After Castlemaine staying with my sister, my second night on the road I pitched my tent at Tintinara on a couple square metres of grass called the caravan park; reminded me of the project of a Studio8 colleague which was a series of camp grounds scattered around Woomera townsite on vacant lots, each one managed by the house owner next door.
Wandering around town the next morning I came across this very nice piece of drainage infrastructure - a concrete ditch across an asphalt road.
A parking bay next to the shire offices, the footpath is concrete, the parking bay unpaved. If ound this really appealing. Something about a relaxation of priorities, perhaps...
A couple images of Melbourne to say goodbye with. Boo hoo.
My local public open space...
and behind Fed Square the night of the fringe Soundwalk; high heels clocking up these stairs was a truly beautiful moment in a city soundscape experience...almost makes me think i might enjoy visiting.
yep, that's what a graduate landscape architect looks like... bloody hell, i'm a bit bloody proud of myself now! celebrated my first morning of freedom by reading in bed until noon.
presented "stustainina" to the panel for my portfolio yesterday was my last act as a student at rmit. very looking forward to life outside this particular institution. and this is a shot of the last presentation for structures and materials, monday night.
...there's been some fabulous hormonal studies, that map the hormonal response of men, which actually parallels the hormonal response of women, and you get those sort of love hormones of oxytosin and prolactin and testosterone supressed when a father is involved in parenting closely or even surrounded by the parenting process, so there is that chemical heritage...his prolactin levels go up, his testosterone levels go down...it's a remarkable potential, and it depends on the structuring of society...if you look cross-culturally, the societies that are the most war-like, that have the most fighting, are uniformly - anthropologists have known this for a long time - arethe ones where you have extreme sex-segregation.
promiscuous: has sex with more partners than someone else thinks she should...assiduously maternal...it just wouldn't be prudent to rely on only one male... babies as sensory traps... the presence of a maternal grandmother can halve childhood mortality... these are quotes from a conversationon between Sarah Blaffer Hrdy and Natasha Mitchell today on "All In The Mind"
And the consequences to really engaging with this at a policy level is so exciting. Sarah Blaffer Hrdy Professor Emerita Department of Anthropology University of California, Davis http://www.citrona.com/hrdy/index.html
"You know, they say that every writer, almost every writer, that he or she has a book that they have to write before they can write a book. It's a book that is lying within them that they must get out of their system before they can settle down and ... this is a book I had to write. [Boy On A Wire.]" Jon Doust
For about 2 weeks now things have been good, really quite good, continuously quite good. After an outburst about two weeks ago I got some important messages of support, and since then something in me seems to have clicked. Admittedly I've had a few moments, but they've had traceable causes.
The biggest difference is being off the drugs. I realise now that they were keeping me stuck in a false sense that everything was ok, when it most definitely was not. I have just had to go through the shit, just like everyone else, to get out the other side.
Partly, improvement in my state is due to a renewed sense of hope now I have a sense of home to come back to. And with home a coherent narrative of self. It has been a concern at times that that is an unreasonable expectation, but it's important to me, and that's what is at stake here: a sense of self. So much of my time in the past seems to have been spent flitting from one partially-real self to another, where I have inhabited a part of my personality distinct from the other parts and sometimes the different bits just don't add up together: no core, no contiguous self.
And with home, community, and a place within community. A purpose. I clearly remember the devastation at Carlisle street focused around hopelessness without purpose, and that was at least 10 years ago.
Very early on in therapy a main preoccupation had been drawing a coherent map of my life. I'd construct minutely detailed time-lines, showing months spent in this place or that, who with, how I left, what car I had, how much money, what length my hair was...sometimes trying to construct new countries that might explain absences and actions when there were bits missing, or they were there but the whole just didn't make sense. It was a puzzle to fit all the pieces together and make sense of all these gaps I felt in me. Every time I poked my finger under my ribs or into my thigh I’d touch the edge of a hole; it was disconcerting.
But I just couldn't map the territory, I came away dissatisfied that it was still a piece of two dimensional paper with a couple of lines drawn on it. I don't remember when I gave up trying to map my self.
When I stop whining about rmit I have to admit that one of the greatest liberations I have gained from my studies of landscape architecture has been a sense of the immensity. And with that a realisation that no one person can fix it.
con·tig·u·ous(kn-tgy-s)
adj.
1. Sharing an edge or boundary; touching.
2. Neighboring; adjacent.
3. a. Connecting without a break: the 48 contiguous states.
b. Connected in time; uninterrupted: served two contiguous terms in office.
Always, for as long as I can remember at least, there have been bits of me that fear the actions and words of other bits, worrying they’d say and do things that I'd be completely embarrassed by later, when I returned to 'sanity.' So I screwed the lid down tighter and tighter - which of course meant that there'd be a blowout somewhere else and the most feared things would manifest.
But lately I'm tracking it all, being kinder to the bits, and feeling, for I don't know how long, a sense of wholeness. Iguess in simple terms, it's making friends with the darkness instead of wall-papering over it.
i suppose, growing up surrounded by sheep is not necessarily good practice for living in a city...
An good education is a marvelous thing. And I will be eternally grateful to all those who have given and supported my efforts in taking the opportunity to partake of two exemplary and radical degrees. I am extremely lucky and white, middle class Australian and the rest of it. I shouldn't complain, only 3 weeks left to go. However, about 5 hours ago I was reminded of just how fucking annoying stupid people with too much education can be. Why 'academics' in this course (and i use inverted commas advisedly) can annoy me so fucking much is the undying dedication to obfuscationthat I have had the abject stupidity to subject myself to for four cunt years. 'What do you mean by "expanded field"?' 'If you read the course guide which is a document developed by the department outlining the tripolar model against which we must align our practice [your what, you academic?!] and which all we lecturers have had to position ourselves against, within this tripolarity, and boy does that make staff meetings exciting blah blah blah and use it to position your own projects.' 'I've read the course guide twice and I still don't understand what you mean by "expanded field"? I know what expanded might mean, but field has so many possibilities...do you mean a paddock that's getting bigger?' 'Well there no right or wrong answer, it's a useful way of positioning yourself and helping you to examine where you sit.' 'In a big fucking paddock.' other student: 'I think if it resonates with you, then it is useful, and it might help you to think about your work and to position yourself.' 'So, if it doesn't resonate with me i should just ignore it. It's not going to resonate because I've got no fucking idea what it is that you're talking about.' 'You could try Googling it, Christine.' Yes. Right. Only sixty one thousand hits. Right. Now fuck off.
Caught this guy, Andrew Lucas, talking on Bush telegraph this morning, about changing suburbs away from fossil fuel dependency, growing food locally, etc.
If you go to the end of the article and click on the listen to this link, you'll hear some really inspiring ideas.
A view from a morning of my stay in the caravan at Panorama. Forgive my melodrama, six weeks is no time at all; but this morning I just can't shake the feeling that the prison I am in is closing too tight. I stictched this together because I needed to feel that what I long for is really real. If only I was clever enough to live in this walnut and count myself a king of infinite space...then I suppose I wouldn't be longing, I wouldn't be living for a future elsewhere, I wouldn't be dreaming of projects that imagine a new world of possibilities, using trees and moss and communal spaces terraced roof gardens, retaining walls as houses, places where one might have an opportunity to live with your neighbors, in a street that is the extension of the house...it is a horror to wander in an empty city, morning after morning, evening after evening, street after street after suburb after highway after everyone has disappeared. Highlight of my ramblings was a Sunday afternoon soccer in the local park. A beautiful game, simple, elegant. Hume in the white, all-Iraqi boys. Played Preston (Darebin) in orange. 3-1 Hume, those boys were fast and pre-cise! Each verbal encounter is a shining light in my pedestrian world. I don't want to live in this box anymore!
Things got a little bit furry this morning, I believe, so she headed out to the edge of the sea. It was a beautiful day, the rain sharp and cold, the wind whipping in blue. It was a return to where it all began - journey back to heartland. So much has happened for her, so many changes, new words, a new interior construction and sense of wholeness. When she came back to the city a few weeks ago she talked suspiciously of a re-dis-intergration, and I know at time there have been moments when it feels like the centre will not hold and she will return to psychic anarchy. But through practice she's remained thus far, intact. At times I've watched her marching to a mantra that must be at each moment repeated, holding to the edge, her knuckles white, lips white. She walks a line sharp and fragile, triangular weathered sandstone, balancing one foot in front of the other, bare foot to grip, repeating at each step the mantra, perhaps not tomorrow, but nevertheless in this moment free, and free now and free now and now and now and now. Arms wide. The rain is cold, it is fine to feel on skin. If I see her again I'll say hello.
William Butler Yeats (1865 - 1939). This written 1919.
The Second Coming
Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand; Surely the Second Coming is at hand. The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi Troubles my sight; somewhere in sands of the desert A shape with lion body and the head of a man, A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun, Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it Reel shadows of indignant desert birds. The darkness drops again; but now I know That twenty centuries of stony sleep Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle, And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
5
10
15
20
Printings: The Dial (Chicago), November 1920; The Nation (London), 6 November 1920; Michael Robartes and the Dancer (Dundrum: Cuala, 1921); Later Poems (London: Macmillan, 1922; 1924; 1926; 1931).
Not a lot has been happening, mainly study, a little bit of walking, and a fair bit of that other stuff that I tend to do quite a lot of. Most of my blogging has been on Sustainina, I am intent on engaging with this history course, and getting as much out of it as I can. That means a full and positive presence. I do tend, however, to get sucked into computer [no] land. I forget to read and analyze but prefer to synthesize and create, so I might give it a bit of break for a while. Something about blogging makes me want to post pretty pictures. It's going well, I'm feeling really good about it. The closeness of the finishing line is making me just a touch excited. Only 7 weeks to go!
As part of my landscape studies I am starting a new blog called SUSTAININA. It is partly to meet the portfolio requirements of the History unit, and partly to question what it means to be a Landscape Architect. Please come and look http://history03portfolio-c-king.blogspot.com/ and contribute inflammatory comments! I'll eventually submit it for marking, so the more controversial the better!
Above: The penetrating/Wind Below: The penetrating/Wind
Turn conflict into creative tension. The situation is already changing.
If you are traveling and don't have a place of your own, this means subtly penetrating from outside. It means being humble and hiding your virtues. Subtle Penetration pares away in order to realize the Way.
The rain is gentle even in the city you can find the sky. Smile when it helps, cry when it hurts.
Broken hearted again, loving you still. A past shadowlike underfoot.
I wish you were here, I'd tell you all about it.
Even in the city the sky can find your face.
The rain is gentle, even in the city you can find the sky. Smile when it helps, cry when it hurts. Broken hearted again, loving you still. Reminded of the past and how it is better left shadowlike underfoot.
I wish you were here, I want to tell you all about it, want to ask why you're sorry, when it's me that did wrong. why am i so sad, when were you born? Because I don't know anything. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. It really doesn't matter.
I want to walk out of here, I want to be free. I have to give up to learn this lesson. Lessons one two and three. Am I only a student - nothing else defining me? It's all down to me, they say. Choose, they say. Just leave it all behind. Set yourself free.
Lesson one two and three.
Sunday, August 2, 2009
"Adversity is like a strong wind.
It tears away from us all but the
things that cannot be torn,
so that we see ourselves
as we really are."
Arthur Golden
Don't let what you are being get in the way of what you might become. Harry Palmer
We come to love not by finding a perfect person, but by learning to see an imperfect person perfectly. Sam Keen
Love grows by giving. The love we give away is the only love we keep. The only way to retain love is to give it away." Elbert Hubbard
The way is not in the sky, the way is in the heart.
For the traveler who knows his direction, there is always a favorable wind. Stuart Avery Gold, ping
"When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy. When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight." Kahlil Gibran
"Adversity is like a strong wind. It tears away from us all but the things that cannot be torn, so that we see ourselves as we really are." Arthur Golden
It was murder and negation. I was refusing to dive into the ocean of my life, to really feel it. And Why did I not see that at the time? Because I already had but a tenuous connection to my emotions. I was absent. So it was easy to make the choice not to live, not to feel life. So easy to refuse to be woken up and become present. One thinks one has no choice, but everything is a choice: every movement, every moment of inactivity, every thought. Every No, every Yes. Every pawn has a place in the battle, it's not just the queen that matters.
So I made the choice not to live, I chose to avoid life, to avoid emotion, to avoid reproduction and everything that goes with being a parent and a co-parent. I chose the selfishness of avoidance. As if it was my decision to make! I thought an abortion was an experience. It was not. It was a denial of experience. It was in both ways, for the child and for me, a negation of life.
And where did it get me? Absolutely no where except further inside the hole inside my own mind. Negation of life, negation of experience, avoidance of pain, when so much learning comes through pain. Avoidance of love and joy and trust and growth, of a shared life.
And do I regret it? No. It is impossible to regret. One is what one is through the habit of living. I can only apologize...
One thing about cities is the flooding multitude of stories being written and rewritten one over the top of another. Some stories get completely obliterated, some remain despite their irrelevance. Despite being totally ridiculous some remain because of how they appear. The mosaic of time and culture is what makes cities (potentially) so exciting.
Carlton Cemetry, Lygon St.
Craigieburn Grasslands
(I'm searching for a way to make life in this chaos bearable!)
Thursday, July 16, 2009
The Melbourne sunset is that interesting orange colour because the air is so thick with smog, I think, sitting in my car in peak hour traffic. I've been here nearly 24 hours. Gosh I miss Albany!
forced to leave pieces of this new place behind. But each time I leave it’s bigger in me, surer,
the World shown me, in me. I'm surprised
I didn't notice it before, it's so good. I suppose because it fits so neatly into this one, underneath
shells and tied to lamp-posts
And each well-scripted line
surprised I did not find it,
When these tunes make its transluscent space.
You can tell the world I was good; second, that I left a small place open for you.
Before I sleep show me. Farewell.
Show me the World is really good.
I leave something of this newly created thing on your window ledge. The smell of honey.
I long for you until the sun goes down or until I find something to occupy myself, and then I am no longer inside you. Free of you like fish are free of the shore.
Today the season’s first finally ripe Ballardia, pink taste in my mouth.
Some time later the astringency.
He risesfresh and dripping, magically opposed to death.
He sinks and I am left alone on the surface, looking all around me in confusion.
Christ smells miraculously fresh.
This is where you do not notice decayed flesh. I have ridden high on open time
Plateau after overwhelming crisis
Where it was impossible to go forward into the maw of defeat
And retreat was certain failure.
The general gathered strength by turning inward and finding hope, repose.
I look forward to you and then I do not mind.
Now I have turned around and I am not so covered up,
not so earthed.
Something blooms. I'll only do this one last time. And once again perhaps. I lived
so deep I almost don’t feel this pain of forgetting.
This is my tears without leaving anything out.
(I forget I'll feel the pain.)
I lived so deeply inside your tunnels. The bright night swims down to me bursts like fish upon the net.
Ah! Bright night swim to me!
I leave you my tears.
A perfect shape.
It fits me so much cleaner this time.
And then more mature, and then fruitful.
I ripen alone, forced to leave, forced to fruit
As if the only strength I have is to oblige.
Can continue to do so but this would be the last time I stop. I am healed.
...leave something.
I lean towards you until sunset.
"I'm selfish, impatient and a little insecure. I make mistakes, I am out of control and at times hard to handle. But if you can't handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don't deserve me at my best." — Marilyn Monroe
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After Castlemaine staying with my sister, my second night on the road I pitched my tent at Tintinara on a couple square metres of grass called the caravan park; reminded me of the project of a Studio8 colleague which was a series of camp grounds scattered around Woomera townsite on vacant lots, each one managed by the house owner next door.
Wandering around town the next morning I came across this very nice piece of drainage infrastructure - a concrete ditch across an asphalt road.
A parking bay next to the shire offices, the footpath is concrete, the parking bay unpaved. If ound this really appealing. Something about a relaxation of priorities, perhaps...
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