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Mandala - via Warwick Queensland

At Mandala
by the back door of the former school house
chooks hide in a tiny pen
safe from predator and wild dog
safe in the knowing that Gabrielle
and foxy Millie are a match for any real fox
who might nightly visit and sniff a meal
well fed on scraps and grain

In daylight they safely roam
as chooks in yards are wont
and in company of humans
who also wander beyond
                    fencelines, past vege gardens
                    along creeks which fill and flow
                    and die and slowly empty of
                    ducks and native fish and murmurings
                    until November rains flush another dry season away.

Across the way
A red backed wallaby
colour picked from the palette of rust in the nearby shed
sits and sits as I stand and stare
my camera waiting patiently at maximum aperture
at a shooting speed set for the setting sun
and refuses to look at me
declines to turn
defiantly pretends not to notice me
while all his brothers and sisters flee
bouncing through fields of pale grass
          towards once-were barbed wire fences

Vanuatu Sunday - Nguna Welcome

Four boats, thirty people, luggage, workshop materials and a windy afternoon. The Emua wharf is a length of concrete pushing beyond remnant coral reef. Last time I was here I was staying in a thatched bungalow with Missus A. We had a great four days, each morning waking to see the sun sparkling on the strait of water between us and the island of Nguna. At times Nguna disappeared behind a gossamer of mist and rain. At others it jumped up from the surrounding waters shining like a piece of polished jade. That day it had taken ninety uncomfortable minutes riding in the back of a Toyota Hilux fitted out with wooden bench seats and a canopy. We were on the milk-run. This time we were in a Toyota Hi Ace ten seater and we covered the distance in thirty five minutes.

There are four boats lined up for us to share. Ours is a fourteen foot aluminium fishing dingy with a forward canopy. We sit shoulder to shoulder around the perimeter. Do you have life jackets? I ask the operator. It's okay. It's safe, he assures me and we set off.

We leave from a tongue of concrete and arrive on a sandy beach, met by fifty members of the local village including the paramount chief. He offers our coordinator a cluster of crocus leaves, the plant always used on these occasions. Our leader accepts this offer and after shaking hands offers it back. The agreement is complete. We have been welcomed and we have assured the chief that we come in peace.

Our bags, which have been littering the beach like a pod of beached seals, disappear and the throng dissipates and moves towards the centre of the village. We visitors process along a back path lined with vivid green hedges. As we near the village the sound of a conch shell blasting a long sweet foghorn note sounds out accompanied by shouting. We are being challenged before we enter the village. Again we pass the test and move through a palm fringed arch emerging onto a ridge overlooking a large traditional meeting house twenty five metres long and fifteen wide. It's constructed from huge timbers and ribbed with timber held together with hand woven pandanus ropes. The roof is thatched with thousands of individual clusters of pandanus leaves woven together into metre long flaps which overlay each other. It is open at the front and tapers towards the back. I later learn that this tribe has the whale as their totem and the Nakamal references that shape.

In the space between us and the Nakamal stands a warrior, a man who has applied charcoal to his body to become even blacker. He has become a moonless night. Now the real Kastom welcome begins.

Fifteen men accompanied by the same number of children and a handful of women rush from behind us and, dressed in full skirts of rustling banana leaves and anklets of dried seed pods, begin a circling dance stomping and thrumming to the sound of clacking sticks, chanting and the haunting call of the conch shell. The little ones run around the dancing adults circling them. On a signal they all stop and join the vocal chanted chorus. The little ones who are having a great time miss the cue and there's a pile up as each one bumps into the body in front. The crowd is in stitches. The welcome is complete. The village has welcomed the new arrivees who will spend the next five days as guests in their village.

There is no mains power here. No permanent water supply, no flush toilets, no roads, no motor vehicles. Life is lived by the rising and setting of the sun. The only nods to the modern world are the aluminium and fibreglas boats and their outboard motors lined up along the beach. That and the ubiquitous mobile phone. To my surprise most of the delegates and village leaders carry one and coverage is remarkably good.

Once during the following week I am surprised by the sound of what I guess is a small chainsaw. I hear it for five minutes and then its gone. Occasionally I spot a Yamaha generator quietly humming. It powers our printer and digital projector and a single fluorescent light. The only other evidence of modernity is the power cable bisecting the open space beneath an enormous mango tree as it runs towards the block-built church hall where our workshop will take place.

Franz Josef Glacier

Franz Josef from a distance (left) and closeup (right)

Glacier

Falling from a precipitous sky
Hurtling headlong towards a fragile me
Frothing tumbling popping splashing
A milkshake poured from an almighty tumbler
Flowing nowhere

Destructive urge suspended
In crystalline blue
Awaiting another ice age.

(c) Steve Capelin

Blue ice (left), ice tunnel (right)

Fox Glacier - neighbour to Frans Josef

Never quite there.

Mt Cook

Picton and Queen Charlotte Sound

Queen Charlotte Sound - almost impossible to capture on film. The vistas and secluded coves go on and on and on. When we departed Picton it took an hours driving to escape the inlets which seemed to keep pursuing us.

So much water pounding through the valleys and repleninsing the already fat waterways.

And a clue to my great grandfather Lorenzo and his family's shipboard experience on their journey in 1881. The Edwin Fox was built in 1853 and travelled between Europe, Australia and New Zealand as a cargo and passenger ship (later a coal haulage vessel in New Zealand). It was the last ship to transport convicts to Australia (Western Australia) and carried 180 passengers in steerage class, 20 first class and a crew of 40.

Robert Louis Stevenson's wrote a vivid account of the life of the 'steerage class'passengers during his trip from Britain to Canada in the late 19th century. It was hell.

Magpie Tales 50 Where to from here.

Signs of our times

Mere mortals stand bewitched
before messages from the gods
directing us to new pathways
beyond our comprehension

For more takes on this prompt visit Magpie
Tales or click on the stamp

What's wrong with this picture?

I walked down to the river at the end of Boundary Street yesterday and found myself looking at a scene I didn't recognise. The water, which a week ago had been lapping my front gate a block for the river's edge, was at the bottom of this steep bank. The marker staring me in the face told me I was five metres above water level. There beside me looking equally confused was a handsome water dragon surveying his home.

There's been talk on the radio this week of the old days. People have been talking about remembering when there were large sand bars at Indooroopilly and Kangaroo Point where people swam in a clear river.
This week it's back to the future. At the south Brisbane Sailing club on the West End bend of the river the flood has deposited a huge sandbank, a metre deep and four metres wide. It's beautiful river sand that has been dropped off by the floodwaters as it slowed to navigate this turn. The birds are loving it. I've never seen seagulls and terns relaxing on this point, but they're there in numbers now the water level has dropped. I'd be reluctant to swim here though. The water is still a deep caramel colour carrying debris from upstream.

Muddy Waters - Brisbane

Brisbane has been under water for the past week. For a great set of photos taken in the streets closest to mine visit Brisbane Daily Photo. The photographer, Cara, lives down the road and posts a photo of Brisbane every day of the year. This week she has outdone herself - cleaning, filming and living in the midst of chaos.

I was lucky. Our house was above the floodline. The neighbour had water through their lower level but luckily for us our land rises sharply above their property. I've been busy helping neighbours dump their lives on the footpath, moving tons of mud from my local sailing club and helping pump out a lake of water from under a nearby apartment building. More stories to come over the next few days.

This was the scene in the street next to ours. Unbelievable

Portugal - photos plus questionable commentary

Here's a few images from 10 days in Portugal - in no particular order. (mainly because I can't figure our how to reorder them on this page) The monks in Evora got sick of being rich and lazy and needed to remind themselves and their parishiners of the shortcomings of earthly existence. So they built a chapel of human bones. This is one section of one wall. Fortunately Portugal is not at all like this in general!!Evora is a walled city totally Heritage listed. You can't even change your bowel habits without written permission. They paint thier houses yellow and white which makes ordering paint a lot easier than in Australia. Yellow is supposed to protect from bad spirits.

The Moors loved tiles and geometric design (Islam doesn't approve the depiction of humans or animals) They tile any surface they can find. Saves painting if you run out of yellow or blue or white.Andrea and pigeons and fountain - main square in Lisbon.

Ancient Moor castle in Sintra. You wouldn't want to live there. Too many steps. Too windy. No ensuite to guest rooms.

One of the 7 hills of Lisbon. This tram line takes you to the top. Lisbon loves its trams. I walked up.
There's that castle in Sintra again (on top of the hill). Imagine the difficulties the local postman must have doing his deliveries each day.

A tram - in case you've never seen a tram before.

The top of one of the 7 hills. That's the water in the distance. This garden looks idyllic but in fact was full of beer bottles, disposable cups and wine casks after a big Saturday night. Not all of them were ours.

Well every city needs an arch to celebrate something. In the background you glimpse the streetscape disappearing into the distance.

Central Square in Lisbon from near our apartment. Yes we were central, no doubt about that. In the far distance you'll see Andrea standing in front of the fountain with the pogeons waiting for her portrait.

The main square again showing off the cobble stones. Everywhere black and white cobblestones in geometric patterns. Any city could do this, and what a great way to reduce the unemployment rate. Maybe a century of work across the city ust laying stones. that's flat by the way. It's just designed that way to help the drunks navigate their way home.

At this point I realise how limited and unrepresentative this collection is. But as I am committed to avoiding 'death by powerpoint' I'll leave you there and recommend you visit Portugal yourself. The economy needs your help and the people are welcoming.

Cheers Steve

Turning 60.

Turning 60 is all that's it's cracked up to be. Suddenly everything makes sense. Maturity descends miraculously; memory of events long past crystallise; old friends become recognizable again;

In reality just another day older.

In denial? No .

Years ago I ran a workshop with seniors aged from 60 to 85. They amazed me. I asked them two questions. How old are you? How old do you feel? Invariably they all placed themselves around the early thirties.
I agree with them. I'm still feeling about thirty two.

My theory is that around about that age it all begins to come together. You're no longer a kid. You sense you know something about life and you go for it.

For me it was becoming a father, starting a theatre company, feeling confident enough to front up to seriously important funding bodies (Australia Council etc) and surviving. I know a lot more now but at that time I knew I knew enough to have a go. And let go some of the self doubts. I've let go a lot more in the subsequent 28 years particularly over the last 10 years.

Fifty was good. Sixty is even better!