And on the seventh day they rested......

I’ve been contemplating belief lately.  A lot.  On this mad meander of ours across the country, I’ve been contemplating my beliefs that have led us to this point, and the beliefs of the people we’ve had in our intimate circle for the last 3 years, and the impact that’s had on me and my family, as well as the beliefs of the ‘mainstream’ for the want of a better word.  The large group of people that wear the same clothes, drive the same cars, work in the same jobs, talk about the same politicians who are saying the same words, watch the same television programs, eat the same foods, watch the same ads, shop in the same shops, choose from the same religions, have the same hairstyles, share the same polite niceties, live in the same houses, and have the same groupings in which they like to relegate people……..as all the other people in that large group.  With variations of course within the sameness, but a comfortable sameness nonetheless, which lets them decide who’s ‘one of them’ and who’s not. 

And as we’ve journeyed through country South Australia, Victoria, and now New South Wales, I’m reminded really strongly about how me and my family are definitely not ‘one of them’.  I always used to say that folk that liked to stick out, and complained about being stared at, were like women wearing low cut tops and then getting the shits when people talked to their boobs.  And because I’ve been in that really large group for a lot of my life, and can relate to just about anyone I come across, and also because I can’t help but FEEL completely normal, no matter how I may look, I keep forgetting that we stick out like rainbow canaries in more mainstream places, and that we really are very different.  I’ve come to this place from a large and rambling life that’s taken me through many subcultures and mainstream cultures, on a overwhelming quest to find my own truth and become my own self.  And I like how I look and the reasons that I look this way, and I like how we try to shop, and the big ole van with a cross culture of symbols and words on it, and my philosophy on life, and our media free status, and my ability to step to the side of ‘mainstream’ culture…..and observe, and try to read the winds of change, and try to translate what I think the collective consciousness is feeling and moving towards.  I also like how we try to live in ways other than buying or renting a house that is ours ours ours, and there’s the bloody fence, so you know where I stop and you begin.   Even though, as we drive through the country, we keep realising how massively traumatised we are on some levels, by our experience with community dwelling, and living with my mother……..we’re still in search of a community somewhere, to live with other people and ideas and kids and work skills and input and responsibility and sharing of resources and land care and animal care.  And as we drive, and get stared at, and get freezing looks from people sure that we’re gonna jump up and do something ‘bad’ any minute…….I’m thinking more and more about how nice it might be to hang out in a place where there are lots of folk like us, and we can blend in for a change.  Not to mention where there’s lots more free range kids and naturally learning kids and people doing all the sorts of things that we like to do.  Which in this country anyway, is definitely Northern New South Wales.  The mecca of the alternative, homegrown, organic, hippy, community lifestyle.  

At this point I’ve gotta mention that travelling with 6 children could definitely be described as an intricate and lesser degree of hell. The two youngest are just a year old, teething, crawling, and at a brilliant height for mud, grass seeds and burrs – of which there are many in the country we’re travelling through - they don’t often sleep for longer than 20 minutes during the day, are into everything, and can wake up in the middle of the night and yell for no particular reason…...no amount of cuddles or enticements of drinks can assuage their cries.  (People who believe attachment parented babies never cry BE DAMNED!)  Another 2 – the lotus babies - the nearly 3 and the nearly 5 year old, have tantrums the size of Cyclone Toddler, and love to have them regularly – about all sorts of groundshaking matters like who owns that helicopter, and someone said I couldn’t do that, and someone’s threatening to wipe my face etc, etc.  And the two oldest, whilst being incredibly mature and self aware in many ways,  are stubbornly egalitarian, and believe that with all the babying and nurturing going on, they should have their fill too.  So while sometimes they can make all the difference and almost shoulder an adult sized load, at other times they dissolve into two year olds at the worst moments, and with 6 kids around all the time, you’re pretty much guaranteed that one of them will be having a tantrum or will have one soon, or is arguing with someone else like the ugly stepsisters of cinderella.  And then there’s my tired but majestic old 40 year old and 6 months pregnant body, that’s schlepping swags and clothes bags and bedding around every night and morning, and understandably a bit grumpy with the situation, which can end up in an intense mother being thunderous particularly around the packing times.  My body’s regularly having conversations with me about…..”What the f**k are you doing travelling around the bloody countryside, when you’re meant to be doing restful things and thinking beautiful thoughts and NESTING DAMN YOU!!!!” and the like.  To be truthful, if I wasn’t pregnant I reckon I’d be having a ball, but I’ve got this time limit tick tick ticking away, and my body’s getting tired and sore, and every little thing seems huge.  And Currawong is doing his very best to try and become the incredible dividing man – creating as many copies of himself as possible to perform all the multitudinous tasks demanded by us all, and going through the same mood swings the rest of us are.   All in all, depending in which mood you found us, we could either be viewed as the camping neighbours from hell, or the trippiest and happiest big family in a freaky van and tent you ever did see. 

The first night we were inundated by mosquitos in Sherlock, as we left it all too late to set up for the night, and I realised that I’d worked out everyone’s comfortable bed but mine.  Didn’t get any sleep, and went and slept on a rug on the ground for a while – till I thought it was getting a bit too overcast, and got back inside the van just before it started raining.  The next two nights we set up in a beautiful, freezing, grass seed ridden camp spot by a dry lake in Walpeup, and slept comfortably out of the van. 

The fourth night was in Nyah, by the river behind the showgrounds, where we put up the little two person tent for Currawong and the lotus babies, while I slept with the twins in the back of the bus to see if it would be any more comfortable.  It wasn’t.  We got there a bit late, and were still trying to set up in the freezing night.  The next night was a roadstop called Birdcage, with the cleanest composting toilets I’ve never smelt, and we tried sleeping the other way (the way we always used to sleep before I turned us round thinking we’d fit in the twins better) and SUCCESS!!  All squeezed in the bus in our cosy beds, we were all comfortable at last, and slept about the best we’d done since starting our adventure. 

 I didn’t realise I was feeling like a failure about how we couldn’t sleep all together in the van, until we managed to pull it off.  And from Walpeup, we were dancing ahead of burgeoning storm clouds, being chased by a chill and persistent wind, and it followed us all the way to our next stop, which was the Bendick Murrell rest area between Cowra and Young. 

We slept well there too, and got clear about how the two eldest really just needed to hang with the babies for an hour in the morning and night, so we could set up and dismantle the campsite the easiest.  The wind finally abated, and we set off on the best day we’ve had since leaving home.  I was getting all happy about nearing my birth land, and travelling was easy, and the land was beautiful, and we felt like we were really starting to get into the swing of things.  I reminisced with everyone about Bathurst, where I spent some awesome years as a teen after leaving home.  And we headed for the place that I’ve been talking about since I got pregnant with the twins – Sofala.  Only a few kilometres from where I was born, a beautiful and dilapidated gold mining town on the Turon river, and the place where I came as a 17 year old to Flats Café, where we ordered a spinach quiche, and watched them walk down to the garden by the river to pick the spinach before they made it……  I spent a lot of time in and around this river both as a child, and as a teen when I moved back to the area for a while.  And on our seventh night, and for our seventh day, we set up our gorgeous soul pad in the dark, and tempers frayed, and we woke up in the morning……….in totally freezing, but visual heaven. 

And here’s where the belief comes into it.  I’ve been freaking out, and scared, and worried that we’re damaging our kids by taking them away from everything they know, and terrified of this big leap we’re doing into the wild blue yonder, and grumpy, and fretting, and snappy, and seeing all the ways that we could be viewed as complete failures as parents, and worrying worrying worrying about this baby inside, and who’s going to midwife it, and how and where we’re going to find a place to live to birth it, and focusing on all the ‘bad omens’ that have happened this pregnancy – negative predictions from a midwife friend, Balthazar bashing the crap out of my birthing necklace and breaking the cow bone Kali bead that I’ve had since I was pregnant with Griffyn, the vague feelings of ominous portent that has lurked at my shoulder through every pregnancy, and the final straw was leaving my dressing gown behind.  The dressing gown that I grew and nurtured the twins with, and that I’ve used as a bit of a security blanket for a while now…….was left behind.  And all these days of travelling, I was focusing on all the bad bits of the kids behaviours, and spending a lot of time in tears, and feeling real sorry for myself……….till I had a chat with the two women I love best in the world, and felt like my world started to tilt a little into perspective, and a few choice statements that Currawong made sank in……..and I really got that it’s all about belief.

I really believe that we create our beliefs with our strength of BELIEF.  We’re creating everything with our beliefs, and thoughts, a bit like the creation of Tinkerbell.  The more we believe, the more real it becomes, and the more our belief is validated by what we’ve created.  I’ve been incredibly fortunate to have REALLY believed a lot of different and seemingly opposing realities.  I was born into a fundamentalist religion full of mystical and everyday miracles, and I felt the spirit within me and KNEW that I was a member of the only true church in the world.  And I was also a member of a channelling group, where I channelled a being that was part of a group of aliens, that were focusing on sending healing energy to the planet, and the other 3 members of the group were MEANT to be together with me, as we did our important work. (I haven’t often told people THAT one, cause it makes me seem like a flaky freak nutter, but I DON’T CARE!)  And I was a solitary hereditary witch, and I FELT the lineage of strong women I’d come from in the Goddess times, and the legacy they’d left me.  And I was a leather wearing dyke that felt sorry for all the women who would never know the completeness I felt in the arms of women, and KNEW that I was going to be a woman loving woman for the rest of my life.  For a while there after all my varied and intense beliefs had kind of melted away after Saturn Return, I felt like a bit of a flibberty gibbet, a vague and valueless vagrant in belief land, and a whore to different ideals…….until I realised that all of those experiences had been real, and I’d really believed them, and gathered a huge amount of learning from them, and thrown myself completely into them, body, mind and soul, and that there was nothing wrong with that at all.  At least I didn’t get cynical and think that there was no other belief for me when I grew out of the first one.  Or get hung up about how there could be only ONE truth, and once I’d used it up, that was all there was.  And it helped me to realise that everyone’s truth is really that – everyone’s truth – because it’s what they BELIEVE in that’s real for them, and that they’re creating as a reality in their lives.  And having surfed so many different beliefs, I know a lot of different languages that I can speak with all sorts of people.  And I can believe in everything.  And nothing.  And a combination of them both.  All at the same time.  And that would be my valid and proper belief.  And sometimes people really need to believe in their own beliefs to the exclusion of all others, to such a degree that they feel justified to judge, or put negative beliefs on other people, to support their own belief.  And their belief is such, that to acknowledge another person’s reality would cause their own to unravel, and that’s just the way it is.  And I can respect that. 

All that being said, we’ve been hanging round with people in our close living situations for the last three years, who no matter how much they may like us in lots of ways, have very strong beliefs of their own, that made it imperative to see us as lazy, selfish, neglectful, unreliable, despotic examples of bad parenting, bound for hell, messy, and a whole heap more really negative words.  And it’s had an impact on us.  But only while we believe that they might be right, or are worried that they see something we don’t.  And only while we give up the power of creating our own lives around our own beliefs to them.   And there’s a whole stack of folk in that mainstream culture, who have been informed by their media that folk like us are potentially dangerous, could be terrorists or drug smugglers, and likely to be dead beat parents.  And you know what?  That’s all okay.  Everyone is doing what they need to do to survive in their beliefs, and support their own way of thinking, and if I buy too much into what other people believe about me, I’m negating my own strong beliefs about who I am, and what value I am to the world, and also, funnily enough, buying into the belief of a lot of alternative people that the mainstream is ‘the other’ and can never understand them…….  So love to me and love to you and love to everyone who has their niche in the world that they’re happy with, because it all comes around in the end, and we’re all learning what we need to learn, and we’re all richer for our diversity, and love is all there really is in the end.

And I gotta say right here and now that I BELIEVE that all those ‘negative’ omens about this baby to come are not negative at all, but a really strong indication that this baby is going to be born it’s own way, and it’s a good idea to let go of all my safety rafts and worries, and just let it be a completely new experience and birth, without the baggage of expectations from the past.  And I BELIEVE that we’re bloody amazing to be travelling with 6 young children, (at all!!) and in a van, and sleeping in it, as well as in a big beautiful tent, and yes it has it’s trying times, but there’s the times of pure gold as well, and at least we’re giving it our best shot!  And we’re resilient buggers to have gone through all we have, and come out the other side of it travelling to Sofala, which we’ve been talking about for years now.  With twins on board.  And all the rest of it.  And debriefing on the way.  And letting go of fears.  With style.  And there’s a huge amount of love between us all that may be a bit messy in translation at the moment, but given a home and a safe place to birth, and some folk around us with similar beliefs to ours who support the very best parts of us, and we’ll all sail gently on the balmy waters of love again, and express ourselves in ways that aren’t tantrumsJ

Northern New South…..here we come....

On the road again.......

Well. Community life came to a complete and abrupt halt. Probably not a surprise to anyone that’s tried living on a community before. Like I was saying in my two posts about the ‘survival skills’ we learnt from our parents, that we apply with the same imperative as all the other mammals and animals performing the survival skills they learnt………I don’t think us white fella’s have actually learnt much about sharing, honesty, relationship skills, taking responsibility, and living as part of a community, from our parents and society these days…..and it was a long long time ago that we did. Instead, on the community we lived on, we learnt more about what is usually taught to our younglings these days. In my perspective anyway, that can often be about criticism, emotional hierarchies that you can never work out the rules for, people saying one thing and being lovely to your face while they’re busily bitching and stabbing you behind your back, and everyone jumping on a bandwagon to attack ‘the other’, whoever that may be, glad that ‘the other’ is getting a drubbing instead of the people guiltily joining in. But life is what you make of it, and I choose to try and make everything a learning experience, rather than relegate it to ‘good’ or ‘bad’, so I can tell you right now, that it was the perfect place for us to be while we were there, and we also left at the perfect time to continue on our life path. I reckon it was the only place I can think of anyway, where a large family could live surrounded by 7 other adults, and we went through 2 pregnancies, 3 births, major surgery in the form of an emergency caesarean and it’s recovery, Post Natal Depression, whooping cough for 3 months with all the younguns, relationship hassles from all the stress, and the birth of twins to add to four other young children……….and receive absolutely no support, not a meal, not an offer of shopping and dish doing, or a vacuum, or a conversation about it all, or ANYTHING! With some lashings of criticism on top. I faced every parent of a large family’s nightmare, of being bailed up by a friend, and told about how they had chosen to not have children, to be a vegetarian, and to live on a community to be a friend to the planet, and they knew that I loved my children and had learnt from them, but did I REALLY need to have that many? How could I justify my impact on the planet and the community? And why wasn’t she consulted? To which I instantly replied that yes, each and every one of them was a gift to me and our family and my learning, but more importantly a gift to the planet, with their completely unique set of traits and dispositions and their beautiful life embracing souls. It feels almost sacrilegious to me to talk about who I should ‘allow’ to live, and who I shouldn’t. I reckon that’s about it for the whinge…….

And on the other hand, like I said before, it was perfect, cause it was about the only place I can think of where a large family would not only be completely ignored through their travails, but also criticized, which was so incredibly intense at such a huge time in our lives, especially around the birthing of our twins, that it threw us onto our own resources completely. And we coped. And beautifully. And intact. And with integrity and love. And we learnt a lot. About our patterns that had created the whole situation in the first place, and how we’d never learnt about having a home – and in using that word I’m thinking about a sanctuary, a safe place, a comfort for the soul where family are accepted, respected, and loved for who they are – and in never having experienced it, we were re-creating our own childhoods where home was a place we felt caged and trapped. We also learnt that we’ve also re-created our parents beliefs about having to do everything on your own, and how other people only hurt you. And a whole mess of other stuff that you tend to bring back from the depths when you get pushed so completely into them. So we left very abruptly. And have moved into a studio with my mum and eldest daughter in the interim, doing some loving and healing with them, and filling up the kids with some very important oma and big sister attention. And we’re endeavouring to not take the criticisms from our former home on, and internalize them (after all, the community we were living on was the ONLY place in our lives where we were copping anything but love, respect and appreciation), and not be bitter, and it’s also solidified some of our family goals and visions for the future.

And just a little aside here…… Are you wondering why there’s a large lack of any kind of blog from me about the reality of living with twins?? That’s because it’s so incredibly huge, and intense, and has been such a test of every sort of fortitude and survival skill I’ve ever had, that I really don’t know how to write about it. I think it’s all too close and here and now for me to put it to paper for a while, and I’m going to need a bit of time and perspective to express it in a way that would truly do the experience justice. But for now, I just want to say, (now that the relentless and exhausting early bit is over, and we’re getting to experience some more of the joyous bits of having two babies) that there’s something incredibly special and rare about having arms full of two babies, and when they’re both looking at me at the same time with loving mamma smiles on their faces, and when they chat to each other and put their arms around each other and snuggle up to us and them in sleep. And the huge amount of love between them and their siblings. And the feeling I have knowing that we’ve managed to give two babies at the same time, (and in extreme adversity) the same amount of holding, hugs, and attention that all my other attachment babies got on their own, is a big one. I reckon I’ll give myself a big girly badge for that one, give us all one in fact, and I feel very proud (and amazed) that we managed it. And the huge awe, trust, love and respect I’ve developed for my Griff and Lilly in particular on this journey, has blown me away. And the facets it’s brought out in all the rest of us. Trust me. I’ll have a lot more to say about this all later.

Now. Back to the goals and visions for the future. All that adversity and pattern awareness has really brought our family aims to the fore. I guess sometimes you need some beliefs to be really challenged to realize how important they are to you. And one of our biggest ones is to stay together. It’s an uncommon thing in this day and age for a large family to have their mum and dad around them all the time, in the pursuit of natural learning and mutual respect and admiration. And we want to make our way in life, and a lot more money energy, from doing what we love, rather than giving up on our dreams, and sending one of us off to be a mortgage slave like many other folk do. No judgement here about other folk and their mortgages, I just don’t want us to give up on our dreams unless we really have to. And travelling is an important part of our lifestyle that we want to really use more often as a tool of learning and inspiration. Also as a tool of getting away from the 4 walls of the beliefs and patterns we learnt in our families, taking a holiday from the expectations imbued in us about the nuclear family, and how it lives in a house.

I’ve come to learn for myself that belief and attitude is everything. I could really easily, (and so could a lot of other people – poor old Currawong struggles with this one a lot at the moment) view us and our lives as a bit of a disaster – middle aged with a large family and no home, and a smaller than small income, and not a hell of a lot to show for our lives in the material ways of the world apart from a whole lot of stories. We’ve been called ne’er do wells, dreamers, misfits, hypocrites, neglectfull, and messy, and we’ve called ourselves destitute and losers and a whole lot worse, and in times of stress we take it out on each other and say horrible things to each other, and it would be really easy to take all that on, and be victims, and blame our childhoods and everyone else, and hide our heads in shame…….

But I can also just as easily view us and our lives as a triumphant success of dreamers dreaming the dream of freedom and passion and bigger lives than we’re conditioned to expect, with toolkits of stories and experiences from life on the fringe and travelling the path less travelled, and a huge amount of love and respect between us all, and lots of stories and first hand tales between us, of working on our relationships with each other and the world, trying to work out who we really are, and what we want to do, and also trying to change the parts of ourselves that don’t really work, or that we don’t really like. The closeness and love between our children is pure gold, and the fun we have on our daily adventures is immense. Our family is a living art of performance wherever we go, from shopping to driving new places to trips in the city to visits to galleries and museums, we engage folk everywhere we go with our sociable, playful selves. When we don’t take up the societally expected role of ‘parents’ at the top of the hierarchy, it’s amazing how much we can learn from our kids, and learn all together, and teach each other, and infect the lives of nearly everyone whose live’s we touch – even in the smallest way – with smiles and giggles and warm gushy feelings, and if we engage in conversation, they usually hear something from one of us that they wouldn’t hear from many other places. One of the most common things people say as feedback to us is that we inspire them…..to try and truly be themselves and to experience the joy and wonderment in the everyday, and try chasing those loving relationships they’ve been dreaming about more.

I much prefer the second version. And I’m convinced that if we keep the flame of our dreams alive, and keep treading our paths no matter how much against the mainstream our flow may be, that our lives will keep increasing in love, and we will find our home somewhere and somehow, and the sanctuary we all desire as a base to spring into our futures from. And I’ll finally publish those books…….

So here’s the plan gang. I’m gonna borrow from a few cultural metaphors to do my bit for crafting our future. The first is that of the Mongolian mother. Living in her beautiful handmade yurt and home, she moves with the seasons and her animals and cares for her family in a nomadic way. Everything has it’s place and home and beautiful chests and pouches and carrying vessels for all the artifacts of life, that get packed away everytime they’re on the move, easy to keep safe and close. I’m busy sewing my nut off, making mattresses stuffed with alpaca, and putting them together in a swag like way so all the kids have a bed they can unroll in both the van and in our beautiful soul pad. Believe it or not, we’ve swung it so all our kids and us can sleep in comfort in our Toyota Hi-Ace Commuter van. It involves one sleeping across the front seat, one in the padded foot bay, one in front of the back seats, one on a board on top of the baby seats, us in the big bed at the back, with the twins in their swag in the bottom corner. I’m really enjoying the mattress making, and the fitted sheets and doona covers and groovy little trappings to personalize them. And I’m making clothes bags out of material that have three sections and look like a bedroll, and can hang three down with buttoned flaps that cover the holes, or lay on the bed as an added cushion. They’re funky too. And carseat covers and curtains, and pockets on the carseats for nappies and washers and water bottles and shoes, and bags for books and toys, and some really funky and warm hoodies and pants and crocheted sheepskin slippers for everyone, cause we’re heading off on the road in winter……..with no destination.

The other cultural metaphor is that of the journeywoman, or journeyman. When her apprenticeship is done, the journeywoman is sent on the road armed only with her tools, to make her living, and eat, and drink, and comfortably sleep, from what she can craft only. I’m combining this one with a traditional element of the Frisian woman’s costume, a belt from which she hung her favourite tools – a sewing needle, some scissors, her purse, and her threads. I’m gonna make myself a kick arse hippy Friesian belt, and hang my hooks and some knitting needles and some of my favourite other tools (might make hugging a dangerous pursuit), and set ourselves in the flow on the road, in a funky Mongolian style van, with my belt strapped on, and craft ourselves a beautiful future from our dreams and the alchemy of trust, love, faith and thoughts……..

I’m thinking we’ll just get somewhere and set up our soulpad with my big spiderweb inside, and a whole heap of hangy dangly crocheted things and clothes to dress up in and books to look at, and Currawongs drums for when he feels inspired to drum and tell stories (which is this funky little improvised spontaneous thing that he gets going on, that can drum out the wildest storylines), and I’ll tell stories of how to crochet and spin and knit by finding your own way, and about birth and what I’ve learnt about the great mysteries of life, and my perspective on the bachelor gods and all sorts of other things, and I’ll have hats and odd bits and books on memory sticks that people can trade or obtain by donation…… And we’ll roll our performance arted life out for others to observe and imbibe, and like all great buskers make a honest and tax free living from our skills and arts, and just set that all up at festivals and by roadsides, and in city parks and on beaches until something happens. And maybe the story will be in the journey rather than the destination.

Wish us luck. Oh. And another thing. Just to add to the spicy mix of trying to create better patterns and positive futures, it seems that another child wants to become part of our family. I’m pregnant with my eighth child. It seems that the natural birth control method of psychic protection doesn’t work for me. Who would have thought it. And with all the love and learnings of my past births and children, I couldn’t even fathom saying no. I welcome another divine creature into our family, and am aware that we’ve got a bit of a time limit on creating those new patterns and a home in particular………

And will only be near to and able to use an internet connection sporadically, so stay tuned for intermittent updates.