coastal clouds

A Voice Through the Door

Sometimes you hear a voice through the door
calling you, as fish out of water
hear the waves, or a hunting falcon
hears the drums: Come back. Come back.

This turning toward what you deeply love
saves you. Read the book of your life,
which has been given you.

A voice comes to your soul saying:
Lift your foot. Cross over.

Move into emptiness
of question and answer and question.

~Mevlana Rumi

some Saturdays

To Anything That Moved

Yesterday it was sweet madness,

Reciting poems for hours

And talking about love to anything that

Moved.

I lay down late thinking I might be able to sleep

All the way until there was light

Of resplendent sounds - and polished jokes -

From the morning birds.

That was foolish of me,

For in just a few minutes, three worlds

Crawled from a cave in my heart,

Built a huge fire and yelled,

"Get Up!"

They could not contain their happiness

Living in one as ripe as I.

We began jumping up and down

And banging our heads

Like a drunk bronze clapper in a sacred Buddhist bell -

Against the fields and mountains,

Against all the jeweled walls of this Universe.

Yesterday was such exquisite madness,

Singing about the Friend for hours

And talking about love to anything

That dared to move.

Yet I believe another wonderful day,

And perhaps even a sweeter height of rare, inspired insanity,

O Hafiz, has just begun.

~ Hafiz

flowers, butterfly's, bats, bee's and hummingbirds

flemington market

didn't we have a lovely day at Bolga

Teenage Dayz – by guest blogger Sue Lansdown

Sue Lansdown, our guest blogger, shares her inner fears and hopes as she finds her way as a parent of a tween and a teen. She is one of the creators of an age-appropriate, organic range of skincare and cosmetics named (very cutely)peachface.

Being a mum to Toby, 16, and my daughter Talullah, 9, keeps positively reminding me that I am surviving as a mum and that this is very wild and unchartered territory. I am awake and learning on the job.

My kids are constantly opening me to the challenges that I faced as a budding teen, and how confused my parents must have been during those years. I have deep compassion for teenagers and their parents. I feel a great sense of relief that I have beautiful relationships with both of my kids. Being realistic means that could all change any moment! So far so good, particularly when it comes to Toby, we do communicate, he still hugs me, he tells me ‘mum I love you’. This feels like a miracle and the truth of it is that I do know he has a very private world that is a no access area. And that does include telling me to ‘fuck off’ under his breath at times.

I do see beautiful, creative, confident kids with a mix of treacherous challenges and amazing opportunities ahead. The pressures for teenagers are all around, and are hyper-real. With so much attention on how they look, what they own, who their friends are, experimenting with intimacy and drugs, its mind boggling. Life as a teen is intensity plus. Life as a parent to a teen is just as intense and twice as scary having been teenagers ourselves!

The confusion I felt as a teenager was overwhelming, really how did I do puberty? Was I good at guessing, secretly studying my mum, depending on undependable friends, the Dolly sealed section? Looking back now I realize I was frightened and felt unable to share my fears with my friends or my family, though I don’t think any of those fears were noticed and I appeared to be a very normal and contained kid.

Struggling my whole life to understand those confusing years, and now facing me head on are my own children’s teenage years, this is where my learning comes full circle. Though could it be that these years are meant for intensity? Is it that our longing for self-actualization comes from the constant need for growth, experimentation and wanting to love?

It is a glorious confusion, I get to step out and watch and stand in and adore them. Though I don’t know quite how they will both manage these years, the ones I had found so freaky. I get to be available and to be told to ‘stay out of it’! These days are tough and tender days, delicately life transforming and experimental. My awakening alongside my kids is a painful privilege.

(image by teen photographer Nirrimi Hakanson)

SOHI Creative Southern Living

awesome autumn

The lover

who wholly loves

can reach reality.

The secrets of death

are revealed to him

while he is fully alive.

What does he care

for the other shores of life?

~ Paban Baul Mystic

year of the rabit