The Treehouse by Naomi Wolf

When I was at university I worked at a large call centre for a direct marketing company who sold wine. Populated mainly by actors, film people, musicians and students the place was constantly abuzz with conversations about what people 'really' did. I worked there for 4 years, the entire duration of my course and as I watched streams of actors come and go between auditions and small roles, it seemed to me that many of them (especially older the ones), were pining constantly for a lover who didn't love them. I always wondered when they would draw the line and decide that perhaps they were just not going to 'make' it.

Ah the innocence of babes! When I finished my own dubious degree in the 'arts', I came crashing down to earth with the realisation that someone who had studied ancient Mongolian languages actually had a better chance of getting a job than I did. With no job or kudos to validate my work, I quietly packed it up and drew the line. But passions un-fueled leave your soul cold, and I found myself vainly trying to reestablish an artistic practise. It seemed however that making a commitment to your craft regardless of the result, is a frightening leap worthy of any base jumper.

This leap is the unlikely subject of Naomi Wolf's book 'The Treehouse', a simple and personal memoir about her father, a poet and a teacher, who in 12 essential lessons, categories the practise of committing to your craft, and should you not have one, seeking out what is unique and purposeful about your soul. Wolf weaves a narrative about the building of her daughter's tree house with her father's life story and his lessons. The treehouse becomes a symbolic shelter where the you can grow into who you are, high above the world ignorant to it's trials and demands.

For anyone looking to move their life agenda beyond the commercial considerations we all seem to live and die by this book is a beacon. It provides a guiding light to gently uncover and refine who we really are, and to respect what we create whether it be a painting, music, a cake or a lovely afternoon with a child. Wolf's dad Leonard is a charming role model, who refuses to believe that life must or should be limited in anyway. From his eccentric dress choices, which vary from a yellow rain slicker to a Greek shepherd's shirt, to full English riding outfit. To his unshakable belief that every human being has a creative message within their soul, a message from a higher place, and that our only purpose here on earth is to unearth that message.

This book is a profound discussion with a creative elder, someone who has devoted their entire lives to a creative pursuit and thus know it's real pitfalls and pay offs. However in reviewing Leonard's lessons we open our eyes to the many subtle and wonderful creative acts going on around us everyday. Our lives after all are our greatest creative masterpiece. That every person has a unique purpose is something I have always believed in, but somehow I thought that discovering your purpose would then take you into the world to find fame, fortune or success.

I am discovering however that it is in the doing, the creating and the living that life's rewards are reaped.

Eco Warriors

Hodka Eco Village Gujarat, India

After September 11th, I remember sadly thinking that this event would be the hallmark of my era, that I would think of this horrifying day as the mark of how the world had changed when I was a young adult. Last night I felt joyous to report, that this outlook has changed...

All around me of late I am noticing the extraordinary prominence of the Environment as not only a subject of dreaded apprehension as it has been in the past, but rather as a subject of activism and action. People are actively and happily engaging with reducing their carbon foot print and putting the needs of Earth above their own. It's becoming something of a fashion to be green, although this has it's problem ie. the 'greenwashing' of many products that are anything but green. It is however, great to see humans seriously contemplating for the first time that we could live more simple lives and still be very happy, if not more so. I am coming to hope that this is what my era will be noted for, the age of the peaceful Eco warrior.

Last night Sixty Minutes featured several Eco Villages around the world, housing developments that are completely self-sustaining. Since Greg and I moved to Chippendale and have been awed by the work of Michael Mobbs, who has manged to convert a city terrace into a water, waste and energy efficient home. It has always been our dream to design and build a home of our own where we can be completely off the grid and live without impacting on the environment.

The program featured Earthships eccentric homes designed and built by architect Mike Reynolds, these had me positively vibrating with excitement as not only were his homes made entirely from recycled materials and able to generate their own electricity through solar power. They collect rainwater, only 8 inches a year in the deserts of New Mexico and recycle that for use all year around, even sustaining a vegetable garden inside the house. I was enchanted by the design and aesthetics of the houses, which are fashioned like the old Mexican mud buildings, made with smooth mud walls and painted in bright colours. It reminded me of the Eco Village we visited in India recently. (I have posted a picture above).

It is not often that your exact dreams are crystallized as images before you, and even though this particular dream is still far away, I am still feeling the buzz of having seen it can be a reality.

The Power of Now by Eckhardt Tolle

Take a deep breath and look around you at this moment, suspend yourself in it now, block out both the past and the future and take stock with all your senses of this present moment. My moment is pure bliss, my neck is encased in a soft Indian cotton scarf which is holding and radiating the warmth of my neck. I am snuggled into my favourite red chair in my lounge room, listening to the whir of cars as they rush by, and the lulling sound of someone practising their violin next door. I can smell the red onion I had for lunch and feel it's burn on the back of my throat. Although a knot of tension hangs in my stomach, I give it no words, I instead feel its pulsing and acknowledge it's presence. Right now, I have nothing to regret and nothing to fear.

If I were to leave this moment however for the usual destinations I choose to be in, that knot in my stomach would start filling with words. Expressing doubts and fears, about my future, what I was going to do and what it was going to bring. My throat would be scraping with the memories of the past, times that I regretted, people who hurt me ranging from longing to anger. The whir of the cars and the sweetness of the violin would be replaced with the conversations I have had or will have, reeling through my mind like a movie. Then I remember movies aren't real.

This is basically what The Power of Now is all about, realising that the past and the future are creations of the mind no more important than daydreams or fantasising. They are creations that have very little true meaning in our lives, but carry a large impact. Never before had I realised how much of life I was missing to be in these phantom places. Time rehashing a past I can not alter and time spent waiting, for a better job, to lose some weight, until I had money, to move, to have a baby. To think of the frustration of waiting for a bus that is a few minutes late in comparison to the years I have spent waiting for the future to appear without realising that it was here now.

On this Friday afternoon, not even the most elaborate of plans or details I had imagined in the past could have brought me here to this moment, the future happens with or without thinking, worrying and trying to control it. When I picked up this book I thought that using the word 'power' was a marketing term used to give dimension to a fairly simple concept. However at the end of this book, I can see that there is unimaginable power in the now.

In fact all other times leave us powerless, the past is gone and there is nothing we can do, say or think that can possibly change it, and the future is unknown, we can only fill it with expectations and fears. The now however, should we give attention to it, is the only time we can embody and embrace, a time that our senses can engage in. Somehow fully engaging in this moment, means the future is taken care of.

The basics of the book are, follow your breath it is always in a state of now, give absolute focus to what you are doing now and let all the other noise fall away. Track your body, feel the energy currents, sensations and pains within in, the body is always present. Most importantly however is to surrender, to let go of all resistance, wanting, craving and wishing that your life situation was different to what it is. Where you are is exactly where you are meant to be.

This is a life changing book, and should its practise be adopted on a global scale it could be a world changing book. It is not easy to read, but it is worth it, so persist. I highlighted so much of this book, only a few lines remain white, below are just a few key quotes;

"Accept - then act. Whatever the present moment contains, accept it as if you had chosen it. Always work with it, not against it. Make it your friend and ally, not your enemy. This will miraculously transform your whole life."

"If it is the quality of your consciousness at this moment that determines the future, then what is it that determines the quality of your consciousness? Your degree of presence"

"So whenever you can, make some room, create some space, so that you find the life underneath your life situation"

"A great deal of what people say, think, or do is actually motivated by fear, which of course is always linked with having your focus on the future and being out touch with the Now."

"See if you can give much more attention to the doing than to the result that you want to achieve through it"

"Death is a stripping away of all that is not you. The secret to life is to "die before you die" and find that there is no death."

"True change happens within, not without"

"The mind, conditioned as it is by the past, always seeks to re-create what is knows and is familiar with. Even it is painful, at least it is familiar. The mind always adheres to the known. The unknown is dangerous because it has no control over it. That's why the mind dislikes and ignores the present moment. Present-moment awareness creates a gap not only in the stream of mind but also in the past-future continuum."

Days Of Our Lives

As hard as I have been trying to remain positive and move forward, last night I just broke down and cried for a couple of hours. It was 'Days of Our Lives' meets a country and western song as I had to admit to myself just how afraid and lost I felt - about my life and it's purpose.

For as long as I can remember I have believed that every human being is here to fulfill a 'purpose', a higher good both for themselves and the universe at large. Although I wanted and craved success in some measure for my whole life, this belief was beyond that. I had a certainty that carrying out my 'purpose' regardless of its result would feel meaningful and bring a peace and contentment to my soul. Somehow this idea of purpose got fused into the idea of work, with what I wanted to do with my life needing to carry meaning for the world. As it turned out it does not really work that way.

A few years ago, in an attempt to fulfill my 'purpose' I went to Wilcannia to teach at the central school there, Wilcannia is 14 hours away from Sydney, a dust bowl in the middle of no where with a shop, a pub and a service station. The school has a 99% Aboriginal population with a mixture, of neglected, abused, violent and sad children. It was one of the most devastating experiences of my life to see these kids, with no food, sexually abused, not aware of their birthdays and sometimes parents, and with absolutely no wish to live differently. I thought since art saved my life and gave me the aspiration to be better and live better, that it could do the same for these children. I was so wrong, and the whole experience was so painful. And so went my various attempts to find this 'purpose'.

I have reached the point now where my belief in this 'purpose' is shaken to its core and I have to surrender and accept, work, life, my artistic practise, writing and living for exactly what it is. I am beginning to realise that perhaps, we don't decide or even direct this 'purpose'. That all we can do is accept our lives and prepare our souls for when this 'purpose' comes to us. With this realisation I was reading the 'The Power of Now' and felt like I was directly spoken to.

"Surrender does not transform what is, at least not directly. Surrender transforms you. When you are transformed, your whole world is transformed, because the world is only a reflection".

It reminded me of the story of 'The Fisher King', who sort the Holy Grail to heal his wounded legs and aching body, he sent out his best knights and none were able to return with the grail. Then one day he is sitting in his court yard, when a beggar passes him, the king asks the beggar for a glass of water. When he drinks from the cup the beggar gives him, he is immediately healed and realises he is holding the holy grail. He asks the beggar how did you secure what my best and brightest could not. The beggar replies that he doesn't know, all he knows that the King was thirsty and he brought him water.

Life is indeed in the details, perhaps I have been missing the small offerings I could make today, in search of a grail that is already mine.

Feast On Your Life

Job hunting and all it's paraphernalia, resumes, interviews, and generally hanging on the phone has been the order of the day this week.

Staying in the NOW and out of your head while job hunting is one of the hardest things I have ever had to do, although I remind myself daily that 'this is not Days of Lives' thus hold the drama. There are still some strange internal conversations happening in my head right now. Am I good enough, will I be good at this, will it all work out, will the other kids play nice, what if I turn up to school naked....ahhhhhh!!! and the crazy goes on...and on.

Meditation has of course been my saving grace, last night I met with my bi-weekly power group 'The Circle' to discuss goals, dreams and the divine, the meditation at the end was the first one that set me right this week. After clearing our internal space we imagined streams of beautiful white light pouring through us and filling us with the grace of the heavens. Finally the tweedle dee and tweedle dum of my thoughts found themselves too occupied with bliss to be nattering about my short comings.

I am challenging myself at present to be present, that means embracing everything in the present, now, and accepting that everything that is, is exactly as it is meant to be. I am tired of trying to reach that 'dream' life chasing that elusive rainbow with the pot of gold underneath it. I have a dream life now, I want for nothing, I have a great house, a beautiful husband, great friends, a loving family, and the ability to pick and choose what I want to do next.

Essentially I am blessed and I want to start feeling the bliss of that blessing in every part of my life, not just when I meditate. I read a great poem this week which sums it up below.

Love after Love

The time will come
when, with elation,
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror,
and each will smile at the other’s welcome,

and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.

Derek Walcott

Enjoying the Now

Greg and I have had the most amazing weekend, kicked of on Friday with dinner and a good chin wag with my friend Adrian. Adrian is working on Baz Lurman's new film 'Australia' and gave us a little bit of goss on the stars, it all felt so LA. Adrian however is anything but, instead he is a lovely validation that you can be following your dreams and work in a really cool industry without being pulled into all the bullshit of it.

Then it was off to my parents house for my little sister's 9th birthday party, which was a surreal blur of screaming 9 year old's, hocked up on sugar and generally going a bit nuts. Fueled up on lollies, party pies and stolen chocolates we took the scenic drive to Greg's brothers for a weekend of food, sleep and long walks along the beach. The food was mouth watering, Greg's brother Paul made gnocchi from scratch topped with wild mushrooms, followed by a leg of lamb stuffed with anchovies and rubbed with Olive tepenade. It was delicious and sedated me into a calm sleep, basking in the quiet and starring out at the stars.

We awoke to a clear blue sky, buttery yellow sunshine, and a winter bare tree crowned with about 10 cockatoo's, it was magic. Paul, his wife Teena, Greg and I then spent a couple of hours on the deck soaking up the sunshine and enjoying a lazy breakfast. As I looked out over the landscape of a still ocean and crystal blue skies I started to do what I always do, wishing, wanting and craving that I could have this all the time. Completely overlooking the fact that I had it now. The negativity and sadness started to swell up even though I was in the midst of this almost perfect moment. Luckily I caught myself and remembered that everything was mine to enjoy if I was prepared to stay here and now to savour it.

Welcome

Well I felt it was finally time to reveal myself and make a damn commitment. I have been keeping this blog since April of this year, but I wasn't really sure where it was going and what story I was going to be telling on it. To be honest I still don't really know, I think it will evolve in it's own time and pace into what it is meant to be.

Overall, this is a personal journey, a book review site, a place to reflect on my life and get into the practise of writing, until hopefully I have something meaningful to put into a book.

So welcome, bookmark me, read me often and tell everyone you know. I will be posting at least twice a week, now that I hopefully have an audience of more than one.

To Xanthe my first and most faithful reader - THANK YOU!

One Day My Soul Opened Up by Iyanla Vanzant

At another chaotic junction in my young life approximately 10 years ago I bought a book called "One Day my Soul Just Opened Up" by Iyanla Vanzant. At the time I was convinced that spiritual study for 40 days and nights was what my soul needed. The thought has re-occurred to me many times in the last 10 years that I have owned this book. However in it's 10th year of possession I have finally completed the 40 day course and I can honestly say that it has transformed me.

Iyanla Vanzant is a spiritual teacher and Yoruba priestess who transformed her own chaotic life consisting of teen pregnancy, abusive relationships and a dizzying search for meaning. She offers in this book every lesson she learned on her journey. It is split into 40 lessons, one daily that honour spirit, life, yourself, and others.

Taking the time to do this course has been incredibly enlightening and healing, when I arrived at every day's lessons I found the answers to questions, I didn't even know I was asking. The overall theme that stood out for me was one of surrender. A time to let go of all the hurts from the past and the expectations for the future and focus on the stuff of my life right now.

I suspect depending on where you are in your own life, a different theme will arise.

If your life feels chaotic and your struggling to find meaning in it, I would highly recommend this book, and don't worry if you can't stick with it for 40 days, hang on it and when you need to - you will.

For those who can't commit I still feel that what she offers is a treasure so I sum up her lessons below;

1. Tell the Truth
Even if it feels like there will be a free fall if you do, there will be a net to catch you. Suppressing the truth will poison your soul.
2. Do What You Know You Have To
You owe yourself to keep the promises you make to yourself. If your in doubt about what to do ask yourself; 1. Will it bring joy to my life without harming anyone? 2. Will it be good for me and others ? 3. Will this thing move me beyond some fear I am holding onto?
3. Discipline Your Mind, Your Body, and Your being
4. Put Your Life In Order
Start with your house and work your way up to your heart and mind
5. Make Another Choice
That may simply mean choosing to think about something differently
6. When something is done, LET IT GO
7. Trust yourself and god
8. Fear Not
No matter what you do, or what happens - YOU CAN NOT LOSE. Everything that happens is a gift.

Sugarbabe by Holly Hill

I’m not sure what compelled me to pick up Holly Hill’s book Sugarbabe, like the sugary treat it evokes, I felt it may be a little hollow on literary calories. However when I gleefully succumbed, I ended up gorging and read it all in one day. Sugarbabe is the true story of one women’s search for a Sugar Daddy, it details the many delights and pitfalls of both finding and having one. Author Holly Hill lives the very picture of the Sex and the City lifestyle, in the city of Sydney. She has a beautiful apartment in Darlinghurst, a gaggle of gay friends, a party lifestyle and a professional job. When a married prince charming sweeps her off her feet and puts her on the ‘mistress’ plan (a generous allowance is return for 24/7 access), life seems even sweeter. But like all sugar high’s she comes crashing down when her lover leaves her with little notice and even less cash. Disillusioned with both love and work, she decides to maintain her champagne lifestyle by engaging a Sugar Daddy.

The book begins as a voyeuristic and slightly trashy description of her interviews and the trials of her Sugar Daddy’s. However it eventually gathers momentum and delves into some interesting and arresting themes. As most of her Daddy’s are married, the subject of marriage and male infidelity frames the book. What she offers is a perspective on relationships and cheating as seen from the other side. We become privy to the crushing physical and emotional isolation, that often sends men running into an affair. However, Hill does move beyond the cliché to successfully showcases a wide variety of the male species from an open stance. We see the serial good time cheater, the rebuffed cheater, the dominant controlling cheater, and the pathetic cheaters. By being prepared to expose herself, Hill brings to the surface a side of relationships and men not easily discussed.

The main premise of her book is that sex is a physical need, like breathing or eating. She argues that expecting a man to deny his biological instincts, is on par with refusing his basic needs. Where men see sex as physical, women attach sex with love. Thus for men cheating is a physical act and for women an emotional one. The problem she claims is not so much in the cheating itself but the lying and deceit that surrounds the act. What Hill suggests is that relationships could break out of their conventional bounds and operate under much more negotiated terms. Although we have seen this happen in other areas of marriage such as money, work and children. The issues surrounding sex seemed to have remained at a firm stance.

Having been on the receiving end of a cheating lover and having cheated myself. I have to honestly say that I think issue is much more complicated than the physical act or biological needs. I disagree that men cheat purely out of physical yearning. In my naïve youth I dated a serial cheater, who used his conquests to build his fragile self worth. I have also known women who cheat in order to fulfill the physical needs their partners can’t. For me what made Hill’s book interesting was her risk in itself, the willingness and bravery to pursue a profession often harshly judged. I admired her openness in penning a story that does not always flatter her character, and her willingness to refuse to judge others or herself. Her story illustrates the limiting bonds that society can impose, and encourages a pioneering spirit in questioning those boundaries. Although I wouldn’t classify this book as a must read. I have to admit that the questions and issues it raised stayed with me for sometime and made me re-examine some of my own ideas and beliefs about relationships and sex.

The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid by Bill Bryson

Unlike many households where the elongated call of a child’s name denotes dinner as in Taaaaannnyyyyaaaa. In the Bryson household it would seem, the explosion of forgotten potatoes was a call to the table. From the beginning of Bill Bryson’s childhood memoir The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid, I am instantly taken with his mother. Mrs. Bryson is a total contradiction in terms for a women of her time, an age that created the very picture of a domestic goddess. Although she is the home editor for the ‘Register’ Iowa’s local paper, she could neither cook, clean nor remember her children’s birthdays - or things in the oven for that matter. She instead runs between home and work, in a blaze of disorganization. Burning food black and serving it up to a husband, who will only eat food burned beyond recognition and taste. It was, as Bryson describes a match made in heaven and so begins Bryson’s wonderful romp through his all American childhood, a very sweet and lovingly tribute to his family and to the fifties. To his credit he honestly admits that there is not a lot of substance or story to his upbringing. Little illness, adversity, or drama pitches the story; it is still however one of the most entertaining books I have ever read.

Bryson’s hold on the reader is of course his fabulous sense of humour, which spins stories of his mothers cooking, strange family relatives and visits to the local drug free dentist into a fever pitch of hilarity. I recommended this book to my friend Megan, who had to call me while reading it on the bus, so that her sudden and intense bursts of laughter would not be mistaken for madness. What also makes this book remarkable is that the devil is truly in the details of our lives. By carefully collecting the details, he builds a picture of his family and their many quirks, his little town of Des Moines, and of the 1950’s. The birth of our society as we know it. He talks, among many things about the consumer rituals of his time, when visitors would come as much to see their new fridge as to see the family. I thought about the consumer rituals of today, when someone who doesn’t have a fridge would actually rate as more of curiosity. My friends Kath and James are still the subject of admiring conversations about how they live without a TV or microwave, as if they were surviving without limbs. How the world has changed.

Although the 1950’s was a precursor to our manic consumer age, (Bryson quotes that in 1951 Americans owned 80% of the worlds electrical goods), there is still a lovely sense of innocence about the time. Or perhaps it was more ignorance. As Bryson comments “the people responsible for the 1950s made a world in which pretty much everything was good for you”. The book is peppered with now famous advertisements of doctors endorsing cigarettes, svelte families exclaiming their happy because they eat lard, and diets based on eating hygienically treated tapeworms. “Never” as Bryson puts it, “have people looked so ridiculous and so happy at the same time.” What really struck me about the book was people’s blind trust of not only consumer goods but technology, particularly nuclear technology. In the fifties, it seems atomic bomb blasts were the hippest of tourist attractions. During which people clamored to have their radioactivity read as they sucked down ‘atomic’ cocktails. Containing more I am sure than they expected.

Despite having marveled at naivety of the age, I had to wonder. What will be revealed about the products and weapons of my time, that will make me realize just how stupid and innocent my own era was. Reading about Bryson’s fifties is a bit like going to an alternative universe, where life is both completely different but startlingly parallel. It gives a personal dimension into the history, politics and culture of the 1950’s, bringing it into colourful life. However, I warn you, read only in close confines or within earshot of those who love you. I hysterically laughed my way through most of the book, had I been in public the men in white coats might have carted me away.

Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert

I recently lost my job. I say lost even though I resigned because it seems to have disappeared from my life with such light speed. I literally feel like I put it down somewhere and just can’t find the damn thing. But having just lost my job I am trying to settle into what Elizabeth Gilbert describes as bel far niente “the beauty of doing nothing”, rather than the supreme ease and bliss that those words resonate, I find myself trying rather than succeeding. I am rather uncomfortable in my unemployed state, and am discovering that doing nothing in our frantic age, in on par with being nothing.

I am a firm believer that books have a way of just coming into your life when you need them or in my case stalk you until you read them. Gilbert’s book has been nudging me steadily since I traveled to India last year, I read it once with the certainty that everything she was saying had some deep meaning and promptly did nothing about it. Then I lost my job, life generally fell apart around me and there like a signpost from the Universe was Eat, Pray, Love. This book opened up for me a long needed spiritual conversation that had me deeply questioning; whether there might really be something more.

Eat, Pray Love is a story of spiritual exploration set against the backdrop of a travelogue through Italy, India and Indonesia. A journey not so much across the globe but rather as Gilbert calls it a traverse from the “worldly to the eternal”, in search of pleasure, devotion and balance. Gilbert’s story begins with a desperate, late night prayer to God. When an unexpected calm voice answers her prayers, it sets her on a quest of spiritual transformation. Living in a world that has been divided by a war where Islam and Christianity have taken sides, her book presents us with an inspiring alternative. A means by which we can open up our own conversation with God and seek out the golden nugget of divine within.

What Gilbert offers is a yogic journey for our modern times, she calls herself an ‘antevasin’ a Sanskrit word meaning a border dweller between the village and the deep, dark forest of faith. Like her, many of us cannot take up the traditions of monks or Sadhu’s people who turn away from material life to embrace the spirit and seek god. However, like many of us she lives a chaotic and exhausting life, sorely in need of meaning. What she brings to this tradition of spiritual journeying is a rich self depreciating, laugh out loud humour coupled with stunning and candid honestly. Far from heavy spiritual reading, the book is instead filled with mouth watering Italian food, spunky Italian twins, wise-arse joke cracking characters, and a love story ending. She draws the reader in by being both achingly human and a gentle ambassador to the heavens.

I must admit that I read Eat, Pray, Love like something of a guide book, it seemed like Gilbert had crossed the great divide and not only discovered God but herself. Her book although a personal memoir offers many gateways for the reader to enter and live the story. For example in the early chapters, Gilbert writes a heartfelt petition to God to help end her seared and broken marriage. Moved to action I wrote my own petition, a humble dialogue with the universe. I wrote that I was depressed, that I had quit my job, suffered a heartbreaking miscarriage and that life was not really making any sense nor had it been for some time. I asked for help and comfort. That night as I went to bed I saw a single bright star from my window. Offering me a jeweled hope that there was in fact a beautiful order to the world. Even if I didn’t know it. It doesn’t seem like much but I have lived in the inner city, in the same house for last 6 years, and this was the first time I had ever noticed that star.

Gilbert exclaims that of the whole beautiful and poetic Italian language her favourite word is ‘attraversiamo’ meaning crossing over. Her story is an expressive tale of crossing over, in her self-made vessel of faith. Over the divide of the unknown and directly to the divine. What makes her unique is as she calls it, her “cherry picking” of various faiths and practices mixed and matched to find her personal portal to God, which as it were is also a portal within. Great books allow us to imagine different possibilities. With hilarity, mishaps and misadventures Gilbert calls us to pen our own rituals, construct our own vessels, and reengage with a spiritual conversation.

Resume Writing 101

The world outside is like a sleepy child, it's pink lids fluttering with tiredness but not yet ready for bed. The orange and pinks of the sun are sinking down, the drawn lilac of evening is pulling up the covers for the darkness to approach.

I have spent the afternoon writing my resume, which is really up there with having your bikini line waxed, doing your tax returns or swallowing a spoon of fish oil. But surprisingly I am revived and excited. I took a different approach this time. I stayed in the moment concentrated on what I was doing, rather than allowing my mind to go into that swamp of negativity that I usually dive into every time I am job hunting.

I am determined that this job hunt is going to be totally different, I am sick of the up and down drama I normally indulge in, as I swell with negativity and imagine all the impending disasters. This time I plan to relax, not take it personally, focus on the work and the NOW and just surrender and I'm sure the job will find me.

I am feeling remarkably stable and happy, I say remarkably because normally when I don't have a job I am the loosest of all loose ends. But I am liking this new me, I am taking time to heal, reviewing where I am and what I want to be doing and am prepared to wait for the job that is right me. I am so grateful to be able to wait.

BE HERE NOW

The TV antenna guy is here, having just scaled the roof as casually as he would take an elevator, he is now in the lounge room playing with dials and testing the TV. For the last couple of months our TV has looked like there was a metallic grey blizzard in every location. Although I don't watch a lot of TV, getting it fixed is part of a general cleaning up of my life, a symbolic preparation, of tossing out the old to let in the new and sharpening the reception to listen to the signs that I need to hear.

This has been an incredibly healing time in my life, like the seeds that sprouts from the remains of a searing fire, I feel like I am ready to grow out into the sunshine again after the raging chaos of the last couple of years. What I am coming to realise by reading The Power of Now by Eckhardt Tolle is that most of the this chaos has been staged and played out in my mind.

The journey started for me 3 years ago when I first went travelling, a journey not so much to see the world but an attempt to find this missing piece of myself which I was convinced would be in India. I was certain that going to India would give me the sense of completeness and belonging that I had longed for all my life. For those that followed my Bollywood Dreaming blog you would know that this was not what happened, if anything I left feeling more confused than ever.

When I came back to Australia I was convinced that my completeness lay in finding a job in the arts and pursuing my calling. When that didn't work out as I planned I fell into a tail spin of depression. Wanting and needing anything to anchor myself to, I took the first job I could find and that recently ended like a bad horror movie. Then the miscarriage brought all of this longing and sadness to a head, as I again tried to anchor my lost soul onto something else. It was at this point that I realised that nothing was going to fill this gaping hole. That no matter what I did, what success I achieved, fame or fortune that it would still be there.

From my reading of late, largely spiritual books, I am coming to understand that this sense of incompleteness is part of the human condition. An aching need in all of us drives us to be better and to create, but also to consume and destroy. Our appetite gets bigger and bigger from the furstration of not be satiated. The sad part it seems is that we already have what it is that we so desperately seek, we have only to truly look within ourselves to see our own magnificent sense of perfection and wholeness.

Sounds easy right? Tolle claims that to see the perfection of ourselves and life we need to be here now. My first thought is; I am bloody well here now. But as I listened to myself I discovered that I have been checked out of the present for as long as I can remember, either digging through the past and trying to force it to make sense or reliving it's drama. Or by living far out into the future full of promising better-ness, shimmering like a desert mirage, or blazing red in an inferno of impending disaster.

So I am off to meditate and to BE HERE NOW.

Coming Back To Now

It's been a long time between visits but I am back. Let me tell you where I have been for the last 7 weeks.

1. I quit my job - it was incredible to finally stand up to an oppressive, abusive and aggressive person who was making my life sad and crushing my soul. However, I feel truly blessed to have been in this experience it has taught me so much. I believe in years to come it will be noted as one of my greatest teachers.

2. I had a miscarriage - my heart was broken in a way that I could never have imagined. But again I am amazed at how much I have learned from this experience, sometimes I feel like I have been asleep and the is what it took to wake me up.

3. I pitched an idea to a contact at NINE MSN - about a book review blog, I got some amazing ideas and have sent some work in for them to have a look at. I will keep you posted.

4. I have been doing a collage and multimedia class - I have returned to my first passion - art. I am rediscovering what led me to art school. The loving ritual of keeping a journal and creating artworks within it. I am currently creating a beautiful watercolour book about the last 7 weeks.

5. I have been doing a 40 day soul cleanse, following a wonderful program by IylanaVanzant called "One Day My Soul Just Opened Up". Today's lesson is about Authenticity her gem of wisdom "Wherever you find yourself is exactly where you need to be."

6. I have been meditating almost daily and have discovered the Siddha Yoga Ashram in Sydney, in between the chaos and sadness of my thoughts, I am actually experiencing blissful quiet.

7. I am learning to live in the here and now.

With that I will leave you with the eternal words of Maxi Jazz (Faithless)

I want more oneness less categories
Open hearts no strategies
I want decisions based upon faith and not fear
I want people who live right now and right here
I want the wisdom that wise men revere

Where You Are Is Who You Are

By the time I was 18 I had moved 18 times, at 29 I have totalled 27 moves, I have only a few more to meet my age again. Today I find myself longing for a home, not a place to live but a home, resonating in warmth and safety a place to set myself out and gather myself up.

Frances Mayes writes "Where you are is who you are. The further inside you the place moves, the more your identity is intertwined with it. Never casual, the choice of place is the choice of something you crave." Perhaps the transience of the places that I have chosen in my life are a reflection of a need for freedom or more correctly my need to continually be starting over and renewing. Unfortunately the choice has had the opposite effect and I find myself peeled away and left behind in so many makeshift homes that I barely exist as I want to anymore.

These thoughts have me piecing together fragments of an ideal home although a shaky image they have strong feeling. Streaming sunlight through sparkling windows, clean whites tones with earthy reds and oranges. Mint tea brewing a conversation with the succulents on the window sill. Brazilian music winding it's way around the house, fresh carrots and greens humming along in the garden. Day's spent in galoshes, a desk looking on a wall of images, lovingly collected and haphazardly pinned. Provocatively red tomatoes topped with mozzarella and basil, spelt banana bread baking a sweet pungent smell and me playing in the yard.

The Power Of Words

Fragrant wisps of chicken soup are penetrating my deeply clogged nasal passages as I write this tucked up in bed and generally dying with what appears to be a severe cold. As fast as the day snapped into a rigid 17 degrees a cold has descended over me and taken firm hold.

I am a bit lost, the last few weeks have seemed formless, this or that has prevented me from getting into any sort of routine and my sense of continuity has been broken, this packaged with endless days of waiting has me in something of a muddle. If nothing else it is usually books that give my days structure, I look forward to the onward motion of their stories and the continuity of their essence. In that regard I have also fallen in limbo finding myself unable to get into anything with real commitment.

I went back to an old favourite this evening, Under the Tuscan Sun by Frances Mayes, I first read this book when I was 18 and still list it as one of my most loved , the tale that started my dreams of walking the Tuscan hills and of growing a feast in my garden, cooking pasta from scratch and sharing a table with friends under dappled vine leaves. Although I can't remember much of the story the mood and feeling it created are still deep within me. Frances Mayes gave me my first young glimpse of the ideal life I would like to live.

Even tonight at it's beginning pages I felt the need to leap out of bed and investigate the alchemy of the soup that is lingeringly teasing me, to take in the tantalizing smells and sights of my humble existence as she has hers. I am constantly amazed at the gifts that writers bring to our lives that I can have drawn a map for my soul or been inspired to reframe my day just by reading tells me the true power of words in our world.

Waiting To Take Off

Over the last couple of weeks I have begun to realise more and more that I must write what I think rather than forcing myself to think about something to write. At the moment I feel like I am stranded in a small airport. I have been planning my future destination, the completion of renovations, finding our own little abode and having a baby - they are the exotic locations I hope to be at. Although my bags are packed and I have my ticket in hand, the plane keeps getting delayed, grouded or I am caught mid pee while the last boarding call is being announced. At any rate I am waiting not at all patiently for my life to take of.

The brief respite from all this waiting has been my daily walks, among bustling commuters, halting traffic and a general atmosphere of things drawing to a close, I feel like things are just opening up. I maze through my suburb and then amble to the park, I walk one side on the path and other through the grass, softly greeting a patch of trees I adopted a few years ago. A slight wind stirs the dense wet autumn air, the ground is sodden with the masses of rain that have been failing daily. My world which has compacted during the day begins to unfurl with each step and by the end I am expanisve again connected the wider world and the even wider universe.

The theme of the last few days has been waiting, about patience and about staying calm in the face of a life whirling uncomfortably around me. Since waiting and the uncertainity that the wait brings are things I have never really been good at, it has been a challenging time and not one I feel like I am getting on top of. I find myself taking small sips of idle dreams rather than the large gulps of life I would like to be drinking down.

I sadly realised this morning that since my destination seems so far away and my airport is small I am feeling rather uninspired and passive about life. Nothing is turning me out of bed in the morning, I am just killing time and it is too precious for homicide. I am not really sure what to do from here, get a new job, take a course, start writing more seriously? Nothing is quite fitting the bill at the moment....what I wonder am I meant do with this time and these emotions.

Please Explain!

A little while ago while doing an exercise from The Right to Write by Julia Cameron, Cameron asked me to imagine that I was sitting under a tree next to my story teller and I could ask him to tell me any story my heart desired to hear. Almost unconsciously my fingers started moving across the keyboard and I found myself typing, 'I want to hear a story that makes me love art again', as soon as I had written them the words brought up a well of emotion and I started to cry I realised that I did indeed want to hear such a story.

Before I started art school, looking at art for me was like reading the traffic signs of my life, it gave me the directions to my soul. It was a heartfelt communication that led me to believe that perhaps being apart of and around art was what I was meant to be doing with my life. After the ups of art school and the downs of looking for a job in the arts, I was left mostly disillusioned. Art had become a casual acquaintance rather than a loving friend. When I really thought about it I had started to feel about art the way that I had heard many people around me relate to it, I just didn't get it anymore and I felt locked out.

It was after this that I decided to write a book about art, about engaging with art as a means to not only show people how to just hang and have a good old chin wag with art, but also as means to reintroduce myself to art and start looking at it the way I used to, with wonder and openness. After one chapter about my own experience with art and the art world, I moved onto the next titled 'That's Not Art, What is Art?' and was completely stuck. It was then that I decided to write about it on my blog to get the juices flowing.

Hope this clears up the sudden detour the blog has taken. Not sure if I will continue with the essay would love some feedback and then I will keep going.

Art Is In The Eye Of The Beholder

To get to the ball rolling for this essay I decided to look up art in my trusty Collins Australian School Dictionary which I have in fact had since high school. I have kept it all these years because I find a calming simplicity to its definitions, and it doesn't fail me with art. Collins believes art to be "....the creation of objects such as paintings and sculptures, which are thought to be beautiful or which express a particular idea". To my surprise I find that I couldn't agree more. Except that the examples of art forms may need a large extension to include, photography, performance, happenings, installations, and even lives. Art definitely has something to do with beauty and expressing ideas. What I like about this definition is it's broadness, since beauty and ideas are individual to each person so it allows art to be.

If you were hoping for something a little tighter I hate to disappoint you, but I wish to point out some of the reasons why it is not only impossible but ill advised to have a limited definition of art. The biggest problem with having a set and printed definition of art to follow when I walk into a gallery is that it immediately disempowers me. It gives me a frame which I must look through instead of allowing my own context and views to form that frame. The issue is someone else would be making the decisions for me, and who exactly should that be? Should artists, galleries or universities decide and would they not have a bias and agenda in coming to a definition as would, men, women or any particular race and nationality. To gain any kind of consensus would be impossible, and to trust others to control our view of the world ill advised.

The other big problem with defining art is that any definition would be limited to its time and technology, if cave men had set the definition of art as "paintings on cave walls representing human and animal figures made with natural pigments", thousands of years later we would not have the juicy and exciting digital art forms and narratives that we enjoy today. Not to mention merely the varying physical perspectives, tall buildings, aeroplanes, speeding cars and trains have given us.

When you really think about it, giving art any sort of definition in terms of forms or types of expression would make it very boring, a limited definition would result in a limited output. If art gives us anything it is a constantly evolving way to understand the world around us and a solid reflection of the cultural nuances of our past.

Stay tuned tomorrow for "What does 'that's not art' really mean

Art: Definition Please!

The question of what is art could not be further from my mind, life has been busy, incredibly busy, time like never before seems to be racing away from me and my head is a bulging sock and undie draw at the moment, all useful stuff but no real order. Reviewing just how busy life has been reminds me that 'what is art' is perhaps a more important question than I imagined, at a time when my thoughts are as functional as cotton underwear, perhaps bringing art into my life might make it feel a little less utilitarian. I liked Warhol's analogy of the department store and the gallery, it means that art can be and is everywhere and it is the observer who is artful rather than the work.

But seriously I wonder is it possible to go through life like you would a gallery in hallowed silence and challenged wonderment, would you even want to? And if art becomes everything in our lives what happens to the gallery does it serve any purpose? I can see here that I am asking more questions than I am answering. To be honest I starting writing this book about art out of questions that people constantly asked me, and to be honest again no one has actually ever asked me what art is, what they have told me often and vehemently is 'that this not art'. I could only presume for people to have such a strong understanding of what is not art, there must be a solid understanding of what is art. After four years of art school and further mulling over the question, I can really only tell you what 'I' think art is, and I believe if we really took the time to think about it, every one's answer would be completely different.

I have been stuck in writing this essay for a long time, after I finally committed myself to writing about it on my blog, I discovered why, underneath my reasonably calm willingness to discuss art, was a nasty voice telling me that quite frankly I didn't know what the hell I was talking about, and questioning who the hell I was to be defining art. I have only broken through to write this, because I truly believe that everybody has a right to define art and that it is only through the consensus of artists, galleries, critics and the public that art can be defined, and that this definition should be and is different for everyone and that everyone within their context is completely right. Were to follow this method of creating a definition art would organic growing and changing as our environment, society and culture does, our definition of art would be held within our own context taking into account our very personal journeys and histories.

The only sticky point in this business is this 'that's not art statement' which quickly cuts down what other's believe to be art and demands that the boundaries of art be somehow drawn closed to disallow this or that work. I guess in the larger scheme of things human beings are classifying animals our whole science is based on classification and ordering, naming and defining things, it makes a chaotic life seem somehow under control. To have this aberration called art that is constantly breaking out of its own boundaries, questioning itself and us can feel something like torture, as soon as we think we have got it down it goes and starts changing. If only we had a definition we could better control and classify it, it could not be challenged and we could understand it implicitly.

Unfortunately despite being a keen area of study within the creative arts for hundreds of years, the wheat and the chaff are yet to be separated and a set definition of art remains rather elusive. Art not having a standard definition is both it’s biggest problem and its greatest possibility, if artists were not to challenge our conventional views on art, then things would always stay the same and we would still be looking at staid portraits of the royal families and dramatic religious scenes for all time. In order for art to progress it needs to be limitless and since art is a human response to the world and humans have such varying and different views, giving art a solid definition would prelude it’s creative and exciting nature.

Stay tuned tomorrow "The Problems with Defining Art"