The Very Best of Life

The lover

2011-08-14T17:31:00.000-07:00

The woman was touching her hair as she spoke, pulling a long silky strand and brushing it nervously over her left ear. If he had known her better he would have recognised it as a sign that she had slipped into the nervous mode of her adolescence.

But of course he did not. On the surface of it she was a self-possessed woman of 38 who had long ago put away the insecurities of youth. He liked that she was mature. He liked her power suit and snappily fresh white collar, He did not wish to sense her anxiety.

“I liked your presentation,” she said formally as she stirred her black coffee vigorously minus sugar or cream.

The compliment slipped off the surface of his mind. But he returned her remark with a self-deprecating ritual of his own.

“Thank you, but what effect it will have remains to be seen.”

He pushed the sugar towards her, seeing that she had a habit of stirring coffee and hoping, though still half-consciously, to brush the tanned hand with his fingertips.

“Hmm,” she sucked the spoon dry, feeling its smooth hot metal against her tongue and smelling the faint odour of his early morning shower still lingering though it was past ten o’clock.

A small silence fell between them as she contemplated him.

“Are you married?” she asked abruptly.

He wanted to raise an eyebrow. But it would not do to laugh at her so soon. He had not thought that she would be so blunt.

“Not much,” he replied, looking into her startled eyes and wrinkling his own to indicate this secret intimacy he shared with her.

“Oh,” she replied abruptly, blushing. “I did not mean it that way. It just seemed to me that what you said to them – about women wanting more of men than they knew how to give – was the kind of remark a married man might hear.”

“Or maybe it’s my take on market research.”

She was not deceived. “Not the terminology for surveys. Unless you’ve been married enough times to have clocked up a representative sample!”

It was out now, he thought. Her interest in him.

He leaned back in the banquette and felt the triumph of a fly fisherman when he feels the lightest brush of a salmon’s mouth against the lure.

“And you?” he asked. “Are you? Have you a partner in this life of pain and struggle?” He said it jokingly, hinting that surely she, being so wholly in control of life as she seemed, could hardly have a life of pain and struggle.

The skin against the bones of her face tightened minutely. “No,” she said bleakly “He died a year ago.”

“Oh.” He was the one now to feel the awkwardness of new encounters. “I’m sorry. I did not mean to be insensitive.”

“How were you to know? I do not wear widow’s weeds.”

But she felt them clinging to her as she swept down the current of her grief briefly once again. She looked beyond her companion into the unchanging vista of a sunlit past.

He laid his coffee cup gently down and gathered his briefcase.

Haiku

2011-02-25T20:48:00.000-08:00

Recently I heard on the ABC's Bookshow that in Japan there are hundreds of Haiku clubs where middle aged people are taught the intricacies of this traditional poetic form. I had no idea what the intricacies were other than the 17-syllable format and the fact they should hint at spiritual truths. Apart from the fact that these little verses capture so tightly the essence of natural beauty, I wondered why the Japanese are so addicted to composing them.

Attempting one or two myself, I discover they have the same obsessive fascination as cryptic crosswords and other word games, but rather than mental precision they demand extreme emotional accuracy. Not at all easy ...

Butterfly dancers
in lavender and white sage
belie old men's fears

Keywords and other killers of creative life

2011-02-21T22:35:00.000-08:00

I know life as we know it would shrivel and die without Google. But there is certainly some collateral damage to our souls now that we live in a digital world.

Today I went to a workshop on medieval manuscript techniques. It was a pleasure to play with colours and gold pens, but more than that, it illuminated my disquiet about our increasing dependence on culture delivered on a flat screen and generated via a keyboard and a mouse.

In the days of illuminated manuscripts, people made their own parchment from animal skins, cut their own quills, made ink from the carbon from lamps, shared the intensive labour with others, and had the fulfillment of knowing that what they were publishing was knowledge of the highest order. No time for wasting your energy and resources on pulp fiction in the C10th. Creativity might have been short on individual expression, but it generated the highest respect because it was only those texts that touched many souls that reached the scriptorium.

Today, however, if I want many souls to spend even a ten second glance at any creative endeavour, no matter how worthy that of respect that might be, it has to be fed into cyberspace. Therein it must survive the keyword gauntlet, the Google censor, NLP marketing and landing page health checks - all before you get to respond to what I have actually created. And even then you won't be able to taste, touch or smell it.

That is why when I hear that bookshops are going the way of the dodo, and girls prefer to buy their dresses touch unseen, I wonder whether we really want life on Earth, or simply a conceptual version of it. I, for one, am not planning to grace Earth next lifetime if I can experience it all in virtual reality, courtesy of Google, from the fleshless comfort of Planet Zog.

Why bother to write at all?

2011-02-08T17:47:00.000-08:00

In recent times I have been devouring books of all shades: some are truly wonderful, others a waste of fallen trees. One of my favourites is Markus Zusak's "The Messenger," a book for young adults. Although it occasionally flirts with schmaltz, the clean poetic language, its honesty and humour, and its page-turning charisma offer a model that any writer might envy. It is also a book that parents and teachers might consider a worthwhile addition to their 15 + kids' reading list

Beyond his craftsmanship, I find Zusak's work exhilarating because it is solidly based in a philosophy of writing that I wish was more honoured in writing for adults. He believes in encouraging the celebration of the whole of life. It is a position that is unpopular among writers, publishers and critics who cater to those people who prefer to see life as a glass half empty, its water polluted, rather than half full and sparkling at that.

But why write anything "creatively" at all unless its ultimate aim is to uplift? It takes a lot of effort and heart to write, so what is the value of entertaining misery that spawns nothing creative except the possible affirmation that survival is somehow worth it? Certainly we need to be informed, but in these days of information overload, we rarely need to learn more about pain; we do not need to be cut by words in order to feel, for most have experienced too many real life cuts.

The emphasis on the dark and dreary in both popular and literary fiction is part of a bigger problem. Inspiration is no longer credible. Perhaps this is because it has been commandeered by ad men. But it is also, I think, because we are encouraged to believe in the End Times by everyone from the makers of disaster movies to environmental activists. Death is nigh: why inspire since promises cannot be fulfilled? Adrenalin rushes are an energy substitute for joy as any reality TV show will show you.

Writers such as Zusak are contributing to a much needed change in attitude by focusing on the power that comes through engaging in creatively in life right Now to find meaning and fulfillment.

However, in these chaotic times, the Now is often a scary place. We do not wish to open our eyes to find the optimistic messages in it. Instead we look backwards for solutions that used to work, and how that past may provide objections to new thinking.

The past has its uses, of course. For those with imagination it provides a glimpse into the wisdom of lives we have forgotten. But it does not supply true meaning in itself, which exists only in the present as the hand grasps the hammer and the heart pumps to strike a blow.

But what if there is nothing to strike but thin air? The world as it is stands takes from both young and elderly people alike the anvil and the iron upon which they make their mark. The significance of meaningful work recedes; family disappears into distance like objects in a telescope, seen but rarely touched; friendship is confined to a regular game of cards washed down with beer.

This is the point that Zusak is making. His young messenger must make the world real through asking questions about the lives of those he observes, and the love they need. The interactions he has with the recipient of his messages makes the both world and himself real and worthy of respect.

The solution to the problem of meaningless cannot lie in social regulation. You cannot legislate for personal meaning. You cannot police it. The answer rests only in those individuals who can recover his or her own meaning, vitality and wonder in life in order to inspire a belief in those possibilities. Each of us must make an acquaintance with that tiger tiger in the night that continues to burn bright in the mind of all but the truly dying if we are to re-make human experience.

It is the spirit of the tiger within that causes me to hope that my words will not be simply an account of another gritty railway station that I am leaving behind in the eternal journey of my consciousness, but a gift that is the departure point for the thrilling journey of others who come after me.

God bless, Zusak and his ilk who support me in this eccentric desire.

Dreaming of change

2010-12-01T15:01:00.000-08:00

There is a big red spider in my tree. It has whiskers and tiny newborn wings. It is planning to not be a spider. It wants to be a bat. I have no idea why it wants to be a bat, but that is what it wants to be. Its tiny newborn wings are shiny and leathery like a bat's. Its red body is covered with sparse hairs that are not nearly enough to keep a bat warm.

The only thing does not to want to change are its eyes.

Its eyes are large and lustrous and they see things that no other animal can. It likes this aspect of itself but it does not like its bulbous body and its creepy crawly way of scuttling around. It wants to be a bat because there in the darkness of a cave it will be safe from predatory birds. Its hot red body is cumbersome and so it would prefer to fly.

And, if it looks in its tiny looking glass, it sees it has ugly mandibles that stick out where really it would like a smiling bat mouth.

George

2010-11-29T22:16:00.000-08:00

I have a wild friend called George. George is a sulphur-crested cockatoo of creative genius. He knows what he wants and how to bend the will of God, namely me, to get it. He and his pals, including an elegant lady companion, have realised I am a soft touch when it comes to handing out a handful of sunflower seeds.

I know I am a sucker. I know it is NOT A GOOD THING to feed wild friends. They become dependent, tear at garden treasures, turn bitter when you fall into the trap of being too kind. It is better to be a capricious God than one whose beneficence can be relied upon unfailingly.

Therefore I devise a strategy. I do not feed George when his friends arrive. I do not feed him every day. I do not feed his wife. I set my dogs to bark through the windowpanes when he lands upon the sitting room sill with excessive demands. He and my dogs are locked in a battle of wills, and if I were a betting woman I would wager my daily bread that George will win.

George sees through every stratagem. He hides his wife upon the roof out of sight until I leave his seeds upon the feeding table. He tells his other mates to go away and in a few short days none appear at feeding time, and if they do they encounter a ferocious objection from George. My dogs occasionally escape the house to bark at his table. They leap with futile enthusiasm at his lazily flapping wings and flaring yellow crest. He dances on his perch with an air of smug tolerance clearly reserved for creatures less savvy than he.

Today he has spied that I live in two rooms. He abandons the sitting room window ledge to speak to me at my study window. He says he hasn’t had enough of my charity today. Bad luck George, I say. Enough is enough. He smiles, cocks his head, beams his desire yet again, And then, recognising that I truly mean what I say, flops away without resentment. Until tomorrow.

Forgiveness of things said

2010-11-22T18:16:00.000-08:00

IMHO one of the most creative acts of all is forgiveness. It opens the way for new chapters, new life, but it is often very hard. Here are my thoughts on this dilemma.

As you draw your bow, time freezes. All is still.
A predatory silence hangs between us,
as you let fly your unconsidered arrow.
I am rent apart.

Your noisy judgment pierces my flesh
Its barbs infecting my heart until it shrinks,
giving forth a scent of subtle putrefaction,
While I go on smiling as I did before.

What is forgiveness then?
Is it not absurd? A violation of the dignity that pain brings?
Leave these things to God or someone else.
Not me.

Unless I should look upon the Earth herself,
See her ceaselessly clothe old wounds
with grass and trees and new rivers,
Unless I look upon the ageless clouds that change their shape and beauty,
Unless I see new shoots of who I am breaking into sunshine.

Projection

2010-07-29T22:28:00.000-07:00

In my job as spiritual educator I sometimes come across people who, believing they cannot create the life they want, project their fury at their own powerlessness on to me. At the moment I am writing, people are doing this to each other right left and centre. Pity poor Obama and the rest of dem pollies. But pity, too, those who buy into the profound self-dislike we have been taught to believe is okay.

So I thought I would write about it. This is the first draft.

Projection

Well, she said
putting her hands upon her hips
mouth drawn into a cat’s purse.
I don’t appreciate what you have done
to me.
Put me on the shelf.
Discarded me like an empty can of baked beans
oozing sauce into the trash
treated me ...well like
my father mother sister brother
indeed as the world has always done.
Left me at the bottom of the list
like I always do myself
and wish I didn’t.

The miracles that love can bring to creative projects

2009-10-24T22:34:00.000-07:00

You might notice that I have recently added a new title to my list of favourite books. It is Babylon's Ark.

Babylon's Ark is the true life account of the amazing adventure of environmentalist,Lawrence Anthony, who left his elephant reserve in Zululand to rescue animals trapped in Baghdad's zoo at the time of the American occupation of the city in 2003.

Ever since I read Black Beauty at the age of 9, I tend to weep buckets at stories of animal neglect and cruelty. Therefore it took some determination to get through the first few chapters. But I was soon rewarded by the unfolding of an astounding vision of how human ingenuity fuelled by love can express the very best of life under the most appalling conditions: ironically also created by human ingenuity.

Anthony is a person who refuses to take no for an answer. When he arrives at the zoo the place is devastated, the remaining animals starving, thirsty and injured. His mission to find water and food for animals in a place where humans themselves are in an equally desperate condition is quixotic to say the least. But Anthony, and the handful of assistants he can persuade to help him, manage not only to do that but also to begin the task of rebuilding the archaic zoo in line with world best practice. More than that he gains the trust of the violated animals and humans under his care until the zoo becomes a living example of hope for the future.

For me, it is not Anthony's idealism or courage which is so impressive. Every age has its heroic idealists. Rather my admiration and respect arises from his grounded capacity to make the conditions many live in now align with that idealism, and the broad depth of his love: his compassion for his staff, his depth of gratitude he has for those roughest or humblest of men who find ways to bring to the zoo the supplies it needs, his open-minded respect for differing perspectives on animal welfare, and his ability to look darkness in the face without judgment or bitterness. This is the creative love that draws the miracles these times need to us.

Cultivating the love of the mundane

2009-10-13T21:01:00.000-07:00

I have been so immersed in writing my kids' story I haven't had a chance to get to this blog for a while. But my good friend, Steven, sent me some pertinent thoughts on creativity recently that I thought worth sharing. Here they are:

People want to manifest a tangible expression of their creativity and become desperate about doing so. For example, a friend says to me: "When are you going to write a poem and do a reading, or do a dance show?" etc etc. We, as a culture, are obsessed with tangible, end-point output as a verification of our self-worth with regards to creativity (and all other spheres really).

But, in conversation lately, I've been telling people that deep creativity is about how you bring creativity into your daily life. I call it 'cultivating a love of the mundane' as, for example, cooking and presenting something nicely: the art of making a cup of tea and setting the scotch fingers and Tim tams thoughtfully on a plate. Creativity can inform each human interaction in order to reveal a truth through being present to the other, and bearing witness to their beauty. Creativity is finding the hidden jewel in any difficult interaction or circumstance. In this manner every moment becomes pregnant with creative potential, if you like.

The creative act of loving

2009-08-23T21:10:00.000-07:00

For me the greatest creative act of all is finding a way to make the best of the love we have for our partners. Here is one of my reflections on this peculiarly human task that we carry out in the simplicity of everyday life.

Here’s looking at you, kid

The world in her autumnal gown of leaves and light

was beautiful today

as are you who grows older by the day with her

and me

we have journeyed far together you and I

sharing in words, gestures, acts of kindness.

And also in the searing heat of rage which is

our souls’ call to offer one another

our truth and will and love

that together we may cut a path of common destiny

through the rocky unknown of our days

you are not me

and I not you

no part of us is other than unique

but without each we are the lesser

and the drinking of the cafe coffee

the press of our dog upon our entwined arms

as we lie in bed on Sunday mornings

our walking in the cool morning

cloaks the mystery of our togetherness

in the substance and the warmth

of humble lives upon a grand adventure.

An author's consciousness: love and moral awareness

2009-08-04T18:42:00.000-07:00

Recently I have been reading any book that strikes my fancy in the Returns trolley at our local library. I am doing this with the intention of learning more about the creative consciousness of different writers (whether I care for them or not), and the degree to which their works demonstrate a sense of love for what they are writing about.

Last week I took out Andrew Klavan's "Empire of Lies" and Wilkie Collins "Woman in White." What a contrast! Klaven writes in the snappy, page turning style that is beloved of airport novelists. But beneath this he feels it is his moral duty to comment on the appalling state of the world. He is a man on a mission and his judgments are laid on thick in the observation of both the "hero" and his post modern world. "New York is a good city for faces ... All of them going wherever they were going ... Making machines or businesses or works of art, debasing themselves for gain or praying for salvation, slavering after celebrities or caring for their children or mindlessly murdering time." He finally concludes that only Love can save, and he expresses this in a manner that suggests that he like, most of America, has recently had a religious revelation.

I turned then to Collins who wrote his book in 1860 and brings to bear the same tendency to moral reflection but this time with completely different consciousness although he, as a barrister, had the same opportunities as Kavan to reflect upon human limitation.

He remarks of one character: "A mild, a compliant, and unutterably tranquil and harmless old lady, who never by any chance suggested the idea that she had been actually alive since the hour of her birth. Nature has so much to do in this world, and is engaged in generating such a vast variety of co-existent productions, that she must surely be now and then too flurried and confused to distinguish between the different processes that she is carrying on at the same time ... (It) will always remain my private persuasion that Nature was absorbed in making cabbages when Mrs. Vesey was born..."

Collins's writing suggests the leisurely, ironic stance of a man who owns his own prejudices in a world that he enjoys. Kavan, on the other hand, is an author moulded from the jittery resonance of present day America with its shame, guilt and disembodied conviction that it must once again find a path that is stamped with God's Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval.

Both these writers are well known for their authorial "success." But I doubt that Kavan will be remembered as long as Collins, not because there is a great difference in the degree to which they exercise their different literary skills, but because Collins' consciousness reflects a genuine love and compassion for his world while Kavan simply hopes it will come to its senses.

Feedback: Finding the right reviewers

2009-07-20T00:05:00.000-07:00

One of the problems that faces the beginner writer - or indeed any creator - is getting helpful feedback when you have a first draft in hand. Who do you go to for feedback that is going to actually assist, as opposed to dragging you into self-doubt and anxiety, and even despair? Who do you turn to when you are not so famous a publishing house has loaned you its top notch editor?

One anonymous writer advises: "Don’t give your writing to your relatives or those close to you. You won’t get their reaction to your writing but their opinions about you. Keep your writing to yourself until it is ready. You have to accept that you must be an apprentice to yourself first." On the whole I follow that dictum, and it works.

But, for fun I tried Googling for other advice on sharing one's writing efforts. ..... not to people who are jealous of you, not to people you don't trust, not for free when you could get money, not not not ...

All this advice is the accumulation of useless wisdom gained. One of the truths of life is that as soon as you make anything public some one is going to object, find it is not to their taste, be confused, have deep suspicions about you, or simply respond to your lovely little newborn with a big yawn that they hide behind polite words. Their projections are stronger by far than the power of your pen.

You need critics with a Zen mentality: those who respond to the miracle of life and your effort to capture a small part of it with an open heart, honesty, and perceptiveness that still leaves room for the spirit of creator. Difficult to find!

I find children are excellent Zen reviewers . I recently asked six boys whether they liked a story I am writing, making my dogs Alice and Boyd the heroine and her companion. (The picture is of Boyd: a kindly clever mutt who is perfect mentor for a headstrong and not so clever blue blood!)

The kids' ages range from 6 - 13. As my intention has been to appeal to the 7 - 9 age group, I was delighted when I got a perfect response: the younger one found the language and message too difficult, while the older ones felt it had in sufficient action for their tastes. Only two kids were ardent fans who laughed at the jokes and understood the underlying philosophy: they are aged 7 and 9. I had confirmed my "market" without an undue loss of self-esteem.

Of course market is a dirty word for creative artists. It is associated with consumerism, hype and doing it "just for money". However this experience taught me that knowing what I want to say, what response I hope to elicit and from whom, helps me to define what feedback is relevant and what is not. And when every kid agreed the title was uninteresting - well then I knew there was something I have to fix.

The yearning for beauty that speaks to the heart

2009-06-30T20:03:00.000-07:00

Today I went on an Artist’s Date ala Julia Cameron. I took the dogs for a walk in the wind and ended up at an indoors Collectibles market. This place is vast and houses more stuff than is tolerable.

I wandered in bemused fashion staring at flower-infested teapots, worn out Biggles books, fine and not-so-fine porcelain, the leather school bag I owned at kindergarten– how had it managed to accrue a value of $65? – authentically scuffed cabinets, WWW 2 army uniforms, a Vietnamese Buddha, and a Marilyn Monroe clock whose hands glided smoothly and without passion across her bosom.

The kind of headache I experience when there is altogether too much to do in my day flickered for a moment in my fore brain. I yearned for the solid comfort of a hot lunch. Surely I was missing something here? How could hundreds of people find joy in rummaging this collective scrap heap of discarded memories? What strange tastes people have, and who would pay good money for all that kitsch?

And then, in answer to my question, I chanced upon a pair of Lea Stein brooches and changed my mind. I began to drool! You can learn a little about her work on http://www.worldcollectorsnet.com/magazine/issue29/iss29p3.html

I knew then as I have often known before that it is the soul's exquisite desire that we surround ourselves with the beauty that speaks to our own hearts, if no one else’s.

Turning creative limitations to advantage

2009-06-09T22:32:00.000-07:00

I am knitting “an every mistake you can make” jacket. It is my rebellion against a. the boredom of a plain and unadorned stocking stitch, and b. the excruciating frustration of complicated patterns that never remember to be obedient to my intentions. My brain is not set up to do such intricate work. I am jealous of my sister who has the mental focus to handle such tasks. And I am in awe at the beautiful miniature houses my friend Estelle can make. But me, poor me, I have to work with a very broad brush indeed when it comes to creativity that involves the hands. In deference to my deficiencies, I decided to investigate what would happen if I capitalised on this incompetence. I let rip with knit or purl stitches whenever I felt like it. The answer is this: Chaotic but classic, and absolutely unique. Well, that's my take on it anyhow!

A writer's garden: connecting to creative ideas

2009-06-08T23:39:00.000-07:00

One way I connect to creative ideas is to go to a special place in my mind that is my "Writer's garden." This garden is a secluded spot where there is a rickety table with an old-fashioned typewriter under the umbrella of a grand tree. The foliage is thick but sunlight filters through on to the table, making dancing shadows.

Into this garden I invite my Writer Self, who may appear in any guise, and a Magical Child. The magical child holds the wonder of spiritual knowledge and the joy of being alive before experience or judgment closes down one's capacity for perception.

At one side of this garden is an archway that leads to The Other. Mine is made of a filigree of white marble. I focus my intention on gathering images for a piece of creative writing and then I invite my Writer Self and Magical child to move into the land beyond the arch. After that it is just a matter of recording the thoughts, feelings and images that spring to mind. The recording is important because, upon reflecting upon them, I often learn more about my creative process than I would through conscious thought.

The sea and me: memories as a creative mosaic

2009-06-07T23:56:00.000-07:00

I was named after a young aunt who, in familial despair, one day walked into the sea and drowned. Her body was never recovered. None of my mother’s family mentioned her unmentionable craziness: instead they claimed that kelp, no doubt, had imprisoned her. My mother showed me samples of it on the beach amid the other detritus the waves had thrown up upon the sand. In my young imagination I saw my aunt like a discarded porcelain doll with sightless eyes and round smooth limbs undulating in the tentacles of an underwater Medusa’s hair.

Eight years old

I remember the fishing trip: that fishing trip when I won a gummy shark from out of the froth of steely grey waves in the dinghy that my father and his mate were pretending was safe in the chop and swirl of an oncoming storm. Me wrapped in a raincoat, my hands red and the fingers hurting from the chawing of the line as the fish – oh so big I might have caught a whale. I laugh with a child’s reckless excitement, while the two men strain with all the power of their muscular anxiety against the weight of the sea. I am lighted up with the glorious dominion of catching a fish in a rocking little boat, the shore so far away, and even further as the rowers slide along the rip.

Twelve years old

This year I pull in a silver streak of fish into my father’s hired fishing boat. It thrashes in the sunlight all the diamond and greenish scales sparkling in its hopeless fight against the hook. Garfish. It cries a tiny human mewling cry. I decide never to fish or eat garfish again. Fishing has lost its atavistic appeal.

Fiji 1982

Under the sea, again snorkling in the liquid glassiness of the warm Pacific. Below me a reef shark lazily flaps its tail, slow motion, as it winds between the coral where the small bright fishes scatter as it moves, seaweed bronze and murky green, fronds lifting in the currents. My body feels newborn weak. I am like a piece of fleshy driftwood at the mercy of the water, the wind and the chance of disaster. I swim to the chartered boat where black men avoid hauling me aboard because I am white and woman.

Anytime

At times I meditate on seaweed. I use long multicoloured strands of it to scrub my mind free of the scum and cloudy confusion held in the little crevices and folds of my cerebellum, and down the intricate white bones of my spine. At those times seaweed is a servant of my soul.

I like my pets beyond reason

2009-06-07T23:50:00.001-07:00

I wrote this little verse several years ago. My dog has since died, but the yellow parakeet remains robust and mean-spirited to all but me. I have included this peon of praise not because I think of it as poetry but because I believe in recording love in order to preserve it after life has left it.

I like my pets beyond reason

I like the softness of my dog’s woolly face
and his snout, wet and pulsing, against my neck.
I like his eyes
watching as I tie the laces of my shoes
to take him walking.

I like the crazy racing after seagulls
and his squealing delight as he re-meets a friend he has chosen
to celebrate for doggy reasons only.

I like the way he loves my family
and how he stares sorrowfully through the window
for their return from parting.

I like my yellow bird
who clatters at her mirror,
flies to my head to prick my scalp with needle claws.
lies like a dead thing in my palm to soak up the warmth
of my hand and its caring for her fragile life
which she entrusts to me without thought.

I love my pets beyond reason.

They are the hearts’ bridge between my care for living things
and the benison which living things bestow upon me

I like them because they are,
because I am,
because Earth is.

Of bread and lilies

2009-06-02T22:05:00.000-07:00

There is a Chinese proverb that advises: If you have two loaves of bread, sell one and buy a lily. It always reminds me to make life beautiful no matter what the circumstances. The spiritual light that keeps hope and trust alive glows more brightly when we connect to beauty. I learned that great truth in the recession of 1987.

That was the year I began my practice as a psychotherapist. I had given up my regular income as high school teacher and launched into a new career that was not on the top of anybody’s recession budget. Suddenly I found that I was in great financial uncertainty. There was barely enough money to pay basic living expenses at the start of each week.

My stress levels went through the roof. Panic attacks consumed me. Each day I spent worrying, checking though my empty wallet, and worrying again. Nights were filled with fearful dreams. I needed the relaxation of a holiday but, of course, I couldn’t afford it.

Fortunately for me, I have often had sudden visions that have helped me through crisis. I have come to believe that we are all protected if only we connect to the guidance of our Spirit selves. So it was that during one meditative moment, I sensed that if I imagined myself as a child at play I might find some answers to my stress.

I placed my hand on my heart, closed my eyes, and imagined filling my heart with the warmth and wellbeing that my soul feels for me. Immediately a mop-headed smiling four- year-old appeared.

The first question sprung to mind easily. “What do you think I should do today, young Suzie?”

Her answer came unequivocally: “Get some flowers and arrange them in a vase.”

I didn’t have money to buy lilies, but a supermarket bunch of daffodils was possible. Flowers that straggled over neighbours’ fences proved handy. An hour later I had a charming arrangement that transformed my bare room into a salon fit for a princess. I had proof that life could be abundant once again. And with the relaxation came a flow of ideas about how I could make money until my practice took off.

For six more days, my inner child suggested weird and wonderful ways to regain my optimism. On the seventh day, she did not speak but sat playing idly with white river pebbles. What could that mean? I thought. And then it struck me: “Stop worrying about where things are going. Do something just for the heck of it. But make it fun and make it pretty.”

It is advice I still apply, and from time to time I give my inner child a hug to thank her for the bread and lilies she brings.

Making ideas work

2009-05-31T19:41:00.000-07:00

Often good ideas go down the drain for want of a bit of creative sympathy. Take using other people's recipes as an example.

Yesterday I experimented with two new recipes. One of them was a delicious Japanese-inspired soup, but it needed a slight change. The amount of water recommended was totally inadequate - unless the cook had really planned on instructions for a vegetable stew.

In the second recipe, for rice paper rolls, the proportions were altogether way out of whack. Have you every tried to fill 8 cellophane thin rolls with "100 grams of vermicelli, cooked"? It is absurd and can't be done. I guess the original instructions were translated from Chinese, and maybe they meant "100 grams of cooked vermicelli." What a difference the placement of a word can make. Anyhow most of it ended up in the garbage. I thought of Googling for "Recycling vermicelli" recipes, but by the time I had struggled with trying to squeeze massive amounts of the stuff into eight neat packages I was fresh out of enthusiasm for vermicelli.

Actually the whole recipe was weird on proportions: too much lettuce, too little mint, not enough prawn and, of course, way too much vermicelli. Everything was completely out of balance. As I munched my way through a tasteless skein of rice threads, made only bearable by lots of hoisin and chilli, I wondered whether my expectation that the roll "should" have tasted a certain way was the real problem. If I had not had prior experience of the delights of Vietnamese restaurants would I have actually enjoyed my efforts? Probably not. But then what is it that determines what we think is "acceptable" except education that has become unquestioned second nature? Ever tasted tea expecting it to be coffee, or vice-versa? Truly shocking

And that being so, how does a creative person who has a whole new perspective on the business of making life more beautiful, more enlightened or more fulfilling manage to change yours and my perceptions to allow for that "something better" to be heard? Not for the first time I was reminded of my profound respect for the courageous innocence of artists and pioneers.

But here is that delicious soup slightly amended with thanks to one Dr Kaiser who calls it...

Immunity soup (for four)

Soak:

6 shitake mushrooms in 2 cups of water for 20 minutes. Or use fresh ones as I did. Whatever you do chop them finely and discard the stems

Add, bring to boil and simmer for 10 minutes:

Mushrooms and their water to four additional cups fo water.

Add and simmer for 15 minutes:

2 thinly sliced medium carrots
2 ditto celery stalks
1 diced onion
2 cloves minced garlic
Extra vegetables to suit. I used a handful of spinach
More water so it looks soupy.

Add and simmer 15 minutes:

3 cm finely diced daikon radish
1 small bunch chopped parsley
1/3 cup wakame seaweed (after soaking in water)
100 gm diced soft tofu

Add and simmer 5 minutes being careful not to boil

3 tbs mild Miso mixed with water to a paste
Cracked pepper and soy sauce to taste.

Games to expand perception

2009-05-29T21:13:00.000-07:00

Today I tried a new way to entertain myself on my two-hour drive home from town. Usually I listen to the Book Show, play a recording of a meeting I have with my business partner, and plan my shopping list. Instead I decided to count all the cylindrical shapes standing within easy sight of the road. This is a version of a game my sister and I played on boring journeys to far-off holiday destinations travellng in our parents' car that was never supposed to go more than 30 miles per hour, and preferably for safety's sake, 25!

This time I decided to use the game to discover the current state of Victoria's uptake of water tanks. Of course the result was unsurprising. Virtually nobody uses a water tank if they can use piped water. There were only 51 tanks visible on the 100 km of highway, and 15 of those belonged to a tank retailler. Nothing creative or informative in that game, you might say.

But that is not the end of the story. The game began to show me things I have overlooked or barely notice in the many years I have travelled this road: all the skeletal phone towers that have sprung up, the beautiful copper turret on an old school building, a paddock mysteriously planted in cactus, and the sheen of new grass over parched yellow earth after rain. My trip home became what Julia Cameron advises in her book, The Artist's Way: an artist's date.

Mum's home cooking

2009-03-03T16:06:00.000-08:00

Creative passion is so much a matter of individuality. My mother found no joy in cooking and much preferred gardening. By the time her beans, zucchini, tomatoes, corn and pumpkin reached the house she had lost all interest in them. Maybe it was because she had become exhausted by them. Fatigue and creativity are mutually exclusive.

But despite her culinary reluctance Mum provided a Sunday roast, which remained a highlight of our family week even when my own children were born. Her potatoes were exceptionally golden crisp, her gravy made without Gravox, and, after dessert, usually tinned fruit and a tablespoon of cream, we were permitted the luxury of two squares of dark chocolate.

Occasionally we would be treated to Hot Oranges. Although this recipe is not exactly an example of Haute Cuisine, the simple pleasure of brandy, orange, and spice melded with sweet butter, has left me with an indelible conviction that most people today make too much of "being creative." The goal of everyday household creativity is simple, sensory delight. You don't need a dozen exotic ingredients and an enormous amount of effort to produce the joy that is ...

Hot oranges

Select the most beautiful juicy oranges for this recipe, one for two people.
Cut each in half around the middle.
With a sharp knife, cut the segments free of each other.
Cut all segments free of the pith so that they can be scooped out easily with a spoon,
Place the halved oranges cut side up in a baking dish.
Top each with a little butter, 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon, 1 tsp brown sugar.
Put oranges in a 180C oven and bake for 12 minutes exactly.
Place half an orange on a plate for each person and pour over the hot buttery juice.
Garnish with a sprig of mint.
For grown ups, pour a little brandy over the top and serve.

Home comforts

2009-02-15T19:00:00.000-08:00

From my window I see
Tonight the winter sky carrying rain clouds
above the sweeping edges of the hill

The lights are bright as stars amongst the humble houses
And the hum of homeward cars rises like heavy breathing
on the cold night air

I hear television voices
Staccato at a distance
I feel the weight of current news
I draw the clatter of evening dishes
into my skin and bones.

All is good and kind here
cocooned by unassuming love.