Looking for Signs

 You can tell a lot about a person when you ask them what they want in life.  Some will rattle off a tangible list of things, even experiences, but honestly, there seems to be a cultural divide.  To want hope, peace, faith and love more than money in our culture seems to be unthinkable, that is until the unthinkable happens.

We pay people to solve things for us.  If we don't like how we look, we reshape ourselves through the hands of a skilled surgeon.  We buy our way through life, and in some very real ways we have friends based on what they possess instead of who they are.  This 'throwing money" at problems in order to 'solve' them doesn't seem to solve anything.  We try to make ourselves look better, but then that means that someone has to look 'worse' than we are.  The 'better' new me, because we have been taught to hate the 'old' (and younger) version of ourselves.  We want to go to the past or the future, but never enjoy the moment we have right now.  We want to leave this world, because another world will solve our problems.  We want to understand where we came from because we want an answer to why we are here because we cannot seem to deal with our inequalities and differences and continue to strive towards a sameness without realizing that we all just want to go in the directions of our dreams, ahhh, but the problem is WHAT to dream about.  We tend to forget that we all need each other, but the goal for many is not to need anyone because need is weakness.  The wealthy have seen in their own minds that they are the gods to be caretakers over humanity and the poor have also seen the wealthy as their gods and providers.  It's a codependent relationship.  The wealthy cannot care about death or famine because it would drive them insane.  They would weep in a nonstop fashion if they realized their ability to do something, but their friends ensure that there are no bleeding hearts amongst their group.  After all, we have continuously have been told that there have been too many of us.  On the other extreme, there are nations that brutalize the females, children, those of questionable sexual orientation, minorities, differing faiths and then call themselves a free people.  If freedom only exists for a segment of the population, can a nation ever call themselves free?  Economically, not even America can call herself a free nation.  Our voices are kept silent and we are left to figure out systems to try to 'make' ourselves.

We have our pursuits of happiness, and basically, this nation was founded on the principal that mankind is good, not evil.  The deepest desire within us all is to have the power to give kindness to each other.  We want to be trusting, as trusting as a child is of each other, but when you have a nation full of child abuse, rape, sexual violence, war and addictions; how is it possible to go to a place called 'happiness' when senses are distorted?  Not everyone is abused or the abuser.  No, but there is a huge void in many lives, and we try to fill that void with things.  Happiness is not a pursuit.  Happiness is a state of being.

The material world debate has been going on for quite sometime, a lot longer than I had perceived it.  There was a work written by D. H. Lawrence where the elder generation was criticizing the youth, "All they care about is money, so they know nothing about living."  I know I may have paraphrased it out of it's context,  but it was the most remarkable line of Lady Chatterley's Lover.  Here was a woman, who married well, in terms of her social and economic standing; but she had a business marriage and not one of love.

Only the poor know love?  I heard it said by many women, "The first time you marry, you marry for love.  The second time, is for money, but if you get it right the first time, you get both."  There is a bitterness about love that I cannot seem to understand because I still idealize love, even at my age.  Love isn't a 'thing' to be found.  I think where we have it wrong is that love is not an emotion, far from it.  Love is a state of being that is not based on economic give and take.  There isn't a balance sheet.  The problem is we talk about what love 'feels' like as though there is an emotional cue that this is what it is like to 'fall' in love.  We often mistake what true actions of love are.  Love is not an emotion, it is an action that cannot be repaid.  It is a display.  

I have to say that I have spent my entire life learning about love.  I will never fully comprehend love, but I feel that it is a noble quest.  Does love give way?  Does love allow us to grow if we try to control the actions of others?  Why has love been hated amongst groups that seem to profess the word and still fails to comprehend the depth of what that state of being is?  To be loved without loving is the most selfish kind of love there is.  Love is like water.  It is a tangible and intangible force.  It is the source of life.  Yet so many will say love doesn't exist.  

So what is the ideal?  Perhaps that would be to have the ability to love.  If you have the ability to love, you have the ability to live wisely.  Now if only we knew how to stop being so damn fearful of each other.

Follow the White Horse

There is a saying about small towns, everyone knows everything because there is nothing to know.  You can give a vague description about anything in a town, and immediately someone will pipe up, "Oh yeah, I know what you're talking about." Everyone has discovered everything so nothing is new to them.  But I am a stranger here in these parts so I looked completely foolish to them as I went completely ga ga over this miniature white horse.

The horse saw me walking down the street and approached the fence, almost like an invitation.  It's interesting about its conditioning because it stopped by a sign that simply read, "Don't Feed The Horse".  My guess is that the horse is an experienced beggar, and people tend to dislike being told what not to do.  Perhaps it is to prevent the owner from being sued if the horse bit them.

However, this horse showed a smile and not its teeth and posed so beautifully for me.  Of course I couldn't resist its eyes and I just happened to have a huge green apple in my bag that just might have made it over the fence as payment for its kindness.

Sometimes we have to ignore what the signs say and just do what is right.  

Since When Is Life Safe? The Sorrow of Time Travel.

It was the first of November, 2012 and the anxiety of the approach of 21 December was being acutely felt in the world.  Did it feel like 1999 all over again?  I started thinking about how many times in my life I had heard the world is coming to an end, and if life is going to end, what is the point?  Right?  I mean why do anything if it is all for nothing.  Why get out of bed?  Why plant crops?  Why raise children?  Why do we need to do absolutely anything if all that is waiting for us is one great big long dirt nap?  Life is vanity.  Someone else screwed it up and well, it is all damnation.    How would you spend your last 24 hours or days or years?  How would life go on if we all had the lifespan of a butterfly?  Well in terms of eternity, that is exactly what we have been allocated, but even a butterfly starts off as a caterpillar, spins a cocoon, waits and then eventually emerges from its shell as a butterfly.  Before it dies it mates profusely just to ensure that life does go on and it dies.  The interesting thing about butterflies is it doesn't question its existence, nor ponders about the meaning of life.  It just produces life and as a benefit, it also helps farmers with cross pollination.  The butterfly is just being a butterfly.

Published in The Allora Advertiser Issue No. 3220, 1 November 2012, p14

I love being around nature, and during my time here, I haven't really spent very much time on newspapers, television, nor even the internet.  Instead I have been writing, taking pictures, and exploring this small town in Australia.  I have spent a lot of time in meditation, talking to people and sharing stories with new found friends.  We have been learning from each other, and honestly it has infused life into my veins.  One of my new friends showed me the local paper for the market specials and in the advert section was a request for an adventurer.  I had to remind myself that the population is less than one thousand people, and someone posted a request that was completely original and paid for.    Someone was seeking a time traveler.  For a half-second, which is an eternity, I thought about calling up the fellow just to ask how many Allorians actually called.  Then again, I noticed the number was not a local number, but I decided not to reply.  The ad itself is enough for speculation.  Since Australia has been progressively changing their firearm laws and gun ownership has been challenged year by year since 2008, I wonder how many have their own weapons to bring.  Of course, I also love the line, "I have only done this once before."  Perhaps he was the gent that showed up in an all tweed suit trying to sabotage a Mountain Dew delivery to CERN and then subsequently disappeared without a trace from the psychiatric facility he was taken to.  So I decided to go on a time travel walk about to the old train station.

In many parts of the world, train travel is making a resurgence, actually train travel for many parts of the world has never died off.  As a matter of fact, newer, faster lines with improved technologies are most evident in Asia.  In the West, we just cannot seem to figure out that train lines shouldn't be privately owned.  There are some things that have to be managed for the service of all, but we can't seem to strike the right balance of what it means to live in a cooperative society.

 There is something striking about seeing the disuse and as I walked along the rails, I came to the end of the line and wondered why we were all so quick to assume that the automobile would be the answer to our transportation needs.

 And so I looked at how nature is overtaking this abandoned line that once hauled cattle and sheep and coal and possibly passengers on the fringes of the outback until one day there was no more profit to be made and it simply died.

 And I wondered about this time travel scenario.  Should someone go back in time and tell people not to build this line because it wouldn't be used one day?  Of course, I am not serious and I have no weapon with me.  Speculating on what a person would or could do if they went back into time is simply not taking responsibility for the life you have lived so far.

 It is better to remember that you cannot unmake your choices, but you can correct along the way.  You can make mistakes and you can choose to change.  It's better to be slow to anger and to speak up at the right times.  Isn't life about mastering yourself and not desiring to control the actions of others?

 So often, you hear about people wishing about what they could have or should have done.  You hear about people (maybe even yourself) that cite many things they wish they had not done at all.  Perhaps they were deceived, hurt or worse, perhaps they were the perpetrator.  My point is, even if you could undo one mistake in time, it doesn't change the person that made the mistake to begin with.

It might seem like it would be as simple as flipping a switch and all of your fortunes would change.  One thing that remains the same is you, your character.  No matter how much wealth, how much health, nor how much wisdom is acquired; that person is still the same with now other identities in place.  No matter how much wealth, fame or power one acquires in life; you still have to deal with yourself and no amount of time travel can change that.

Walking in Sapford's Corner

 On one of my many walks in Allora while trying to catch a vision of whatever I was trying to catch a vision of, I thought about my journey.  It seems that we go through life getting nicked up along the way.  Sometimes, we get bruised and in a way our own pain gets in the way of seeing a bigger picture. It can also get in the way of being the person we were meant to be.  Sometimes our fear of pain leads us to do things to protect ourselves and others that we have no desire to hurt.  Sometimes that desire to shield others from pain actually hurts them even more.

Here, at the historic Sapford's corner, I spent a lot of my time trying to tap into something greater than myself.  There were many themes and theories explored that took me back to something deep within me that had died, my heart.  There is nothing harder for the world to take than that inability to love again.  Part of that reason is perhaps, the world just really doesn't know the difference between love and sexual attraction.  It's made me think hard about intentions when interacting with people.   You see the open nature of a child.  I want to be that child, but I have had to learn about love again.

Allora is sheep country.  When I approached the sheep to take a picture of them, because I was amused by how the driver just pulled up and stopped off for a pint at the pub, the sheep cowered away and started bleating.  Instinctively, they are afraid of people, yet are born into captivity and know nothing else.  They are handled, sheared, rounded up and marked as owned beasts.  Fear guides them, but fear doesn't save them.  I have never heard of sheep living in the wild, but mountain goats, yes.  Sheep have been described as dumb, but peaceful animals that run in herds.  I decided to look up wild sheep and of course saw almost all breeds of wild sheep have horns to defend themselves.  Domesticated sheep breeds, not so, so they resort to the flock mentality as their primary defense when they are in groups as small as four.  A lone sheep is viewed as without protection from the world and is not expected to survive.

 In the Goomburra Forest Reserve,  I saw this tree completely stripped of all of its bark.  Actually, stripped is the wrong word to use, it sheds its bark, standing completely naked.  It was glistening in the sunlight and I just stared at it, thinking that quite possibly something was wrong with it, but as I continued on, I saw several other 'nudist' trees.  It was just its nature and I was questioning it because it was different from what I had seen before.

So the last sign to see was one that told me to keep on walking,  For a town that has a total population of less than 1,000 people I began to see that it's true, we do see the world as we are and not necessarily as it is.

Sapford's corner, historically was a place of both healing and pain; and often healing does not come without pain.

Icing the Equator

It was snowing back home, or trying to, when I finally landed in Australia. Today was new firsts for me.  It was the first time I had crossed the equator.  It was the first time I crossed both the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn.  It was the first time I was in Australia.  I had neglected this blog during this trip, so I am retro posting because I did want to document along the way my journey and actually reflect on this journey that taught me about our cousins.  There is a saying about how everything tries to kill you in this country, I supposed that could have been said about the new world when they colonized it centuries ago.  With regard to Europe, it seems they have always had a concern about population size, and so many were forced to leave Europe and find their fortunes in either the New World, or if they were in Debtors prisons, forced to make the journey to Australia.  I had lived in the United Kingdom for two years during the end of the Thatcher administration.  One thing I observed was their class system, it's so pronounced there.  That need to be titled, positioned or well healed and their subservience to the royals.  I observed the tax battles first hand when the ill fated poll tax proved to be the fatal blow to end the career of Margaret Thatcher.  

But it's not 1990, and I am not in the United Kingdom.  What is the best way to describe Australia at first blush?  They have their own brand of English and the people are incredibly down to earth.  In Queensland, it was not uncommon to see people walking into the local stores "black footing", which mean sans shoes and socks.  I resisted the urge to be snobbish and smiled and people would say g'day to me.  I was quiet at first as I listen to the rate and color of their speech.  They had their own language and coarse wording, but what I noticed about so many people was their incredible love of exploration and they knew their history.

When I first arrived, the driver was telling me about the horrible droughts they were having in Allora, which is an incredibly small town where the author, P. L. Travers grew up.  Those of you who have read the "Mary Poppins" series will know who P. L. Travers is.  I hadn't know that she had spent her childhood here before I arrived, but it's kind of a funny thing, because I would say about myself, "I'm like Mary Poppins, I go where I am needed."  It's also the location of a small museum that houses a replica of the Talgai skull that was found here, estimations range from 9 to 11 thousand years old.  For religions based on the story of Adam and Eve, that throws a horrible wrench into that theory.  The original skull is housed elsewhere, in the Shellshear Museum, Department of anatomy at the Sydney University, but nonetheless, the replica is housed their small museum.  I thought it was interesting that Allora township in Darling Downs actually sold the skull instead of donating it.  

 It was an incredible drive from Brisbane to Allora, and I have a habit of shooting photographs out the window, because it helps me to keep the moment alive when I go someplace new.  The weather was terrifically warm and I was very happy to have stowed my winter coat in my luggage.  Here, spring was coming to an end and the very beginning of summer was upon them.

 I was getting use to the altitude of their small pass, and was shown and told about the aboriginal affection for these mountains, which the driver apologized for their lack of size and said, "well, they're really not mountains, more like hills, but to us, they're our mountains."  The aboriginal people call two particular mountains 'the guardians', not allowing anything bad into the outback.  I was only able to get a quality shot of the one below.  I have to say that I felt like Dorthy, in the Wizard of Oz.  Only I wasn't off to see the Wizard or looking for a place called home and I have only passed through Kansas and have no desire to return there anytime soon.

Going with the wind, but not gone

There is a wanderlust in my blood that just won't go away.  There are places that just seem to call to people, like a secret is about to be whispered to them.  When the whisper comes, I have found, in my past experience, you go.  There are many people who don't understand what I am talking about.  They are stuck with their obligations, their responsibilities and there is nothing wrong with that.  There is a time and season for everything.  However, there seems to be something wrong with staying 'safe and secure'.  If we don't allow ourselves to be pushed and strengthened, what happens to us in moments of weakness?

Sometimes when a new adventure comes my way, I can't help but feel my stomach churn.  I don't know it all.  I don't know the whole path.  I don't know the plan from one day to the next.   I only know that first step that leads on to the second step.  I can't see how it's all going to come together and for once I don't have all of the answers.  I have a round-trip ticket to an adventure that I don't have all of the pieces for, and though the destination is a physical one, I am wondering what I am going to learn and who I am going to meet along the way.

I am on my way to Allora, Australia.  What awaits me?  I don't exactly know.  Does that worry me?  It's is the good kind of nervousness,  like the kind I went through the first time I went to Paris or my first flight or my first kiss.  It's the not knowing it all that actually gives us that tingle of excitement.  It is that state of being when you just realize we really don't want to know it all.  We really do love learning for ourselves and not being told how it's all going to turn out.  It's that innocence I love. Whatever I see, whatever I will experience, it will come unadulterated.

In this age of information overload, it seems we get fewer opportunities to not know.  It makes me realize how we may have become too comfortable with the boring and predictable.

Just out of reach

It's Sunday, not a calm one, a blustery one.  The kind where the cool winds bite your cheeks instead of kiss them.  The evidence is the ruddy nose that threatens to run, but I wouldn't know that right now as I have been obsessing over a pair of dispossessed shoes that are twirling in the wind, suspended in the air  and performing a sort of dance.  All of a sudden it's a story, the unknown kind, the best kind.  Some little boys shoes wound up being tossed up there, put out of reach but just dancing in the wind.  Perhaps  they were always there and I just noticed them as a sort of trophy of the conquered.  The asphalt is full of underdog and bully stories.  Sometimes we forget how violent children can be.  Those first battles in life where you learn to stand and not be afraid, even if it means you might lose the battle.  For many, it's the story of the internal mob.  For others, being the adored.  But the vast audience of the group seem to be controlled by a desire to be unnoticed.  There is a fear in being noticed, a greater fear of standing outside of the crowd.  The enormous fear of not belonging to anyone. 

The goal was to be liked for many and there were so many who just absolutely hated school for a very good reason, the pecking order.  Popularity meant a lot to kids when I was growing up, but then again, it depended on what neighborhood you were in.  Not every child has had to fight, not every child has been laughed at, but many do the laughing.  Children have a way of finding ways to pick at each other as they grow older, have you ever noticed that most people will say their favorite class was kindergarten?  The younger children were sheltered, isolated from the older population of children.  They arrived and departed before the others, had songs, arts, ABCs, 123s, and the ever popular nap time and snacks.  That is the first year, where you learned to control your bowels and say "please" and "thank you".  Everyone was beautiful and you never grew up.  

You never hear about a horrible Kindergarten teacher.  The memories are usually warm, and then comes first grade, where you are released into the general population of your primary school.  You marvel at your new classmates, the halls, the bigger kids and there are new expectations placed upon you.  I was tested for advanced placement when I was very young because I could read like the wind, the only problem was I couldn't understand what I was reading.  The words were just words and held no real meaning for me.  My transition into the first grade was a little rough, because they had placed me in a classroom with much older children.  I was small, so I could barely fit into their big desks, and I was wondering (and so was the rest of the class) what I was doing there.  All I had done was figure out the cipher of our script and was able to read aloud anything I touched, it seemed strange to me that this should be perceived as any sort of superior talent.  I hadn't really 'learned' anything.  I was a functioning parrot at the age of six, and wanted to be more than a parrot.  

I looked around the classroom rather alarmed.  Either I hadn't grown enough over the summer, or I was in the wrong classroom.  How could that be?  I reported to where the card told me to go, even the teacher was besides herself.  The adults muttered amongst themselves about my presence in the class, and I remember being hustled into the library for about a week where I was given a series of tests, reading evaluations and the like.  One week in a library going through their entire SRA reader series.  I think I was asked if I would like to stay with the big kids or join my first grade class, I elected to join the first graders.  I recall that I had a lot of fun with them, but I sometimes wonder what could have been if I stayed with the giants.  They had given me the choice and I had opted for the safety of the small ones.  

The shoes are still dangling on the power line.  I can hear the screams of children playing in the park, hopefully not tormenting each other.  Fall has come and already the sun is setting on this Sunday.  It's a very good thing we remember laughter more than tears and still look for faces in the clouds.