About Bonding......again....

I’ve lived in a house on the edge of an escarpment in the Blue Mountains, where the wind would rush up from the valley, and push the door closed, and whip through your skin to tickle your bones.  Where mist would sit like a waveless ocean in the deep blue valleys, and the cliffs would shine in the sun.

In an old terrace house, with a huge and elegant bedroom, that had a quaint fireplace and balcony, overlooking a busy country street in Bathurst.

In a caravan, on the bend of a river through an Arab horse stud, where I spent all my days looking after horses and riding.

In a student house in Strassbourg with Canadian art students, creating exhibitions in deserted warehouses.

Above a pub in Islington.

In the bottom storey of a massive sandstone manor called Wadi Shaifa, looking over another valley in the Blue Mountains, with massive windows where the moon shone in, and an enchanting park down through the front yard.

In a share house in Lane Cove, with bright lights and a beautifully glittering harbour.

In a witches cottage in Katoomba, set behind the street, where magic seemed to shimmer on the walls, and I painted it cream and crimson as soon as I moved in.

In a two storey cottage on Cliff Drive near the Three Sisters, with an overgrown garden that my girlfriend and I reverently uncovered like archaeologists, in a cute and artfully painted home.

In a stunning three storey tower with floor to ceiling windows, and carved bookshelves, looking out on another valley in the mountains.

In a bluestone mansion, set into a disused sandstone quarry in Stirling, with a spa bath, and paved verandahs, and luxury living.

In a three story rammed earth squat, with wooden balconies, in a country town in Adelaide.

In a disused Uniting Church Camp, where we hung out in a massive Mess Hall with a huge stone fireplace, and I had one of the oldest churches in Adelaide, as my first ever studio.

In a quirky, greek style, 4 brick thick home in the Adelaide Hills, on beautiful land, with massive gum trees, and a sacred spot where three creeks met.  We lived in a meditation studio, and witnessed epic night skies, and one night we even saw a Moonbow.

On a community in the Adelaide Hills in a true hippy home, where all the houses were joined by the roof to stay on one title.  Living on redgum regeneration land on the Meadows creek, and right next door to pristine indigenous bush, and stately pine forests.

In a bizarre little self organized shared household in Mt Barker Springs, where we lived in an unlined shed that I hung with material. With an indoor/outdoor fire pit, that we sat around a lot. 

In a little shack on the side of Mount Donna Buang in Victoria, in breathtaking mountain ash forests.

We’ve slept in a river bed outside Alice Springs, where you can see the Emu in the sky most perfectly.  Red earth and wide skies, and the brilliant aliveness of the desert.

And in and around all of these homes, our deep and abiding hearts home, was our ex army Toyota Commuter van, that I crocheted the seat covers of, and made cargo nets and beds in, and crafted hand made swags for.  In which we drove everywhere, could be ourselves and unobserved more than anywhere else, and had a mobile environment that we took with us everywhere we went, as a permanent sanctuary.  Where we could wake up at any place in the country, and have a cuddle before a strong cup of coffee. 

We’ve lived in two beautiful houses, on the picturesque and diverse community of Billen Cliffs, in Northern NSW. 

And I’ve never loved a home and parcel of land as much as I love it here.

Living here has fit a final piece to a puzzle that I’ve been working on, researching, and personally experimenting with for decades.  That puzzle being the full capacity and breadth and wealth of bonding in it’s extreme.  And through beginning to know the ocean of it…….maybe more to the point learning in the extreme what bonding ISN’T, along the way. 

And to be brutally honest, from my perspective as a bonded lover, mother, crafter, and now home dweller and animal herd……..virtually every facet of western civilization, is more of a lesson on how to unbond, disunite, disconnect, and separate, than any kind of bonding and love leading to community, self organization and empowerment. 

I’ve written so much about bonding over the years, from many perspectives, it’s been an almost obsession in my life and blog.  All the lessons  I’ve learnt from unparalleled honesty and trust, in an intimate and loving releationship, and from my larger amount of birthing experiences than the average bear, have led to very similar whole body learnings about love and bonding.  Those lessons now extend into home, land, and animals – all universes on their own.

Before I started my interior journey through loving Currawong and birthing babies, I thought of bonding as some vague cliché thrown around in ways like ‘male bonding’ and ‘female bonding,’ to do with sports or business.  The most I really heard about it was in nature documentaries and zoo stories around bonding, and farming stories of bonding to other species.  If this kind of inter species bonding and it's potential power interests you, watch this documentary about Animal Odd Couples.

But through living all my different experiences, I’ve learnt how integral bonding really is, in our mammalian journeys, and through our ancestral and evolved consciousnesses.  I believe, through truly living my life and following my own path, I’ve stumbled onto enlightenment through all the stuff that most people like to transcend.  I’ve deeply bonded with my mate, with my children, with my home, with the land around me, and with the animals we share the land with, both domesticated and wild.  I’ve bonded with the world around me, through my focus and unbinding into the bonding of birth, sex and death.

And this is the kind of bonding, love, community and connection that my ancestors went to war for.  Defended their lands with their lives for.  And had many stories and different ways to access the divinity within them, and through them, their land and connections. 

Living as we are presently, in Western Culture, or maybe more accurately, as the most educated Roman Slaves on the planet………..it’s not surprising that virtually all aspects of our society, are about how to disconnect us from each other, to prevent that bonding and community from forming.  From my perspective anyway.

Why is homebirth and homeschooling so roundly and solidly attacked?  Have you ever wondered about that?  Such a tiny minority of people?  Who affect hardly anyone?  With virtually no damage to the average person? Why is homeschooling illegal in virtually every western nation except America and Australia?  And why is homebirthing so intensely vilified?  Could it be, that these very events can potentially create greater bonding, and thereby increase the capacity for community?  Why are the genders set up in war against each other?  Why have sensible wholes been split into dualities that are foolish without each other?  God and Science belong to each other, as a dynamic, cyclic whole.  Home birthing and Hospital birthing the same.  Cultural education and Home education as well.

When you truly look at most indigenous lifestyles in our ancestries, in which we’ve lived in for the majority of our evolution, how did we get here?  Where we send our children off there, to bond with strangers that change regularly, and a bunch of other scared and emotionally undeveloped younglings, to bond with each other?  Behind fences?  And our men off there, to work with other men usually, in work unrelated to their immediate survival, clothing or food.  And our women off elsewhere, be it to groups or services or jobs or home duties, bonding with others in other ways.  And all of this bonding and unbonding of families, is all happening elsewhere, other than our homes.  Our homes have largely become the places we eat and sleep, and nowadays watch screens.  All the important stuff we do is somewhere else.  Our jobs, our passions, our crafts, our trades, all usually happen somewhere other than our homes.  And our relationship to animals has gone from co-dependant relationships that include the land we all live on, working out how to help each other birth, survive, thrive and die with dignity, to a bizarre pet relationship where those without children of their own, or a lack of community love, can translate that bonding instead to a pet, who they love and bond with in the same intensity.  Or we have a complete disregard for any other sentience at all, in the form of factory farming.

We’ve all got a honing instinct as wide as our hearts towards bonding.  And whether it’s with an animal, partner, child, craft, home, land, trade, community, sport, religion, or spirituality, we’ll have it in our lives in some way.  And I’m suggesting that our humanimal potential is to experience bonded love in all those areas.  Or at least a lot more than just one.  If that’s our yen and destiny.  A love to family, home, animals, land, and community, that is bonded and deep, intensely intricate, and eternally interesting.  A love that is as scary as exhilarating, and deep as potentially shattering.  We waft through life with a hundred breathing hearts, connected to our beings with yarns.

And that bonding creates the oxytocic bubbles, that mirror the intense moments of birth, sex, and death, and echo through our existences.  When we connect and truly bond as families, and communities, and at markets and events, we generate a vibration that truly attracts others, hungry for that love and connection.

I’m not sure if there’s a point to all this, except that this is all deeply on my mind and in my heart at the moment.  As we experience awesome bonding with the home where we live.  The animals we live with.  Our journeys together and how attractive they are to the most interesting people.  How through deep bonding to all aspects around us, we’re experiencing self organization on a profound level.  All the aspects we need to continue our bonded and self organized flow together, and around each other, just come.  Without any effort.  The right people and events spill around like pebbles on the creek floor, effortlessly going with the flow or staying put, depending on what’s needed at the time.  Every animal, child, tree or wild animal experience, relates to other things on many different levels.  Taking the steps  towards each other, working out how to mutually benefit from each others existence, rather than harm the co-existant whole. 

Each morning we wake, with a whiff of the potential of just about anything whispering on the wind.  Any person or entity could rock up and we most likely wouldn’t be surprised.  As we sink into our self organized, bonded family, chaotic harmony, a bright buzz whirrs around us.  We’ve got more visitors coming to swing through our realities, than we ever have in our entire relationship.  One tent comes down, and another one goes up!  Things are learnt effortlessly, as valuable mentor relationships spring up all around, our vibrant and authentic children.  So much is packed into our days, that we barely get time to recognize it, before another wild event comes galloping down the road.  So much learning is fast tracked and hacked into, by so many people and lessons on our doorstep. 

We’re learning about each other, and who we really are, and other people, and how they live, and animals, and what they need to thrive, and eat, and how it’s best to be eaten, and personalities, and how deep they root, and the re-spelling of the spells that our great western culture has spelled on our souls.   

And coming across so many other people wanting to travel the same authentic paths.  Into themselves, each other, their homes and land, and other animals.

We live in one of the most diverse communities I’ve ever lived, where the main tenet is respect for every living thing, except for violence or cruelty, which is dealt with in person and directly.  There are so many people with so many philosophies trying so many different ways to live.  So many directives, inspirations, and dreams being striven for.  Nobody really knows how many communities there are in the hills of the Rainbow Region, but there are hundreds, and they’re all different.  I’ve heard tell of communities focused around medieval sword fighting and knightliness, around unschooling, christianity,  womens land, fairy land for men, permaculture, survival anarchy, the desire to share no community at all, solar power, low income earners, activists, and more exotic possibilites of this sort than you could possibly imagine. 

And all these people shop in Nimbin and Lismore, and get together at markets and events, and swap stories and experiences, and I know that it’s a world that could be endlessly explored, and never fully known.  And the experiment is a huge success from everything I’ve seen.  People have learnt compassion and acceptance from their lived experiences. 

It’s fast tracked our family community experience, as a mirror showing it’s face to a world full of mirrors. 

I think the point of all of this is to ask you to jump in.  Wherever you find it, however it moves you, find yourself a community to bond with, with your family if you have one, or if not find a family that needs you.  And dive in!  Experiment!  Realise that the hurts and pains are the equal and opposite on the way to learning how to navigate the stormy waters, leading to the gentle bay of bonded community. 

It’s the only way we’re gonna save ourselves and our planet.  To bond with it and our families and our homes and our lives and care for each other.  Because we’ve recognized our dependance on each other and everything.

Or something like that anyway :)

Chaotic Self Organisation

I've written a lot about chaotic harmony, or the conscious balance inherent in everything for a while now, and apart from about a million different stories from our market experience and from living near Nimbin, there's a really good explanation of how it works in 'Seven Life Lessons of Chaos - Timeless Wisdom from the Science of Change', by John Briggs and F. David Peat.  And I've been telling it to people for ages now, so I thought it was time to share it with you.  I'm just gonna quote verbatim from the 3rd Chapter, which is called 'Going with the Flow - Lesson about collective creativity and renewal'........

Wilfred Pelletier, a Native American from an Ojibway community north of Lake huron, says his people aren't into organisation, there's no need for it "because that community is organic."  Pelletier gives an illustration of how his unorganised people nevertheless get things done.  

"Let's say the council hall in an Indian community needs a new roof.....It's been leaking here and there for quite a while and it's getting worse.  And people have been talking about it.  Nobody organises a committee or appoints a project leader." Nothing happens, in fact, until "one morning here's a guy up on the roof, tearing off the old shingles, and down on the ground there's several bundles of new, hand-split shakes - probably not enough to do the whole job, but enough to make a good start.  Then, after a while, another guy comes along and sees the first guy on the roof.  So he comes over an he doesn't say, 'What are you doing up there?' because that's obvious, but he may say, 'How's she look?  Pretty rotten, I guess.' Something like that.  Then he takes off, and pretty soon he's back with a hammer or a shingle hatchet and maybe some shingle nails or a couple of rolls of tarpaper.  By afternoon, there's a whole crew working on that roof, a pile of materials building up down there on the ground, kids taking the old shingles away - taking them home for kindling - dogs barking, women bringing cold lemonade and sandwiches.  The whole community is involved and there's a lot of fun and laughter.  Maybe the next day another guy arrives with more bundles of shakes.  In two or three days that whole job is finished, and they all end up having a big party in the 'new' council hall."

Who was responsible for deciding to put a new roof on the hall?  Was it that first guy on the roof, a single isolated individual, or was it the whole community?  "How can you tell?  No meeting was called, no committees formed, no funds raised.  There were no arguments about whether the roof should be covered with aluminium or duroid or tin or shakes and which was the cheapest and which would last the longest and all that.  There was no foreman and no one was hired and nobody questioned that guy's right to rip off the old roof.  But there must have been some kind of 'organisation' going on in all that because the job got done.  It got done a lot quicker than if you hired professionals.  And it wasn't work, it was fun."

Chaos theory would answer that the "organisation" in Pellerier's roofing project was self-organisation.  It began with chaos - all that disorganised talk beforehand about the leak.  The first guy on the roof was a bifurcation point that became amplified.  The feedback between the first fellow and the next one who came along started a cascade that coupled the community together around the project, and then the system got the job done.  

Clearly, Pelletier's Ojibway community is an open, creative, chaotic, nonlinear system.  As he put it, the people in this group "aren't into competition.  But they aren't into cooperation either - never heard of either of those words.  What they do just happens, just flows along."  Within the community's creative open system, micro self-organised systems spring up from time to time, such as the community's action to repair the roof.  Such short-term self-organisation renews the community and keeps it alive, as testified to by the big party held in the new council hall.  

Social self-organisation and collective creativity doesn't only happen in Native American communities, it happens in rural communities around the world and in informal organisations of all kinds.  In many different circumstances, people start coming together, helping out, lending a hand, throwing in their two cents.  Nobody's leading particularly, but things get done.

A high-tech example of social self-organisation is the Internet.  The Net was started back in the 1960's by the U.S. military looking for a distributed command system in the event of nuclear war so that no single centre could be knocked out.  The idea was similar to the one that conceived of the U.S. highway system as a distributed airport of landing and takeoff strips.  It occurred to the planners that computers all over the country could be linked together to create a giant system that shared its information.  But once the Net was set up, academic scientists began to use it and it was eventually made available to the public all over the world.  Relatively quickly, more and more individuals and groups joined, until by the mid-1990's an estimated 25 million people were on-line and the number was doubling every eigthteen months. 

Nobody's controlling the Net (at least not yet).  It's maintained by an open flow of users passing information around.  Within the global self-organisation of the Net and its subset, the World Wide Web, are countless mini self-organisations springing up all the time.  People come together to do creative work - everything from photographers displaying their pictures of lightning strikes to underground musicians converging on Web sites to create an audience for their work to interest groups discussing the Vietnam War or Brazilian cuisine.  For those who have access, the Net is a daily example of collective creative exuberance.  Most of the activity is carried out by people who are making things, looking for information, and exchanging ideas that simply interest them as part of who they are.  The giant, hierarchically structured, power-driven commercial organisations have so far been largely frustrated in their efforts to harness the Net to their mechanical engines of profit.  Anyone who has surfed the Net knows he has entered a chaotic, dynamic open system where "what they do just happens, just flows along."  Clearly there's order here, but it's chaotic. 

Taken together, the traditional Ojibway community and the new cyber community suggest a radically different approach to social organisation that the one currently taken by postindustrial society.

So what do you reckon?  Pretty groovy eh.  And a concept and phenomena that I can report as being incredibly easy to be part of, flow along with, and surrender to, whenever we enter the company of other sovereign humanimals, led by our natural interests and passions, in a way that acknowledges and accepts each other as equals and valid, and do anything together in a non-heirarchical kinda way.  And stuff really does have the darndest way of showing up when it's needed, and when we surrender to the greater focus and don't sweat the details.  

Really wanted to share that with you, and hope you enjoyed it.

My Truth

I’ve been banging on for a while now about everything being perfect, a microcosm of the macrocosm and the like.  About how even the imperfect bits are perfect, cause they’re who I am.  And form part of the body of my experience.  How everything is conscious, and in balance, except for us humans.  How we’ve got to make peace with and own our shadow selves. And if you’ve read my blog for a while, you’ll also know that I think we should all tell each other our authentic truths, so we can get over the fear of rejection and judgement, and get onto working out how we can all let each other be, and help each other out.  Talk about birth, sex and death, and all the other wows of life. 

But I should really take my own advice.  And step out from behind my fears and judgments, or rather my judgements about other people’s judgements, and stop omitting the bits I know that others might have a problem with.  Stop letting people get about with the idea that I’m some kind of earth mother, hippy, attachment parenting, unschooling, homebirthing, peaceful parenting, organic eating, wise thing.  Cause I’m the culmination of all of those labels that I’ve taken for a test drive…….yet none of them completely.  In fact the only label that I can be counted on to own, is that of Hellena Post. 

Cause I know that I’ve tried to let people only see the nice parts of me, just like you try to only let people see the nice sides of you.  And I know that I say “ I’m fine!” when there’s a morass going on in my head, and problems too deep to talk about, and I know that if I’m part of a stereotyped group, I’ll try my best to show only it’s good aspects to the world too.  And I know that I’ve been nice to someone, and then had a secret bitch with Currawong about them in the privacy of our home, and I know that when I feel judged, I will often judge back, and I know when I judge others I’m also judging myself, and I also know that the energy needed to manage such games, could be used in far more creative ways.  I’m using judgement as a conscious tool rather than a sword more these days…..

And I’m guessing that there’s people watching me from afar in my nice little blog, thinking I’m some kind of wonder woman, to have all these kids and still be creative.  Thinking I’m one of those people who have got their shit sorted.  Just like I thought that just about everyone else had themselves more together than me.  And I kept up the game, and I kept trying to please, even though I thought that deep down I was pretty messed up, and if anyone ever really knew what was really inside me……..they’d curl their lip and walk away. 

I suspect, from life experience, that we’re actually all children.  Some in small bodies, and some in big, but essentially we’re all like children inside.  Children running round in adults bodies and buying the myth that when you’re an adult you’ve ‘got it worked out’, even though most of us feel confused, and wonder who in the hell we really are.  Children in big people’s bodies who think that the world revolves around us.  And unfortunately, children in big bodies who sometimes do to other children what was done to us.  Unless an effort is made to go against imprinting, and create behaviours more healthy.  So we put on our socially acceptable masks, and our polite routines, and don our uniforms, and play our adult versions of the games that children play.  The bullying games and the name calling games, and the fear games and the two faced games.  The judging games.  Except as adults we think they’re justified, and important adult business.  And many of the games revolve around hiding who we really are. I like instead to acknowledge my bad tempered, tanty throwing child within, and let my kids have the same freedom.  Within reason that is. Us big kids have worked hard at repressing ourselves, and we try to insist on the same from our children.

So enough.  I’m outing myself.  As a human.  And maybe even a bit like you.  I don’t feel a need to play the game anymore.  I’m ready to own my whole self.  The shadow and the actress.  The mirror and the everything.   I’m finally getting to the point where I believe in my head and my heart that I’m perfect……just the way I am.  Even the dark bits are good.  Cause they’ve kept drawing my attention to areas that needed work.  Some healing.  Some light shone.  Or they’re just damn gorgeous how they are, cause sometimes depression can hurt so good, and pain can make love even stronger, and hate can bring issues to a head, and embarrassment can create a humble apology. 

I get grumpy.  And I yell.  I’m like an attack terrier when there’s an issue.  And I can be really good at freezing someone out.  Sometimes I get irrationally angry, and will snap at the drop of a hat. But I’m also good at unraveling the seeds where my bad moods come from, and then talking them out and explaining them to others.  I’m especially good at apologizing for them.  Sometimes being in a bad mood is a good excuse to just have some time out.  Some of my angriest moments, have also been the cause of some of my greatest insights.  Usually pushing me against some kind of boundary or fear, where I’ve learnt a tremendous amount about who I really am.  And as I come to accept myself and others more, the bad moods are easing, and lightening up, and quickly dealt with. But I’m actually glad that they’re there, and don’t think they will ever fully go, cause they’re the down to the up that can get so very high!

And I can also whirl everyone up in a story or giggle, and turn tantrums into games,  have the patience of a long term mother, and smooth over and help heal emotional and physical wounds.  One of my particular magics is turning any space into a cosy home.  Even an unlined shed can be glittered into liveable with crochet nets and swathes of material. 

I swear a lot, (and so do the kids, but they know not to do it round people who will be offended), drink cider and mead and other fine draughts, and smoke hand rolled cigarettes and the odd spliff.  I know all the reasons that all these things are ‘bad’, cause I’ve had them told me often, and I’ve told other people them myself when I’m going through my regular cycles of not doing any of them. (except swearing….that’s a bit of a constant since the encouragement of my beautiful ex-punk swear bear).  But at this point in my life, I’m actually on good terms with all of them.  They’re my friends, and my homeopathic stress relief, and my little time out.  I would even call them sacred.  Hey, remember this is my reality that I’m creating, you can create your own :)

I’ve been known to get addicted to really naff computer games.  And obsess about them.  Haven’t had the time for it lately, since 4 little boys under 4 take much energy, but my ability for compulsion is vast.  When I’m in a crochet creating or spinning cycle, my ability to focus on it and it’s birth only is supreme.  And often in retrospect, I’ve noticed that these little times out were like a pregnant pause.  A seemingly inactive phase, while I’m obsessing about a game or a creation, where stuff seems to be boiling round, just beyond my conscious reach, and when the obsession is over, I jump to a new idea, or concept, or time frame. 

Whilst eating mostly local and organic foods, cooked by my lush man, and keeping processed foods to as low as we can, we also love our hot chips, and the odd splurge into fast food, junk and sweets.  Instead of apologizing and shaming myself about this, I believe that we’re experiencing balance.  Everything in moderation.  And I know that what I feel about my food is almost as important as what it is.  We also eat meat.  Free range wherever possible, but the other as well.  Even though factory farming is horrifying, and I believe in the consciousness of everything, I also can see the sense in the Paleolithic, or Nurturing Traditions diet, and meat has been needed for my pregnant, birthing and breastfeeding body.  I’m aware that this is paradoxical and hypocritical, but I’m good with it, within my own consciousness and reasoning.  And have many ideas about where I’d like my food to come from in my future.   It’s a journey only harmed by judgement. 

I’ve had more sex than you could poke a stick at, from friend sex, to getting to know the secret you sex, to party sex, to being abused sex, to deep and meaningful sex.  And learnt a shitload in the process.  I’ve had affairs with married men, and been ‘on’ with more than one person at a time, been molested by family and raped by women, and had two abortions….even though I swore I’d never have one, and had huge judgements about people who did.  I’ve fucked people through their sexual blocks, and studied the art of being a great lover, while hiding the fact that I couldn’t physically feel anything.  And faked all my orgasms.  A lot of the early sex I had was disempowered, and through my choice of keeping on throwing myself into the fray, I managed to transform it into empowering.

Sex is a journey.  Not a destination. 

And through all of that, and because of it, I find myself now in a 13 year old monogamous relationship, with my heart and soul mate, and the father of 7 of my 8 children.  It took us years and nasty fights to show each other our flawed bits, and accept and love them in each other.  And we’re in the process of a journey into sex and love that rockets beyond all my previous expectations.  I’ve not only healed my sexual hurts and helped him heal his and vice versa, but we’ve travelled together into a world of lust for each other that leaves me breathless.  We have the kind of sex that I thought only happened in movies. Or  erotica.  And our love and acceptance for ourselves and each other keeps growing.  In fact it’s never stopped.  Every time I think it can’t get any better than this it does.  But it didn’t start perfect, and we’ve had to work hard to stay present, and it’s not hearts and roses all the time.  We still have humdinger fights, though as we learn about ourselves and each other more, the intensity and hurt decreases.  I like to think of our fights as shining a light on an issue that needs some attention.  Our relationship is an effortless magic that we work hard at.

I’ve got an STD.  Herpes in fact.  And ironically, I didn’t get it from my years of predominantly unsafe sex with numerous people, but from my monogamous 13 year relationship.  This was a hard one to come to love and accept, because when I realized I had herpes I felt very mortal and old.  I’d always believed that I’d never get an STD cause I’d dissolved my sexual guilt. So getting it was a bit of a kick up the bum of my arrogance and judgement.  But I see it now as a reminder of sexual pain, and an indicator as to how my health and immune system is.  When it comes, it comes with lessons.  Just like everything else about our shadows, to do with birth, sex, life and death. 

I love my body, and the baby making and pleasure it can do, and am so greatful that it’s taken me through life so effortlessly.  But have spent large amounts of my life thinking it ugly and fat, and wanting to hide it away.  Through my time with feminism and other women I worked hard to break the beauty myth, and learnt how to wear my big boobs proudly without a bra.  And through my baby making years my weight has vacillated, and I've strived to keep loving myself and seeing my ample bosoms and belly and body as life giving and nurturing.  I had a real moment at the market we started in Adelaide.  There was a group of 7 women or so who were in the regular crew who were absolutely STUNNING!  As in drop dead gorgeous, and women that you'd see in magazines.  And one night after market I asked them how they felt about their looks.  And ever single one of them thought that they weren't very beautiful, and were flawed.  At that point I realised that I'd never feel good about myself in this society, and to be down on myself was just too much of a cop out, and giving my power to silly standards.  It's taken a while to really believe it, after employing the old 'fake it till you make it' method, but I'm proud to report that I'm actually there!

I’m not often into other people’s kids, unless they’re really lovely.   And I’ve been known to growl at them when they touch my spinning wheel or precious things.   I’ve witnessed lots of kids do what we do as adults, and be sweet and innocent to the people that matter, while being little arseholes to everyone else.  I love my own kids to distraction, and have fierce loyalty and protectiveness towards them, but sometimes they can just be evil.  We have a pattern in our home of the older kids picking on the younger kids, that usually starts when a new kid is born and displaces them, and it’s been quite distressing.   Poor little Zarra, unless constantly watched, has three little boys who will stomp on his hands or whack him or try and pick him up by his neck.  Shit seems to roll downhill.  But I see this behaviour in many other kids, and if you wanted to compare us to other mammals and the tumbling games their babies play……. Griff can whack and kick and hit, and sets the theme for the other kids.  But he can also do stuff like come home with a mate after a weekend of X-box and Nerf guns, and the first thing he’ll do is pick up Zarra, and kiss and hug him and hold him for a while, while his mate has to look after himself for a bit. And there was a moment when a boy started picking on Lilly cause she was a girl, and she started hitting back, and then they had a glorious time wrestling and fighting, and he was totally won over by her and sad when she left.  She wouldn’t have been able to do that if she hadn’t been prepared by Griffyn.  She likes being able to hold her own.  I’m coming to realize that it’s something we all do in our own ways.  Love and unlove in equal measures, circuiting their way through the whole cycle.   Or maybe love and unlove are actually parts of the same thing…….

I’m aware that we’ve taught our kids a lot of bad habits and behaviours by modeling them, but also a lot of good ones as well.  I also know that there is a lot of a person who just is who they are, from the moment they are conceived

When I really like someone….I take on some of their characteristics.  So do my kids.  We all acknowledge this, and talk about who we borrowed them off, and whether they work for us or not.  Actually, we talk with our kids about all of it.  Our patterns.  Our triggers.  Our bad moods.  Our reactions.  And the big kids give us awesome and fair-minded feedback.  They tell us when we’re acting like children, or like each other, or like idiots.  I love my kids.  They tell me about what they really do.  The naughty things they get up to.  The secret kid conversations about sex.  They’re like my kid spies, who tell me what it’s like in the children’s underground.  And they’ve told us often, that we’re not like other adults.  They love that we can relate so well to that feeling you get as a kid when you know nobody is going to take you seriously…..cause you’re a kid.   And they love that we take them seriously.  And ask their real opinions. 

Even though I’ve lotus birthed (two) and homebirthed, and co-slept, and demand breastfed, and continuum parented, and carried my babies……they’ve still cried inconsolably, and been grumpy and irrational, and had tantrums and been angelic demonspawn.  And frustrated me, and pushed me to my limits, and made me feel like I was going crazy, and very occasionally made me want to throw them out a window……but I never have.   And just cause you trust their instincts, doesn’t mean that they’re not going to fall into the Yarra River just after you’ve been talking about the ideas in the Continuum Concept.  Or tip Tea-Tree oil in their eyes.  From my experience, I need to trust their instincts, but keep a parents eye on them nonetheless.

I’m very aware of all the people and institutions and belief systems that tell a person, and especially a child person, that they are flawed and wrong.  That they have to do more of this, and less of that, and change this, and grow that, and behave themselves in this way or not at all.  I also know that all the grooviest things and people and places that I’ve been to and discovered in my adult life……..were never mentioned to me as a possibility when I was a child.  And all the things I was taught, had to be unlearnt sometimes, or transformed, in order for me to learn the things that I really needed to navigate my life.  Our memories are associative.  And all of my best knowings and tools come from experiences where I’ve learnt things for myself in my own way.  It’s taken me so many years to feel like I’m unburdening myself of other peoples expectations and becoming who I really am…..that I’m loathe to try and tell my children that they have to be anything but themselves. 

So we keep our children with us instead of giving them over to others to instruct.  Being unable to find an institution or community that would teach our children that they are born completely perfect, with consciousness and awareness within their DNA and every cell in their bodies, that will lead them to everything they need and desire in life…….we’ve opted to keep them at home.  And expose them to as much varied life as we possibly can. We tell them how much we love them, and regardless of how annoying certain behaviours may be, how they are all perfect, exactly as they are.  And we see all of life as a learning experience.  Everywhere we go, and everything we do, we’re talking.  Noticing the intricate details that surround us all the time in the natural and human made worlds.  And everything is questioned.  Why is that happening?  What could be the reasons for it?  Who would be benefitting from that being that way?  Where in your experience can you find a parallel for that one?  How does that work?  What do you think? 

It hasn’t taken long to realize that my children can teach me and themselves far more than I could ever teach them, and to be truly amazed and enthralled with the genius thoughts and lateral and logical thinking and perception that they exhibit.  And I’ve also learnt that the very best thing I can do for them is to tell them my truth.  About how I tried on other peoples traits, and lied, and hurt others, and stole, and was naughty. Our biggest aims for our family, is that they like themselves and each other by the time our main parenting is done.  And have the confidence to be who they are in the world, and chase their dreams.

Which doesn’t mean that I don’t also yell, and threaten, and control, and bully, and bribe.  I’m into boundaries, and consequences, and being accountable for your actions.  I like my kids to have manners that come from the inside, and model it for them by being respectful to everyone we meet, and seeing everyone as equals.  And I’ll also prompt them to be polite, not mandatorily, but when I know that someone has just been very generous or kind, I think it’s reciprocal to say thanks. From the very start, I’ve thought it important to teach my kids enough about societies expectations, that they can be loved and welcomed wherever they go.  I never wanted them to be the kinda brats that come round to your house and you think “Oh no, that horrible kid’s back, quick, hide the valuables!”  I never wanted them to feel that from other people.  And the most predominant feedback we get about our kids, is how well mannered, behaved, beautiful and helpful they are.  They’ve spun many a place and person out, when they stay behind to help clean up. I wont let my kids beat each other up beyond reason, or other people’s kids.  And if they bite me, I bite them back.  I also count to 10, and in very extreme situations will give them a flick. And through all of it we talk, and we apologise if it’s needed, and we dissect it, and we try and work out other ways of doing it.   We learn from it, and see it in other people, and relate with others on the sliding scale of behaviours, and sometimes if we’re really really lucky, we get to see the miraculous event of a habit, pattern, or antisocial behaviour being transformed, understood, and reintegrated as a valuable tool. 

While I think that ‘the system’ as it exists is a bit sick, I never mistake ‘the system’ for a human.  I’m not anti mainstream, I just think we could all do a lot better by ourselves and our planet. I think that we’ve collectively had to get as distanced from ourselves, each other, and the planet as we are, to push the boundaries, and learn the lessons that can only be learnt at the edge.  We always treat officials and beaureaucrats and police folk and the rest with openness and respect.  And end up having amazing conversations and even hugs, cause they’re wrapped that they’re not being grumped at or stereotyped.   And we’re very greatful for the government monies that help to support us.

I’m glad for the ‘bad’ things that have happened to me.  Because there can be a place, where the great hardships of life, and the suffering, and the death, and the murder, and the rape, and the evil intention, and the cruelty, and the senselessness, and the pain, and the illness take me to that 'other place' where women in birthing often go, where very sick people go, and where mourners of death go, and it HURTS and I GRIEVE and it feels kinda timeless, and the ordinary world around me drops away, and time seems to slow or stop, and I search and seek for other people who can understand this parallel world with me and talk about it, and in the midst of the deepest aches I start to feel the equal and opposite reaction. The fierce love for my people, and the vow to protect them and love them and tell them how much, and to nurture them and do my very best to be the best person I can and change my part of the world or inspire so that the pain will decrease for some.......yet at the same time, that pain and suffering has become my muse and great lesson, and I learn some more qualifications about how to navigate the seas of our society and discern people and situations that work for me or not. The gifts and lessons of the shadow can't really be replaced by sage unicorns and rainbows speaking wisdom in forest glades. It's the battles and senselessness and pain that teach me the deep lessons of balance. And flexibility. And change. And chaos. And harmony. And adaptation. And then sometimes the pain feels less piercing, and the evil has taught me, and it all seems kinda perfect...….

I'm perfect in my imperfections.  I've got a crass sense of humour, but only when it's safe to come out, and most of my mistakes have led to great lessons.  I learnt so much from raising my first daughter, because even though I thought I was doing it so differently to my parents……I repeated a lot of the patterns that they taught me in different ways.  And I fucked up in lots of ways.  In others I was awesome.  But I learnt from it all.  And through all my mistakes, and my flaws, and my habits, I've been pushed into areas and concepts and realisations that I never would have, being a nice girl doing nice things.

I reckon that’s about it.  I reckon I’m done.  I’m out of the closet as a human.  This is my offering to the alter of honesty.  And I can tell you now, that this has been the longest transition to birth, of any post I’ve written.  There’s about 10 drafts that lay languidly uninvolved.  I’ve found this the hardest post ever to write.  Cause I don’t want to offend.  But I don’t want to omit my truth.  As scared of outright rejection and nasty criticism as anybody else.  I tried writing it poetically and cryptically and mystically and metaphorically and none of it really worked.  I ended up with huge preambles and justifications that sounded like I wasn’t proud of who I am.  Nevertheless, I finally got here in the end!  So now you  know that I can really tell the truth about who I am, and be in love with myself even so.

This is me. 

And I’m owning it.