Landscape From Far, Far Away

Visited Phil Henderson's fun exhibition Tyranny and Distance - Landscape From Far, Far Away at the Griffith Regional Theatre

Butterflies

Some years ago I saw this beautiful butterfly made by Hape Kiddle

Recently I spotted a few butterflies in opp shops around town, so I decided to start a collection.

This is beautiful

Hairy Panic

A couple of years ago I thought to publish here the lyrics to a song I wrote around a decade ago about a weed

It's called Hairy Panic.

This week I got around to recording the song:

Flame tattoo

It's been about a decade between tattoos but last Friday I got a new one

The design has been with me for even longer.

It might've been 15 years ago that I tore this graphic out of a magazine.

My Facebook friend Sally had posted a little while ago that she was looking for opportunities to work on skin, so I started thinking about what I might want to wear.

Then, while camping recently and looking at the flames, I remembered the design and pondered the significance of fire.

Dreams are weird

I've written this here before but I'll write it again: dreams are weird

This morning I awoke thinking about a retreat. It was led by Laura, who has led previous retreats I've been on but we were in a high school science class.

Laura and I talked about a scary feeling we were getting from the darkened corner of the science lab. She suggested that a woman at the retreat might use her spectrometer to investigate.

This woman drew an old SLR camera from her bag and took a photo. As the flash lit the dark area it revealed a bear skeleton lumbering towards us.

When I told my partner Jo about this dream, she suggested I should look up the symbolism of bears.

Some sources see them as symbols of earth, others as representing transformation for the way they seemingly die when hibernating and spring to life again.

Anyway, it was a great scene.

Photo from http://www.dalerogersammonite.com/

Ghostly melody



Recently Naviar Records shared my 'Ghsotly melody' haiku with their community of musicians.

For my response I drew on other haiku I've written, compiling a collection and jamming on the ukulele until the following lyrics took shape:

Sleep a dark rough sea
shipwreck surrounding mystery
she hides
many things

Ripples reflecting streaming light
a thought surfacing in the night
both shallow and deep
rivers of consciousness while we sleep

Under morning glow
magpies gently chortle song
brightening my day
while the shadows are long

Ghostly melody
follow me into my day
fragment of a dream
won’t you please stay

Cockatoos exclaim
echoing among river red gums
morning has broken
and so am I

On the dry dawn breeze
a chattering in the trees
if birds knew words
I’d hear headlines

Ghostly melody
follow me into my day
fragment of a dream
come what may

Riding as dusk falls
nostalgia induced shopping malls
looking backwards
while moving ahead

Materialise
handwritten words on a page
watching thoughts appear
feeling my age

As days flutter by
they must feel like full lifetimes
to a butterfly

Ghostly melody
follow me into my day
fragment of a dream
leading me astray

Air pollution in the MIA

In many ways asthmatics such as Nicole and Reuben Portolesi are like the proverbial canary in the coal mine when it comes to air quality in the MIA

Airbourne smoke-particle pollution affects the health of all residents, with respiratory issues only the most obvious short-term impacts.

It is selfish of farmers to treat our atmosphere like an open sewer to dispose of their waste.

There is a need to promote alternatives to stubble burning.

Just as wastewater can no longer be flushed down rivers, steps need to be taken to stop large-scale disposal of waste into the atmosphere.

Air quality in the MIA needs to be monitored and an appropriate authority needs to be identified who can take action.

In 2016 an EPA spokesman stated in The Area News that farms did not fall under the Protection of the Environment Operations Act and the responsibility for regulation belonged to councils.

Griffith City Council's Director of Sustainable Development responded that local government "has no specific powers to act in regard to agricultural smoke or burn-off, or act on the subsequent air quality issues... It is unclear why the EPA say otherwise in regards to agricultural burn-off.”

While it is admirable the Rice Growers Association are taking steps to manage the issue, there are broader implications for every resident with the lack of monitoring and oversight of air quality in the MIA.

Rainbow Lorikeet mural

My friend Chris Downton posted this pic of a gorgeous mural in Canberra City that shows Rainbow Lorikeets

I've been thinking about it since watching these birds while visiting Valla Beach.

Took this pic of a Rainbow Lorikeet while there and also composed this haiku:

Party in the trees
loud colourful characters
Rainbow Lorikeets