Post Phyber Philosophy Book Launch

And what a perfectly marvellous day for a ebook launch it was.  Even though I charged Currawong and Lilly with taking photos........as I suspected, Currawong was too busy chasing round 4 little boys, and Lilly was just too busy having fun.  So most of the photos were taken by me, at the one point in the day when I had a minute to take them.

Over the years I've really come to terms with my particular form of fame, and it's not big and flashy by any extent of any imagination, but it's quirky, unique, and full of quality instead of quantity.  I get deep and meaningful connections with people more than a broad fan base, and lots of extraordinary yarns.  So over the whole weekend there was a steady stream of gorgeous people sitting with me in my space, telling me stories or letting me tell some, and mentioning at some point how colourful and beautiful my stall was.  An audience makes me purrrr.

And being as my prime directive is to 'make it' in my own way, on my own terms, I reckon an ebook launch at Sustainability Alley at the Nimbin Show, with a self published ebook printed out on recycled paper, and in a loose leaf folder as a display, and a branch full of little pouches/finger puppets/necklaces with usb sticks in them, with two copies of Post Phyber Philosophy - one a pretty version and one a printable one.........is about as good as it gets!  For me anyway.  This was such a close shave, to get it all together in time for Nimbin Show, that I only printed out a full copy of PPP the night before, and finished taking photos for it early friday morning. I did the final check as I printed it out, and Currawong saved all the info to the usb sticks we'd bought, and made sure they all worked.

And then we were up at sparrows fart as we usually are, and surprised ourselves with how easily we organised everything, and the kids, and the animals......  Dreamer who was about to have kittens any day, was being cute in the morning, as she snuck in the rabbits cage to hang out with Fleur and her babies.  

So when we go anywhere for a while, we usually have to take half the house with us.  Food, water, swags, blankets, pillows, toys, changes of clothes, favourite silkies, prams, shade, rugs, and then all my other market stuff as well.  But I love the little autonomous zone that we create wherever we are, and there's something quite special about how at the end of the day, we pack it all up and away and you'd never know that we were there.  Currawong is at the back right of the stall in this photo, wearing his Tinkerbell t-shirt, and his gorgeous floral pants made for him at the Maccy Market.  And underneath my stall you can see the swag that I made for travelling, that I unroll under the table so the boys have somewhere to sleep and hide in the shade.  

And here's the branch I whittled and oiled to use for my display, resplendent in my little pouches full of memory sticks and the Pentapusses :)  With skeins behind them.  That I actually sold two of!  Shock horror.  And don't tell all the people who've been asking to buy them, and told that they were display only.  Like I tell everyone who asks, if you want a skein out of me you've got to work for it, and twist my arm a bit.  Cause it's my palette!  With which to create! But I'm always a bit happy to sell one to someone who really appreciates it, or has a passionate idea that they want to create with it.

And in this photo above, I noticed the mirror, and how I inadvertently took a photo of myself taking a photo.  So of course I had to play with that a little bit....

So does this qualify as a 'selfie'?  Cause if it does, then it's my first :)  I love this photo.  And then a bit later, when my hair had fallen out of its bun, I tried just one more....  And in this photo is the loose leaf folder displaying my ebook.  The page you can see in this one, is a photo description page.  I was showing PPP to a mate just a week before the launch, and as I was telling her a brief yarn of all the photos, she said I should write descriptions in, so people knew what stuff was.  So I did!  Thanks Yollana :)  It's almost an ebook in an of itself :)   And the descriptions of photos built the ebook up to 85 grand pages.

I'm just so thrilled that I've finally done it!  I've been writing this ebook for over 10 years now, and it's full of photos and stories that I've been telling people for years, and there's something so alchemical and magical about actually putting it all down in transcript with visual expressions of us.  

And here's a photo of an unknown man in my mirror, that I didn't know I'd captured till I looked at the photos later.  And a rather gorgeous pic of my Moth Wing Cape, for which there's a pattern in my ebook.  

And here's the Moth Wing Cape from the other side, showing off the spiderwebs rather well, looking into my stall, and giving a bit of an idea of the colourful little island I was on for the weekend.

And I brought the needle felted and crocheted family along for this one too.  As everything was really one big display to launch an ebook, I thought I should bring the gang - especially Ursula, as she's in a few of the photos in my ebook.

And here's PROOF that it was an ebook launch.  EVERYBODY knows that you can't have a book launch without goon and cheese on crackers.  Jatz preferably.  And Nimbin cheese hopefully.  And I had to explain to a few people what goon was.  As in, goon is cask wine of the cheap and nasty sort, and for this special occasion I bought a cask of Sovereign Point, soft and fruity red :)  And every cup and jam jar left in the house.  Being as they are at a premium with so many cheeky little hands that like to fling cups and glasses round.  I washed them and brought them along as a last minute decision on sunday morning, cause there was just no way that I was going to be able to justify to anyone bringing plastic cups.  Being as I was plonked on Sustainable Alley and all.  

I also bought two punnets of strawberries on friday.  Because I knew that the chances of actually keeping them in the fridge for sunday were very slim, but thought that the large number of them may assure some success.  On sunday morning while I was washing every cup and jam jar in the house, Currawong nicely managed to save one of the last punnets from the jaws of rampaging boys, and I discovered another one that had been saved earlier, and was high on a shelf.  So I managed to bring TWO WHOLE punnets to the launch!  Though they didn't make it to the photos :)  And on the table to the left is the Nonapuss!  A hat/puppet with nine tentacles with bells on.  That doubles up as a magpie scarer. 

And here's me enjoying my rather large jam jar of soft fruity red, or as I like to call it......goon.  With Zarra asleep underneath the table no less.  

But what ISN'T in the photos......is all the other people at the launch :)  And like I said in the beginning, there weren't heaps, but the ones that came were very special people to me, and made it huge just by being there.  There was a lot of love and thoughts expressed to me during the weekend, that made me feel truly honoured, by who spared a thought for me and my little ebook :)

I had not one but TWO first buyers.  One of intention, and one of reality.  See, I was rushing along the street of Nimbin one day, and got reminded about how life's not meant to be a rush, so I sat for a hug and a chat, and ended up burbling bout what I was doing, and got earnestly asked if I could sell him my first ebook in a pouch.  Now if I'd been ready earlier than the night before, then I would have been able to work this out just so, but it wasn't quite ready, so my friend made an effort to come to Nimbin Show instead.  BUT.  As I was setting up, a charming man with his partner and mother in law came by to chat, and have a look, and a yarn or two, and he was the first to actually see the printed out ebook, and he loved it, and also the first in person to buy a little pouch.  And I liked him so much, and appreciated the appreciation and time that we all had, that I even sold him a skein of hand spun, and as he was just starting and wanted to crochet, I even balled it up for him, so he wouldn't get it tangled.  So two first customers and both of them MEN!!!  I love it :)  And there was also an elegant and gentle couple that showed up on both days to give moral support and lively conversation.  Been rather thrilled that quite a few gorgeous men have been walking into my life lately..... 

And then when we got home.......I reckon Dreamer waited all of 5 minutes till she jumped in with the baby rabbits and Fleur again.  We thought it was cute, but when it was time to go to bed, Fleur was getting a bit miffed to have Dreamer in her den, so we went to move her........and discovered a kitten underneath her.  There were some beautiful oxytocic moments between her and her kittens and the baby bunnies, but then we had to rehouse the kits so that Dreamer could finish birthing.

And she birthed 4 beautiful little kittens!  All of them tabbies.  One a black tabby, one a grey, and two black and brown.  I love tabbies :)  We're all a bit thrilled that Dreamer and the babies are all okay, and she did a marvellous job for a first time mamma :)  And the next day, when all the baby bunnies were out again, one of them snuck in for a cuddle.  Gotta love love.......

And like a beautiful friend said, 'how appropriate to have two kinds of birth in one day!'

So.  A big day was had all round.  And my eBook, Post Phyber Philosophy, is finally ready for sale.  

If you'd like to purchase a pdf of my eBook, Post Phyber Philosophy, you can do so on my Etsy site  

here.

 

I hope you like it :)

Post Phyber Philosophy

Okay.  So life and extremities have been intense lately, as it always is, and I've got to confess that the mindworm of haters, has made it hard for my desire to yearn towards blogging of late.  And I had a big experience that I'd like to express on here, but am a bit loathe to all at the same time.  So I'm dragging my heels.  And the result is that I haven't even told you that I've very nearly finished writing the book that I've been writing and living for the last 13 years.  Post Phyber Philosophy.  

I was asked to launch it as an Ebook at Sustainability Alley at the Nimbin Show this coming saturday and sunday, so I am.  I've been working on it for months, but kinda stalled at the last minute, a bit of fear of success taking me for a spin for a while.  But with a deadline I'm grooving it, and it's all coming together beautifully.  

I've been a bit stunned and elated, that the passionate crafting, that sees me tempting Currawong into watching in depth media for the night, so I can avidly hook with a head torch, to see what happens next, has come back.  After a very long hiatus, which I realise now, was the lack of an audience.  I don't know about other artists, but for me, an audience is a very important aspect of what I do.  To have people that 'get' it, and love what I do, who are curious and interested, and waiting with bated breath to see what I do next, and appreciative, and lovely, and the main reason why I do this, cause I'm a show off.  And honest :)  

So knowing that there's a bunch of people I know, who I really like, and who really like me, and that they're going to be at the Nimbin Market at least once a month, and I'm going to be there too, and they're going to ask what I've been up to this month, and cause I'm a show off, I've been slipping making into every spare second, and feeling the fire and spirit of the visiting genie, and turning mistakes into features, and alive with it all!

Whereas blogging has turned into watching lots of haters traipse silently through my blog, and a few brilliant comments that make up for so much, but the audience isn't very visible or vocal you know?  I've been really missing the direct interactions with live people who laugh, and giggle, and share oxytocin and ideas.  And I've realised how massive a motivation that audience is for me and how I create.

I've been mourning the lack of passion in my craft since the light dimmed in me!  Which was....ooooo.......the last time that we regularly visited markets and festivals :)  Whether it's doing workshops, or festivals, or markets, or book launches or anything like that........having an interactive audience is just awesome.  And community forming.  And bonding.  And oxytocic.  And was the missing ingredient to my passion.  There just didn't seem to be that much point to it, once I'd made all the things I wanted for our family, unless there were people to appreciate it.

So I've got this little corner of the kitchen, and I've realised that it's my studio and practical shrine and altar to creativity and passion.

And it's where you'll find me as often as I can, often first thing in the morning, and late at night.  The photo below is from before I spunked it up a bit.  Crafting hard with Spiral, making the Slats (sleeves/legwarmers/hats) pattern.

Or sitting right next to my studio/altar/bed, and doing the spinning meditation.  Just lately there's been a big deal going on, like I alluded to before, and it's been a bit of a nail biting experience for large chunks of it, and there's been a lot of physical endurances, and some worry, and a few other emotions thrown in.  And I've found that more and more, rather than turn to many of my other traditionally healthy and unhealthy avoidances, using spinning as a meditation to shut off my babbling brain, and sink into my subconscious and just be for a while.........has been just divine.  I can slip into and out of it easily with my spinning wheel.  And still be present for all the younglings and animals that we're shepherding.  The best thing is, that the beautiful meditation has the result of a ball of yarn.  Something practical that is useful!  And it's made our house colourful with skeins.....

So when there's a spare moment, or when I'm really stressed, or when inspiration strikes and the family allows, I sit and create.

I've been writing patterns for the first time.  And quite successfully too.  At least I hope.  I tried to get some folk to make the Slats pattern on facebook, and lots said they would but no one got back to me, so  I'm just gonna have to go with the flow on that one.  I think it's fairly straightforward!  I've combined photos with explanations, and some of the terms I use are the same used in traditional crochet patterns, so I'm pretty pleased with the result.  

So I'm presently taking photos....

And writing notes......

And collecting photos of my pallette and tools and methods and materials.....

And coming up with kooky creations inspired by appreciation....

These are Pentapusses.  So named, cause they look like octopuses and definitely sea creatures, but they've only got 5 tentacles, and like I described the process on my Hellena Post Creatrix page on fb.....

"Made a hat that had dangly carroty things hanging out the top, and my fingers wanted to go into it, so I thought I'd try and make a puppet for my hand, (which I've threatened to do for a long time), and started out making a long bit for a leg, and then I started an arm - even had a hand with five fingers and everything on it - and played with it to see if it would work. The hand dangled in a way that wasn't very attractive, and to work as a movable hand would need some wire, which would stop it from moving at all, so I pulled the hand apart, and turned it into another leg, and made them all legs, which turned into tentacles, and then when I let it sit on my hand to see what my hand wanted to do........it wanted to move around in a poi like fashion, and swing figure eights, and fly through the air with the greatest of ease, so that's how it turned out. And then I wanted it to be an octopus, but I couldn't work out how to get another 3 legs on, and having them dangle from my palm wouldn't move in the same directed way, so I decided to leave it at five hanging off fingers and leave it at that. And then playing with them with Currawong, he said it needed eyes, so then the eyes came. And then flinging the ends round, I realised that beads or bells would be lethal, so tassles were the way to not turn it into a weapon."

It's also got me and Currawong back into photographing each other and the family, and all the things we do more often.  And Currawong gets to slip photos like this in, when taking photos of me hooking first thing in the morning.  Funny how a lot of his photos end up as cleavage shots :)

I've gotta mention too, that this is all going on as we're going about our daily lives, caught here in a photo by a beloved friend, walking the main street of our home town Nimbin.  And incidentally, with me wearing the moth wing cape that I've made a pattern for, that's in my PPP  Ebook.  By the way, being photographed under the Happy High Herbs sign was totally incidental.....and funny :)

And it's also going on while we've been having one of our busiest times with visitors, and people staying for extended periods, and crafting around them and sometimes onto them, or at least onto their dreads :)  There was a veritable rush on dread cosies and hair extensions for a while there!

But overall.....it's been a tremendously exciting experience as well.  I've been totally blissed out that I feel like my computer skills, software, hardware, photos, and the ibooks author template, have all come together in an alchemical magical act.  Had a minor freakout, when I thought yesterday that the ibooks author program was going to only let me publish through ibooks, and charge 30% on all my books!  Thought for a minute I was going to have to copy and paste the whole bloody lot to a free program.  but I got my genius IT expert daughter Jess onto it, and she worked out that it was all fine, as long as I kept my book as a PDF, which I was going to do anyway.  I'm absolutely over the moon with how it came together.  I'm still finishing it off as we speak, but I'm gonna make it on time for Nimbin Show, even if I have to pull off an all nighter.  Might even try and get some wine and nibbles for my little one hour launch :)  Here's the first page to show you how it looks.

And all 70 plus (haven't quite finished it yet!) pages, of photos and stories and patterns, will be available as a PDF file on my Etsy site, and you can also email me (address in my list of places on the right further down).  So you can download my book, or buy it in a crocheted necklace pouch, that also doubles up as a finger puppet.  $20 for the PDF download, and $25 for the crocheted pouch and usb stick.  I"ll keep you posted :)

P.S.  So it's been a little while since my launch now, and I'll post a link to my Etsy page now, just in case you want to go over and check it all out.  

Enter Etsy here

I

The Truth

As a natural born scientist, I’ve been experimenting with my life for many years now.  Diagnosing, postulating and theorising, based on the empirical evidence of my life experiences, and the results of the experiments run to prove or disprove my theories. 

One of my first experiments was to come up with a theory by which to enter into an uncertain future at the age of 16, when I’d left home under police escort to live with my sister in Bathurst, leaving behind my mountain home, family, friends, school, childhood religion, cat, dog, horse, piano, cello and at moments I thought my sanity.  For two weeks I played solitaire with a deck of cards wherever I sat, and ate cheese compulsively.  Grieving, pining, wondering what it was all about, letting go.  At the end of those weeks, and in the complete vacuum left by the absence of a religion which had an answer for everything…………from over the other side of a seemingly impassable void, inbetween where I stood, turned out from my religion, schooling and family KNOWING that I was stupid, ugly, knew nothing of importance and never would, and that everyone and everything was better than me…………..and the rest of the world that looked to me, as a sweet young thing, to be so incredibly clever, and beautiful, and witty and wild.  Especially surrounded as I was by passionate and creative university students in a hybrid uni-farming town, in the days before university fees, when young folks went there while they worked out what they REALLY wanted to do when they grew up.  Plays and performances and spontaneous music and beat poetry glittered in amongst the wild haircuts and clothes and crazy underground uni student homes, spread out through a picturesque countryside.   I very quickly realized that I’d been brought up as very white and middle class,  and was racist, sexist, and homophobic. So after my cheese eating solitaire obsessing binge, and after realizing all of that, and letting it all sink into the void, from across the other side came a very simple…..

The only truth is that there is no ultimate truth.

It worked for me.  And I set about trying to learn from each and every single thing that happened to me, and from everyone I came into contact with, especially the people that made me feel uneasy……cause lets face it, at that point in my life just about everyone made me feel uneasy.  My childhood had been pretty shit in general really.  Lots of unhappiness and loneliness.  Interspersed with moments of pure gold and gorgeous friendships of course, cause there’s always a seam of bright to the smudge, but it was about as crap as I’d want to experience anyway.  Dad died when I was 7 in the Granville train crash, blah blah, there’s a lot of blah there, but that’s not part of this story. 

I’ve done lots of things since then, and learnt from so many many people along the way, who have taught me all sorts of lessons and given me insights to so many theories, that I took along with me to experiment with on the way.  I’ve been sitting here trying to come up with a list of theories I’ve experimented with, but they’re so incredibly numerous, and I realize that what I’m trying to say is about all those other experiments, but mostly about the big theory I’m playing with right now, especially as I’ve gone to such trouble to outline the first very big theory, that I started what I consider my adult life with. 

Because it’s come full circle.  After thinking that I knew ‘the truth’ as  bequeathed by my childhood religion, I left it and came to ‘the only truth is that there is no ultimate truth’ and travelled for a long and lovely time through all sorts of panoramas and cultures and ecosystems and tribes, till I come to right here and now, where I’m going to tell you that I actually am onto ‘the truth’ again. 

That’s right.  I’m telling you that I know The Truth.  The Big One.  The Great Kahuna.  The Almighty And Omnipresent Truth Of Truthness.

And if you’re anything like everyone else that I’ve said this to since I’ve been experimenting with this concept, you’re rolling your eyes, or getting instantly distracted, and trying to work out how you can politely tell me that my truth is very cute, but it’s only MY truth afterall, or shuffling your feet and suddenly feeling an intense interest in the condition of your fingernails, or the other routines you go through when you come across another person trying to tell you what ‘the truth’ is again……..   

And I’ll even put in a little preamble, and tell you that this ‘truth’ comes to you via a million different reflections in a million different mirrors and truths and versions of truths, and self organizing symmetry, and the fractal nature of reality, and smidgins of shards of religion and spirituality, and lessons to be learned from the light and dark paths of enlightenment………

Are you curious yet?  Have you stopped the shuffle?  Are you ready for me to tell you THE TRUTH?

The Great And Ultimate Truth Is The Synthesis Of Every Single One Of Us Being Who We Are Born To Be.   In being true to our authentic human selves, and living our own truth, no matter what that may be, we are actually BEING ‘the truth’.  Living our part of the great and universal truth that is the combination and synthesis of us all and everything there is, and all of our experiences, and beliefs, and truths, and hearts.  Because it has to be.  Any great truth, or god, or spirituality, or science or belief has to hold us all.  Has to hold us all with the unconditional love that we all deserve and respond to.  Between all of us is The Truth.  And the best way to get there is to follow the paths and the fractals within us, being led by our desires and loves and passions.  And learning from our pains and griefs and tortures.  Equally from both.  The Pleasurable and the Painful.  Pleasure and joy are easy to learn from, but it takes the true dedication of a scientist to elicit lessons, opportunities and gifts from the Painful experiments of life.  Our Shadows are parts of ourselves that we pull away from ourselves in order to externalize and attempt to understand.   Blame, Fear and Denial keep your Shadow at bay, but eating it back into yourself brings the seeds of enlightenment at the heart of your shadow within you. 

Just like Ashoka, the rough young king that came into power in India, towards the end of the apparently Dark Ages, that was only Dark in fact around the Roman Catholic Church, we could really get, that to pick one way or truth or belief or god as supreme overall, is a bit insulting to others and their truths really, and bound to cause conflict and warring.  And instead we could all create Universe Cities within our minds, where all the beliefs and truths and experiences could come together as equals, and have a great rap about what they’ve got in common, and we take the bits that resonate, and respect the equal truth of the rest, and go on our merry own paths. 

And whether you call it God, or Great Spirit, or Buddha, or Self Organisation, or Chaos, or Creation, or Evolution, or Consciousness, or Allah, or Goddess, or Anarchy, or The Law Of Every Action Having An Equal And Opposite Reaction……..it seems that they’re all actually the same thing.  It’s that bit that happens in your life that defies all expectations of coincidence, serendipity, and random occurrences.  That bit that makes you inherently aware that there’s a great design or purpose to the things that happen around you, and they’re all leading you to a logical conclusion.  The bit where you realize that you often get what you need, instead of what you want, and that all the things you get are actually as good or bad as each other, when you see them as lessons, opportunities, and gifts.  The bit where you know in your very being and soul that you’re not alone, but are surrounded by a host of guardian angels, or in connection with DNA and the energy that’s constantly moving round in our universe and remembering where it’s been, or with The Ancestors, or with entities and deities and devas all around us, or the particles that make up the 4 billions parts of information that our eyes see every second, and that we only consciously recognize 2 thousands parts of.  The bit that helps you to see everything else as kin and connected, and that what you give out, is what you get back.  The bit that encourages you to empathise, be compassionate, and do to other people what you’d like done to yourself.

The Great And Ultimate Truth Is All Of It.  All our lessons and learnings and pains and joys and wars and peace and truths and denials and fears and trust and realizations and knowings and feelings and doings.  The synthesis of all of our trials and inner knowledge and traumas and love.  The Truth within us, is the same as The Truth without us.  And we are all an integral part of it. 

Take it for a test run at least, and then let me know what you think of The Truth.