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.