really big bamboo project here.  

And we've learnt a bit along the way.  Like how people kept telling us to cure the bamboo before using it, and I just kinda thought that was because it made it stronger and longer wearing.  And we had a real mental block going on about doing it, the curing business, because it involved cutting down huge bamboo trees, and cutting off all the side branches, and then sitting them over a fire till all its sap fizzled out and coated it.  In other words the water coming out.  Which seemed like a really big job to do.  And we were a bit stuck on trying to work out how to fire long long bamboo shoots in the quickest way, how to build the fire, and business like that.  So we just thought 'stuff it', it's all a learning process, and we just needed a verandah surround, so we'd just start and see what happened.  

Because like us, and the planet, and most other living things, bamboo is made up with a lot of water slushing round its system.  And when you cut it, and it dies and dries, the water leaves the building, and it shrinks in size.  And I know this because we cut green bamboo and put it straight into the fence, and all our tight bindings have become very loose.......but fortunately they're held together with cable ties, so unwittingly we've come up with a solution to the drying problem, before we even knew we'd have it.    Because we can just wait till the bamboo has finished drying, and tighten the cable ties as we go, so it's still safe as we go, and then when it's finished drying and the bamboo has reached its final size, we'll wrap it over with the rope I'm spinning to hide the cable ties.  Voila.

But back to the verandah, it's gone from this

To this

The beautiful old piano that was performing a job as a barricade has been able to move around to the side of the verandah and become an artwork.

And the other big verandah bit, where the kids hang out, and the rattys live in their palace, and most of the toys have a home, has gone from this....

To this....

And there's room for Spiral Moon to do her amazing spinning thing on the Internal Waterfall.  I first made it to be a fly and mozzie proof door hanging, when we were living in our bus.  But it was a very long door, and I soon got sick of crocheting such long drapes, so I only got about two thirds of the way till I got distracted.  

And then I hung it up on an internal beam as a decoration one day, and Spiral started spiralling.  Spinning and whirling on it like a dervish, and she soon became quite addicted.  She was only about 3 at the time, and we lived with it for years.  And then came a lot of moving around and it got packed away.  It came out again in our last house, but she couldn't hang on it, because it wasn't strong enough. But now we've got it up on a proper chain, and it's strong enough to hold her, and she's been reunited with her waterfall again.  I didn't realise how much she was missing it.  

I don't know if her rat Blue enjoyed it as much as her though.  Perhaps an experiment to not be repeated.......

There's more room for everything on our new look verandah.

And Currawong finds it really hard to not pull a face whenever he sees a camera.....

But back to our bamboo verandah, I'm so incredibly stoked with it, and have been telling Currawong how special he is a lot, cause it's gorgeous, and functional, and practical, and relatively easy to make!

And now we're working on the kitchen.  The goal has been set to make a washing station, where all drying and putting away can be erradicated, as you can wash and put everything in it's place in one go. It's a happy kind of busy making all these bamboo creations.  And as with everything, an extreme bonus for me is how dead sexy Currawong is, and how delightful it is to watch him doing just about everything.....

And Balthazar really wanted me to take a photo of him with the secateurs, while he was busy helping Dad.

Now I've got to get back to doing housework so that we can keep building the kitchen.  It's all on round here!  

Stay tuned for more bamboozlery.....