Space, strength and silence.....

Well, It is good to be back. I went away the other day to the New South Wales north coast and then some of the state's regional towns. I drove from Sydney, north to Port Macqaurie, then traveled on to Kempsey, Coffs Harbour then went back down the coast aways, then turned inland toward Tamworth via the beautiful villages of Bellingen, Dorrigo and town of Armidale. The next day I traveled out to Narrabri via Gunnedah, then went from there through to Sydney via towns I had never even heard of before called Baan Baa, Breeza and Quirindi (pronounced Karindye), then on to Musswellbrook, Scone, Singleton Maitland and then home via Newcastle. I drove 800 Km's yesterday alone!! It was draining but I basked in the wondrous things I saw and felt.

It was an odd start to the trip. Before leaving I sprayed my underarms and chest with leather shoe spray instead of deodorant, I reached for the wrong can and thought, Hmm, that smells different? Derr! At least I was shiny!!!! Oh well I took another quick shower! Then I transferred files and things I had to work on while I was away to a separate hard drive that I would take with me to use on my computer, then I left with the hard drive sitting on my office chair in a bag I put it in. I took a camera with me, got a memory card, took the battery off the charger, and then left the house with the camera and card, leaving the battery behind. I can add the phone charger to the things I forgot as well. It was a strange start. I almost sensed that something was scattered or wasn't right. Suffice it to say I wasn't too far off the mark. But I am back on track now, I think?

I had so much space around me and for the long hours I was in the car alone, and out of mobile reception range it was a perfect environment for me to reassess my goals for this year and and realise a few things about my path, my direction and myself. After some hours of contemplation I was reminded of the words a song Dusty Springfield once sang.

Round
Like a circle in a spiral
Like a wheel within a wheel
Never ending or beginning
On an ever-spinning reel
Like a snowball down a mountain
Or a carnival balloon
Like a carousel thats turning
Running rings around the moon
Like a clock whose hands are sweeping
Past the minutes of its face
And the world is like an apple
Whirling silently in space
Like the circles that you find
In the windmills of your mind

Like a tunnel that you follow
To a tunnel of its own
Down a hollow to a cavern
Where the sun has never shone
Like a door that keeps revolving
In a half-forgotten dream
Or the ripples from a pebble
Someone tosses in a stream
Like a clock whose hands are sweeping
Past the minutes of its face
And the world is like an apple
Whirling silently in space
Like the circles that you find
In the windmills of your mind

Keys that jingle in your pocket
Words that jangle in your head
Why did summer go so quickly?
Was it something that you said?
Lovers walk along a shore
And leave their footprints in the sand
Is the sound of distant drumming
Just the fingers of your hand?
Pictures hanging in a hallway
And the fragment of a song
Half-remembered names and faces
But to whom do they belong?
When you knew that it was over
You were suddenly aware
That the autumn leaves were turning
To the colour of her hair

Like a circle in a spiral
Like a wheel within a wheel
Never ending or beginning
On an ever-spinning reel
As the images unwind
Like the circles that you find
In the windmills of your mind

I think these lyrics adequately summarise the many things I was thinking over the last few days. I recognise that there was no better thing that happened to me than to forget the work I had to do, and take some time out for me. It was ethereal, surreal also and ultimately reinforced an inner strength and did so in an environment largely comprised of silence. I walked along the beach at Port Macquarie in the sprinkling of rain and thought of what if? What if my life was different? What if choices made recently and time past had been made differently, how would that have changed my life from where I am now? What if the world continues to go crazy and start yet another war? What if the price of fuel continues to rise and becomes out of "reach" of the average home, what if, what if, what if..............................

I must note at this point, that I wasn't looking for a single answer. I was truly allowing my mind to go unfettered into places it might otherwise be constrained to go.I felt bathed and refreshed from the experience. There is still some degree of angst but I am so grateful for the time I had to reconnect with my inner self and I feel that I have been stretched and in the last 4 days have matured and grown. I was asked yesterday whether I felt the same as when I was 19? my answer is simply "NO, I don't." I feel certain things in my body I was oblivious to before, aches and twinges of the occasional pain. Then I was asked whether I wish I was 19 again. My answer is again, simply "NO, I don't." I have worked hard to get to where I am, imbued with my small doubts and fears, coupled with my hopes, dreams and desires. I wouldn't trade this appreciation I have developed for my path for anything. I think that like a film I once saw starring James Belushi where he wanted to have a better life, and chose the life of his boss with the "Hot" wife, the riches and the cars because he thought how his life was boring and banal. He got the chance to live out that fantasy only to find in a short space of time that the life he had was in fact the one he most wanted. The Lost Horizon film reincarnated. I love life, I love my friends, I love the experiences I have had and am blessed to discover about them and about myself. I am grateful for all of the elements that allow me to appreciate what I am and have.

Lastly, whilst traveling over the last 4 days it was endless rain. There was one time however when I was travelling up the Dorrigo Mountain and looking down over Bellingen and Dorrigo that I will rank as one of the prettiest sights I have EVER seen. I was almost a 1000 feet above sea level and the clouds that I was above, that were punctuated by the sprawling hills of lush, rich green carpets of grass and cows. There appeared a break in the clouds of dark grey and beyong the break I could see the rich blue of the sky and a solid strong beam of light I like to call the "Finger of God" and incidently whenever I have seen it, which has been three times in my life, I have NEVER had a camera or been able to photograph it. I have a mobile phone or two with cameras, but the quality of images even at 2-3 Mega pixels is lame. I had a camera and NO bloody battery!!! Whilst the frustration of that troubled me I was enveloped in the beauty and wonder of what I saw and was not in levels of disappointment enough to prevent me from drinking in the moment.

I am so amazed at the power of nature and was amazed late last night to see the destructive tornado's in the southern USA on my local TV news. A US based weather watcher said that it was linked to the unseasonally warm weather in the middle of their winter, and If I am not mistaken, we are experiencing unseasonally cold, wet weather in the middle of our summer. It would seem to a casual, uninformed observer like myself that the earth is groaning and something is drastically wrong. When I hear people quote things like "this is the worst weather we have seen in this state since we started keeping records", or when people say "these are the most destructive storms we have seen in almost 30 years", I start to wonder. Our drought which these recent rains still haven't broken is still "the worst drought in Australian recorded history". But like Dorothea Mackellar so aptly penned, I too love the place I can now call "My Country". And will end on this poem. What a great deal of growth I have observed in myself in the last few days.

My Country
by
Dorothea Mackellar
(1885 - 1968)

The love of field and coppice,
Of green and shaded lanes.
Of ordered woods and gardens
Is running in your veins,
Strong love of grey-blue distance
Brown streams and soft dim skies
I know but cannot share it,
My love is otherwise.

I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges,
Of droughts and flooding rains.
I love her far horizons,
I love her jewel-sea,
Her beauty and her terror -
The wide brown land for me!

A stark white ring-barked forest
All tragic to the moon,
The sapphire-misted mountains,
The hot gold hush of noon.
Green tangle of the brushes,
Where lithe lianas coil,
And orchids deck the tree-tops
And ferns the warm dark soil.

Core of my heart, my country!
Her pitiless blue sky,
When sick at heart, around us,
We see the cattle die-
But then the grey clouds gather,
And we can bless again
The drumming of an army,
The steady, soaking rain.

Core of my heart, my country!
Land of the Rainbow Gold,
For flood and fire and famine,
She pays us back threefold-
Over the thirsty paddocks,
Watch, after many days,
The filmy veil of greenness
That thickens as we gaze.

An opal-hearted country,
A wilful, lavish land-
All you who have not loved her,
You will not understand-
Though earth holds many splendours,
Wherever I may die,
I know to what brown country
My homing thoughts will fly.


The pictures were taken on a previous trip away but compliments the setting I was talking about in this post.

An observation, it is amazing and sad to me that when I told a couple of friends who don't visit my blog that I met Burt Bacharach, they neither cared or even knew who he is. Oh well. It mattered to me. That's life I guess.