The Friesian

After my adventures with the Wait A While vine colliding with my crochet and creating the Staghorn piece, and it making its debut at Nimbin's Mardi Grass on the luscious body of Nerelle, it was a bit of an anti-climax to have it sitting folded up and looking rather folorn on Currawongs drum in our home.  Inspired by the upcoming Fibre Festival at Blue Knob Farmers Market (and realising that in the rush of Mardi Grass, I'd not gotten my staghorn piece into the Fibre Festival exhibition at Blue Knob Gallery in time), I decided to make my own stand for it, to show it off, and take it along to the festival instead, and use it to lush out the stage I'd been asked to dress for the Fibre Festival.

I also decided to polish up and improve on the hat design that came from a collaboration between me, my Fibre Fairy Godmothers fleece turned into hand dyed and spun yarn, the Wait A While vine, my particular and quirky method of crocheting or hooking using hook sizes to shape rather than increasing or decreasing, and whichever divine genius or genie that was visiting at the time.  For a really incredibly engaging and quite magical explanation of this form of genius, please watch this TED talk by Elizabeth Gilbert....

Now from the moment we turned up ridiculously early to the Festival, I was playing stage dresser, and setting up my display, and chatting to loved friends, and goggling at others creations, and then being the first cab off the rank with the talks, and spontaneously talking and telling stories through both my time period and the missing next persons, and having a delightful and meaningful experience with a couple who ended up taking my crocheted pregnant woman for a world trip holiday, and catching the inspiring and impressive talk and presentation by Jen Harkness and Jeni Allenby on the political and social implications of Craftivism, with an impromptu update by the Knitting Nannas at the end.......and I didn't take any photos!  I wore the hat I've called the Friesian the whole time, and got more comments and attention from it in such a short time, than just about anything else I've made.  But fortunately, my beautiful friend Megan Jack who was our travelling mentor many years ago, when we first met in Alice Springs at the Beanie Festival, took a photo of me giving my talk.  And you can just see the bottom of my Staghorn piece on it's stand in the background.  

As the next day happened to be a Nimbin Market day, and all my stuff was packed anyway, I took it all along to dress the stage at market too.  Don't know if my big spiderweb had anything to do with the spectacular performance by our resident stage facilitator Sarah Stando and her love, the talented guitarist who treated us to a sparkling rendition of a variety of Oz pop and rock songs, or indeed anything to do with dragging into our web the two French couples, who turned up independently of each other, to serenade and entrance us all with French songs and melodies, but I like to think it had something to do with it at least.  And same as the Fibre Festival, I didn't take any photos of that day either, but it was a month when we had two markets in a row, so I took it all along the next sunday as well, this time managing to take some photos afterall.  The next sunday we had the soulful Jolanda Moyle singing on stage in front of my web, amongst other musical artists.

And the 'Friesian' continued to attract intense attention all day both sundays, not least by my skater artist mate Franco ( who also loved my crochet cow skull, that he reckons would look rad on his skateboard), and some soul family had already started begging me to make them one.  It was too warm to wear it on the sunday I managed to take photos, but it hung out in my stall nonetheless.  Which was happening to look pretty gorgeous if I may say so myself.

And I was too 

In the background of this one you can clearly see the first incarnationof the Friesian, before I made my red and purple version

Now Currawong's been asking me for YEARS to have some stock standard pieces, that I can replicate to make money from, AS WELL as continuing to be an artist and making one off creations, but I've always staunchly refused, told him I'm not a factory, and said if he liked that idea so much he should go and learn to crochet.  But the Friesian is so gorgeous, and apparently universally appealing, that I'm considering pimping myself, in order to birth this head gear into the world.  

There's something ancestrally evocative about this intuited design.  Harking back to our differing cultural heritages, and a more peaceful, gentle and connected time.  A pagan headpiece or a 1920's art deco diva's headwear.  A medieval Florentinians head adornment, or a gracious musical movie headdress.

And there's almost a geometric mandala like essence to especially the top of it, where my method of crafting with hook sizes rather than increasing stitches gives a lovely openness in the crown of the piece.

It's a dress for your head, or a head-dress.  And can be worn in many ways.  If I list one on Etsy I'll pay especial attention to showing all the ways it can transform.

And now here comes the trippy part.  In preparation for this post, I was coming up with all this arty farty rave about my Friesian heritage, and clutching at straws a bit about the little I knew at the time about the golden skull caps that my women ancestors wore, and then the coverings they made to cover them.  And inspired by various things, I've decided to do 7 artworks in honour of the Seven Sisters, or Pleiades, and was researching into alternative names and meanings of the constellation, cause I'll be damned if I'm going to honour the greek or roman versions, which are fairly tawdry and uninspiring.  So I've been looking into my Viking heritage, and incidentally, the Pleiades were often called Freya's hens, and compared to a hen with chicks.  But I got totally distracted when I found a few blogs with my ancestors traditional costumes and daily wear.  This blogpost was amazing, and taught me that the golden skull cap was actually called an oorijzer, which is Friesian for 'ear iron'.

Which was placed on a head, to show status, and to also hold cloth on the head in the strong Friesian wind, and had beautifully crafted lace caps and frills attached to the clips on the side.

And to be honest they're kinda kooky.  I LOVE IT!!!

Then I found a Pinterest page full of Friesian or Fryslan costumes, and it touched something deep in me.  To see all these images of richly coloured people, knowing that my ancestors would have looked like some of them.  I've loved looking at traditional costumes for years, having no idea that my own ancestry held such gorgeous ones.  So traditionally, women wore the oorijzer, had beautiful lace over the gold skull cap, held on by clasps on the sides of their heads, and then went into the spectacular for hats and head-dresses to wear over it all.   And I'll be buggered if I didn't soon come across something that looked a bit like my Friesian!!!

I loved this photo too.  I so believe that I can see echoes of my kinda pirate/gypsy/earth mamma/crochet creatrix fashion sense in her outfit!

Another beautiful woman in her outfit, and I suspect that at some point in the not too distant future, there will be some kind of creation coming out of me like this head-dress....

Then I found another blogpost about the folk costumes of Friesland, and I got another surprise.  Ever since the Wait A While vine came into my life, I've been talking about making a big top hat with it.  I was telling folk it was gonna be all 4 Non Blondes like, (remember that big leather top hat with the goggles?), and you coulda blown me away with a feather when I saw this one......

Don't worry, I'm in the process of having a crack at one as we speak. I'm so impressed I've got top hat in my heritage :)  I actually found the visual of this picture above after I'd had Currawongs and my appetites totally whet by a description of them in a book written by Sacheverell Sitwell - The Netherlands; A Study of Some Aspects of Art, Costume and Social Life - written in 1948.  If you're curious about the delicious way the outfits were explained, read on a page and a half in till you see the reference to the 'labyrinth' of Friesland, Molkwerum,  here.

I doubt any of you reading will remember, but long ago on this blog, I was talking about making myself a journeywoman belt, and taking my hooks and tool belt on the road, to find my fortunes, and I was tremendously impressed when I found some actual photos of the Friesian tradition of wearing one's tools, purse, scissors, needles, hooks etc, on one's apron.  Like thus...

Yes.  I know.  So much for the short blog post.  But anyone who knows me should have realised when I set the goal, that I was dreaming the impossible dream.  I find it impossible to be short winded.  I complimented a supermarket woman on the coles internet site, and the compliment turned into a short story :)  So to finish up properly, I really need to mention a massive inspiration to this whole Wait A While vine intervention.  And from the moment I've seen how it worked and moved and sat, I've been holding her art in my head like a flame.  With the joyous fusion between me, the vine, my crochet, and whichever genie visits, I like to think I can take a step closer to the magnificent creative and inspirational force that is the unique style of my Fibre Heroine Goddess Mandy Greer, and her wildly magical and sumptuous artworks in all their manifestations.  One of my very first favourite pieces of hers, is a headress with circles of crochet, and though the Friesian is nowhere near as spectacular, I'd like to think it's a spiritual relative of it at least.  

If you really want to treat your eyes to a delicious visual feast, just go to her Flickr page and see what fibre genius really looks like.  

So stay tuned fellow groovers, cause I seem to be on a roll......

My Currawong

There’s a lot of stories and events in my past that I haven’t even touched on here in my blog yet, and I reckon there’s a few terms and words that I’ve made up that you might like me to explain at sometime… But that time is not now. I keep getting ideas for things I want to blog about, like all the other births that I’ve experienced and what I learnt from them, and a glossary of all the terms I use that aren’t in common usage (yet), and I’ve written a cute little number about optometrists and another one about space in relationships……but their time is yet to come. But right here and now, I really wanna pay a bit of a tribute to my man. My Currawong. My best mate and co-conspirator. The studly father of my beautiful children. The male at the top of the heap in my circle when it comes to the survival of the fittest……..the male that’s preened and made nests and provided beautiful food, keeps our mechanical wheels running, and puts across the best display’s of human nature that impressed me (and him) so much, that we keep having babies. My muse, inspiration, education, and the most bodacious bed mate that ever sprinkled my life with pure human essence.

We’ve just been through a really hard time. And are only now really realizing how traumatized we’ve both been by recent events…….twins was enough on it’s own, but also my daughter feeling down, and us losing the home that we thought we were gonna live in the rest of our lives, and the betrayal of some of the people in that community home…..not to mention feeling poor and homeless, and staying away from our beloved beach community for a couple of months and finding out about an unexpected pregnancy along the way. It’s been really hard. And we’ve done what most other people would probably do in the same situation……..taken it out on each other. Years ago, I figured that fighting amongst couples is actually quite an honourable and trusting thing. You’re telling each other that you believe you can express and display the worst aspects of your personality (and let’s face it, we all have them), and also believe that the other will still be there at the end of it, and still love you, and accept your nasty self for what it is, at the same time as expressing their own. And it’s a great way for letting off steam in a society obsessed with being ‘good’, and ‘fine’. So we’ve been through the hurly burly of late. And just last weekend went down to the hugely loved Willunga and all the wonderful folk who we love and who love us there, and remembered who we were when we feel loved again, and it kinda put all the past hurts and betrayals into perspective, and helped us realize that we’ve both been a bit off the wall for the last 3 months or so. It wasn’t just him, like I kept trying to tell him it was, afterall. And for the first time, in the middle of a blazing and bitter recrimination that I just HAD to inform him about, I did what I’ve wanted to do for years, and told him how much I hated it when we weren’t getting on, and told him I was going to do my bit for making it better, dropped it all, and gave him a hug. And guess what. It worked. He was so happy that I just dropped it all and hugged him, and we haven’t had a cross word since. And it makes me realize again how very much I love him.

We’ve got one of the best love stories I’ve ever heard of. When we first clapped eyes on each other, I was a black leather wearing recent dyke with short hair, and he had a purple Mohawk, and wore black and shades of grey. Our eyes met across a crowded pub, and we stared into each others souls…….which neither of us had ever done before (or since). And then we met on the busy Katoomba street, went for a coffee, and within minutes were telling each other our deepest and darkest secrets. That night he was palming off his mistress, after having left his partner at home, so we could go upstairs to really meet each other…….and you can think what you like about such a meeting, but that’s how it was. 6 hours later we came back to the pub to cheers from observers, and parted, sure that we’d never meet again. He had a whole life that entrenched him, and I lived in another state, and I decided I wanted one just like him, but not him, because he was far too damaged. (I thought) But no-one of the male persuasion had ever treated me with such respect and equality before…….so I wanted to remember all the details. I got home to South Australia and decided to write it all out. And became a woman obsessed. Within 3 months of wondering whether I was writing the book, or it was writing me, I had a tome that I’d written, that began with a recounting of our meeting, and then became a visualization of what I wanted and wished would happen, as well as an autobiography, science fiction novel, and self help manual. It’s written in the most amazing poetic style, and as I wrote it, I’d read back over what I’d written in amazement, wondering where it was all coming from! I reckon I could almost call it a channeled book. I finished it just before Saturn Return and decided to take a trip through the desert and let it go, and take on the changes that would happen, and face my fears, and that trip is a whole other story in and of itself……but on the way home, I stopped in at Katoomba again, and just when I was about to leave and come home, Currawong walked into the pub, and we sank into each other again. I told him I’d written a book about him, and he told me he’d written a song about me, and our hearts melted together. But he was still entangled, so we parted again, a bit sadder this time, and went our own ways again. Till I got a phone call a year or so later, and he’d left his partner, and moved to Melbourne, and wondered if I wanted to come to a party at his house. I drove there straight away, and we spent the weekend drinking large amounts of Stones Green Ginger Wine, and had 7 people traipsing through his bedroom as we kept telling each other that we weren’t into a relationship, and we wanted our freedom, and all sorts of other pretty lies. Till the last moments, when we’d kicked the last person out of his bed, and he said ‘But is that all there is? Can’t there be more between us?’

I was so touched at the role reversal, and he was so soft hearted, that we entered into a period of a long distance relationship. I’d catch the train to visit him in Melbourne, and he’d hitch-hike to visit me. I was in such an amazing place of feeling my connection to the entire world, and understanding that everyone I met WAS me, that we had all these cute moments, like when he met me at the train, and I introduced the 6 people I’d met in the smoking carriage to him, after telling them all about our romance. He was really into being a debonair but angry punk at that time, and was a bit blown away being met by all these people….the toothless prostitute, the ex-con, the psychologist, the speed dealer and the rest… And eventually he decided to leave his punk band and come and see how good it could get with me. And we’ve never stopped the joy ride since. We’ve gone from both wearing black and shades of grey to wearing lots of bright colours, he’s gone from being virulently anti-child to being the best dad I’ve ever seen, I taught myself to spin and crochet and have done it all my own way, and he’s taught himself to drum in his own unique way, despite being told many times by big-egoe’d drummers that he didn’t know what he was doing and to stop. We ran a market together that was one of the most amazing social experiments I’ve ever been a part of – with the complete absence of all forms of hierarchy – and we learnt a lot about ourselves, our community, the environment, and other ways in which we could be activists for change. We travelled all around the country in our hi-ace commuter van, bought a house to have a baby (Spiral-Moon) in, up north in a town that time forgot, sold it after she was born, and then relocated to the hills around Melbourne for a short stint, before coming back to the Adelaide hills to have Balthazar, join a community, avoid the horrendous Melbourne fires, learn through Post Natal Depression and whooping cough, get pregnant with twins, and get to here where you find us now, wondering where our path will take us next.

But that’s just the external journey. The internal journey has been huge. We are both incest survivors and had traumatic childhoods, so we’ve had a lot of barriers and trust issues that needed dealing with in a gentle (and sometimes not so gentle) way. We’ve always had a huge love and lust for each other, but had to learn how to express it to each other in ways that allowed for each other’s particular foibles and scars. Currawong had so many barricades to his heart, that it really took the first five years of our being together, for him to truly believe that I was here to stay, and really loved him. And I needed equal time to believe that I really deserved love too. It was only last year that I really got that he didn’t put other people first, like I’d been accusing him of for years, and was obviously in every part of his being, choosing me and supporting me above all others. A lot of the things we’ve accused each other of over the years have been nothing to do with each other really, and are more to do with the treatment we experienced as children, and our issues with our families of birth. The untangling of family wounds and barriers we’ve built was tumultuous at first, and is getting easier and easier the more we do it, motivated by wanting to give our children as much healthy stuff as we can.

And I still pinch myself regularly, to make sure that I really am here, experiencing one of those epic love stories that I so wished for as a child and teen. He blends in wherever he goes just like me. He can get on with anyone, anywhere, anyhow, just like me. He can skip and jump through any intellectual hoop or concept you care to name, and he’s always growing and learning. He’s Friesian just like me. A bit less than me actually, but it doesn’t really matter, when you consider the coincidence of us having met and bonded at all. He’s the most awesome mirror I’ve ever known. And there’s not a single thing about him I’d change. He’s spontaneous, never boring, romantic in a totally uncommercial way, challenging, compassionate, and a huge amount of fun. We are so similar it’s mindblowing, and we truly have absolutely no secrets from each other. I’m so greatfull we found each other……..

Which is why we’re trying so hard to stay together. Without sacrificing one of us to a job and a mortgage. To keep travelling even sporadically, and make an income from our passions and talents. To keep our family close knit and dedicated to the path of natural learning for us all. To keep carving out our own reality, our own way, without compromising our dreams. And we’re both stubborn, and both resolutely freedom loving, so I reckon we can do it. I’m going to help Currawong get a vlog (that’s a video blog) together, cause his performance is so audio-visual, that I reckon it’s the only medium that will do him justice. His wild talent is so outstanding, I want the world to see what he does. He can drum on anything from glass jars, to computer parts, to play equipment in parks, to preserving kits, to plastic seats, to bodies, while creating the wildest threads of rhythm that keep forming a continuous multilayered soundscape. And he tells stories and plays with kids rhymes and makes up the most amazing lyrics on the spot. Everything he does is improvised genius, and I’m certainly not the only person that thinks so! My man needs the audience he deserves, and as well as busking on our journey, I reckon he could find an international love for what he does via the internet. Which will be easier on our family time than doing the band and gig trip that so many other musicians do.

And I’m going to flog my blog. Remember that book I was just telling you about? Very soon you’ll be able to buy it off me via the internet, either in PDF format, or printed in a hard copy if that way goes easy. I’ve got this idea of selling the articles I’ve written, theories, books, patterns, and creative writing pieces, with lots of pictures added, on memory sticks, and then crocheting pouches for the sticks to live in, as a connection from me to the recipient. And I’m going to revive my etsy site and start selling some of my crocheted creations that are just sitting around. And write more about birth and tell the rest of my amazing birthing stories. I’m even thinking about writing kids books about how we learn together, with photo’s of our gorgeous kids and examples of natural learning and how it occurs. And maybe one day we’ll end up on land and start community supported agriculture and other community hubs, cause that’s what we’re all about.

Cause I’ve decided I want a café income. After doing 6 years of cloth nappies, when I found out there were biodegradable disposable nappies, I decided I wanted a disposable nappy income, and it happened. I was so excited by disposable nappies after 6 years of stringing up prayer flags of colourful nappies everywhere we went, that I could hardly sleep!! And now I want a café income, so we can regularly go to gorgeous organic café’s for breakfast, or lunch, or dinner, depending on the mood. And I reckon if you’d ever experienced thinking up, cooking for, and cleaning up after 6 young children on a daily basis, you’d totally understand my desire!!! And it’s even Currawong who does most of the cooking!! And we want a big purple 40ft bus to trip around in, with beds that we don’t have to pack up every morning, and lay out every night, and a kitchen on wheels!! Cups of tea whenever we need them. And a home…….where we belong to the land more than it belongs to us. And where we can grow food and family and love and community. Did you catch all that universe??

But first, the search to find where we’ll birth this next one……..

So if you’re into what I write about, and think what we’re doing is a worthwhile pursuit to support, I’d really dig it if you helped me get my blog ‘out there’ in whatever way you can think of, and maybe buy my wares when they come online. And check out my beautiful Currawong’s vlog when we get it happening. And I might even try and add one of those donate buttons I’ve seen around to my blog, for the altruistic philanthropists among you. And hopefully it will all come around for all of us, to live our true and authentic lives, and dream our dreams, and support each other to be all that we want and need to be. Love, respect, peace and freedom to you all!

25 Random things about me

I know this is meant to be a blog about spinning and crochet and the like, but the fact is I'm not doing a hell of a lot of that at the moment, what with a new bubba and the like, and I want to keep writing things here....

There's this thing that's happening in my facebook network, where people are posting 25 random things about themselves, and I really enjoyed doing it... You should try it yourself and see what you come up with!! After about no 15, you've gone through the store of things you wanted to say that you thought you had an endless supply of, and you start having to dig a bit deeper. That being said, I could probably write another 25.....

Anyway, I thought I'd make the most of something I'd written, and put it in here too, so here goes..........

1. I agree with Ellie, in that I don't normally do stuff like this, but I loved reading other people's 25 things, and thought I should share as well.

2. I have 5 children, and when they're all sitting around me, I spin out about how they all came out of my belly, and were made with love inside me.

3. I'm a spinster in the original sense of the word - I spin the fleece for my family - and a creatrix, and it's my 'thing'. I thought I'd never find my 'thing', until my mum bought me a spinning wheel when I was 30 as a birthing present. Which incidentally was the age when she got her first spinning wheel. It's been a mad love affair ever since.

4. Speaking about mad love affairs, and something I thought I'd never find - I live with the love of my life, and it's as good as I always secretly dreamed it would be. We met when we were 28 (we're the same age), and he's my soul mate, constant partner, best friend and most awesome lover I ever had. And the father of 4 of my children. Don't think we don't fight tho, cause we do - like cat and dog. But in the vast majority of our time we have huge amounts of fun and adventures and talking.....lots and lots of talking.....

5. We're also both Fries. Or Friesian. Where the black and white cows come from up the top of Holland. Though we're not Dutch. The Fries are a breed of their own, and the only tribe still living in the same place and speaking the same language from the survey the Romans did in 0 BC. They're also indomitable. I only discovered this a few years ago and I'm very proud of it.

6. I fancy myself a writer, and am in the process of writing a book about spinning, crochet and the things I make, as well as another one about birth, sex and death. I also keep a diary sporadically, wrote really bad poems when I was a teenager (who didn't!), and write down some of the kookier dreams I have.

7. I'm the seventh child of two seventh children, (my mum was the seventh child of her father, and my father was the seventh child of his parents, and I'm their seventh child), which has often made me wish for seven children, because there's a story that the seventh child of a seventh child will be psychic and special, and I'd love to know what the seventh of the seventh of the seventh would be like. But I think we're going to stop at 5, which is kinda sad.

8. My dad died in the Granville train crash when he was 49 (7 x 7), and I was 7, in 1977. He gave up smoking that morning, which meant he was on the non-smoking carriage right under the bridge, and if he hadn't of done that, he would have still been alive on his normal smoking carriage. He came to me after he died and told me that it was gonna be all right. And then I got teased at school that my dad was squashed like a tomato, so I stayed home for a year.

9. I really hated school. I was a head taller than most of the boys, had braces and glasses, wore long socks and long skirts, and was also a Mormon, which didn't really add to my popularity stakes. But I always had one girlfriend who made life bearable.

10. My sister got her boobs touched a bit too much by my step-father, and made a career out of it by turning it all into a comedy routine. I felt a bit ripped off when I found out years later that the 'incest' was just boob touching, cause that happened to me too, and I lost everything in supporting her and getting her out of home. ( I was 7 years younger than her). Notice how these 7's keep turning up?

11. I went overseas when I was 18 for a year, and did the whole backpacker euro-rail thing around Europe. Drank lots of beer, learnt how to scull an english pint in 3 seconds, met lots of groovy people, met 6 aunts, 5 uncles and 25 cousins in Holland, and generally had a blast. It put my life into perspective.

12. I sold life insurance for 6 months on the North Shore in Sydney. I scammed people on the phone by pretending that a friend of thiers had recommended me. I had a whole script that I learnt in training sessions where they used Colonel Sanders as inspiration. I left when I realised that I was seriously ripping people off. Also when they fired me....long story.

13. I'm seriously into Quantum Physics - after all the different belief systems I've trawled, and all the things I've learnt, I've found that Quantum Physics has room for every belief, and helps me make sense out of just about everything.

14. I was one of those horse loving girls, who had fantasies about horses and drew them lots. A bit of a crush I had.

15. I thought I was always going to be alone in that deep dark part of me inside, until I met Currawong, and we shared all our deep dark bits together. Even when we're fighting, I still know I'm not alone.

16. My dad was an uninitiated witch who could melt clouds, and I can too when I want to.

17. I have 4 brothers who won't talk to me, one of which calls me 'boofhead' everytime he HAS to talk to me, and my sister wont either. All long stories, but mostly because I was my dad's favourite and they weren't.

18. At the ripe old age of 38 I've discovered mountain bike riding (thanks Ellie!) and am surprised by how much I love my early morning rides through Kuitpo.

19. I started the Macclesfield Growers Market, although no-one would know - the 6 months leading up to our first market was the hardest I've ever worked in my life. It changed my life....

20. My favourite colour is purple, and I love shades of red and all the hues inbetween.

21. I was a lesbian for 5 years, and learnt a lot, ran a lesbian forum, and was 'super dyke' for a while, with my shaved head and leather wearing habits. I was the typist for the Mountain Lesbian Newsletter for a goodly amount of time.

22. I had a life changing moment in 6th class when a hippy couple stopped in at our playground during lunch. They had a baby boy, and as they were chatting to us the dad was changing his nappy. During the process, the baby pissed in his face, and he laughed!! I was gobsmacked. In my family there would have been yelling and tantrums. From that moment on I knew that somewhere 'out there' were colourful happy people, who lived in peace. And I vowed to find them one day. Now we are them!

23. I felt guilty the whole time I was a mormon, for playing 'mummies and daddies' with my girlfriends as a young child. It was a bit dodgy when one of my friends wanted me to pretend to rape her.... I always wanted to be princess Leia cause I had the long plaits, but she made me be Luke Skywalker cause I was tall.

24. Of all the drugs I don't do anymore, tobacco is the one I miss the most.

25. I hide my shyness by being extroverted

My greatest creations....

So I've realised, as a lot of people already know, that my greatest creations are my babies.  My 5th child was born on the 28th of November, and had a bit of a surprise entrance!  He decided he'd help my growth by encouraging me to face every fear I ever had about birthing - to birth out of water, be transferred mid labour, go into a hospital for birthing, have a spinal and caesarean, and have a hospital stay of two days........  All of which was nowhere near as scary as I thought it would be, and in fact was conducted with the utmost grace and respect.  We had a bit of an impact on the staff as well - we did a lotus birth and were incredibly greatfull for two stereotypical 'hippies'.  We've called him Balthazar Pheonix Post, to go along with Spiral-Moon Post, Lilith Magenta De-Ath Post, Griffyn Flux Post, and Jessica Kaira Post......

The photo's of all the other kids were taken a while ago, and I only found them again just before Balthazar's birth, and it blew me away how stunning they all are.  Like a friend said, it seems that Currawong and I have stumbled on a good genetic combination!!  Must be something to do with our Friesian heritage.  Speaking of which, I was a bit thrilled to find out that Balthazar was the name of the last rebel Friesian freedom fighter!!!  I've been obsessed with the name for a long long time, and it's good to have a quirky Friesian story to explain it with...

So we ended up with our perfect birth afterall, just not the way I'd thought it was going to be.  After 1 hospital birth, a 2nd hospital water birth that was as close as you can get to a homebirth in hospital, a 3rd homebirth and water birth, and a 4th homebirth, waterbirth and lotus birth, to have my 5th as a ceasarean in hospital has nicely rounded out my experiences and learning.  We found out after trying to do the homebirth thing, and it not working, and getting to Flinders, that his cord was wrapped around his neck, and he was 'leashed' high in my womb by a high up placenta, and there was absolutely no way he would have survived (or me either more than likely), or could have been born, unless we had access to western medicine and a caesarean in particular.  

And I have to admit now that I had been judgemental about caesareans, and western medicine in general, and I'm glad to have had this experience to become less one eyed about the whole shebang.  Considering I'm attempting to write a book about birth, sex, and death, I think it's highly fortunate and timely for this event to have unfolded as it has!  Also taught me to never say never, as no-one would have thought that I'd need a caesarean on my 5th birth with my birthing history!  

This appears to be the lesson of the year for me - to never say never.  To avoid trying to predict and plot the future.  And to surrender to the flow and wherever it chooses to take me.  Which is one of the very greatest lessons about birth in general as far as I'm concerned - to surrender. Birth will be what it will be, no matter what plans you may make in the meantime!

So.

Back to crochet and spinning and the like in my next posting - just had to take a birthing interlude.....