Inspired by “Spatial Form” Anthea Alley.
Swiftly flitting silver swimmers
Not their own element
Movement captured
Immobile in metal, jagged and jarring
School stationery
Solid and still
Bound by the space between
Circles and squares
No adhesive
Quicksilver fluidity, turning synchronicity
Freeze frame.
Mandy Ross – August 2019
For more on Ekphrastic poetry, forms and how tos.
Meet Chris, Ian and Victoria (the sheep) of Purple Dove Awareness Group and Food is Free.
They welcomed Theo and I to their home with (literally) open arms. We had never met before, but that made no difference. A few text messages and we are friends.
This would be the case with anyone they meet, I’m sure. In fact, complete strangers have benefited from their generosity for many years already. Things don’t always turn out the way you might predict.
We’ve come to The Summit, outside Stanthorpe, today to learn how to weave ghastly grey grocery bags into waterproof sleeping mats for those who are sleeping rough. Along with that skill, we’ve learned of the quite phenomenal work of Chris and Ian. If there is an hour in which they can help someone else, they’re probably already doing that.
Within a year of Chris and Ian’s marriage, Ian was diagnosed with prostate cancer and given 10 months to live. That was 10 years ago. Now, between treatments and surgeries, Ian and Chris run garage sales and market stalls and organise the markets at the Stanthorpe Showgrounds on the fourth Saturday of each month. The funds they raise are all sent to support both prostate cancer and breast cancer.
Not long ago, they set up raised garden beds, a lot of them, on their own property in which they grow a variety of vegetables. These are cared for by them and placed in a stand by the road at the end of their long driveway, not to sell, but as part of “Food is Free”.
“We don’t want people to feel bad if they need help,” said Chris. “When it’s like this, they can come past and take what they need without having to ask for it and perhaps feel like they’re being judged.”
And it’s becoming a cooperative part of the community. Someone left a note and a bag of miniature shampoos and conditioners near the veges the other week. They had a surplus and knew someone else might benefit from it.
There are helpers, too. Sometimes there are 10 or more people weaving bags into mats under the watchful eyes of Victoria, the mower sheep.
“Victoria was Victa,” explained Ian, “Then we turned her over and she’s Victoria. We bought her to be friends with out other sheep, but they don’t like each other, so she’s up here with us.”
Victoria spends her days being loved and fed by visitors – including Theo, mowing – obviously, and being followed by the cat. Wherever you find Victoria, the cat will be there, curled up comfortably on Victoria’s body, enjoying the pre-production, nature’s own, walking blanket!
Like me, you probably think that this is a pretty big undertaking for a couple who are, ostensibly, retired. It didn’t start with these activities and it hasn’t stopped with JUST these, either. Not at all.
In 2015/2016, Chris was part of Walk for Life. With Ian trailing her with their caravan and car, Chris walked around Australia for 12 months! Raising money for both prostate and breast cancer, Chris walked each day. They raised about $40,000! And that seems like it was just the beginning of the philanthropic story. As they travelled and stopped to sleep each night, Chris and Ian met many homeless people and those who were living in their cars; it’s more common than I realised. When they returned home, they decided to do something to help and it grew from there.
During the hour and a half I visited, Ian took two phone calls and this meant they were heading out to pick up a large donation of furniture as soon as we left, before a doctor’s appointment later in the day.
“That happens all the time,” Chris told me, “People know we help so they often ring us to pick up things like that. They also know to call us of they’ve got people who need something. We can usually put something together. Do you want to see the container?”
We walked past more garden beds, and Victoria and the cat in the shade, to unlock a newly purchased, roofed by Ian, container. This now holds all the goods that Chris and Ian can’t house elsewhere until it finds its home with someone in need. Shelves of blankets, toiletries, clothes, towels, appliances, furniture, knitted beanies, items for markets and garage sales and….loads of things, line the walls. All are totally organised so Chris knows she can put together a package with ease, depending on the specific need.
I’m sure there is more that I didn’t ask about or find out about, after all we were only there a short time, but I do know that these ventures need time and support. From what I know, Chris and Ian are unlikely to ask for any assistance, but if you’d like to see a little more of what they’re doing, encourage them, and possibly support their efforts to support others, I expect they’d find a need to fill. You can visit their Facebook pages below.
Thanks again, Chris and Ian, for your welcome, your hospitality and the great work that you are doing every day (and the zucchinis!).
Each Monday night, I hold a children’s group while their parents are learning about Loving Our Kids on Purpose. I currently have 8 kids from 3 years to approx 7 years old. Tonight I took them to the Primary playground (it has a gate they can’t open and this is important!). For the past 3 weeks, the older boys have been playing “Super Secret Agent Assassin Ninja Zombie Heroes” and this week one of the SSAANZs was under the lowest part of the fort.
“What are you doing under there, Ninja Assassin Zombie?” I asked.
“I’m making a booby trap!” he replied, happily.
“That sounds fabulous,” I said. “All the bad guys better watch out!”
“Yeah, anyone who comes under here gets their boobies chopped off!”
😲🤤
I’m not kidding. He wasn’t being cheeky, not silly about being able to say “boobies”, just an obvious answer when you’re 7, apparently.
When I could contain my laughter and breathe normally again, I couldn’t help but broach the subject again. I’m a teacher, it’s kinda my job, you know?
“Did you know that even though they’re called booby traps, it doesn’t mean that boobies get chopped off?”
I had not finished speaking before he jumped in, shocked that I would even suggest such a thing,
“Yes, it does. That’s what happened to my dad!”
“Pardon?” This I have to hear.
“Yes. That’s what happened to my dad in First War 2. He went in a booby trap and got his boobies chopped off. That’s why he’s got no boobies any more!”
I’m not often speechless.
Veritas,
Eski.
PS. Thanks to Dee Hudson of Striving to be Kind for the “Conversations” idea.
Sydney, January 6, 1889
THE great need of the hour is for men and women who are not afraid to take hold of active practical work against the growing immorality of the age. There are plenty of persons who applaud the good deeds of others and yet what are they themselves doing? Martha K. Pierce, LLD, in a little tract, which constitutes No. 9 of the social purity series, issued by the Woman’s Temperance Publishing Association, asks such persons a number of very pertinent questions which are worthy of most serious consideration. Did you ever think how dangerous a thing it is for us to attend a meeting, where evils are talked about, and to read articles about them in papers, and get into an agonised state of mind over them and yet do nothing? There is no surer way to deaden moral energy. I fear that this is the danger of the hour.
We are feeling dreadful about it all, but are we doing much to stop it? How can we sit in our safe churches and lecture halls and listen in a perfect ecstasy of indignation to denunciation of faraway evils, when we might know if we would, that in the next street some work as diabolical calls to heaven for vengeance. How dare we go home and quiet ourselves into obliviousness to disagreeable things with the hope that sometime women will have the power to do something in some safe and effective and eminently proper way to prevent these shocking things? How many of us are contenting ourselves now with praying that somebody else will do whatever it is “advisable” to do at this juncture? If we could only see ourselves as the pitying eye above sees us when we try to put celestial aspirations into the straightjacket of propriety, we would humble ourselves in the dust, realizing our utter unworthiness to receive those fleeting visitations of the Divine. There is real work before us.
Are we watching the train on which bewildered girls are being hurried to a future so terrible that those who love them can have no hope except that Death will find and secure them soon? Are we sure that the pretty sales-woman who waits on us so patiently during an afternoon’s shopping, is not wishing that she had some good, safe friend to go to for advice about some acquaintance whom she half distrusts? Is the servant girl so kindly and justly treated that she does not go to unsafe places for the scanty pleasures that her life of drudgery knows? Has our grumbling at the sewing girl’s bill made her wonder as she turns to go to her home, whether it would be so very wicked after all to accept the protection of some man, who, dissipated as she knows him to be, is the only person who seems to care whether she starves or not? Have we taken pains to secure the confidence of the silly daughter of our careless neighbour, that we may give her an effective word of warning? Is there a place in our town in which any hopeless woman could shelter? And have we taken pains to have its location, and purpose so well advertised that no one could fail to know of it?
Have we joined hands with every other woman in our neighbourhood who can be interested in this work (and what true woman cannot be?) that we may help each other in lines of effort that cannot well be carried on by other individuals? Are the laws against abduction, kidnapping, and other crimes allied to the traffic by which our sisters are enslaved, put in force in our locality, not spasmodically, as peculiarly distressing cases happen to come to public notice, but every time they are violated? Are we trying to gain for womanhood such a direct influence in the body politic that officials will find it to their advantage to enforce those laws, and to guard the interests of women as scrupulously in all ways as they now do the interests of the voters upon whose support they depend? And whatever else we do or leave undone, do we speak in season the well-deserved and sorely-needed word of praise for the ones who dare to be the first in any line of this work?
*************************************************************************************************************************
Louisa Lawson penned this article for her female readers almost 130 years ago. The call now, directed at both men and women, must read exactly the same! How sad for such a nation as ours to have changed so much, but yet so little, in over a century. Surely there can be no fewer community-minded citizens now? Do we still, as Mrs Lawson suggested, feel that someone ought to do something about ‘those poor folk’ who have not the blessings we ourselves are so richly equipped with? Or do we do it ourselves? I know all too well there are no fewer in need now than then.
Is this a task which you would like to undertake and yet find yourself with no knowledge with which to go forward? Here then are causes and organisations with whom you may partner to ensure you meet (some) of the NEED OF THE HOUR.
Days for Girls (daysforgirls.org)
A practical service to girls and women all over the world, groups or individuals produce washable, reusable sanitary items so that, exactly as it says in the name, we can secure more ‘days for girls’. Days for education, days for work to sustain their families, days of dignity and recognition and hope. Consider your freedom to just ‘duck in’ to shops to purchase sanitary products for yourself or someone you love. This basic right is something not afforded to all. As you will realise as you peruse the ‘Days for Girls’ website, many women use shockingly unhygienic or relatively useless items in an effort to manage their menstruation and have access the opportunities that we too often take for granted. There are stories of ongoing failure and poverty due to the lack of such a seemingly insignificant item as a sanitary pad. The shame and taboo of women’s issue is prevalent in more countries and cultures than not and the indignity and mistreatment of women is horrific. Consider the story of one 12 year old girl who, when presented with the DFG kit, was ecstatic that she would no longer have to offer ‘favours’ to a male adminstrator whose role included distribution of donated sanitary products. How can you help to buy back days for girls? Every girl, everywhere, period.
Raw Impact #rawimpactorg
Consider families all over the world for whom poverty is generational. Regardless of the initial cause; famine, genocide, war – civil or international, these families spend a great deal of time and energy each day simply surviving. Simply finding enough food to support some growth of their children, finding shelter that most of us would NOT consider adequate and working hard to maintain life and existence. A few minutes spent meeting the families aided by the ongoing work of RAW Impact on their youtube channel will open your eyes to the real life examples of these families. It will also give you hope and a real vision of how these seemingly insurmountable challenges might begin to be overcome, one piece at a time, when you believe, as RAW does, that #everypiecematters And when you believe that, and recognise that YOU can make a difference, this might just be the way you’d like to impact your world for good.
I was fortunate enough to be a part of a team of women who travelled to Cambodia in April this year to deliver women’s health classes and Days for Girls kits. You can watch our video here.
These are only two of the numerous organisations around the globe for whom people matter, for whom others come before self. It does not take a genius to understand that things don’t change unless YOU do. Things don’t happen without people power. I’m sure there are so many wonderful organisations that you have been privileged to know and work with. Perhaps you would like to share these in the comments below so that others might choose to assist their world in a real way?
Veritas,
Eski.
It seems that I’ve inherited my mother’s ability to find, be found by and adopt any lost sheep. In some cases, her ability is literal. We adopted a large, lost sheep. We were in Central Australia, the year I turned 9. We’d been travelling for 6 months around the country and now had taken up residence in a single carriage of a converted silver bullet train (something like this). My bed was over the hot water service in the ‘laundry’; Mum and Dad had a fold out bed in the lounge room so my brother and sister could share the double bed in the single bedroom that there was.
When cattle or sheep were rounded up, little ones would often be brought into the community, almost like a toy, and, as toys often are, they’d be discarded and forgotten. This had happened to Sheepy. He had been around the place for a while. He was no longer little and cute, but full grown, fat and fluffy. Well, he would have been had his overgrown wool not resembled a large and fibrous tumbleweed, complete with spinifex grass and felted matting. Sheepy had wandered into our yard one day and, as I mentioned, Mum is genetically predisposed to be unable to resist something or someone in need of assistance. Sheepy became her personal project. She blunted the few pairs of scissors we had, regardless of their original purpose, trying to create a coiff from a conglomerate. The community thought it was hilarious, but I could understand her concerns. Desert days are not cool and Sheepy was lumbered with inches of filthy thermal insulation. Each day, scissors of various sizes and Mum waged war against Sheepy’s many extra layers.
With time and perseverance, Mum won the war against the wool. Sheepy bore his new, attacked by vicious lawn mower, wool cut with lightness and freedom, if not pride. His accepting personality was overcome, layer by layer, with the more realistic taciturn nature of a scruffy, hot male specimen. So Sheepy left his temporary home and ran off to rejoin the community at large. And, not long after, and not shared with the shorter siblings, Sheepy made a guest appearance at a local barbecue. Such is life, I suppose.
We are all human. We are not girls and boys; we are not young and old; we are not black and white; we are human. Created in a womb and buried in the dirt. We are God’s creation. Skin woven together to hold our organs in does not determine our class. We are blood, sweat and tears, made to speak emotions, not to become a job. We are human. We are united by our similarities. We run on the same energy sources and live lives with the same needs. We wake with the sun and sleep by the moon. Because we are human.
We are not homelessness or poor government choices or malnutrition. We are not words on a page, or enemies or friends. We are human. We are not the clothes on our backs or the clips in our hair. We are not the endless race of who is better and who is faster. We are not broken relationships or torn families.
We are the kindness of strangers. We are the random smiles. We are the endless love that fills new parent’s hearts. We are human. We are the species that has a heart so fragile a simple sound can shatter it. We are one but we are many. There is nothing that unites us more than the feeling of love.
There are insects that spend their whole lives trying to eat children’s eyes from the inside out, plants which can kill us with a small touch; mosquitoes that are only 3 millimetres in length which are perpetuators of some of the worst diseases ever seen; bacteria which cannot be seen, yet we watch them take the lives of our loved ones. And yet what a person has between their legs determines if they are worthy of being paid or not. A person’s age determines their apparent ability. The colour of someone’s skin is the difference between having their say in their life, or not.
We still feel that we are a threat to each other and ourselves. We are our own worst enemy; we destroy ourselves so others can’t. We set up organisations, funds and protection programs with which to save us from us. We have created a world so hateful some would rather die than be who they are.
We are human. We smile with joy, showing white teeth and cry for many reasons with clear and salty tears. Children, reproduced humanity, drink white milk regardless of the hue of the breast by which they lie. Blood, spilled, stored or shared, is still red.
When we recognise our humanity, our similarity, and reinstate dignity and equality, we increase our integrity and solidarity. We create and affirm responsibility and let go of long held, closed-minded thoughts of normality.
We are human and the sooner we realise, recognise and remember, the better for us all.
With thanks and acknowledgement to Tahlya Andersen.
I watch this movie in horror and disgust and admiration. Horror that anyone calling themselves human could possibly treat another in such a way; disgust at those of ‘my’ race who could do so or stand by; admiration for those brave, mistreated people who survived and those who were brave enough to stand up and say stop.
I cannot leave the volume at one level and so I raise and lower the sounds I hear. I lean close for the words, those of courage and determination. Down to almost mute in anticipation of the violence.
I am sickened by the acts that are shown in only this two hour period. If this is the case in this short a time, how disgusting then the years of reality? I cannot bear to think about it, yet I force myself to continue to watch because I know this example is one of many. I know similar action and inaction have happened in my country, my state.
I watch because I want to feel horrified and disgusted at what people have done. I want to remember it. I want force myself to acknowledge that these atrocities happen still and will keep on while people like me stay silent.
I watch this vitriol and violence against human beings because I am afraid that sometime past, I believe without intent, I have been racist or otherwise treated one less than another, less than myself. If I have, I will not anymore.
I will not stand idly by. I will be aware. I will speak up for injustice. Even if I am afraid. I will.
Universal truths are constant. It is a fact, an undeniable fact that what is true and right, is true and right for all. White and black alike. Mr Bass – 12 Years A Slave.
Question:
What do the following songs have in common?
Answer:
They were all playing in my psychologist’s waiting room while we waited for appointments.
Now at first glance, this doesn’t seem to be anything noteworthy, however, let’s look at the lyrics whilst considering the context and the apparent aims of therapeutic psychology…
But we’re never gonna survive unless
We get a little crazy
No we’re never gonna survive unless
We are a little
Cray cray crazy
Crazy are the people walking through my head
One of them got a gun to shoot the other one
And yet together they were friends at school.
Under a lovers’ sky
You can try to resist
Try to hide from my kiss
But you know
But you know that you can’t fight the moonlight
Deep in the dark
You’ll surrender your heart
But you know
But you know that you can’t fight the moonlight
No you can’t fight it
No matter what you do
The night is gonna get to you
Guess I’d rather hurt than feel nothing at all
It’s a quarter after one, I’m all alone and I need you now
And I said I wouldn’t call but I’m a little drunk and I need you now
And I don’t know how I can do without, I just need you now
I just need you now
My shadow’s the only one that walks beside me
My shallow heart’s the only thing that’s beating
Sometimes I wish someone out there will find me
Til then I walk alone.
I’m walking down the line
That divides me somewhere in my mind
On the border line
Of the edge and where I walk alone
Read between the lines
Of what’s f***ed up and everything’s alright
Check my vital signs
To know I’m still alive and I walk alone.
*************************************************************************************************
I’ve got to tell you that I was definitely in an improved mood after laughing at these songs being played in fairly close succession while I waited! 😂 I couldn’t help but wonder whether anyone was vetting the music selection.
I’ve chosen one of my favourite “Antidepressant Music” songs to share with you here. It’s called “Just Breathe” by Ze Frank. He created it in response to a Facebook follower who asked him to right a song for days when you’re feeling overwhelmed.
Ze Frank’s TED Talk is thought provoking and hilarious. You can watch it here.
All the songs mentioned in this post are on a playlist I’ve created here.
In humour,
Eski🐛
These past 3 days I’ve played Admin Assistant to my trainer Aunt on an away trip. We’ve enjoyed ourselves immensely, and while I’ve done a little running around, I’ve thought of sharing my lists and systems that form my external memory drive and help me function at work and home.
I’m sure many others do this and call it something else. I like the term ‘external memory’ because, like most adults, I’ve got a lot happening at any given moment and making some of the extraneous flotsam and jetsam external is really helpful.
This week, a ‘To Go’ box, would be helpful. If we were to travel like this often, I’d make it a permanent thing so we knew what we needed was ready to go. This week’s ‘To Go’ box would include:
At home, we have bags and places to store things so that there’s no chasing around madly at 8.25am on a school morning. (That’s the plan, anyway!)
Digital technology is also an excellent way of sharing the load and externalising the lists and tasks we deal with. In our family, everyone except the 4 year old, much to his dismay, has an iPad or phone, has a shared Google calendar. All family outings, appointments, work hours, individual coffee dates, school activities and daycare hours are entered there and colour-coded. As things are uploaded and synced to each person’s device, everybody knows what everyone else is up to. This saves one person (often mum) having to update a paper calendar or diary and being the go-to person for every question. For me, it’s freeing being able to say, “What does the calendar say?” in answer to all “Can I…?” questions. The kids can take responsibility for scheduling for the family.
My husband and I share a Google Keep/Note account which we each have accessible on our phones. We share shopping lists, budget items and a “when we can afford this” list. This helps us to know what money is available at any one time and to know what the household needs. This, for me, means I don’t waste time and headspace remembering and perhaps reciting or forgetting milk, bread, soap and ear cleaners. Now, ostensibly, I can use my free brain power for all manner of other things!
I also keep a variety of lists on Google Keep to free up yet more space in my head. I have a list of websites that I’d like to explore – when I’m waiting for an appointment, I can flick to one of those. I have a list of movies or TV shows I’d like to get to. A wishlist of purchases and the links to buy them (whenever I have the money 😊); appointments to make; projects to continue; books to read; packing lists for camps etc; long term commitments etc. I can free my headspace to do the day to day stuff.
At school, (I am a secondary school teacher) I have purchased a different coloured basket, a little bigger than A4 sheet and 10-15cm deep, for each subject and set them on my desk. I have a matching coloured folder for those paper based subjects that need them that stand up alongside the baskets. In each basket I have the term outline for the subject, the text books, assessment sheets – basically anything that I’ve pre-prepared for the term. As I photocopy or grab another book or have a USB with new documents during the week, I can throw it in the basket and know it will be there at the lesson time.
I’m currently working on a way to remember all the ‘need this for everything’ items that I take out and use when back at my desk. I always need my keys, pencil case, ipad and sometimes the laptop. If you have any suggestions on how to accomplish this, or other ways you organise yourself, please comment below.
I’d love to hear more ways to free up brainspace!
😊 Eski!
I didn’t have a typewriter moment, but I do remember writing and loving it from a very early age. I can remember writing to please younger brother and sister. I now enjoy helping people with re wording emails etc and writi by creatively to explain and entertain. Thanks for sharing your story. 🙂
Following, is a special memory and story for me, one that makes up the intricate tapestry of my creative self. And I’m wondering if you have any similar memories like this.
————————
Do you believe that kids often know what they’re supposed to do in the world from a very young age? In my case, I think I did. I have a very strong memory from when I was around three years of age, the timing of which my mother was able to verify based on where I described we were living at the time.
On this particular day, my parents took my sister and me out shopping and we ended up in a toy store. I wandered around and was interested in many things, including a plaster of Paris kit, with figurines of Paddington Bear. But then, I saw a little red typewriter. I was struck with an all-encompassing…
View original post 410 more words
Eski Caterpillar! 
