A Nimbin Minute

In December 2013 we had a bit of a special Nimbin day, and I told the story on Facebook, and later got access to the photos of part of the story, and wanted to share the story and them.  

And I was practicing writing short blog posts.  They can't all be epics can they?

This was just a normal Nimbin day.  Stuff like I described went on in that town every time we visited it.  It really is a hotbed of diverse and authentic humanity.  And the young woman that we met at the end of the story has gone on to become part of our lives in a very rich way, but that's a whole other story.

So here's the status update I wrote on Friday the 20th of December 2013, and then I'll share the photos, cause I think they're cute, and one of them is one of the few photos we have of us all together!!

Here goes….

"I just love Nimbin.  For keeps.

Today we went into town for the Christmas Party organised by the Nimbin Neighbourhood and Information Centre.  It's the first time I've actually made it, cause the first year here Zarra had just been born, (yes it was his birthday yesterday), and the second year he was only a year old and sleeping, and it was too hot to wake him up and schlep him out.  So for the first time, after all the stories, I made it. 

What a blast!  Tables and tables of Nimbins finest and most colourful sat arrayed like sparkly rainbows, eating lovingly prepared food, and three elders on ukelele's serenaded us.  New and loved faces all around.

Then Santa rocked up in true Nimbin fashion, on a firetruck with a gorgeous elf, throwing lollies to the crowd.  And then he trailed to his seat, where he gave all the kids presents, (groovy ones too) and the wild rumpus was on! 

The rest of the day was of course spent at the pool, and there were wide ranging chats, and new friendships deepening, and all sorts of Nimbin locals stopping by for a yarn, while the kids splashed and played.

And then on the way home, we stopped in at the Emporium for last minute supplies, and got stopped on the way by Anna and a friend, with a unique proposition.  This gorgeous young womans lover was away on a trip in New York, and rather than the same old love letters sent between them, she wanted to stretch the parameters.  So she had a poem that he'd created and written it on paper, and was asking people who exemplified love to hold the sheets with his poem, so she could take photos of them, and send him a love letter photo collage of his heart felt poem.  She got us all arrayed on the bull bar of Flo the Coaster, holding the sheets of poem in front of us, and then took one of just me and Currawong on the step of our bus.  And a bit of a crowd rocked up to oooh and ahhh bout the crazy family posed for a photo.  She'd spent the day taking photos with people who Anna introduced her to, Anna being the perfect person for the job, cause she's so well connected on a heart level with so many folk in town.

Love it.  Wasn't that just the coolest thing to be involved in to top off a perfect Nimbin day??"

I like her description of this one.  She said - 

Meet Currawong and Hellena….

Gypsy love birds….

Adventuring artists….

Nurturing guides to their seven bright eyed little ones….

 

  

That's a Merlin top left, Spiral-Moon top right, and Balthazar at the bottom

Lotus babies Balthazar and Spiral-Moon

 

 

Look how much they've grown.  That's me holding Zarra, my gorgeous Currawong next to me, Lilly in the middle, and Max, Mr B, and Spiral at the bottom

 

And check this out!!  All in one photo!!!  From top left, Lilly, Max, Merlin, Spiral, and me holding Zarra.  Then there's Griffyn, Currawong and Balthazar down the bottom.

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

I really do miss Nimbin.   And how bright and alive and helpful and useful we felt,  just to be a part of it.  I don't think we'll make it back there, as housing is impossible, and all our potential places to stay didn't work out.  

But oh was it was fun at the time.

TUFT (Temporary Utopian Fibre Temple) presents Metamorphostick

People have been calling me an artist for years, but it was only last year that I actually felt like one.  I'm definitely a craftsperson, and have certainly passed through my initiation and apprenticeship in my self taught guild, and moved through practitioner to Mistress of my chosen craft.  

But deep down I always kinda thought of myself as a talented crafts person, who created techniques and creations that were certainly artistic, but easily replicatable, thereby more fitting with the crafts person persona.  

Even so, I rarely made the same thing twice, and found orders and commissions odious, so I could see the two - craftsperson and artist - coexisting in a harmonious way.

But the year after Merlin got sick,  I got caught up in an art rash, that could only be itched by creating the ideas coming through me, and following the simple path before me, of a crystaline concept that was the outcome, with convoluted stepping stones along the way. Inspiration just grabbed me and made me follow without asking questions.  The visiting muse or genie was strong felt around me, working through my fingers and dancing as visions.  I used all the skills I'd learnt to craft me a palette, from crochet hooks to wooden weaving needles, 

 

 

to the hand dyed fleeces created by my man, 

 

 

to the spinning and translating of what the yarn wanted to become. 

 

Paradoxically, this was also a year of great and deep sadness and constant worry, as my Merlin was in the process of losing his hair and undergoing treatment for Leukaemia.   

I was coming to terms with my upturned beliefs about western medicine, and searching out an integrated path with alternative medicine, and it was a stark and bright lit new world that felt like I'd never get used to it.  

There were so many rivers of tears and fears washing over me regularly.  What were the rules in this new world?  What would be left of my old one?  

The floor had dropped out from beneath me, and I'd had to stare death in the face.  Death as powerful and significant as Birth.  One of our collectives greatest fears and taboos.  

It very much felt like the art rash upon me, was very definitely the equal and opposite of the great sadness that almost swallowed me. 

And the making and following the genie process, was definitely the meditation and self therapy I needed at the time to calm and center myself, and keep being strong and enabling the biggest cure for my Merlin, alongside his integrated medicines, which was simply being as happy as we could all help him to be, and to laugh lots.  

So the first 'artwork' to emerge, where I stayed up late at night, and crept down first thing in the morning, in an almost urgent desire to see the idea that had visited my mind, was the Metamorphostick.  A large and magnificent stick that had fallen in our suburban back yard beckoned to me from over by the fence, until I finally brought it out the front of my studio on the grass, and whittled back the bark and the knots to see the skeleton underneath.  

Then the sanding and oiling, and it was brought inside and hung from the rafters where I started off applying wire prosthetic branches and twigs.  

It got a curled possum tail and wool pods and flowers, and has raw alpaca peeking from the wrapping at either side, suggesting a fibre metamorphosis of the wood, the fibre changing the branch with its touch.  

I made a big ceremonial wrap out of a few different dye pots of green processed tops, that were gifted from the beautiful Faith, who with her daughter Amber brought us earth magic in the first weeks of our hospital stay.  It seemed the perfect energy to hang from my transforming stick.

 

It was the first time I truly felt like I was using my handspun yarns as a palette, shading the twigs and branches, and like I was applying the skills I'd taught myself in a Mistress like manner.  Mistressing my craft.  
 

And I liked it so much I kept going, and my fibre muse very kindly kept visiting, and the next creation to birth was the Labyrinth.  An idea that had been tempting me for a while, but which finally actuated in a glorious way.  



TO BE CONTINUED.........