Emotional

Bleary eyes aren't great lenses for reading but after a full 7 hours sleep I was awake, the house was quiet and I had a great book. After a coffee and a wander around the garden I fell into a comfy lounge chair and picked up that big fat book by Paul Kelly 'How to make gravy'!

HAPPY Drawing by the boy

A chapter for every song in his A - Z kit, every story a slightly different angle, and I'm connecting with every word! The writing is pure! Clear.... A thousand lies couldn't be more true. When I reached a really interesting chapter, Emotional, I heard the bedroom door creak and eldest child came out of her room. Also bleary eyed but keen to chat... It often happens like this, just when I think I've got some time to myself... This chapter surprised me. Paul Kelly's writing can do that. Shifting from amazing introspection to compassionate empathy.

As I read Emotional' I realized that I had misunderstood the lyrics of his song. It was not about what I thought it was. Kelly recounted the intense experience of visiting people in the Baxter detention Centre and the disgraceful treatment of those stuck in the Woomera hell hole! The scenarios are quite familiar to me since they started converting Darwin into a giant emigration detention centre! The sad and horrific stories are not uncommon among people I've met who have been transferred from Christmas Island or those who dread being sent out to Nauru. Living in limbo, having their hopes and spirits crushed at the whim of the Immigration Department who consider punishing them as parto fo some master plan to deter others from seeking safety in Australia. 

As I tried to read this unexpected chapter, which I found particularly interesting, on account of there being at least four detention centres within half an hour drive. my daughter decided it was time for a meaningful conversation about the nature of dragons and unicorns.... I persisted with the book and tried to answer her questions along the way, luckily the chapter was quite short, Kelly got his message across loud and clear, didn't waste any words and told it like it is!

I am so glad he has taken the time to tell this story and that he felt it was worth including in his book. So many Australians couldn't give a flying f-ck about the way Refugees are treated! It seems all the country is now against these people but here's one of our national heros openly declaring his compassion for them, he even wrote a song about it!

My head is swimming with emotion! Love for my kids, connection to the legendary song writer and mostly thoughts of the people I've been meeting at the DAL just down the road from where I live. The latest arrivals are from Iran. They shared their stories with me about the terrible journey across the sea from Indonesia. They all have hopes to see their children grow up in a peaceful place and to learn English and to be happy. It's nearly Christmas and a group of local people I'm involved with are trying to get Christmas presents for the kids.... nearly 180 of them (kids)! We've only got $10 to spend per kid and there's just 9 sleeps until Christmas so the next few days will be busy.

When I'd finished the chapter I put the book down, my was swimming with ideas and emotions. Thinking about the gifts I've got to find with a very limited budget I jumped up to grab the discount store brochure from the dining table... maybe something there. As I strode forward I kicked over my coffe cup! "NOoooooooo!"

Coffee cup with a crack

My favorite coffee cup! I smashed it! The cup I got from the Op Shop two years ago. That one I love with the romantic 1950s Hawaiian scene, with the girls dancing and the colonial American tourists and the flying boat.... Oh... Bleary eyes and foggy mind! Why do you mock me!

I'll try to fix it, no big deal really. What's a broken cup? I heard a fella got charged for smashing up some plates and shit in one of the detention centres! If you fuck up in detention and smash something they can charge you with destruction of property. I reckon if I was in there I'd break every frigging cup I had. What good is a favorite cup!

CROSS Drawing by the boy

Create!

Pondering the deeper questions....
How do you study creativity at a University that is devoted to producing minions for a desensitized industrialized, extractive resource dependent country that is devoted to diminishing beauty wherever it is found? In her attempt to get the qualification she needs to teach music to kids Sam is currently doing some kind of art unit at Uni. The idea of studying art in this way seems to almost stifle the very spirit required to create in the first place. I remember when my sister first went to Uni and she loved reading so she studied English Literature and was put of reading for years! Being force fed other peoples opinions about how a creation should be interpreted seems to completely contradict or eliminate the very force that creates!

Here are some questions recently posted on Learn Line that Sam submitted her answer to a week late and so will not receive a mark for! I liked her response to the questions and thought the irony of her not receiving a grade for this work qualified it as a free work of creativity in it's own right!

Q: What is creativity? 

Q: Who is creative?

Q: When and where are you creative?
Q: Why are you creative?

Kids impression of their Dad riding home from the volcano

Creativity is a whole brain /body /being process. I say process rather than skill as it happens when skills and a certain way of being are in alignment. The way of being could be thought of as immersion, or, as Cskisenmiyalhi calls it 'flow'. There is a sense of timelessness, of forgetting normal body processes such as hunger, a sense of deep connection with the unconscious and the mystery of life - like being on an exciting new frontier where you aren't really sure what's going to happen but stuffs coming out of you and there is a cathartic expression of deep person hood while at the same time loss of separateness from the space beyond our own bodies. As if we are all time and space and all time and space is us. This is not to be confused with playing video games, as, even though some of these things happen when we play video games, we are essentially riding someone else's creativity - not our own.
All people who have the capacity to lose themselves in their own quest or need to either produce or express themselves in a unique way are creative. Watching Bob Dylan write songs is an example of creative genius. Einstein on his quest for the theory of relativity was creative. Gandhi leading the revolt against English occupation of India was creative. Parents who explore new ways of relating to their children are creative. Mozart was amazingly creative.
I am most likely to be creative in unstructured time - also known as recreation - for a reason I think! I like to have a lot of unstructured time in my life to give myself the space to let any creative energy be released. I actually get pretty narky if my life gets too full of appointments etc. I don't do well in routine! There needs to be space in my head for something unexpected to come up from the unconscious, so getting the balance right between external stimulus and internal quiet is the key for me. I need to be led by my intuition - it's not a controlling thing. In fact, the more I try and exercise control, the more this seems to be counterproductive. I just have to let go and trust. In the meantime, any building of skills is always useful as well. Still need to practice that piano! So discipline does play a part too. I'm mostly creative at home, I think this is because it is my sanctuary and I am free to let go on a deep level. When I lived at home with my parents, it was restricted to my own room.
I'm creative because...I'm not quite sure. Maybe it is just a deep seated need of the subconscious to express itself, maybe it is a need to contribute to community in some personal way and be acknowledged? I'm not quite sure what drives my creativity...it's an interesting question to sit on and ponder.

(By Samantha F)

What can be written?

It's been a few days since I've etched anything in these zeros and ones...
Sometimes there's nothing to do but leave it. Nothing can or should be Done!
I've had some moments along the way but a nausea has overtaken me when I've thought to write anything at all.. It's like the millions of repeated statements or thoughts are rotting at the bottom of a pit somewhere!When I look for words I find they've all been said. Any attempt to be authentic is futile. The stench of decay... generations of wasted words, gossip, chit-chat, slander, flattery, useless prose and failed poetry rises up and choke me. What is that stink? Am I wearing a suit of rotten fish and steaming crap?
Sometimes it's like that. Sometimes any attempt to tell or write about an insight or an experience can only reduce that special moment to cliche. Like every combination of words I attempt to join together, are recycled or borrowed and nothing original can be said by using any of what I think I know. Why say anything at all?

I have noticed so many 'coincidences' lately. Would it be fraudulent to even mention them? Sometimes to experience synchronicity is incredibly gratifying but it can also be a lonely kind of realization, like there are no discoveries or secrets only glimpses of kismet and so why tell what has already been told?

 
But No! There have been some divine moments lately... How can I express that? Would you feel what I feel if I wrote about it or made a list? Probably not! An idea can evaporate and moments are lost as though they never existed no matter how strong an impression they make at the time... So what?


(Joker's Ball with an Idiot Grin!)

Sometimes I listen to 80s Pop music and capitulate to nostalgia. I find memories easier to recapture through a tune or scent but struggle to grasp that idea in current moment. With word or by pen! So I won't even bother with that! Today I'll just tell some things I think are cool. Treasures I've stumbled across!


(Placards - Fundamentally good advise but... Did she have a particular God in mind? I should have asked)

Treasures I've found:

A Dugong passed beneath me as I was sailing last Friday afternoon.
Frangipanis are flowering and their scent is intoxicating and blissful.
A gift of two good tyres left under a tree.
Mangoes are ripe and ready to be eaten... Gleaned fruit tastes sweeter than bought!
The pearl shell I found on East Point Beach this morning is worth more than the days pay I traded for time with my kids at the beach.
'He who pays the piper calls the tune' I already knew this but was recently reminded of how important it is to remember.
The use of Academic Jargon is nothing more than pseudo intellectualism. Using it doesn't mean you know anything of any real importance.
Regurgitating Political / media Spin is even less impressive than using Academic Jargon.
Spring Tides in the buildup are immensely beautiful. (the beauty is not recordable as far as I can tell)
Solar Cars are cooler than V8s no matter what Territorians think.



(Solar Cars are cool)

Oops! I can feel the bile rising...
I actually would rather not post this but I have to do it! The compulsion not to write or talk is so strong that I feel I have to do something to purge it!

Lawson wrote The Rovers.  He knew a thing or two!

"... And when the world is crowded—
    ’Tis signed and sealed by Fate—
The roving blood will rise ...."

The beginnings of an artist

A certain budding artist draws on the wall while wearing her Dad's sunglasses.


(No she is not smoking!)