More Kakadu joy...

What I find so amazing is that just 3 hours from Darwin is the most splendid natural paradise to freely drink up to one's heart's content..cannot get the land out of my dreams...
I have become obsessed with the basket weaving of the women from Arnemland and that area! Everywhere we went, I found I had just missed a weaving workshop with an Aboriginal elder woman! I came home none the wiser as to how to actually make these baskets, but with a few gorgeous small examples of the work. Then I found this website Arnhem weavers and I am desperately plotting how I could possibly go back up and do one of these workshops , sleeping in croc proof bark huts and weaving and dying pandanas!

Well, until I find myself back in Arnhemland I will have to settle for buying a bunch of raffia and plaiting a basket.

Kakadu Dream...

This incredible place, so full of huge tree spirits singing, wild crocodiles baking themselves, or sliding through the rivers like silent dinosaurs. The stories the ochre paintings in the rocks tell, of spirit-being sisters playing cheeky games , transforming into crocs until they stay that way, the lightning god Nammagon, cheeky mullet fish who jump back into the river when no-one is watching, of wild yellow flowers announcing the lovemaking of crocs and turtles, or billabongs full of giant pink lotuses!! I am swooning...this place, Kakadu, Northern Territiry...like another country , I am preparing to board the plane, scarves and socks tucked in the hand luggage for the Melbourne wee hours arrival.

Divine Waters and Red Dirt!

I am in love with the red rocks and dirt up here in the Northern Territory. We just spent three nights camping around the blissful waters, (free of the legendery killer crocs) bathing in the cooling waters and the hot springs amongst Pandanas trees and red rock. Being dwarfed by the brilliance of termite construction genius, gazing into the depest red sunsets, baking under the full moon under the mozzie nets, sleeping in swags...starting to wonder what anyone else would be doing anywhere else? Yes, slipping into holiday oblivion...

The Tropical Adventurites!

The tropical adventure has begun! The first few days has been about allowing the stress of life in Melbourne to slowly seep through the pores and be absorbed by the benevolent gigantuan palm trees out the window. Lots of staring at green, green green...swimming in the pool, strolling the Darwin markets, they do love a market up here! Learning to drive a clapped-out scary backpacker van, and control my worrisome mother mind about things like brake failure and being stranded in massive HOT national parks...We set off to an amazing national park full of waterfalls and plunge pools!! to camp for a few days!

Prodigal Blogger Returns

Okay, So I've done it again. I started a blog, wrote for a while and then life became busy and I couldn't spare the time to reflect.
Yes, Amma came, we had a sublime trip/family reunion in Pambula....aaaahhhh...Pambula!
And then life as a full time student, part time yoga teacher, parttime student, mother of two, oh and a wife...hubby struggling (muffled calls...in vain) under the pile of unattended dirty washing, unwashed plate...or is he in the empty fridge, just to keep out of my way.
I have resurrected my obsessive, compulsive self, charging through the sleepless nights in front of assignments, and heady days whirling from teaching placements, to dance classes for the girls, to study, work, kid exchange rendesvous.
No time for knitting. Reading. Movies. Although I did sneak one in last Monday night. The Edge of Heaven, a Turkish/German collaboration. What an amazing journey of a film. I officially wish to retire to some seaside village on the Black Sea in Turkey.

In Anticipation of an Ocean of Goddess Love

I stick one pale arm up out of the pile of textbooks and papers and assignment drafts to feel for the delicious biodynamic carrot dangling in front of me, in the form of AMMA, my favourite saint (it used to be Saint Sebastian with the arrows in his torso- ghoulish Catholic Saint books with explicit illustrations of torture), for me she is the embodiment of spiritual power- soft, awesomely great, of this world and out of this world all at once, practical, of service, accepting. My favourite saint is a LIVING SAINT, and she hugs! boy does she hug! She has hugged millions and millions, around the world, and she does it non-stop, and hardly eats or sleeps, but just hugs and sings and directs the most efficiient humanitarian work on the planet!
I am a HUG-AHOLIC, and will be taking my beloveds again to see her: to melt into her rose-scented marshmallow arms, to dissolve into the Ocean of Goddess Love. She reconnects me to the Source, and I am eternally grateful I have the incredible privilige to spend time in her presence.
On a more pedestrian but excitingly practical note, it rained so gloriously yesterday, my poor drought chickens relished under umbrellas with their little friend, watching,feeling, smelling and hearing the joyous tears of the clouds!

Down by the Inner City Farm

What a way to study Child Development, sitting at the best cafe in town, drinking coffee, my "chickens" chasing and massaging goats in the nearby paddock, the smell of peppercorn trees and hay down at the Collingwood Children's Farm..

I just had to take a few photos of the girls amazing story they set up yesterday, involving gnomes and fairies negotiating playground politics. I am so intrigued by the processing of experiences which goes on in play.