That spare space lit with monastic light

“He rode up on horseback, pushed open the door into that spare space lit with monastic light, the quality of which altered with the sunlight outside. He had felt he was entering a sensibility rather than a house.

“The floor was dark, almost black, wide planked; the ceiling resembled the rib cage of a whale, marks of an axe still in the timber. A fireplace made of silvery river stone sparkled like sand. Lush ferns butted into the windows, stiff seas of foliage felted with spores, curly nubs pelted with bronze fuzz. He knew he could become aware here of depth, width, height, and of a more elusive dimension. Outside, passionately coloured birds swooped and whistled, and the Himalayas rose layer upon layer until those gleaming peaks proved a man to be so small that it made sense to give it all up, empty it all out. The judge could live here, in this shell, this skull, with the solace of being a foreigner in his own country, for this time he would not learn the language.

“He never went back to court.”

Every now and then I come across a book that, as I’m reading, I’m blown away by the language, or the imagery, and I get excited and I want to share it. Right now I’m reading “The Inheritance of Loss” by Kiran Desai (it won the 2006 Man Booker Prize). I bought it at Sydney Airport in November 2006 when I was travelling to Western Australia. I started to read it but never got very far. Life intervened 🙂 So now I’m reading it again and I’m excited by it. I’m coming across many of those “OO must share/keep that bit!” as I’m reading. The above is just one of them.

Also I’m in love with this, from Elizabeth Bishop:

I Am in Need of Music

I am in need of music that would flow
Over my fretful, feeling fingertips,
Over my bitter-tainted, trembling lips,
With melody, deep, clear, and liquid-slow.
Oh, for the healing swaying, old and low,
Of some song sung to rest the tired dead,
A song to fall like water on my head,
And over quivering limbs, dream flushed to glow!

There is a magic made by melody:
A spell of rest, and quiet breath, and cool
Heart, that sinks through fading colors deep
To the subaqueous stillness of the sea,
And floats forever in a moon-green pool,
Held in the arms of rhythm and of sleep.

Perfection. Utter perfection. Particularly that second stanza. “And floats forever in a moon-green pool, held in the arms of rhythm and of sleep.” I’m shivering with delight.

The Favours of the Moon


The Favours of the Moon

THE MOON, who is caprice itself, looked through the window while you were sleeping in your cradle, and said to herself: ‘I like this child.’

And softly she decended her staircase of clouds and, noislessly, passed through the window-panes. Then she stretched herself out over you with the supple tenderness of a mother, and laid down her colors on your face. Ever since, the pupils of your eyes have remained green and your cheeks unusually pale. It was while comtemplating this vistor that your eyes became so strangely enlarged; and she clasped your neck so tenderly that you have retained for ever the desire to weep.

However, in the expansion of her joy, the Moon filled the whole room with phosphorescent vapour, like a luminous poison; and all the living light thought and said: ‘You shall suffer for ever the influence of my kiss. You shall be beautiful in my fashion. You shall love that which I love and that which loves me: water, clouds, silence and the night; the immense green sea; the formless and multiform streams; the place where you shall not be; the lover whom you shall not know; flowers of monstrous shape; perfumes that cause delirium; cats that shudder, swoon and curl up on pianos and groan like women, with a voice that is hoarse and gentle!

‘And you shall be loved by my lovers, courted by my courtiers. You shall be the queen of all men that have green eyes, whose necks also I have clasped in my nocturnal caresses; of those who love the sea, the sea that is immense, tumultuous and green, the formless and multform streams, the place where they are not, the woman whom they do not know, sinister flowers that resemble the censers of a strange religion, perfumes that confound the will; and the savage and voluptuous animals which are the emblems of their dementia.’

And that, my dear, cursed, spoiled child, is why I am now lying at your feet, seeking in all your person the reflection of the formidable divinity, of the foreknowing godmother, the poisoning wet-nurse of all the lunatics.

by Charles Baudelaire, published 1869

******************

I, who love to lie in the moonlight through my window, read this tonight for the first time. With my mouth agape. And it touched me at a personally deep level more than anything else I have ever read. This piece now resides in my heart. From now on, I’ll blame the moon 🙂 And I think I suddenly love Baudelaire.

Image: Kay Nielsen illustration, from East of the Sun West of the Moon, 1914

The Moon is Made of Chocolate Chips

This post really has nothing to do with either the moon or chocolate chips. The phrase was something Liam said when we were driving home from somewhere one night that struck me as such a lovely, whimsical, fanciful notion.

(This is actually a bit of a multimedia post, so please be patient while it loads.)

I opened up the back door the other morning and I stood there for a while just looking out at the back yard. I don’t know what the big attraction was in one patch of the yard but there were a lot of birds down on the ground obviously having a good feed on something. It struck me that as an Australian, I take these beautiful birds in my backyard for granted. They are just every day birds to us, but to people from other countries they really might be something special to see.

So I decided to nick some photos off the internet and even found mp3’s of their songs. Here are photos of the birds that were in my yard that morning … galahs, crimson rosellas, rainbow lorikeets, and peewees.

Galah

The galah is a clown. They are funny birds with combs
like cockatoos, but probably about half the size of a cockatoo.
They love to sit on telegraph wires and swing upside down
and the like … and they are very raucous sounding birds.

Crimson Rosella


The ones in my yard seemed like they had more blue on their wings. These again
are good sized birds–about a foot long.

Rainbow Lorikeets

You can’t get much more colourful than these beauties. We have rainbow lorikeets living
in our yard permantly in spring/summer as we have a coral tree,
which is currently absolutely covered in huge red flowers that they love to feed off (the nectar).

Peewee

Peewees are more properly known as magpie larks, but more commonly called
peewees. Not a spectacular looking bird but probably the bravest little bird
around lol!They are the birds that are always driving the much bigger birds away.
You can often see them in the sky chasing magpies and crows.

And here are the noises they make (funny how the pretty birds don’t make particularly pretty sounds lol!!) You’ll have to press play to have a listen. I didn’t put it on autostart, obviously.


There are other birds that are special to me because of their song. I particularly love the birds that I hear while I am lying in bed at night. It’s something I’d really miss if I no longer lived in Australia.

There are two birds I often get confused. One because it is often called a rain bird (because their call is supposed to herald rain) and the other because it’s also called a rain bird, or storm bird. The first is the Common Koel (which is a cuckoo), and the second is the Channel-billed Cuckoo, which is the one I remember more as a ‘rain bird’. I hear both of these during the day and night, but particularly notice them of a night. I love this time of year because of the birds I hear at night. The third bird is the Southern Boobook which might be some sort of owl though I am not sure. And fourth, the Masked Lapwing, I know nothing about but I love the sound of it flying during the night.

You should hear what I wake up to often in the morning. Just before or as the light just starts coming into the sky. It’s my favourite time of day, when there is no-one aro

und, no sound besides the birds, and the light just dawning. If I’m snuggled in bed especially lol!!

The kookaburra needs no explanation of course 🙂 The “laughing” bird. This is the bird you often hear in movies set in South American jungles and the like lol!! Where of course there are NO kookaburras because they are uniquely Australian birds. The second on this playlist is the magpie. The carolling of the magpie is the most beautiful bird song I have ever heard really. It is music, pure and simple. The third, the butcherbird, is not one I particularly hear in the morning in the main, but it’s another lovely sounding bird which is related to the magpie. And the fourth is a mournful sound – the yellow-tailed-black-cockatoo. I put it in just because. They cry as they are flying. They are also supposed to herald rain. Each bird you see represents one day of rain, supposedly.

“In my own backyard”. I am so lucky 🙂

will you wander with me?

Here’s something a little different … I’m usually so freeform, stream-of-consciousness, way to angsty when I bang out a ‘poem’. Here I’m actually using rhyme and meter, and I think I like what I’ve produced. So I’m posting it in all three places (myspace, here, LJ) for critical comment from people who know what they’re on about 🙂 Otherwise how am I to learn? And … just to share in case anyone should like it….

Whither will I wander
Now I’m aimless and alone?
anchor free and rudderless,
no harbour, haven, home.
Set afloat to drift along
a current or a breeze
in which direction should I go?
whatever way the wind shall blow?
Oh whither will I wander
now I’m aimless and alone?

Rivers, lakes and oceans green
may well my soul console
With Oceanids and Naiads
by my side to wayward stroll
My eyes are drawn to watery depths
so cool and so serene
Poseiden’s gemstones sparkle deep
wrap me up in seaweed sleep
Oh whither will I wander
now I’m aimless and alone?

Will I roam a winding path,
through Poe-like landscapes sigh?
See Saracenic castles hang
etherically up high?
Or country gardens secret
overgrown with plants of yore?
dragonfly on Buddha stone
ephemeral thought has come and flown
oh whither will I wander
now I’m aimless and alone?

Are astral realms the fair domain
that I shall travel to?
On gleaming moonbeams to the stars
and planes that I once knew?
Exist in nought but dreams and thought
in wisps of sound and vision
Cherubim and Seraphim
sonorous, silvery, softly sing
Oh whither will I wander
now I’m aimless and alone?

Will I find that I am lost
within a forest stark?
Wreathed in mist and frightened of
the creatures in the dark?
Cloaked in snow and cold of heart
my spirit shrinks and withers
dread and doom and dark despair
nearing close to Death’s dank lair
Oh whither will I wander
now I’m aimless and alone?

If you should see me wandering
along the ocean shore
I warn you to avert your eyes
and look on me no more
Passion and despair without a home
are howling beasts
Wistful, lost and yearning heart
will tear your happy life apart
I do not see as others see
I seek myself, myself to free
as I was formed to wander
in my solitude alone.

Julia, 2007

across the universe

Now of course The Beatles are The Beginning and The End we all know this to be true. But I think the very gorgeous and talented Fiona Apple does a lovely job of this, one of my favourite songs EVER. And I find it a beautiful personal lesson for me right now, as “My poor head is in such a whirl, my mind is all in bits” (nicked from Goethe) and my heart and soul are taking a bit of a beating.

Enjoy (I hope). J.

(clickety click on the continue link ’cause every time I post a video on the front it stuffs up my entire page)

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The shit doesn’t quit. And I’m single. Bloody hell.

I sent a copy of the first of Anais Nin’s diaries to Rena, because I thought she could really relate to a lot of what is in there, as do I. And joyfully, for me because I love giving gifts that really give, she is really chowing down on it. Quoting bits of it in her own journal. She told me she was surprised that I hadn’t quoted a lot more in more in my own blog about it, and I replied that I really had to restrain myself. BUT … that there were still some dog ears left over in the book, even though I finished it a while back, that I had meant to share. So here are some to whittle down the dog ears.

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Good things

Last night I won something on ebay which totally made me squee. An unusual and beautiful thing–a perfect present for someone. Something that should have cost four or five times the amount it did. I’m over the moon. A hardback copy of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, c1918, with 12 tipped-in colour plates, with tissue guards–illustrations by Edmund Dulac.

This is the actual book I won. It’s generally worth $130-$150 USD. I got it for approx $40 USD. Bargain. There is another version of around the same date with 20 illustration plates but it’s worth $600-700.

The illustrations are here. Edmund Dulac is one of the illustrators from the Golden Age of Illustration along with Arthur Rackham, Kay Nielsen (oh how beautiful his are) and others.

This is going to be hard to gift I tell you :-)

* * *

I’m feeling the urge to use my hands again in ‘feminine pastimes’. It might be shocking (*gasp*) to learn that I actually do things like knitting, and embroidery. And making jewellery – I particularly like wire wrapping (google it). For all I say I’m not girly. This time last year I started work on a bag I just HAD to make, even though I am very much a novice knitter (you see–here’s another girly admission–I have a TOTAL handbag fetish). The picture below is how it is supposed to look when it’s finished lol. It’s made out of denim cotton with hundreds of glass beads, which have to be pre-strung onto each ball of cotton before you start knitting. It’s not as bad as it looks really–it just entails lots of careful counting (sigh). I’m thinking it’s time I finished the thing off.

* * *
“We thought of life via an analogy with a journey, with a pilgrimage, which had a serious purpose at the end and the thing was to get at that end — success or whatever it is, or maybe heaven after you’re dead.

But, we missed the point the whole way along….

It was a musical thing — and you were supposed to sing, or dance, while the music was being played.”

~ Alan Watts

* * *

And of course the Daily Nin:

“I stand before each new world, new person, new country, hesitant, unsure, hating new obstacles, new mysteries, new possibilities of pain, of blunders from lack of courage. Fear, lack of confidence, has narrowed my world, limited the people I have known intimately. The difficulty of communion. Je vous présente mes hommages, Madam. Politeness like a shield. Culture is a shield.”

An Australian’s memories of being in the US on 9-11 (repost)

It’s officially September 11 now here in Australia. My love goes out to everyone in the USA.

Six years ago … travelling Amtrak solo from Chicago to Las Vegas, New Mexico.

Woken up by sun pouring in the window, viewing the gorgeous stark flat countryside and rubbing myself all over because I had to try and sleep in the seats.

Go on down to the smoking carriage at around 8am. All the usual suspects are there. The great thing about being a smoker and travelling by Amtrak is the people you get to meet (although I’m very glad that I’m no longer a smoker). An elderly gentelman, who is very verbose and annoying the crap out of everyone. He had a brain injury. The black woman I was sitting next to, who was very admiring of my ability to be patient with the old guy, whispering “no wonder you do the job you do”. She was gorgeous. Had a great conversation with her about racism in the Eastern states (I think in particular Philadelphia) as opposed to racism in LA. The young couple who couldn’t keep their hands off each other, and who berated the old guy for calling Asians “orientals” (“One of my best friends adopted an oriental girl, and she is SMART!!!” he stated, amongst a lot of other rather dubious comments – I don’t know whether he was surprised by the fact that the girl was smart, or the remark was a confirmation of a ‘all black men have big dicks and can dance’ sort of generalisation). The guy with the black and blue and broken face, who managed to somehow get it on with the woman who was asking everyone for advice about following the scumbag she loved down south. The girl with the southern accent and the big hair and the chewing gum cud who let us know how “all them Jerry Springer shows are shit … it’s all a big set up. I know cuz my cousin went on there”.

Get told by the yummy black porter that the Pentagon has been blown up. “Nah, it’s some kind of joke. That can’t happen. No-one can blow up the Pentagon. It’s the PENTAGON for God’s sake!”. No no no, he assured me, it’s true. Then he told me about the World Trade Centre. Went back up to my smoke-free seat to plug my ears up with my walkman and stare out at the countryside passing by, disturbed. The train stops.

We are at La Junta, Colorado. Looks like a one-stop light town (which, lets face it, is one more stop-light than we have where I live). We all end up inside the waiting room at the station, where, incredibly, there is a television. We watch the planes flying into the twin towers. Over and over again. There are line ups for the pay phones. I panic. I line up to call the Australian Embassy (embarrassed chuckle – I guess that was kind of a Spalding Gray moment). I tell the two Japanese girls in front of me they might want to do the same. The Turkish guy who’s chatting them up looks at me in disgust and asks me “why would they want to do that?” I want to know how I am going to get home to Australia. What should I do. I want OUT. I also need to call Susan, my friend in New Mexico to say “hey, I might be a little late here, hours, days, I dunno”. Apparently they are checking all of the train tracks in the whole bloody country and we weren’t allowed to move on until that is done.

I see two things that devastate me. First, a young girl with a baby in a pram. She is crying her eyes out, absolutely distraught. I ask one of the other smokers what her story is. “She’s in the army reserves. She only just got custody of her little girl and now she is probably going to be called up”. Then I am standing on the platform, talking with the lovely elderly couple I had dinner with in the dining car the night before, and a guy who has hot footed it over to the station to hand out “I Love La Junta” badges. Gotta love opportunism. He turns out to be a journalist. The elderly couple turn away, arms around each other. The look of grief on their faces is so very very sad. The badge-toting guy says “that’s the face of America you see right there”. OUCH. That really hurt me. My heart ached for America and everyone in it.

Four hours later we did get moving, although the rest of the journey was taken at snails pace (I am not kidding) and late that afternoon I finally get off the train at Las Vegas New Mexico. Once I am back at Susan’s it’s hurried phone calls to Australia to let everyone know I was okay, and online to chat with friends in the US who were worried.

They’re my memories. My one trip to the US… what a historic one.

Currently reading :
Astral Dynamics: A New Approach to Out-of-Body Experiences
By Robert Bruce
Release date: November, 1999

The first step to new beginnings

Irony. I sit here looking at the blank screen not knowing how to begin.

Yesterday I took the first definitive step in what is the beginning of my new life. How incredibly trite and cliched that sounds. But it is true. I kind of wish it could truly be a case of tabula rasa. I guess it is kind of a rebirth in a way but not with a blank slate. I’ve alluded to big life changes before and this time of my life is going to be one of the most traumatic I have ever and will ever have to go through. And hopefully … the most freeing.

Yesterday I made an application for undergrad enrolment at university … Central Queensland University to be exact ( which to my mind really means Northern Queensland University – it’s campuses being waaaaaaaaay up on the humid tropical Queensland coast – I hope to God I don’t have to attend a residential school at any time). Living where I am I have no choice but to study by distance education, and this uni is the only one that offers both of the programs of courses I want to do.

I will be studying Literary Studies (or Literary & Culture – haven’t made up my mind yet) and Film Studies (both literature and film being huge passions of mine as any regular readers of this blog would know). I would like to do a double major – have both as majors, if they allow it because both are specialised BA degrees, rather than one as a major and one as a minor, but we shall see.

All that remains now is to pay for the application and dig out the old transcript of record from the college I went to for welfare studies (“college” does not mean university in Australia … the highest you can get in college is a diploma) and get it certified and send that off. Apparently based on my previous study I can get in easily … the ranking score is more than high enough. I didn’t even bother to mention starting an undergrad psychology with honours degree earlier … I was barely into it before my sister’s brain tumour was diagnosed and I dropped that. Nope – no desire to continue with psychology. I want to study something I will enjoy.

Now I’m terrified. Of course. I was terrified when I started the welfare course, but I ended up acing that and coming top of the class. I know I can do it … but I’m terrified anyway … I guess the old fear of failure thing. Distance study requires extraordinary dedication and organisation but … next year … things are going to be such a whirlpool I hope I can manage it. I am better having to go to class, but I don’t have that option. *shudder* Yes, I’m frightened, excited, anxious …

Bring it on–I think.