I was side-swiped this month by a talk with one of my acquaintances.

I work with this person. She and I have similar interests and insights. We’ve read the same books and have similar approaches to the importance of spirit in our life.

She loves and teaches stories, she is a writer and an editor, a seeker, committed to relationship building and a Libran. She also has a Catholic background and recently lost her father whom she cared for deeply. 

Like me, she believes that the path of the heart is all encompassing and when all is said and done, it is love that resounds and remains at the end of life.   I believe, though that she is farther along the path than me and a little clearer on what that tenet actually means in day-to-day life.  She is courteous and gentle; a great listener and very thoughtful in her care of others.

When she told me yesterday that she followed a guru in her spiritual practice I had a puzzling and negative reaction. And that worries me.

Despite the fact that we shared so many other interests I didn’t want to hear that she had handed over personal power to another. I find the choice of a guru akin to deifying another and this has never sat well. As I’ve done in the past, I dismissed the path as a possible method to find meaning and enlightenment.

What worries me is that I have no realistic alternative and no real reason for rejecting the path she’s chosen other than fear and confusion. Don’t get me wrong, I want to reach enlightenment along with the next person. Her path however, is dependent on trust and love – and that scares me.

When I went to India 10 years ago I sought the spiritual home I thought I needed. I was on a quest to find meaning and resonance. I had dreamt of gurus, met practitioners, read books, prayed and received confirming indicators that indeed this place and its spiritual practices would provide a place of rich sustaining support. Alas it provided noise, dirt, stress and crowds. I couldn’t see past the smells and confusion. As for inner sight I was lucky to maintain my sanity keeping an eye out for fast moving traffic and bullocks in the middle of the road. I was deeply disappointed and decided I had no spiritual bone in my body.

Besides, I had my darling husband as an alternative ‘religion’. He was my path to the heart. He was my divine other. It was enough. It was real and trustworthy. But it ended. Now without him I am rudderless and back to square one. Still sightless and a little the worse for wear; love might be the thing that matters in life, but it gets stripped away in the surety of death.

The sustaining truth from all of this, though, is that change is the other great constant in life; change in death; change in jobs; change in friends. And that the harbingers of change in my life invariably arrive with a baton – passing on a new curriculum of learning just before its time to move. This new friend brings with her the next list of subjects I am to study. When the student is ready, the teacher appears. In this case with she comes with a lesson plan: advising me to attend to the moment, to stay awake and to remember that for a seeker, the path doesn’t end.

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time, T S Eliot

Is July the month of death?

I always thought so. I expect because my mother, favoured aunt and grandpa all died in July. Perhaps it’s because the cold chills me to the bone. It just feels like a dead month.

Magnolia

But during this month, the most magnificent blooms come into their own. The Magnolia - with their sensuous broad white petals somehow emerging from tightly wrapped spiral shells. Some remain bud-like on the gnarled branches, tightly enlosed and secretive for as long as they can.  But invariably, as the month grows older, they  too start to change, they can’t resist.

They open bit  by bit. Some more eager than others appear almost wanton. Opening wider and wider, leaning backwards in complete surrender, curling back of themselves.  It’s a daring move. So daring, the cold couldn’t get to them even if it wanted to. for they’re beyond caring. They’ve gone to that stage just before death with such abandon I am ashamed to watch. Ashamed, that is, because I can’t be that open.

Gabby told me a story once about the birth of her third child, who was born in the month of July. When she was born there was no bed in the hospital other than one that lay at the end of the ward for mothers of still-born babies. And so, on that morning when the nurses brought her clean, healthy, fair, beautiful and serene baby for her first feeding, they did so through a valley of death.

She was born on our grandfather’s anniversary. And christened Phoebe. Gabby chose the name for a number of personal reasons, only to find out some time later, that same name had been used by our grandfather, as a term of endearment our mother when she was a child. They might have been dead   but I’m starting to think they were there in spirit- endorsing the name and celebrating new life.

My mother loved magnolias. We had one blooming in the garden of our family home. I’ve painted the magnolia for years, trying to recapture the memory associated with it, marvelling at its seductive beauty and calm strength. It blooms for such a short time, the study and execution is intense. I have yet to really capture one the way I would wish.  Perhaps because it represents so much of what is transient.

I painted them when Bloke was sick, using gold-leaf and paint on paper I tried to capture that fragile passing, trying to vainly lock it safely in beaten metal. I’ve painted them on 6 panels - human height, as if in a garden with branches that spanned the width of a wall. But they don’t come close to the beauty of the tree in our front garden and the one I passed this morning.

So in a month or so, when they’re gone, I’ll still look for them. I’ll yearn for them in wonder at that fleeting splendour and its power to bring me undone. Every July when the cold chills me to the bone I’ll miss them. Just like I miss all that have died. And I’ll remember how splendidly open they were in the moment before their passing. Fragile in a world of beating metal and  winter winds.

This afternoon I took tea at the Queen Vic with my gorgeous gal-pal-paola. What a well spent afternoon.

Paola is a gifted film maker, writer and human being. She is also - and I’m sure she’d concur- a little on the looney side; mind you no closer to or farther from madness than me. A delightful divine madness in pursuit of pure spirit, less ego, forgiveness, truth, patience, authenticity and lasting love. A quest to last a life time.

I asked to meet her because I am nutting out an idea of interviewing some people for a book. It was a fruitful meeting where she helped me understand the logistics of delivering and shaping a potentially great idea. In other words, she kept it real.

She’s in love - which provides an inspiring and delightful mind-set. All possibilities are welcome, all dreams are possible, all reality is sweeter, finer and all feelings are transcended. Of course one also resides in a state of suspended horny-ness. I wish her much of this state, much lasting love and a strengthening belief in her self as a result of the alchemy.

The stories we tell ourselves about the lives we lead can provide a rich vein of wisdom and analysis. They become heightened with seminal moments such as falling in love. What a great way to find out more about each other - “Tell me the story of your life”.

But Is that story of that life of interest to others? Is all of it, or part of it more interesting. Does it make the “big” lessons more understandable because of the narrative?

There’s plenty of research that such a process provides insights into thematic “clusters”, trends, blocks, oversight, obsessions and the great “unsaid” of our lives. How splendid to gather the stories of others. And is it possible to then re-tell them and keep it honest. Don’t we filter? Dont we assume?  Don’t we cloud it with presumptions of what would be interesting to others - clinical analysis of someones disclosure.

This was the challenge I set my darling Paola - and she came up with some very profound insights - I expect because she’s living her life -  in line with the “narrative arc”. There is the right amount of drama, challenge, quest, faith, longing and inspiration.

I had lunch with my aunty yesterday and showed her the pictures of my recent trip overseas.

She was particularly enamoured of one where a boat is pointing outwards to the horizon, not yet launched, still in harbour waiting and safe. She thought I should use it on my blog - so here it is.

My aunt is in her seventies and is a fiercely loyal woman, loyal to family and to her faith and to her memories. Loyalty is a fabulous quality to have and if you don’t “get” it at birth it’s hard to acquire along the way.

These days, there’s always something to push our buttons, convince us to change brands and form new attachments. I envy her that gift of the spirit, to stick with what she knows and to love it in all its “ordinariness” and to hang on, sometimes in the face of fierce persuasion, to the direction she set and the choices she’s made. She’s a nun - so she knows all about that.

One of the hardest things in coming home after an expansive trip is to accept that your “ordinary” life, the one you left behind, is still there waiting for you. On first impressions, it doesn’t seem to have changed at all.

Maybe the date, maybe the temperature, maybe even the hair colour of your gal pals changes, but as for deep and sustainable change (to the way people think, behave, live, and choose) not a change at all.  Same playing field - just a different ball game.

But what if you want to change? How to do it? I thought the world would do it first. Isn’t that the way things work? Isn’t that why I went away.  I know from experience there’s no shortage of bad change that happens ‘out there’. Let’s face it, shit happens and your world goes arse up more often than not. So why can’t it change when you want it to (as opposed to when you didn’t want it to)?

Clearly for things to change in my life- it’s up to me. It’s up to me to re-enter the stratosphere with the firm commitment to move away from the things I didn’t miss, and move towards the things I did miss when I was away. Move towards good friends, and away from boring work. Move towards healthy lifestyle and away from too much booze. Move towards creative expansion and away from fear and small mindedness. 

Of course I should expand into new arenas, after all that’s what growth is all about. And of course I should embrace the dying-off of the old. Let it go. Don’t try to put on the top you’ve outgrown, or sit in the chair that’s broken, renovate! move up and out. But I’m afraid.

Despite the fear,  I’m changing from the outside in. I’ve started with the way I work and live. I want less contact hours with a traditional way of working and more hours of a creative pursuit. I want to write more and paint more. I want to carve out work that matters to me, create messages that resonate with me. I want to meet more people and talk to them to make sense of my own journey and the world we live in, and what it means to be human, and loyal.

But now that it’s just up to me - I’m stuffed!  I’m not afraid to admit I need help. I need mentors. Hell I need to re-enter the world with a midwife!

Two very good friends of mine, who have midwifed my last big life change (ie meeting blokey all those years ago) are about to relocate to Canada for 5 months. And I’ll miss them. I was going to stay with them whilst I renovated at home, and I was going to lean on them, learn from them all about living well and living boldly. But they were so bold they went off on another adventure.  

So I have to learn all about being bold for myself here in home harbours. So there you have it - alone again. Admittedly I have an expanded view of the horizon and admittedly my personal world did change from outside after all - the perennial question is, as it always will be, am I up to dealing with the consequences?

This is my last post for this journey overseas and as such there is a need to make it significant or full of insight. Alas with those compelling needs it might fail. If Ekhart Tolle could hear me - he’d remind me to live in the now and forget what you need or want. Just enjoy now.

The trip has been extraordinary; brilliant new vistas, challenges, laughs, delights, colours, smells and a light that is completely different to the one in Australia - home.

Milan is the last stop on this 7 week trip. I chose it for a number of reasons - not least among them was the fashion and the architecture, Castello Visconti-Sforza and of course, La Scala. Well I have seen sooooooo much architecture including some fabulous Art Deco and Art Nouvea balconies and iron work. I have been overwhelmed by the heat! frescos, statues, reliefs, mosaics, bells,cafes, good looking men, chapels, basilicas and the duomo which takes your breath away on first sight.

I have tried on every bit of outlet-worthy-last-season’s-oh-why-have-I-let-myself-get-this-fat piece of clothing;have walked every bit of shopping street,corso,via known to black belt shoppers:have worked the metro to within an inch of its red,yellow and green directions, and have found a few pieces that I will look at and sigh - Oh Milan.

One day I journeyed one hour away from gorgeous Milan to the small town of Bergamo. I was on a mission, to find and see the Visconti Tarot deck, which was, I understood in the care of the conservators at Acadamia Carrarar. I went up and down, in an out, around and about Bergamo on a gruelling 32 degree day, crossing bridges, climbing to forts at the top of the hill and ceremoniously saying good bye to Blokey, and then reaching finally the museum only to discover it was closed for renovations (for 2 years).

Having this disappointing sign translated word for word by a charming Italian, I traversed yet another knee breaking hill to find the palazzo de Regina (the temporary home of the academia collection) was also under renovation. I was so despondent I cried.

Just a bit, because someone was playing Ave Maria on the Flute outside the Basilica Maria di Maggiore. How can you be sad? On a beautiful day, in a beautiful town when that happens?

Remembering Gabbie’s and Cate’s advice not to get attached, and realising how many other fabulous places were yet to be discovered, I stopped that course of thought, dusted myself off and planned the next adventure to take place back in Milan.

Now those that know me, know the passion I have held dear (more than any other) has been the threatre. I went off to la Scala to be delighted by a view from a box, a tour of Callas’ wardrobe and memorabilia from this remarkable place of dreams and music. And to my great delight and surprise I saw some tarot cards (collected from the theatre stalls over many years). The only Arcana card - the judgement card from the Marseilles deck- smiled back up at me from behind the Scala museum collection; as if to say, Be surprised by life, now that you have made the right decision to move on with things.
The Judgement card has an image of people being called up and out of open graves (for the last judgement). Most pictures I’ve seen of this card, shows the dead to be quite chipper, having been dormant for so long.

So there you have it. I got my Tarot message after all, that it is good to move on and let the dead bury the dead. Blokey would want that for sure. I also got to see so many more things than I would have - because I had an intention to try as hard as I did and to hope and to care and to be disappointed (so take that Tolle!).

And, I got to see Milan in all its size 8 splendour. And if I don’t fit into drop dead tiny Italian state of the art fashion, do I care? You bet your size 14 arse I do! But that’s up to me to change and let go of that extra baggage.

Ciao Milan and thanks

I’ve always wanted to go to Lake Como. Ever since seeing the movie “A month by the Lake”, starring Vanessa Redgrave and Uma Thurman. I have and it hasn’t disappointed.

I am in a hotel that rivals Faulty Towers - in its demographic and at times in its level of service. But that’s not to say it’s bad; rather it’s entertainment value outweighs all else.

The first element in this remarkable entertainment are the Brits - either complaining about the weather, that admittedly has been wet; or complaining that the good weather - now that it’s clear - may not hold.

The second element in this delightful entertainment are the Italians - charming and incredibly good looking. I’m talking in this last instance about the youngish - middle aged men. Now I never thought I’d be a leerer (is there such a word) but I’ve become one in Italy. A large majority of the men look like George Clooney, which explains why he got a villa, knowing that he wouldn’t stand out.

If I may be permitted to have a third element - and I’ll record one anyway - it is that the beauty of this place. The lake is characterised by charming villages and villas built along the banks of a remarkable deep stillness, blue green, grey, misty  or bright light hazy sunshine it’s all stupendous.

I’ve waxed lyrically about all the places I’ve visited on this holiday for the very good reason that I picked them as I was designing the itinerary. I needed to be reminded of the splendour of the world and to be reawakened by my own response to that splendour and beauty. Well I have.

I spent an hour at Villa del Balbianello this morning - Oh my God! Built in the 1700s is various stages it has belonged to counts, cardinals, monks and explorers and now resides as part of a bequest in the care of the Italian national parks people. It is in all senses of the word, a grand villa. I arrived at the front steps by way of speedboat full of Milanese (aka stylish) Italians. Up through the ornate iron gates framed by mossy sculptures and a garden green, dripping with bright red flowers and plane trees sculptured into candelabras. It beat the movie set of ä Month by the Lake hands down. 

In other circumstances (ie my owning the villa, or being the only one at the villa) I would have taken time to sketch and paint and lie about in this heavenly sculptured gallery of delights. But alas, I was one of many moving tourists, who filled each path, step, loggia, room and ramp 4-across. There was no stopping, just movement. And that was OK. I think my senses, visual and olefactory are reaching overload.

My sister and I are travelling together. She will leave me in Milan the day after tomorrow. I have 3 more days on my own in Milan for some serious black-belt shopping a trip to Bergamo to see the Visconti Tarot deck and, if I’m remarkably lucky a night at La Scala to hear Verdi.

 It’s been great having her as my companion. We work well together. Perhaps it’s Karmic as well as familial. We laugh at the same things, break each other up, respond to the same sort of stimuli in similar ways. She is a delight. Even when she lost her camera at the Abbey yesterday (watch those pesky monks!) she was so good humoured about it, and took herself off on a 2 km walk today to report it to the police in broken English-Italian-English. 

Well the Lake is a must-see. Preferably without the tourists, but then again I am unmistakably one of them, and I am deeply grateful to the Italians they indulge us. I’ve always wanted to live by a lake. In my life, I dare say, that desire will translate into a house on Lake macquarie as opposed to a villa on Lake Como. But what’s in an address!?

Looking through a glass darkly - hardly! Not in this place exquisite light - Venezia.

We are, as the old English writers would put it, on an excursion today: to Murano, famous for Glass making,  the Lido, famous for Byron et al, and the Island of Burano, famous for lace - all aboard the Vaparettos! a water  boat that chugs from station to station up the waterways of Venice. What fun indeed.

We are staying in the suburb of Cannaregio far from the maddening turistos, near the jewish ghetto in a moorish inspired hotel, reminiscent of Shylock and all things shakespearean. Funnily, I’ve learnt more about Italy, during my life, from an English Playwright than from actual travel. Well, that is all changing as one can’t help but be inspired and aroused by this place.

Gab and I are in Venice, Italy. What a place! I thought Croatia was beautiful, but this is like a balm for the spirit.  A fair amount of it is enhanced by a delightful golden liquid called Prosecco (Miss Garner used to drink it in Salley Vicker’s book).

This intoxicant is enhanced by the vistas as well, the bright and variegated colours of the walls, the distresseed brick and rendering, the mossy-water-licked edges, the rotted wood and coloured striped poles that poke up out of the rocking rolling green water, the many boats navigating, bumping, in a dance across the canal ways: hell I can even stand the American tourists!

It is like living inside a painting or an art Gallery. This became especially apparant to me, when I went to the Accademia (Gallery) a day or so ago, and sat before enormous paintings from the 17th Century of the suburb in which I am now living. Why I even recognised the washing hanging from the shuttered windows, in much the same way they are displayed these days. Now that was surreal!

Yesterday we went to Frari the basilica that houses The Annunciation by Titian as well as a Donatello statue and surprise of all - the tomb of Monterverdi (my all time favourite composer of sacred music). Just when you thought you’d seen it all. A few days before we’d seen the graves of Ezra Pound, Serge Diaghilev and Igor Stravinsky at Cimitro, an island cemetery visible from Venezia town.

Well the city beckons, I need to be off to taste some more scampi, some more casa vino Blanco and catch another Vaparetto. Another glass of your finest my good man, line them up.

My sister, Gab and I have been discussing her new blog - one dedicated to the food she is encountering on her travels - entitled the digestive trac-k-t.

Can you see it, taste it? Where were you when you ate that fabulous rosetta desert? What did you learn about the town when you ate their famous fish stew?

 I think it’s a great idea. What better way to embrace and anchor yourself in a place than via the digestive tract? or the taste-buds?

For people like my sister, they have the ability to recall towns and places through their visceral memory bank. Her trip through eastern Europe will sound and taste much finer when seasoned with memories of chorbe-de-fasola (bean soup!) than it would by her traumatised memory of being fined by an abrasive Bulgarian guard on a Brashov bus, because she didnt have a ticket.

A fair deal of our Travels are all in the mind. My own approach to travel isnt as broad minded nor as cruisy as my sister or my neices. I have a default position, when out of my comfort zone - when confronted by something out of the ordinary or off the plan I have formulated - I invariably  panic about what will happen, when it will happen if it will happen etc.

For instance, 3 days ago, we were on a ferry from Dubrovnik to Hvar, and the ferry sailed right past the town of Hvar. What!! It was calmly chugging up the coast of an island that looked completely deserted, thick with pine trees and no sign of life. I started to pray. Will we get off the boat? Have we now missed it? Should I have done something to remind them we were on the boat? Have we wasted the accommodation money? Are we instead going to Split further up the Dalmation Coast? What will we do there?

Gab was no good to me, she was off somewhere on the boat, looking at the scenery, photographing, as excited as a child on an adventure. Cruising with the cruisy.

Meanwhile, I am below, praying a mantra,  in a hot head of panic. None of the reasonable facts made their way through the shroud of anxiety.  I forgot how we had checked earlier the ferry was going to arrive at Hvar at 4.00. How the ticket said it was going to Stari Grad (which on the map was on the island of Hvar); how there were a  lot of other people on the boat going to Hvar. None of those facts could stop the panic.  I was left alone with a repetive prayer. Praying for what though? The ferry to turn around? an announcement (in English please)? Anything really.

Gab arrived back down at Deck 4. Come upstairs and see us arrive! smell the pine trees! Feel the breeze! Leave the bags! come on!!! Dont miss it!

So there we were up on Deck 5 watching the coast chug past, redolent with smells of rich green pine. She was none the wiser about where we were going, but she wasnt worried. A woman came up to stand beside us. She was alone, and we three were the only ones on our part of the deck. She smiled watching the island slide past even further.

Are you going to Hvar ? she asked, and then proceeded to explain how the ferry would pull into the old port, and as they had been in the tourist business for over 100 years would ensure we would be safely deposited at our hotel and would we like a photo?   And as we returned to get our bags, Gabby said there is your angel - the answer to your prayers.

Well the island is spectacular, and our taste buds and bodies have been embalmed and delighted with warm waters, delightful flavours, sun rain, sweet wine and good sleeps. Everything the island (which does indeed boast over 100 years as a holiday-health spa destination) promised and much more.

Looking back, as always, I am ashamed of my panic, and disappointed with myself to think my age or experience hasnt changed any of those default reactions I have. But thats me, I guess, and I have to digest that along with everything else this trip is teaching me about.

Hvala Hvar.

Tried to tweet- but there’s a twittering backlog! yikes.

What to do when you can’t tweet?  Blog of course.

Gab and I are travelling around Croatia and today we sorted out the ferry trip awaiting us later in the week that will take us further up the coast and thereafter over to Italy.

This is arguably the most beautiful place I’ve seen in my life. Sure everyone says that - but I mean seriously beautiful.

Picture this: Marble buildings with base reliefs in brass, marble stone road straight up the middle of a town; gargoyles, catholic statues of St Nicholas and a plethora of others, that sit atop a magnificent cathedral; squares filled with umbrella’d cafes and bars, fresh food produce every morning in the square; the most exquisite jewellery made of gold and coral - filigree handworked and competitively priced; pastries that pack the kilos on; a wall walk - of 2 km length that will manage to get the weight off.

This morning we walked for about an hour - past grand old mansions that are now post offices, banks, restaurants or tourist offices. Makes one wonder what sort of life style these croatians had before the war savaged their town.

Each day we trawl for the perfect coffee; each night for the perfect seafood repaste. They work hard for the tourist dollar and we are delighted to be spending it here. Fabulous scampi, prawns, fresh mussells, fish and pasta. Cool beer and house wine in a jug. Go that weight gain.. what a way to live.

Our apartment is buried in the heart of the old town, our landlady a charming woman who laughs when we try to mime our communicative needs - 2 beds not one; ice tray for gin; hallway light control etc. If you come to dubrovnik - you’ll be swamped by people at the boat offering apartments - we were so happy to get this fabulous deal doing it that way. I’ll tell you the details if you plan on visiting her.

For now - a ferry awaits, a seafood dinner and a concert in the old church at th end of the central stradun road.

Dorbra !

We’ve just landed off the ferry in Dubrovnik from Bari in the south of Italy. After a fabulous sleep on the rocking and rolling Adriatic waters.

Our tiny cabin provided the right amount of privacy and peace and recovery from the nightmarish customs passport check we endured at Bari.

After conflicting instructions from the check-in windows, about 300 passengers of varying nationalities all found ourselves in an airless corridor waiting for passport control to open the doors.

Like cattle we were herded for nearly 2 hours in a tight space with no explanation, other than random and agressive waving of the arms. Was the boat delayed, had it sunk, were we stuck at Bari forever? Now and then the Canadians made a run for it,  but were always sent back. There were a handful of clergy in the queue so we had spiritual counselling, and a nun from the queue, dressed in a brown habit handed out sweets to the back-packers - she was possibly looking for vocations but in any event she was a great balm to them.

Finally, either the late boat arrived, or the cleaning was complete, or they decided they’d punished us enough, and the doors were opened and we were practically run through  - some even got through without a passport? No check no question no nothing - oi what does it all mean?  On board we had a couple of stiff drinks and all was good.

Anyway, when the new day arrived we sailed into the delightful town of Dubrovnik that keeps delighting the senses with steep stepped alleys, tiny apartments, charming landladies, very cool internet cafes and a plethora of sightseeing boats in the harbour. Even popped into the church for a quick hail-mary.

The task ahead is to visit the beauty parlour (where I will have to talk Gabbie out of getting a hair dye - lest it turn out bright red like most of eastern europe!) have a swim, walk the wall of the old town and relish this town that seems to have emerged from the mist of misery last night like nirvana.