Clean Up Australia Day 2015

Last Sunday, we joined hundreds and thousands of Australians donning yellow rubber gloves and grabbing a rubbish bag for  Clean up Australia Day, where the community comes together to remove mountains of rubbish and trash from our sparkling  waterways and gloriously golden, sandy beaches.

“If we’re destroying our trees and destroying our environment and hurting animals and hurting one another and all that stuff, there’s got to be a very powerful energy to fight that. I think we need more love in the world. We need more kindness, more compassion, more joy, more laughter. I definitely want to contribute to that.”

Ellen DeGeneres

Ian Kiernan AO

Clean up Australia Day , Clean up Australia whose mission is “To inspire and work with communities to clean up and fix up our Earth”, is the brain child of Ian Kiernan AO. In 1986/87 Keirnan represented Australia in the BOC Challenge solo around-the-world yacht race and during this event he was disgusted by the huge amount of trash he observed floating around in the world’s oceans.  In particular, having waited years to see the Sargasso Sea’s legendary long golden seaweed, Kiernan’s excited anticipation turned to anger and disappointment when he found them polluted and tangled with rubbish.

“Just before it was dark, as they passed a great island of Sargasso weed that heaved and swung in the light sea as though the ocean were making love with something under a yellow blanket, his small line was taken by a dolphin. He saw it first when it jumped in the air, true gold in the last of the sun and bending and flapping wildly in the air.”
― Ernest Hemingway, The Old Man and the Sea

You see, the Sargasso Sea is the huge, slowly rotating eye of the North Atlantic Gyre, where the currents not only attract the beautiful golden seaweed but also the world’s trash. While not as big as the Pacific Trash Vortex, it’s still not pretty and yet another reminder of humanity’s brutal impact on our beautiful, precious and increasingly precarious planet.

You can read about blogger Sebastian Smith’s trip to the Sargasso Sea here and appreciate it’s beauty: http://blogs.afp.com/correspondent/?post/Swimming-in-the-abyss-of-the-Sargasso-Sea

Fired up on his return to Sydney, Kiernan took action and launched a clean up of Sydney Harbour. Clean Up Sydney Harbour Day in 1989 received an enormous public response with more than 40,000 Sydney siders joining in to help. Rusted car bodies, plastics of all kinds, glass bottles and cigarette butts were removed by the tonne. Success fueled success and the following year, Clean Up Australia Day was born.

“Our task must be to free ourselves by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and its beauty.”

Albert Einstein

Scouts heading out to Pelican Island, Woy Woy.

I actually met Ian Kiernan back in my past life working in environmental marketing  and Ian Kiernan presented the awards at a function I’d organised. I was in my 20s at the time and had to ring him on his mobile to confirm and I was shaking in my boots. Imagine ringing up the man Australians fondly call “Mr Yucky Poo”. He was lovely but I was more than just a little nervous!!

Fast-forwarding to 2015, I was thankful we were doing Clean Up Australia Day with the kids’ scout group.

You see, left to my own devices, I wouldn’t know where to start cleaning up.

Our house would be a great place to start. We could sure use an army of volunteers to clean up our backyard. Then, we could move onto our attic, where a more diverse array of stuff than the Pacific  Junk Vortex, lies in storage.  Every now and then we look up and say a few prayers hoping all that stuff doesn’t feel overpowered by gravity and comes crashing down through the ceiling, yearning to get back down to Earth.

These  troubles are beating me on the home front. So, when it comes to cleaning up the entire country, it’s pretty intimidating. Overwhelming even and just the sort of thing that will get me catastrophising in all sorts of ways which aren’t pretty.

Miss Cleaning Up Australia

After all, Australia isn’t exactly a tiny little speck in the ocean. Oh no! It has an area of about 7.692 million square kilometres and the Australian mainland has a total coastline length of 35,876 km (22,292 mi) with an additional 23,859 km (14,825 mi) of island coastlines.

That’s a hell of a lot of cleaning up!!

“How do you eat an elephant?

One mouthful at a time.”

Also, left to my own devices, I could also be tempted to head down to our national capital, Canberra, to clean Australia of some of its politicians and even more so, the media which is probably generating most of the rubbish spewing from these quarters. I’ve been particularly unimpressed this week that there has been further debate about the national leadership while two Australians in compassionate circumstances, are about to be executed in Indonesia. I would hope that this isn’t the only pressing matter our government should be dealing with right now either. Meanwhile, they should all be sent back to primary school where they could learn how to get along. (Perhaps, I should introduce them all to the Golden Rule?!!)

Quite frankly, I’ve had enough of the rubbish our politicians are spewing out at the moment. Our NSW Premier is in the throws of selling off the State. I’m surprised that he hasn’t sold off  his own suit. Indeed, I suspect all of our public toilets are about to be privatised and we’ll all be left busting in the lurch…not just Little Johnny!

Thank goodness there’s an election coming up. Ciao bella! We’ll give them all the flush.

By the way, my apologies to the majority of politicians who make a tireless contribution to our community and aren’t trying to bring about leadership spills!

Our Scout Group at Pelican Island, Woy Woy.

So without any detours via Canberra or NSW Parliament House, I was on location with the scouts signing people up and handing out gloves and bags to cubs, scouts and families and our token community volunteer. The scouts have an inflatable rescue boat which we used to ferry the volunteers to Pelican and Riley Islands in Woy Woy to clean up. As my broken foot is still tender, I was on deck chair duties while Geoff helped set up the Gazebo and BBQ and started cooking the snags. He did a very good job too. Australian sausages are usually incinerated charcoal but these were cooked to perfection.

Geoff on BBQ duties cooking up a snagalicious lunch.

While the sausage sandwiches might have filled them up, the scouts were attracted to my homemade choc-chip cookies like flies to a BBQ. I’ve since decided to throw out my copy of How to Win friends & Influence People and just hand out cookies instead. Who knows, I might even make it in politics?!! Indeed, could the humble cookie lead me on a path towards world domination. Who knows but I’d certainly get the scouts’ vote. Shame they’re all under 18 and can’t vote.

Mister zooming off to Pelican Island

I don’t know what sort of junk you expect to find doing such a clean up. However, I would not have expected the kids to find hundreds of golf balls so far away from any golf course. It’s looking like there’s some sort of clandestine golf tournament being held somewhere along the waterfront at night. Given the number of golf balls found, this thing must be drawing quite a crowd. However, I can’t held wondering how the poor unsuspecting fish feel when a flying golf ball suddenly belts them on the head. They’d have trouble swimming in a straight line after that!

The scouts also found some Coke cans dating back to the 1980s. That’s well before any of those kids were even thought about let alone born. I was their age back then so it really does go to show how long this rubbish hangs around polluting our natural environment. Yet another reminder of the negative impact humans are having on our precious environment.

However, these Coke cans could be recycled.

Apparently, 80% of the rubbish salvaged from Clean Up Australia Day is recyclable, so all this junk could and should have been recycled instead of chucking it into our waterways. However, now that it’s been salvaged,  it also means, I would presume, that all this rubbish is now off to the recycling centre. Good stuff!!

Meanwhile back at Pelican Island, our scout group sure knows how to carpe diem seize the day. The kids were out in the kayaks, playing beach volleyball and yes, scoffing all those choc chip cookies. The sun was intense and in between swims, there was the challenge of trying to catch little peoples on the run and apply sunscreen over wet skin dripping with seawater. Oh yes…and trying to keep hats on heads. One of these days, the freckles will cease to be a case of join the dots if we’re not vigilant.

Now that the sun has set on Clean Up Australia Day as good as it was for our scout group to get out there and do their bit, my inspiration goes back to Ian Kiernan. He was one person facing a huge job of trying to get the rubbish out of our oceans and the first steps of this incredible visionary have been replicated right around Australia for the last 25 years showing just what is possible when humanity comes together for good. Who would have thought you’d be able to motivate the masses to get out there and fish foul rubbish, syringes, broken glass, stinky cigarette butts out of the water without being paid a fortune? It’s quite incredible!!

Before I head off, thought I’d share Greg Bray’s thoughts that every day needs to be Clean Up Australia Day: https://gregbraywriter.wordpress.com/2015/02/28/everyday-is-clean-up-australia-day/

Now that I’ve seen that we can change the world, I wonder what it’s going to take to clean up our backyard.

Hmm, perhaps I need to offer hose Scouts some more choc chip cookies!

xx Rowena

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Unsung Heroes of Compassion

Since getting involved in an exciting global blogging movement called 1000 Voices Speak for Compassion, I have been thinking about what makes a great act of compassion. What is perhaps even  the ultimate act of compassion?

However, I’ve concluded that you can’t really apply a measurement scale to compassionate deeds. After all, even a small deed can be a life-changer and a huge effort might ultimately make no difference at all. Besides, if we are being compassionate, we’re not about assessing and measuring good deeds and certainly not running around showing off about our own great deeds doing the whole “look at me! Look at me! routine perfected by Australia’s much loved drama Queens: Kath & Kim.

http://aso.gov.au/titles/tv/kath-and-kim-money/clip2/

On the other hand, since we are writing about compassion, I thought our blood donors deserved an extra special mention.

A blood donor and nurse.

In 2013 the Australian Blood Service collected 1.32 million lifesaving blood donations. Every week Australia needs over 27,000 blood donations and there are just under 504,000 voluntary unpaid donors. Many of these donors donate like clockwork and it’s part of their routine. Unsung lifesaving heroes, there  are no screams when they see the needle or fainting at the sight of blood or wailing that they’re going to die, they simply roll up their sleeve and get on with the job.

Australian blood donors are unpaid and the only thanks they get is a smile,  a cup of tea and a biscuit.As I said, they are unsung heroes and I thank them from the bottom of my heart. That’s because they have saved my life.

Happy Me! Getting my infusion in the brand new hospital and reading a great book!

 

I have a rampant, systemic auto-immune disease called dermatomyositis which affects my muscles, skin, digestive tract and lungs. After conventional treatments didn’t really work, I received life saving infusions of Intravenous Immunoglobulin (IVIG) I received those infusions every three weeks for 5 years and they saved my life by somehow tricking or replacing my faulty immune cells with those of healthy blood donors.

While we’re talking about blood donors, there another very special kind of donor I’d like to mention. These are the family and friends of organ donors who make what can be a very difficult decision when they are going through extremely intense grief and anguish themselves as they lose the person they love, often through an unexpected, tragic accident where they’ve had no warning.  While suffering their own anguished grief, have had the compassion to stop another family from walking in their lead shoes.

Organ donation is also something I have addressed personally. This very same auto-immune disease has also brought the whole issue of organ donation very close to home. as it’s  attacking my lungs, causing fibrosis or scaring. The nature of this disease means that I am probably not a good candidate for an organ transplant and for me this means focusing on saving the lungs I’ve got. So far, so good…I am back in remission.

However, there are so many people on waiting lists where an organ donation means the difference between life and death. That a child still has their mum or dad or that those parents of a very, very sick and dying child, don’t have to say goodbye.

I understand that when you have lost someone close to you, particularly when they are young, that there isn’t anything worse. Words just can not describe that depth of grief or loss. I’ve had a glimpse into that pain and it is anguish. Whenever I’ve been faced with losing my own life and leaving my kids behind, the anguish has been utterly unbearable and I can feel my heart being ripped out of my chest without any form of anaesthetic whatsoever and my soul is screaming, howling completely and utterly inconsolable. While the family’s who have lost someone are going through that grief, they can potentially spare another family that anguish and make an incredible difference to so many, many people.

Kerry, another blogger who is also taking part in 1000 Voices Speak for Compassion, and her family were spared this anguish when her brother received a donor kidney last year. Both Kerry and her brother live with a rare kidney disease and had received a donor kidney from each of their parents. While Kerry’s kidney from her Dad is still working 18 years later, her brother’s kidney from their mother failed, which meant they were reliant upon a donation from a stranger. Initially, he went back on dialysis until he received a donor kidney from someone who had tragically died in an accident.

Kerry has written a letter to that donor, which comes straight from the heart: http://www.kkherheadache.wordpress.com/2014/07/15/angels/

Cheryl Wright who has received a corneal transplant, quite rightly refers to organ donation as “the ultimate act of compassion”. You can find Cheryl here: http://pluckingofmyheartstrings.com/2015/02/20/the-ultimate-act-of-compassion-1000speak/

Some people cross that bridge and have the courage and compassion to make that choice but most do not and the rate of organ donation remains crushingly low and people die unnecessary deaths.

Here are a few simple facts about organ donation in Australia:

• One organ and tissue donor can transform the lives of 10 or more people.
• Australia is a world leader for successful transplant outcomes.
• Around 1,500 people are on Australian organ transplant waiting lists at any time.
• To lift donation rates the Australian Government, with State and Territory Governments, has implemented a national reform programme, ‘A World’s Best Practice Approach to Organ and Tissue Donation for Transplantation’.
• The national reform programme includes actions to increase clinical capacity and capability and to increase community engagement and awareness in relation to organ and tissue donation.
• The Australian Government funds dedicated doctors and nurses in 72 hospitals to work specifically on organ and tissue donation. These positions are part of the national DonateLife Network which also includes State Medical Directors, hospital-based Donation Specialists and Donor Family Support Coordinators.
• In 2014, 378 organ donors gave 1,117 Australians a new chance in life.

So as we think about ways of being more compassionate, I’d like ask you to add these to your list:

1) Become a blood donor.

2) Speak to your loved ones about becoming an organ donor and also discuss their wishes so they when the time comes and there are any bits and pieces which aren’t totally fried and pickled, the decision has already been made.

These are two ways where 1000 bloggers could really make a permanent and transformation to our world.

I can’t wait to see where  1000 Voices Speak for Compassion takes us. I know it has certainly changed me!!

Love & best wishes to you all!!

Rowena

Sources:

http://www.donatelife.gov.au/discover/facts-and-statistics

http://www.donateblood.com.au/why-donate/faq#faq_311

 

 

Click Go the Shears, Dog!

“Click goes his shears; click, click, click.

Wide are the blows, and his hand is moving quick,

The ringer looks round, for he lost it by a blow,

And he curses that old shearer with the bare belled ewe.”

Click Go the Shears:  The tune is an adaptation of the American Civil War song “Ring the Bell, Watchman” by Henry Clay Work and the first verse follows closely, in parody, Work’s lyrics as well.

Tom Roberts: “Shearing the Rams” 1890. Bilbo is almost as woolly as a sheep.

Bilbo, our very woolly, mature-aged Border Collie,  is about to get shorn like a sheep and it’s going to be a real test of endurance not just for the dog groomer but also for Geoff who will be standing in the dog float with him. Bilbo became quite disturbed when I unceremoniously bathed him a few weeks ago with the garden hose out in the back. We’re Australian and both humans and dogs are tough and it’s not often that they receive the royal salon treatment. However, when it comes to the hose and the vacuum cleaner, Bilbo is a pussy cat. Actually, he’s more of a chicken!

Instead of going to the dog salon, the salon is coming to us.

That’s right. All his glamorous fur is coming off. Not so long ago, Bilbo’s beautiful black & white fluffy coat would have been the envy of many a Hollywood starlet. That was until he stood out in the rain once too often while his winter coat was shedding and it fused into a wadded clump. Brushing, brushing and more brushing and even strategic snips, did little to improve the situation…especially as he was staging a stubbornly  determined campaign of full-scale avoidance, fleeing whenever  we approached his rump with the brush. It reminded me of the classic children’s book: Harry the Dirty Dog written by Gene Zion and illustrated by Margaret Bloy Graham. Harry dug a hole and buried his scrubbing brush and ran away. Bilbo has come very close to doing just that.

Bilbo out on the kayak with Geoff.

I know I’ve shared about Bilbo’s intrepid adventures in previous posts. He’s gone sailing, kayaked and looking at the publicity shots, you’d have to say he is quite the intrepid adventurer.

However, contrary to popular belief, the camera lies. Indeed, it can tell the biggest, most seemingly believable, porky pies because, as we’ve been told, the camera never lies!! It sees what it sees. However, it makes the moment seem eternal and can give a fleeting moment a sense of eternity when it was perhaps a moment in time…and an exceptional moment at that!

Despite his bold, audacious and almost ferocious warnings to the postman, Bilbo is bark and all fright. Unlike Lady who greets anybody and everybody at the front door with enthusiastic tail wagging and thump thump thump at accelerating speeds, Bilbo avoids strangers. He generally doesn’t like being patted until he’s really warmed up to people, even those he sees regularly…except for my mother AKA “Ham-Ma”  who has been feeding him ham scraps even since he was a pup.He doesn’t even bark when her car pulls up. Like most dogs, even Bilbo’s love and trust is easily bought.

Perhaps, if I’d offered him food treats every time I tried to brush his rump, his fur might not have ended up in the knotted mess it’s in. Bilbo is the ultimate avoider and doesn’t understand anything about a stitch in time.

Hence, the clip.

I did try to attend to Bilbo’s woes myself and apart from nightly brushing and judicious use of the scissors, I also  gave the mutt a bath. Bilbo has only had a bath once before and to be quite   honest, he hasn’t needed a bath before either. He usually maintains his coat well himself with minimal intervention and never smells.

The bath. Here the beast looks relatively calm  but the hose is off. He was wild…absolutely wild!!

That’s all changed and he currently stinks…I mean really sticks and his fur is greasy, matting and he seems to have a flea allergy. We’re getting the coat off and then expect to take him to the vet. Get him sorted.

Any moment now, the dog groomer is going to pull up and I am feeling quite nervous. I really don’t know how this is going to pan out. He went ballistic at the hose last week biting the water and lunging at me with his claws out. He gave mister quite a fright and left scratches in my legs. He can get quite skittish in some situations.

“I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.”
– Nelson Mandela

Yet, Bilbo is not afraid. He’s asleep on the floor, oblivious to his impending ordeal. Instead, it’s me feeling the fear and trying to be brave.

Oh dear…they’ve just pulled up. Wish us luck. We’re going to need it!!

How do you have any tales to tell about your dog and baths and trips to the salon?

Meanwhile, have a Happy Valentine’s Day!

Walking Through Martin Place: 6 Weeks After the Sydney Siege.

Yesterday, I walked through Sydney’s Martin Place for the very first time since the terrorist siege in December. It’s been 6 weeks. Experiencing something of a swirling vortex of emotion within, I felt unnerved, strange and just sad. Yet, with all the historic buildings still pretty much the same and the usual contingent of penguins in business attire, Martin Place was strangely business as usual.

Well…not quite!

“I am forever walking upon these shores,

Betwixt the sand and the foam,

The high tide will erase my food prints,

And the wind will blow away the foam,

But the sea and the shore will remain forever.”

― Kahlil Gibran, Sand and Foam

I wasn’t there as a voyeur but as someone trying to make sense of a horror which could never make sense. I had wanted to get in there earlier to pay my respects and leave some flowers. However, with my broken foot, I couldn’t get into the city. Now, leaving flowers no longer seemed appropriate and there was no means to express a grief which runs inexplicably deep, almost as deep as the historic Tank Stream, which lies buried beneath Martin Place’s  landmark GPO where most don’t even know it still exists.

Tank Stream. Photo: courtesy Sydney Water.

A lot of tears have flowed into that stream lately and it’s been bursting its subterranean banks…or should I say through the pipes. Yet, now as time  passes, those tears are ever so slowly leaking through the cracks.

Above ground, everything appears almost, almost “normal” even though it isn’t. Not yet, anyway. We’re human…not machines. You can’t just press a stopwatch and your grief instantly goes away… along with your fear or at least a little reticence. After all, it could just as easily have been you, me, someone else we know and love and we know it. We’re no longer naive. It’s no longer “over there”. As I’ve said before, Australia has lost its innocence.

After a personally draining but positive day of medical tests topped off with a filling at the dentist, why did I feel the need to go to Martin Place? I really should have been unwinding and Luna Park or even a ferry trip would have been better options.

Yet, there was something stirring and resonating in my heart…a very strong, deep sense of grief..even a sense of anguish for all those who had been taken hostage and their families but mostly for Tori Johnson and Katrina Dawson, who lost their lives. I needed to let that out.

I naturally feel a strong identification with Katrina Dawson, not only because she is also a Mum but because our family has been living with my tenuous health for almost 9 years and we have had some very, very anguished close calls. I have felt my children being torn away from me like having my heart ripped out of my chest and it is agonisingly painful. To know that her family is actually living that hell, that grief, makes my heart ache and there’s also anger because it didn’t have to be. Tori Johnson and Katrina Dawson did not have to die that day.  This is probably some kind of survivor’s guilt. After all, it is hard to understand how I’m still here when my body has been ravaged by so much disease: my muscles, lungs, skin, bones. I doubt there’s a part of this body which isn’t being held together by safety pins. Yet, somehow I’m still breathing and even walking. Katrina Dawson and Tori Johnson were fit, healthy good people who had done nothing wrong. They just happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time and through some absolute miracle, my kids still have their Mum.

Mister and I reading during my 7 week hospital stint in 2007 when I was diagnosed with dermatomyositis.

The kids and I. Mister was 3.5 and Miss was 18 months old.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It doesn’t make any sense but I’m incredibly grateful and also incredibly conscious of other families who are living this grief.

I have walked through Martin Place countless times before. The clock tower still looms over the top of the historic GPO almost like the moon, even in daylight. I pass by the Cenotaph honoring those who gave their lives during a different type of war where we seemed to know the rules. None of that has changed, although some extensive renovations are underway.

Then, as I’m making my way through Martin Place, I starting thinking. Nobody knows where I am. That I’m here. I started wondering whether I should just possibly call my husband and let him know that I’m in Martin Place. If something happens, not that it’s going to happen because it can’t, nobody knows that I’m here. Lightening doesn’t strike the same place twice although all the reasons why Martin Place was hit last time, are still there. That hasn’t changed. I feel like I’m walking through a minefield and I need to report in. That something could happen and nobody would even know that I’m here. That a confession is in order. Yes, instead of catching the train straight home from the dentist at Milson’s Point, I’ve caught the train into the city, traversing the imposing span of the Sydney Harbour Bridge alighting at Wynyard  Station. Despite my broken foot, I have managed to hobble up George Street to Martin Place and even up the hill. I can already hear them saying: “What was she thinking?!!!”

I’d already had a very emotionally charged, exhausting day what with medical tests and having a tooth filled at the dentist and I still had violin ensemble ahead. Yet, I felt drawn to Martin Place, needing to pay my respects and also to try to fathom the unfathomable.

I am walking up through Martin Place, which has a bit of a hill. Up, up, up. I’m not entirely sure where the Lindt Cafe is located but my foot is now starting to tire and I’m wondering if it’s all too much. I’m slowly putting the pieces of the puzzle together.

This iconic photo known as “Dancing Man” was taken in Elizabeth Street, Martin Place celebrating the end of WWII on 15 August, 1945.

A famous photo called: “The Dancing Man” was taken in Martin Place at the end of WWII of a man jubilantly dancing in Martin Place near the corner of Elizabeth Street. This photo has come to represent joy and celebration and yet it was almost taken right at the location of the Lindt Cafe…a scene where chocolate indulgence has turned into horror and tragedy. This paradox intrigues me. No one else seems to have made this connection.

Amidst all these questions, I wonder if place has a sense of memory? Does the soil buried beneath metres of concrete also wonder why all this has happened? Why it happened here? Who knows?

Slowly but surely I am nearing the Channel 7 TV Studios, which I know from the news broadcasts, are directly opposite the Lindt Cafe. This, it turns out, was no coincidence.

St James Church, Sydney. 1836, lithograph. Robert Russell, printed by John Gardiner Austin.

This is the Lindt Cafe.  It’s located on the corner of Phillip Street, metres away from the NSW Supreme Court and the Reserve Bank. At least in Australian terms, this area is steeped in history. It is also metres away from St James Church. St James, with its simple almost austere Georgian lines, was designed by former convict Francis Greenway, consecrated in February 1824 and became a parish church in 1835.

A Very Different Breakfast…

A block away, there’s Tiffany’s jewelery store and I can’t help but think of the movie and see Audrey Hepburn in all her elegance. Moon River  flows through my heart like a stream https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7SI7N22k_A but then there’s this dreadful discordance…a Monday morning and a hot chocolate at the Lindt Cafe…

That certainly wasn’t Breakfast at Tiffany’s.

The Lindt Cafe is empty. Indeed, it hasn’t reopened since the siege. The entrance has been boarded up and there’s a slide bolt stuck on the front. It’s sort of bolt you usually see on a side gate in your backyard, not on the front of a cafe. It looks very weird and out of place like the can opener my grandfather used to shut his garage door in later life.

Lindt Cafe, Martin Place: a close-up of the slide bolt on the front door.

The future of the Lindt Cafe is seemingly coming out of limbo. Apparently, it’s being renovated and a memorial will be set up in the new cafe. As much as I’d always wanted to go there in the past, I don’t know if I could go there. Although I’m a serious chocoholic, there are so many other places to go where there are no memories…just coffee and cake. That’s what I’m looking for. I don’t need to be a hero. I don’t need to take such chances. I don’t even need to be brave. With more than enough adventure on my own journey, I don’t need to take on fresh, unnecessary challenges.

Phillip Street, looking towards the Lindt Cafe, which is on the corner on the left hand side.

That said, I can’t just stay at home either. There’s that yin and yang…the tension where carpe diem seize the day becomes rather blurry. We know the world has changed…especially after events in Paris only served the reinforce the warning yet while need to be vigilant but not afraid.

There is a difference but the challenge is to find it and to stick with it.

XX Rowena

This is the fourth post I’ve written about the siege at the Lindt Cafe, Martin Place, Sydney. Here are some links to previous posts:

During the Siege: https://beyondtheflow.wordpress.com/2014/12/15/terror-in-australis-the-siege-in-sydneys-martin-place/

At the end of the Siege: https://beyondtheflow.wordpress.com/2014/12/16/only-9-sleeps-before-christmas/

This is Our Sydney: Originally posted on kazblah: https://beyondtheflow.wordpress.com/2014/12/24/this-is-still-our-sydney/  

Recovering From Trauma: Petrea King https://beyondtheflow.wordpress.com/2014/12/24/recovering-from-trauma-petrea-king-a-must-read/

Send Christmas Cards to Katrina Dawson’s Kids: https://beyondtheflow.wordpress.com/2014/12/19/lindt-cafe-siege-sydney-please-send-christmas-cards-to-katrina-dawsons-kids/

Should We Have A Happy Christmas? https://beyondtheflow.wordpress.com/2014/12/21/should-we-have-a-happy-christmas/

A New Year’s Wish: Ask What You Can Do for Your World: https://beyondtheflow.wordpress.com/2014/12/29/a-new-years-wish-ask-what-you-can-do-for-your-world/

Australia’s “200th Birthday” Revisited.

“If history were taught in the form of stories, it would never be forgotten”.

– Rudyard Kipling

Last week, Australians celebrated, lamented or slept through Australia Day which marks the arrival of the British First Fleet at Port Jackson (Sydney Harbour) On the 26th  January,  1788. Governor Arthur Phillip raised the Union Jack claiming British sovereignty over the eastern seaboard of Australia, which was then known as New Holland.  There was no treaty with the Aboriginal people, as there had been with the Maori in New Zealand and you will still hear Australians talk about how Captain Cook discovered Australia in 1770, even though Australia was never actually “lost”.

The Australian Women’s Weekly, January, 1988.

 

 

If you have read my last post, you’ll know that I recently came across a vintage copy of The Australian Women’s Weekly from January, 1988. This was their “Bicentennial Souvenir: Special Collector’s Edition”, to celebrate Australia’s “200th Birthday”. It included a couple of pages of birthday wishes from around the world:

“Australia is the closest thing to Texas you can get…the women are beautiful, the men are tough and it has got great beer! Happy 200th, Australia.”

-Larry Hagman, who played J.R. Ewing in the hit series: Dallas[1].

“Although by birth I am English, I feel Australian and think of myself as Australian. Australia took me in, nurtured me and sent me out into the world with a sense of belonging   and a great outlook on life. Happy birthday, Australia.”

– Olivia Newton-John[2].

However, while I was reading the magazine, it struck me that there was no mention of Aboriginal people at all. That bothered me enough to put my detective’s hat on and to start digging.

“The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history.”
― George Orwell

The First Fleet Reenactment, 1988.

Rewinding back to January 26, 1988…I was a young, 18 year old who had just finished school and was still reveling from celebrating “Schoolies Week” at Surfers Paradise on Queensland’s Gold Coast. This involved lying by the pool or on the beach by day and hitting the nightclubs by night and to be perfectly honest, I was probably more concerned about the state of my tan and of course, friends, relationships, fun.

Enjoying the party atmosphere on Australia Day, 26th January, 1988 , my boyfriend and I were jammed under the Sydney Harbour Bridge along with hundreds and thousands of other sardines on a characteristically hot summer’s day, spellbound as the Tall Ships in the First Fleet Reenactment sailed majestically through Sydney Harbour. I still remember battling to try to photograph the Tall Ships through the crowd with my humble Kodak camera, which was so old that you had to shove a film cartridge in the back. There was a woman standing right in front of me wearing the largest, brightest sunflower-yellow hat I’d ever seen. Indeed, the brim was so wide, that you could land a helicopter on it no worries. I passed the camera to my boyfriend, who being 6ft 4″ almost towered up into the clouds. With that camera, none of our photos were “good” but at least when he took he photos, you could pick the Tall Ships out over the hat.

That was my Australia Day.

Badge Protesting against celebrating Australia’s Bicentenary.

Meanwhile, there was a protest movement of upwards of 40,000 Indigenous Australians and sympathisers marching through Sydney. For them, Australia Day was Invasion Day and 1988 would be a year of mourning. This was the largest march in Sydney since the Vietnam moratorium. The march ended at Hyde Park where several prominent Aboriginal leaders and activists spoke, among them activist Gary Foley; ‘Let’s hope Bob Hawke and his Government gets this message loud and clear from all these people here today. It’s so magnificent to see black and white Australians together in harmony! This is what Australia could and should be like.’

Aboriginal protests on Sydney Harbour, Australia Day, 1988

While I can be a bit oblivious, I find it hard to believe that I missed a march of that magnitude and it’s only now, some 24 years later, that I’ve been enlightened.

“If you don’t know history, then you don’t know anything. You are a leaf that doesn’t know it is part of a tree. ”
― Michael Crichton

That said, I’m still fairly ignorant. It’s simply impossible to pick up all the nuances on this flying visit and understand what happened. There are others who have done the research and also lived through the times, who can give a much better account than I. As I said, this is just a fleeting visit sparked by a magazine I’d bought at the op shop and my relationships with my extended Aboriginal family.

Bicentennial celebrations exposed differing views both about our history, our future and our identity as a nation. While it was only 24 years ago, I’d like to think we were in a different place back then when where racist jokes were the norm and most Australians really couldn’t understand what the fuss was all about. Why couldn’t the Aboriginal people just join the rest of us under The Bridge and enjoy a piece of birthday cake and enjoy the “celebration of a nation”?   What was their problem and why didn’t somebody lock all those radicals up? Indeed, a disproportionate number of Indigenous people were already in gaol and there was mounting anger about black deaths in custody.

I am not an Aboriginal activist, historian or anybody who really has an understanding of the rights and wrongs involved but I am a person who has a disability and has experienced discrimination enough to know that even the well-intentioned who at least try to get into my wobbilly feet, don’t necessarily know what it’s like to walk in my shoes. Therefore, I don’t pretend to know what it is to be an Indigenous person in Australia…then or now.

However, I do care.

As much as I believe in equality for all and respecting all peoples, it is particularly harsh when someone comes into your country and treats you like shit. Takes away your land, your children and gives immigrants preferential treatment and won’t even give you the vote. Moreover, once some of these things were finally acknowledged, it wasn’t until February 2008 that Prime Minister Kevin Rudd finally managed to say “Sorry”…some 20 years after the Bicentenary!

I am also in an interesting position because my uncle is Aboriginal and because of him, my children identified themselves as being Aboriginal. No matter how much I seemed to explain to them about genetics and pointed out that we were related to my aunt, they still believed they were Aboriginal until quite recently. The penny finally dropped when, after a long discussion with our daughter, she finally asked rather sadly: “Not even a drop?” “No,” I replied. “Not even a drop”. They wish they were Aboriginal and are very proud of Australia’s Indigenous people, culture and history. We don’t see a lot of my aunt and uncle so I believe this connection has been strengthened by their school. Our school says: “Welcome to Country” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welcome_to_Country_and_Acknowledgement_of_Country) at assemblies and events and the children learn Aboriginal arts and culture in way that goes way beyond anything we ever did at school. They have local elders come into the school and talk to the kids as well. About 10% of kids at our school “identify” as being Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander and we have an Aboriginal Liaison Officer on staff. We are very proud of our school’s passion and commitment.

It has been interesting seeing how buying a vintage magazine at the op shop has opened my eyes to so many things and made me see the Australian Bicentenary in a completely different light. That said, I have been conscious for some time that celebrating Australia Day on 26^th January is not showing sensitivity or compassion towards our Indigenous people who were displaced and so often subjected to horrific crimes of abuse throughout history. This is our national shame and we shouldn’t just bury that under the carpet and pretend that nothing ever happened. We can’t. To be honest, it continues today.

I don’t know what, if anything, I can do about it personally other than write about it, which does seem a bit lame but we each have our role in the body, in our community and as I have said before, I always hope the pen is mightier than the sword. That through writing we can highlight prejudice and injustice and also love and embrace all peoples.

In this, I join with Dr Martin Luther King (Jnr) and say “I have a dream”. I haven’t quite worked out all the details yet but have joined at least 1000 other people who will be writing about compassion on 20th February, 2015…the UN International Day of Social Justice: 1000 Voices Speak for Compassion. I encourage you to also participate. You can check out the details here:

https://beyondtheflow.wordpress.com/2015/01/19/bloggers-unite-for-a-better-world-1000-voices-speak-for-compassion/

We need to keep working on the foundations laid by trail blazers like Dr Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela and see love, compassion and equality triumph!

xx Rowena

PS I have compiled a series of quotes relating to the Bicentenary, which is coming up next.

[1] The Australian Women’s Weekly, January 1988, pg 7.

[2] The Australian Women’s Weekly, January 1988, pg 7.

[3] The Canberra Times (ACT : 1926 – 1995) Saturday 7 March 1987 p 9

[4] Woroni (Canberra, ACT : 1950 – 2007) Monday 7 March 1988 p 19 Article

[5] The Canberra Times (ACT : 1926 – 1995) Wednesday 1 June 1988 p 30

[6] The Canberra Times (ACT : 1926 – 1995) Saturday 25 January 1986 p 3

[7] http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkihaveadream.htm

Compassion in Action!! Sowing those precious sunflower seeds…

Back in December as the New Year approached, I posed a new vision:

“Ask not what the world can do for you but what you can do for your world.”

– Rowena.

It’s an ambitious question particularly as I’ve been largely parked at home for the last month with a broken foot and what I’ve coined the “Operatic Cough” which really does involve some combination of choking, gasping and the bark of an Alsatian. Even at the best of times, I’m not usually physically out and about but have my moments.

Like most of humanity, I could describe myself as a grain of sand in the overall scheme of things or…

a seed.

What can I do?

Well, I can do what I’ve always done…write about it and now thanks to the world wide web, my “writings about it” spread around the world, even if they are still not being read by the masses. Last year, they actually found there way to 62 countries, which really amazed me when I only have a small following.

Yesterday, I encouraged you to join us for “1000 Voices Speak for Compassion”.

Today, I would like to share a beautiful example of Compassion in Action.

In an age when news has a very short life span, it sometimes feels like the shooting down of Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17 has been consigned to history. While I didn’t know anyone on board the plane personally, I spent the day in front of my TV set with a torn and broken heart not knowing who was on board and doing a mental calculation of all the people I knew who traveled regularly and was relieved when I knew they were all on home soil. It took quite some time for the names of those on board to be released, although it seems that those who were affected knew fairly early on. Yes, they knew.

Yet, many of us have a broad circle of friends and acquaintances and there’s always that stranger we sat next to on the bus who might just have been on board. All of a sudden, at least for me, these incidental connections suddenly gained weight and I really did feel a personal connection to all the Australians on board. Although geographically big, Australia has a relatively small population and when something like this happens, there’s usually a personal connection. Somebody we know, knew someone on board. In our family, my husband actually knew an American who had lost family members through a online photography community he belong to. I remember the look of stunned horror on his face when he told me the news.

I am a great believer in the love of a stranger. I have experienced it many times myself, largely in relation to my ongoing health issues and disability but there have been a number of times where I have loved a stranger very, very deeply in a way that defies logic. At times, I’ve almost been consumed by such love and compassion for a stranger and these feelings generally have no outlet. No means of expression. Moreover, these feelings aren’t always easy to live with either because as much as there is great love and compassion, there is also great pain. A pain I could perhaps choose to leave behind. Walk away from. Decide not to get involved. It’s not my problem and yet quite often circumstances draw me further in. I stray across an article. Bump my mouse accidentally and stray across a post, a story that I was destined to read and I am carried further and further along this path…a journey I never intended to take with someone I don’t even know and most of the time, I can even tell them I care.

Quite often, these journeys also take me away from paying attention to my own family. Those who are my first loves and I can get a little lost in a sense on these journeys. Indeed, I have been learning over the years how to switch back and forth a bit better so I am still present in the present.

Anyway, I was catching up on my newspaper reading today desperately trying to clean up when I found a followup article to the MH17 tragedy. This is the second article I have found by Australian journalist, Paul McGeogh.

Sydney Morning Herald’s Chief Foreign Correspondent, Paul McGeogh was deeply and exceptionally moved by MH17.  “More than 25 years as a correspondent have taught me to curb sentimentality as I observe the unreasonable randomness of pain, suffering and uncertainty in this world.”

However, McGeogh and  Sydney Morning Herald photographer Kate Geraghty felt in a sense called to send sunflower seeds salvaged from the actual time and place of the “crash” to friends and family of the victims.

Sunflower Seeds

What started out as a compassionate gesture, actually became a personal quest. We’re talking about taking seeds from a hostile war zone with extremely  limited access and bringing them back to Australia, which has equally restrictive quarantine laws. It doesn’t take long to realise that this compassion gesture would, at the very least, be complicated.

http://www.smh.com.au/world/were-from-the-government-and-were-here-to-help-the-mh17-sunflower-seeds-offer-20150102-12gjis.html

You can read McGeogh’s account and see photos taken at the time here:

http://www.smh.com.au/world/my-christmas-offering-sunflower-seeds-for-mh17-families-from-the-fields-of-ukraine-20141226-12dily.html

This story of the journalist and the photographer is such a powerful example of compassion in action. I can just imagine that these two live out of a suitcase chasing the big stories with the focus and enthusiasm that has made them amongst the best in their field.

Yet, as McGeogh pointed out, this journey was about 38 murdered Australian and their family and friends and yet his compassion was inversely proportioned to the people he was desperately sought to touch. This time not through the power of the pen and the camera but through action, deed and the heart.

Our family was also touched by this tragedy in a very personal way and our kids drew hearts on red cardboard, cut them out and stuck them on paddlepop sticks and sent them to people we could identify knew the victims. There were quite a few schools affected and they became the focus of our efforts. I also photographed the hearts beside our local beach before I sent them off.

The hearts photographed on the waterfront.

The red hearts were inspired by the red poppies which the children make each ANZAC Day honouring those who died at war. Historically speaking, these people were in the forces and civilians haven’t been honoured, at least as far as I’m aware. The 38 Australians who were murdered on Flight MH17 were also casualties of war…a war which had nothing to do with Australia. They weren’t in uniform fighting for their country. They were simply on holidays. No matter who you are or where you live, holidays are sacred.

Unfortunately, I have been unable to find the most recent story online.

I also learnt of a different kind of seed.

You might recall that three Perth children Mo, Evie and Otis Maslin and their grandfather were among those onboard MH17. A charitable foundation has been established not to only honour their memory but also to help make a difference. The Mo, Evie and Otis Maslin Foundation will assist children with dyslexia and other learning difficulties. It turns out that young Otis had difficulties.  The details of how to donate are in the article:

https://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/lifestyle/a/25344883/maslins-set-up-dyslexia-fund/

I’ll also mention a foundation set up to honour the memory of mother and barrister, Katrina Dawson, who died following the terrorist siege in Sydney’s Lindt Cafe. The Katrina Dawson aims to continue her devotion to women’s education :http://www.thekatrinadawsonfoundation.org/

It is incredibly inspirational that both these families are wanting to give back to the world at a time of absolutely paralysing and debilitating grief. It is incredibly humbling!!!

“Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.”― Kahlil Gibran

I am left in respectful silence…

Love!!!

Rowena

Sunflower Collage, Miss aged 6 2012.

The sunflower pictures here were made by our daughter at school when she was 6. I subsequently lacquered it for conservation and mounted it on a canvas. The original was simply made using sunflower seeds, construction paper, glue and a teacher’s inspiration. The collage has obviously taken on deeper significance after attack on MH17, which fell into fields of flowering sunflowers in war-torn Ukraine. When I look at this picture I often think of the beautiful Maslin children who were just like my kids…all our precious children and so very, very loved and cherished!!!

 

Bloggers Unite for a Better World: 1000 Voices Speak for Compassion

1000 Voices for Compassion

“The more I learn about people, the more I like my dog.”

― Mark Twain

In response to recent terrorist atrocities around the world, a call has gone out for bloggers to unite behind an inspirational campaign to highlight compassion around the world. On the Friday 20th February, 2014, bloggers are asked to write a post on their blog about compassion and be a part of the 1000 Voices Speak for Compassion.

This campaign was launched by Yvonne Spence who suggested the idea to a Facebook group she belongs to and it went from there.

As a writer, I have always hoped that the pen is mightier than the sword and in more modern times, the bullet. Through participating in this campaign, I hope to be part of the change which leads the pen and indeed the cartoonist’s pencil, to victory!!

Naturally, I would love you to join us.

Who knows if this will turn into another Woodstock or Paris Rally but wouldn’t it be absolutely fabulous to see compassion being a global focus, hopefully beyond February 20, 2015!!

Recent terrorist attacks around the world, have sent the world a challenge. What are we as individuals and the global village, going to do to make a difference? What is our response? We can’t undo the past but perhaps we can influence the future. Not through the use of bullets or the sword but through the might word and also our deeds.

Indeed, humanity has already responded. Love and compassion have triumphed. Thousands left flowers in Martin Place after the Sydney Siege and in the largest rally in French history, hundreds of thousands marched through Paris (including world leaders with a dubious track record for the very freedom of speech they were supposedly there to support!!!)

At a time where the glass can feel very much half empty, we somehow need to find ways to fill our world with love and compassion until that glass is overflowing.

I live in the Sydney region and our innocence was shattered when a terrorist took 14 people hostage and two people died as a result of the siege: the Tori Johnson, Manager of the Lindt Cafe and Katrina Dawson, a Mum of three kids and a wife, a Barrister who was simply sharing a beloved hot chocolate with her pregnant friend. Most of us Australians probably put too much weight our geographical isolation and naively felt the terrorists were “over there”, even though we could see the ripples in the water. We’ve lost that innocence now and even though we’re getting on with it, the aftermath lingers.

While we as individuals might just seem like a grain of sands in the overall scheme of things, when those grains of sand join together, they can form a mighty rock standing firm against the tempests of terrorism, bound together through love & respect.

You might like to read a post I wrote reflecting on the approaching New Year: A New Year’s Wish: Ask What You Can Do For Your World!

https://beyondtheflow.wordpress.com/2014/12/29/a-new-years-wish-ask-what-you-can-do-for-your-world/

Although the actions of a few have been horrific, I personally do see quite a lot of compassion in our world. As I mentioned before, we have witnessed a real outpouring of love, grief and compassion in response to the terrorist sieges in Sydney and Paris. It is important to remember this because we should never let the evil actions of a few blind us to the good done by the many.

I am a person with a disability and when I go into Sydney with my walking stick, people are usually so lovely and helpful. There will always be the ones who walk into you regardless but I usually come home from my trips with my faith in humanity fully recharged.However, I must say that when the same person ie me is out in public without the stick, I can quite a lot of judgement, especially when I am unable to comply with social norms because of my health issues/ disability.

If you are a blogger, or if you make videos for to upload to the internet, then please do join us! We welcome you.

If you are on Facebook, send a request to join our group. You’ll find it with this link.

If you are on Twitter, check out the hashtag: #1000Speak

Not sure what you’d write about? What does compassion mean to you? Is there enough of it in the world, or would you like to see more? How do we feel compassion, and how do we lose it? You can tell the world about a time you felt compassion for someone else, or you can tell about a time someone was compassionate to you. Really, as long as your post is about compassion, you can write or make a video (or both) in any way you choose.

Join 1000 Voices to Speak For Compassion

I really hope you’ll join me in this and at the rate the response is going, we’ll be looking at well over 1000 voices. Yay!

**If you are going to participate, please leave your blog details below and I will read your post and include it in a list. I will publish the list the day beforehand on February 19.

Love and best wishes,

Rowena