Raven: “Nothing ventured! Nothing gained! Right?”
Donkey: “I am hoping we don’t regret following this piper?”
Raven: ” Well if we don’t take the risk we might miss an important opportunity!”
Donkey: “Ben Franklin also said that lost time is never found again!”
Distracted, donkey leaves it in Raven’s hands to find out more about the distant castle! The bird does seem to have the knack of finding out what they need to know.
When Ghost Bat wings her way into your life she is urging you to let go of the past and allow yourself to be reborn. You will go through many periods of renewal in life as new cycles are already waiting for you. Don’t be afraid to allow the changes to come into your life, and be willing to let go of what you no longer need, as this is Spirit’s way of telling you there is something greater awaiting your rebirth. Now is the time to take the next step to a new you.
This may feel frightening but remember that the Australian bush needs a bushfire to allow new growth to come forth. Recently I torched my maidenhair fern. The rapid new growth is a delight. Fan a personal fire and encourage the flames to speed a renewal. Remember that meditation is a great way to get in touch with your inner guides.
One of the joys of having no advanced booking is that you can linger longer and enjoy living like a local with new friends.
When you have not booked ahead you cannot get lost! On the other hand, when you have not booked you have to hope that someone will provide some shelter for the night.
Bowerbird is the common name for any of several species of birds of the Ptilonorhynchidae family of Australia and New Guinea, the males of which build beautiful and elaborate nests of sticks or grasses called bowers which is the central feature of their mating ritual. In 1872, naturalist Odoardo Beccari was the first to record observations of a bowerbird’s bower. He thought it was made by a person because he considered it too artistic and elaborate to be the work of an animal.
Naturalist David Attenborough describes these bachelor pads as “a giant bower woven around a single sapling, carpeted with moss… the ultimate seduction parlour.” The bower is actually a tunnelling structure that creates an illusion of uniformity. These make the males appear much larger than they actually are. Research by Evolutionary Biologist John Endler’s research has shown that the one who creates the best illusions gets the most dates. Are females attracted to magicians? Or does size really matter? Until we can communicate with the feathered females, we can only guess. But one thing is for sure: beauty matters. The Navajo have a concept, “hozho naasha”, which translates as “Walking in Beauty”. They believe that beauty exists within us and around us as the light reflects through a rainbow. They honour the four directions with different colours and objects, just as the Bowerbird lines his home with colour and light; the objects could number in the thousands! The rainbow symbolizes communication between creator and perfection. Bowerbirds are avid collectors of colourful treasures; some species favour objects coloured red and orange while others, exclusively blue.
Bowerbirds live up to thirty years and can spend half a decade building the bower. This models for us the patience, dedication, focus and fortitude of true artistry. Their home decor includes flowers, fungus, deer dung, charcoal, grey stones, bones, feathers, fruit, shells and human materials like plastic, marbles, glass, metals. They are aware, opportunistic and imaginative in their choice of objects: all qualities humans would benefit storing in the bowers of their own consciousness. The birds lay these on top of mossy floors. The bower provides comfort, shelter and safety, along with a place to rendezvous with their lovers. It reminds even the most flighty and spiritual artists among us that we have bodies that need attention and care.
During Spring time escapades, if a female is interested, she will fly from bower to bower, inspecting them from both outside and inside of the avenue. While the female is inside, the male will stand in the court just outside her view and display his prized, brightly coloured objects. He will dance a unique and bizarre dance, another display of his artistry and creativity. If she is impressed with him, she will allow him to approach and dance with her.
Bowerbirds teach us that effort, resilience and innovation is necessary for bringing the beautiful within us out for all the world to see. The Bowerbird shows us how to become a shiny being ourselves, in the safety of a nest we have built with our own two talons.
Reverence is everything. I feel humbled by the objects I find… or is it that they find me?
Roger McKindley
Situated at the Loddon River Ford at Newstead, Antares Iron Art Garden is an established art and sculpture garden created by Roger McKindley.
Found objects are sited creatively in the space where he lives and works, to form unique and entrancing patterns and images. The whole space is a kind of installation, where visitors are free to roam and explore – finding themselves by turns entertained, beguiled, uplifted and moved.
Roger’s work invites his visitors to engage their sense of play and imagination. He says, “My art can be interpreted and re-interpreted from every angle and in different environments… different seasons. In the changing light, in shadow and full moon or in rain, however you approach the art I make, you will see it change over and over.”
This is a garden in constant flux, as objects are arranged and re-arranged to suit its creator. Nothing is extraneous. Roger finds beauty in all the objects he finds and the things that others discard – he brings these objects together into an enlivened and creative whole.
A qualified landscape gardener of many years’ experience, a stone worker and self-taught artist and sculptor, Roger has over the past 20 years, created Art Gardens wherever he has lived and has participated in numerous community and art events.
I love visiting Antares! A visit here is a joy to all the senses!
After an encounter with a giant, Raven needed a spot of healing from this Lemurian Elf. Happily, thanks to the healing hands of the elf, Donkey and Raven are back on the road again.
The whale is known to have a substance in the retinas of her eyes called biomagnetite, which causes sensitivity to the electromagnetic field of the Earth. She reads the electromagnetic field like a map and this helps her migrate across oceans. Whale symbolism speaks of the ability to find your way through the abyss using the pull of your soul’s compass. Others may think that somehow you magically “see” the way, but you know the map is coming through a different channel. You may not know how to explain this pull, but it is there.
True practitioners of the law of attraction don’t have to think of where to go, they are mysteriously drawn. Whale spirit animal brings a time of being “in the flow” with the law of attraction. She is where she needs to be when she needs to be there.
Generally, the electromagnetic fields follow coastlines, but in some locations, these fields turn directly into the coastline. A significant amount of whale beachings occur in these locations. If you feel like you’ve followed your guidance onto the beach and now you’re stuck, wait. Either the high tide will come to haul you back in or you will experience a time of letting go. You are now at the mercy of fate. Before the rebirth must first come a death. Dive into the mouth of the whale to move through this process.
Spend some time dreaming and ‘seeing’ the way! Allow yourself to be drawn along by the creative spirit!
The whale spirit animal is the earth’s record keeper for all time. As a totem, the whale teaches you about listening to your inner voice, understanding the impact your emotions have on your everyday life and following your own truth. When the whale enters your life, it may be time to closely examine where you are, the actions and emotions that have brought you to this point, and what you can do to alleviate existing drama and unrest and find peace. Those who have the whale as their animal totem is in touch with true reality. They are nurturers and go-getters who understand there is more to this life than meets the eye.
How to create an atmosphere of safety and trust in your inner world and in your inner voice! This chapter from the power of focusing covers:
Let it be as it is
Being in a relationship with your feelings
Being a good listener to yourself
Being a friend to your felt sense
Hearing all the voices
The wisdom of not knowing
Following the felt sense
Bay whaling was a rough game, one of the hardest and most dangerous in the world. It thrived in Hobart Town for half a century.
Bay whaling was very popular with the native youth many of whom looked forward every year to the excitement, perils and profits. Exports of whale oil and bone from Hobart Town showed a big increase in the period between 1827 -31.
Bay whaling entailed as many risks as deep sea whaling and there are records of many deaths. The bay whalers lived hard and worked hard. They risked life and limb every time they set out after a whale. Though the black whale was not as dangerous as the sperm whale of the middle grounds, boats were sometimes smashed and the men drowned.
By 1847 bay whaling had been discontinued. The last whale to be taken in the Derwent River was at eight o’clock in the morning of June 23, 1856. When the whale spouted in the river off Hobart Town a crew of whalers from a ship in the port set off after it.
The harpooner, a legendary Whaling Man was Captain George Watson, my great-great, maternal grandfather. The Flying Childers was built for him at Battery Point by his brother John.
This week the humpback has swum into my world to remind me that things are always as they should be at any given moment. I am appalled by the whole notion of my ancestor using a harpoon and I do not support the continuance of whaling in any form. However, he was working at another time, in a world completely different to mine. I unashamedly pay tribute to my great-grandfather’s bravery and I honour him; honour my families place in Australian maritime history.
The whale is the keeper of records from time immemorial. Whale remembers the past so that he can learn from old lessons, but do not need to dwell on past hurts. While it is good to acknowledge the past Whale is reminding me not to get caught up in memories but to release emotional attachments and be my unique self.
The appearance of Lizard is a reminder to create a space for dreaming. In her book, “Visioning Ten Steps to Designing the Life of your Dreams”, Lucia Capacchione talks about setting up a creativity gym, a place to exercise your imagination and vision. Dedicating a specific area can pose problems but as Capacchione points out, if you have a free table anywhere in the house, you have the makings of a portable studio.
Over the summer, while my son was here, we had a clearance in the ‘shed’ that was storing things that needed to be sorted and cleared. He did a great job and I now have a big table set up where I can spread out and be as messy as I like and vision what the transformations I have in mind for this space will actually look like. I want to take time to romance the creative spirit and to test run and see how much I use this space before upgrading in any way!
Tomorrow I am having wire mesh placed strategically so that the shed begins to disappear under a swathe of green!
Create your dreaming space today and share any images of what you have created!
The frilled neck lizard is a creature that spends its days basking in the sun, daydreaming its future into reality. Lizard’s wisdom is that of the dreamer; the daydreamer!
In a culture obsessed with efficiency, mind-wandering is often derided as useless—the kind of thinking we rely on when we don’t really want to think. Freud, for instance, described daydreams as “infantile” and a means of escaping from the necessary chores of the world into fantasies of “wish-fulfilment.”
In recent years, however, psychologists and neuroscientists have redeemed this mental state, revealing the ways in which mind-wandering is an essential cognitive tool. It turns out that whenever we are slightly bored—when the reality isn’t quite enough for us—we begin exploring our own associations, contemplating counterfactuals and fictive scenarios that only exist within the head.
Today Lizard is calling upon us to take serious note of our daydreams and visioning! It encourages us to keep a journal and spend time creating ideal scenes, roadmaps of possibilities.
Try creating some ideal scenes in your journal – writing or drawing. Address areas such as
Lizard is letting you know that it is time to take do an internal audit. Are you coming from your heart? Be aware – simply because the ego is the master of deception and you will often have to peel back many layers to get at the truth – and to discover what your heart is really telling you. Take the time to really focus on your personal dreams.
For a long time, I have worked with ‘others’ in mind! My heart is telling me to apply my artistic midwifery skills to self! As a result, I am spending time treasure hunting for inspiration and drawing again. Frilled neck lizard inspires me to stop camouflaging myself, to open up fully, step out into the bright light and own my artistic abilities.
When you are able to know what parts of yourself need to be on display you begin to know who you are as a person. There is great potential for self-knowledge with the frilled-neck lizard, who says that rather than hiding because of fear there are ways to display ourselves in ways that incite pride and admiration.
As a creative being crocwise means knowing that there are many things that endanger the creative process. Being crocwise means using your head and shielding the creative spirit from all those things that would kill it.
“Another of the piper’s madcap schemes” thought Donkey! “We are supposed to be Waiting for Godot! Hey Raven! Will we wait or will we go?” Heather Blakey March 2018
My spirit guides meeting on a Lemurian Road! Heather Blakey March 2018
Roald Dahl really is much more than mere talent! The language in this well told story is an utter delight: enough to bring a smile to my face today! The next time I feel the need to use some expletives I must make use of phrases such as ‘you horrid hoggish croc’!
“No animal is half as vile
As Crocky–Wock, the crocodile.
On Saturdays he likes to crunch
Six juicy children for his lunch
And he especially enjoys
Just three of each, three girls, three boys.
He smears the boys (to make them hot)
With mustard from the mustard pot.
But mustard doesn’t go with girls,
It tastes all wrong with plaits and curls.
With them, what goes extremely well
Is butterscotch and caramel.
It’s such a super marvelous treat
When boys are hot and girls are sweet.
At least that’s Crocky’s point of view
He ought to know. He’s had a few.
That’s all for now. It’s time for bed.
Lie down and rest your sleepy head.
Ssh. Listen. What is that I hear,
Galumphing softly up the stair?
Go lock the door and fetch my gun!
Go on child, hurry! Quickly run!
No stop! Stand back! He’s coming in!
Oh, look, that greasy greenish skin!
The shining teeth, the greedy smile!
It’s Crocky–Wock, the Crocodile!”
Over 52 weeks I will be learning all about how to live and work creatively. My teachers are Aussie birds and animals. It is week nine and Saltwater Crocodile has swum silently into my life to build on the lessons that Australian birds, animals and habitat have been initiating.
The saltwater crocodile is the largest reptile in the world. They are also called the estuarine crocodile.The average length for a female is 4 metres, and 5 metres for a male but it can grow up to 7 metres in length. These crocodiles are found in parts of eastern India, Southeast Asia and northern Australia in rivers and swamps. They are grey and brown in colour with a strong body, a powerful tail, a huge head, heavy jaws and are known to be excellent swimmers. The saltwater crocodile feeds on fish, reptiles, birds and mammals while the young are limited to smaller animals such as amphibians.
Saltwater crocodiles lurk beneath the waters of rivers and swamps and are excellent predators. They wait patiently, often just below the water, their nostrils barely visible above the surface, until prey comes along. Once they are ready to kill, they strike with lightening speed and immense power. and when the perfect time has come, they plunge out of the water without warning, pull their victim into the water and wait until the animal drowns before having their meal.
Crocodile teaches us about:
Patience – When crocodiles have positioned themselves, they wait patiently. They know that they may have to wait for their prey to come to them and are prepared to bide their time until the opportunity presents itself.
What about you?
Are your expectations realistic?
Do you get impatient when opportunities don’t come immediately, or do you understand that you may need to wait for the right job, the right opportunity or the right time?
Pounce – After crocodiles have positioned themselves and waited patiently, they have to take advantage of the opportunity to pounce when the time comes. They launch themselves with all that they have and grab their chance.
Are you ready to pounce?
When your time comes, will you be ready?
Or do you hesitate and watch while the opportunity that you’ve been waiting for walks in the other direction?
Today we can learn from saltwater crocodile to position ourselves, wait patiently and pounce at the right time.
Be Crocwise! Protect your creativity
Sit comfortably, but erect! Let your shoulders relax and your feet rest on the floor. Close your eyes! Choose colours for brolga dancing! Choose colours that will help your spirit dance! Use your intuition to choose colours! Pick the colours that feel right at the moment – don’t just choose your favourite colours! Visualize a circle with those colours! Keep looking at the circle as it spins and dances. Keep it simple! Watch the colours for ten minutes and then, when you are ready, colour in brolga and write about spirit dancing with her!
It is in this way that I draw and then colour images such as these! Looking at them now I can see the joyful spirit that lies within!
Over 52 weeks I will be learning all about how to live and work creatively. My teachers are Aussie birds and animals. It is week eight and Brolga has danced into my life, on the arm of and the creative force, to build on the lessons that Australian birds, animals and habitat have been initiating.
When brolga energy has come into your life, it indicates that there is a focus on relationships – particularly romantic or more-than-platonic relationship. It might be time to court your partner again and remember romance or the joy of finding a person you love.
Alternatively, there is something quite intoxicating about being in true connection with the creative spirit. When this happens, as it happened to me as I gifted my one true love, the creative spirit, with the Twelve Days of an Australian Christmas, it can feel like a passionate love affair that washes over you like a storm. It can feel like a Mystical Union that puts everything into perspective and fills one with a deep sense of peace.
When Saint Teresa of Avila wrote I Gave All My Heart she was writing about her relationship with God, her beloved one. When I meditate upon this work I acknowledge that I have given all of my heart to my one true love, the Creative Spirit.
I gave all my heart to the Lord of Love,
And my life is so completely transformed
That my Beloved One has become mine
And without a doubt, I am his at last.
When that tender hunter from paradise
Released his piercing arrow at me,
My wounded soul fell in his loving arms;
And my life is so completely transformed
That my Beloved One has become mine
And without a doubt, I am his at last.
He pierced my heart with his arrow of love
And made me one with the Lord who made me.
This is the only love I have to prove,
And my life is so completely transformed
That my Beloved One has become mine
And without a doubt, I am his at last.
For me, courting the creative spirit also involves making romantic gestures to self. This might involve buying a bouquet, a box of chocolates or king prawns for dinner ‘just because’ is a great way to establish a bond with self.
Brolga also teaches the value and wisdom of flirting. Sometimes flirting harmlessly with friends and meaningfully with partners allows us to re-experience what it is to have fun with others. In the French language class I am enrolled in I am enjoying playful banter, conversation and flirtatious behaviour. This is a way to experience fun within the friendship of this group.
Sometimes it’s time to just let loose and be joyful, instead of being serious all the time.
Long ago, back in the Dreamtime, there was a very beautiful young girl, named Brolga. Even though she was very young, Brolga was the best dancer in the whole land. Everyone in the tribe was very proud of Brolga, her dancing was so graceful, and her movements so special. When she danced, the old people would sit around and say,
‘She dances so well. It makes us proud that she’s part of our tribe.’
‘Look at Brolga, she must be the best dancer in the whole land!’
Now Brolga hadn’t always been such a good dancer. When she was a very little girl, she used to get up very early in the morning, and creep past her sleeping brothers and sisters, out of the gunyah and to the plains around her camp. Once there, she would practise swooshing her arms like the Pelican, parading like the Emu, and whirling like the wind. Brolga soon became so good hat the rest of the tribe asked her to join in their dances. But Brolga didn’t just do the old dances. She liked to make up new ones. Dances about the trees and the wind dances about the Spirits and the animals. The dances that Brolga invented were so good, that people from other tribes would come just to see her dance. The more she danced, the more famous she became. The old men of the tribe were very proud of her. Never had there ever been anyone as talented as Brolga. And they were sure that her dancing would make their tribe the most famous in the whole land. They would sit and watch as the beautiful young girl whirled and twirled – she seemed to fly through her dances.
Sometimes the old people would worry. Brolga was very pretty and very famous. What if she became too proud? They worried that she would become vain, and ask for special treatment. but she never did. Each day found her the same happy modest Brolga as the day before. Each day, Brolga would spend some time to gather food with the women and at night she would dance for the rest of the tribe. One day, Brolga went off by herself to dance. She went out onto the dry red plain near her camp. On this plain, was her favourite tree, a big old coolibah tree. Brolga began to dance in its shade moving with the shadow of the old tree’s branches. As the wind swayed the tree, Brolga swayed, dancing out into the sunlight. The early morning sun fell on her face and with her arms floating out she spun for the sheer joy of it. As the little puffs of dust rose from her feet, an evil Spirit, Waiwera, looked down from his home in the Milky Way and saw Brolga. She was, without doubt, the most graceful and beautiful girl he had ever seen. Waiwera decided that Brolga must be his. He would steal her to be his woman!
Waiwera quickly spun himself into a whirlwind, a willy-willy and flew down onto the plain. Brolga saw the willy-willy swirling across the plain. It looked so very pretty, a gentle column of dust spiralling upwards. Brolga didn’t know that it was the evil Spirit, Waiwera!
As the wind came closer to Brolga, it made a sudden great roaring sound and enclosed her. Brolga was swept off her feet. She was caught! The wind roared, and Brolga thrashed, but it was no use, she could not escape! Far away she could see the big old coolibah tree and near it the camp of her tribe. She began to cry. When Brolga’s tribe discovered she was missing, they went looking for her.
‘Maybe another tribe has stolen her.’
‘No, we would have heard her cries.’
‘If we can find her tracks, then we will be able to
follow them. They will show us where she has gone.’
But the wind had covered her tracks. The tribe searched everywhere for her. They found the big old coolibah tree.
‘She used to come here to dance, but there are no tracks.’
Then they saw the path where the willy-willy had been. One of the old men suggested they follow the path of the willy-willy, perhaps that would take them to Brolga. So the tribe set out. For several days, they followed the path of the willy-willy, until they came to a hill overlooking a small plain. There below them, they saw the evil Spirit, Waiwera, and with him was his captive, Brolga! The whole tribe rushed down hurling their spears and their boomerangs. Waiwera, seeing them coming, began to spin the whirlwind faster. Brolga was now his, and the evil, jealous spirit, realizing that he couldn’t escape with her, decided that no one would have her. The whirlwind swirled around Brolga and just as the tribe reached her, she vanished! Brolga’s tribe watched as the willy-willy wound its way slowly up into the sky. On the spot where it had been, there now stood a big old-coolibah tree. But there was no sign of Brolga.
They knew that the evil spirit, Waiwera, had returned to his home in the two black holes in the Milky Way. The old people shuddered and hoped that they would never have to pass along the Milky Way, for to do so, they would have to pass the two black holes where Waiwera lived. As they stood near the tree which Waiwera had left, one of the children shouted,
‘Look! Look! There is a bird! A bird we have never seen before!’
As they watched a beautiful tall grey bird appeared from behind the tree. Not even the old people had seen one like it. The bird slowly stretched its wings, and instead of flying away, it began to dance, making the same graceful moves that Brolga used to make. The bird danced, taking long, hopping steps, and floating on its graceful wings. The men called out,
‘It’s Brolga! It’s Brolga!
See, the bird is dancing just like Brolga!’
And the bird seemed to understand. It pranced slowly towards them, and with one last graceful bound, flew up into the air, and away! Then they all knew that the wicked Waiwera had changed Brolga into a bird. A bird which the Aboriginals, from that day onwards, have always called the brolga.
Over 52 weeks I will be learning all about how to live and work creatively. My teachers are Aussie birds and animals. It is week seven and the creative force has produced the Kangaroo to build on the lessons that Australian birds, animals and habitat have been initiating.
Embryonic diapause (also known as delayed implantation in mammals) is the developmental arrest of a fertilised embryo. This evolutionary device, which has evolved in over 100 mammals, allows reproduction throughout the year and maximises survival of young during less favourable environmental conditions. An embryo is considered to be in diapause when mitosis is decreased or has stopped completely and considered to begin development again when mitotic activity reoccurs. There is a complex interplay of stimuli which regulate the entrance into and exit from diapause, but in marsupials it is very much dependent on a suckling young being in the pouch. The main benefit of embryonic dipause is to lengthen the active gestation period; regardless of mating seasons, birth can happen at the optimum time for the species, or to effectively space out births.
Kangaroos have a particular ability to delay the growth of their young through a process known as embryonic diapause. This is a very adaptive way with which they are able to slow the growth process of their young ones when there is not enough source of food in the area where they are located. Kangaroos communicate through various bodily movements such as touching, stomping their feet, grumbling and snapping.
♣ The lesson of kangaroo is that things can grow by delay! Is there a project you have in embryonic diapause, waiting for the right time to be kick-started again, waiting to be born at an optimal time?
Communing with my guides – Heather Blakey 2018
Over 52 weeks I will be learning all about how to live and work creatively. My teachers are Aussie birds and animals. It is week seven and the creative force has produced the Kangaroo to build on the lessons that Australian birds, animals and habitat have been initiating.
The kangaroo is a marsupial, meaning the female possesses a frontal pouch where her prematurely birthed offspring complete their development outside the womb. Watch this video and you will see how the infant must instinctively ascend their mother’s belly and crawl into the nurturing pouch.
The lesson of Kangaroo is to make space for intuition. It is time to enhance our natural instincts and allow them to guide us. When we let our intuition guide us our over-analyzing tendencies diminish. When we learn this lesson, movement becomes freer and fortunate synchronicity increases.
Making Space for Intuition: Try These
♣ Sitting in sacred silence and meditation in the morning to connect with your inner world. As Ralph Waldo Emerson says, “Let us be silent, that we may hear the whispers of the gods.” In the mornings, I enjoy sitting at the kitchen table in the sunlight, eating my breakfast mindfully and in silence. Along with meditation, these two things help to attune to my intuition before my day begins.
♣ Scheduling in gaps of time where you don’t make any plans, but follow your intuition. Sundays are my days for this. I like to do whatever I feel intuitively guided to do that day and really try to not making any plans. I love sleeping in when it feels right or rising early when the energy in my body gets me up.
♣ Dialogue with your Soul, asking for her needs, desires, what it wants to experience today. Listen intently. Be curious. Ask questions.
♣ Take your time back from being busy to creating intentionally. Review your commitments and check in to see if they align or you’re just doing them out of obligation.
♣ Drive without music. Rather than filling it up with music or talk radio listening to everyone else blare messages into your head (oh and I love driving and singing so it’s definitely not a bad thing), at least once a week turn it all off. Make your car an intuitive spaceship.
♣ Write to liberate your Soul. Give your thoughts some wings and journal freely, with no agenda, everything that’s on your mind.
♣ Creating the space for your intuition allows her to show up and shine. How can you make room to hear your inner voice? What ways can you begin letting your intuition guide you each day?
♣ Make room to receive.
While Waiting For Godot 