UNTITLTED

                     soul

throw your heart through every open window

                   spirit

Riding the Black Cockatoo by John Danalis. How a story becomes a journey

I sit and I wait for the words to find me.  Realising they are me.  I have just finished reading Riding the Black Cockatoo by John Danalis, and I don’t know where to begin.  Beautiful, enriching, soul effecting, amazing, informative, but what I consider a book that was MEANT to land in my lap, have the pages turned by my hand and my heart uplifted and changed. 

I grew up amongst the earth, where nature and change of seasons, wildlife, and the flow affect of the soil, the moon, water, spirit and nurturing engulfed my existence.  Not aware until recently that this way of living is in my soul and how I greeted most days of my childhood, unaware of how the earth revolves and supports the beginning and ending of each movement.

So the book.  Firstly, the title kept arising to me in different ways, Melanie who knows all about books and authors mentioned this author and following him on Twitter and had shared another of John Danalis books with her daughter.  My Mum had heard the name on Radio National, my friend who has been doing her teaching placement in Bonya, an Aboriginal community near Alice Springs, highlighted my lack of understanding, yet desire to learn more about Aboriginal heritage.

BUT this all really began because of my younger cousin Jack, who is wise and knowledgeable and has begun his own exploration into race and where we come from, where racism takes us and how knowledge and understanding can free us.  So after hearing about this book, and gooogling its title and author I thought it a great place for him, and I guess for me to begin our adventure into the Australian past and present, Aboriginality and self discovery really.  He is 11 and upon purchasing the book, and beginning it I realise this book may be a little too much for him to grasp, so have held off giving him his copy, sort of need to equip myself with a bit of knowledge myself.

So I begin the book.  The line that was my hook (and I am thinking it will be for most people!!) is “Well I grew up with an Aboriginal skull on my mantelpiece”

From here on in I am a slave to the story and can’t put the book down, being filled with tingles and moments of seeing my own story.  A not so important part maybe but the part that I grew much of self from is on page 19 the description of the mantelpiece takes place.  Moving me greatly and how much we shelve the past and all the “important” things in our lives, photos, china, silver, all the “good” stuff, the important precious stuff.

Mary (who is actually a male) is a skull that has lived in the Danalis household, present and presented to the world.  Unaware of its power to change a family it journeys it way back to its homeland (country) to eventually be laid to rest.  Along the way John discovers his own connection to country and the importance of “who you are” rather than “what you are”.  I found this amazing and heart-warming, at times also I felt heartbreak and pain for him as he discovered the journey is not always as cut and dry as we think.

But through his journey a connection is made, and a release and understanding of history and future combine to open the mind, forgive the past and make way for a future of cultures and race coming together.

The book has reaffirmed to me that life presents us with many signs to guide us in the direction we are meant to go.   I write.  In writing I realise I keep going to the theme of birds.  Birds with broken wings, birds with freedom, caged birds, and spirits trapped in birds, shedding of feathers.  Recently I posed a writing challenge to myself and Melanie image “feathers, shell, charm”.  I have an empty bird cage in my bedroom.  I hold onto a memory of a lost bluebird charm that I lost as a child, my first gift from a great grandmother who I only know through stories and my father’s memory.  I just purchased two cds one Kasey Chambers new album called “Little Bird” and another by Passenger called “Flight of the Crow”, my 2 year old nephew seeks out little birds in the sky, I find feathers on randomly on the footpaths in the Northern suburbs of Melbourne.  And now this book has flown its way into my life.  Birds reappear many times within the pages.  This book is full of many signs.

The eagle; he’s my bird; he welcomes me when I return to my country. “There see him, he always here to greet me?” Jida pulled off the road and drove down a little layby which ran to a creek.  We got out and stretched, but this was more than a rest stop for Jida, he was home.

Without giving too much away this book goes without saying, should be read and embraced and if doesn’t open the hearts to at least thinking about there they themselves come from, they have missed the essence of the book.  This is a book about returning what belongs to the owners of the land, BUT more importantly it is about spirit and how spirits can combine:

The Wirinun formed us, black and white, into a line and brushed us over one by one with the smoking branch of green eucalypt sapling.  Despite the smoke, the leaves felt cool, their oily freshness resisting total ignition.  He explained the importance of fire and how it lay at the root if Aboriginal Law an culture. “Fire is our gateway to the Dreamtime. This smoke is the healer; come breathe it.”

Thanks John, for impacting my life, opening my mind, affecting my spirit and having the courage to write such a beautiful and important story.  Riding the Black Cockatoo will now stay with me forever as I fly forward into a life now with a new sense of who we are, where we are and embracing the importance of returning to our country.

Golden Kisses

       As the sun rose, the Native American Navajo tribe members would rejoice to the sun

Bluebird said  “Get up my grandchild,

 its dawn” it said to me.

I was born in Spring.  Gold shades mixed with orange of the sun, as it began to fade as I came into the world, the late afternoon breeze caught in the oak trees that lined the street. You died when I was one year old.  You left behind a bluebird necklace for me.  A little bird of cobalt blue stone, with twinkling silver backing.  So small, and delicate.  You gave me the necklace when I was born.  It was just for me.  Is it because of you that I love Spring?  Did you rejoice when I was born?  Just like the Native Americans did for the new dawn?   We had just met and then I lost you, you died.  You died having known me, having loved me.

But I don’t remember you?

As I grew I saw photos of you, and when I look at them I think I know you, your warm face, smiling, a crooked upturning smile, deep coloured eyes and a long slender neck.  I see photos in black and white of you holding my father when he was also one year old, I look like him, smiling with complete freedom, sparkling eyes, full of wonder and excitement, sun hitting his face,  filling me with warmth, colour felt amongst the black and white.  I hear you were my father’s favourite grandmother, he called you Nanna, and I call his mother Nanna.  Stories tell me he used to ride his bike for miles to see you.  Nanna now lives in your house and she drinks from your tea cups, rimmed in gold.  I loved watching her drink from those when I was a young girl.  I imagined what gold would feel like on my lips.  I have photos of her holding me and she is wearing a bright red jumper, and I am smiling, full of wonder.  I am only one year old. 

I wonder if you loved me like he loved you. 

I secretly would play with the necklace.  Mum said she was saving it for me for when I was grown up.  She said it was special.  I knew how special it was because it was hidden away in a draw, a draw of wonder where Mum kept all the special things.  The necklace was special because it came from you. I remember when I took the necklace. I opened the draw and all these beautiful things came flooding out, the smell of incense filled my nose, catching my breathe, small beautiful images of the things Mum kept in there, there were little bowls and pieces of smooth coloured glass, letters written from her mother, her distinct curvature writing, a statue of St Christophe, protect the travellers, and there was the necklace, in a little leather covered box.  Holding it in my small hands, I slowly opened the lid; the bird lay flat on the silk backing.  The iridescent colour of blue shining, it was so beautiful.  Why did I take it?  I held the bird in my hand, tight, drawing breathe and then running from Mums room to mine, I remember just holding it and looking at it.  It was my bluebird.  The bird released from the cage.  It was the bluebird you gave me and I was ready to have it. 

I wonder where you are now little bluebird?  
 

What are you telling me lost little bluebird? 

Are you telling me much more than the lack of your presence?  Can my renewal exist without you in my life?  Will Springtime come again?  Is this showing me much more about my broken spirit, my broken happiness?  Did your grandmother know that when she gave me symbol of happiness that it would slip through my grasp?  Why can’t I remember how I lost you?

One day I hope you fly home to me

MARY POPPINS

Today I saw Mary Poppins.....one word AMAZING......second feeling......AMAZING. That the grown up can revert to the child self. I felt like I was going to lift onto the stage and be engulfed in sight and sound and fly with Mary. All the feelings I had as a child watching the movie over an over again came back to me, but so much more intensified and all levels of imagination, innocence and freedom. So I have written something, first draft, but the initial feelings....amazing feelings

The lark

Singing with the golden voice

Bringing in the morning light

Shinning hope

A happiness sounding true

But caged broken voices

Scream freedom

Through the east wind

The change blows in

The language of the lark

Where wind is like breath

A natural wisdom

Dipped in spiritual purity

Dreams of bright sun

Warm wings flutter

Filling the heart with light

The caged bird flies around

Watching

Injected with playfulness

Free from rational thought

Where the diet of logic

Is full of reason

But thirsty for the freedom of change

Disrupted spirit

As the winds turn to the west

And the cage breaks free

The lark now flies

Like the falling star wished upon