Show & tell

This is an exercise in procrastination. Mel rang with a job idea for me, & I said I'd think about it and ring back with more questions. Suddenly it seems the universe (as we say here on the North Coast) is pushing me in the direction of actually getting off my bum and out into the world. It's a bit sad really. No more hibernating in my little office in the hills...So, before I settle down to think, as it were, I just thought I really HAD TO add to my blog. So with nothing of note to say, here are a few snapshots from my life...This one is looking out the window as I travel home from Brisbane after a week at work.

For my birthday (a couple of weeks ago now), I had a soiree - inviting people to bring along a performance of some sort. Matt is in the middle of producing a CD of children's songs. So he led all the kids in a rousing chorus of 'My mummy, who grew me in her tummy, I know it sounds funny but it's true...' which was very cute and had them all giggling. There were six little girls at my party, they had the best time, creating a secret kids only zone in the bedroom and screaming with despair when it was finally time to go home. Torn apart so brutally at the start of such beautiful friendships...how terrible to be a child at the mercy of adults' whims...

The next day Lovergirl and I went for a picnic in the national park we can see from our deck. It was a freezing day...okay not freezing by Melbourne standards but if I had owned gloves I would have had them on. We cooked our sausages (here is Lovergirl reading the Saturday papers and waiting for lunch to be served), ate them quickly and hightailed it back home, where we lit a yummy fire.

Last Sunday Lovergirl ran a workshop. She's a faculty member at a training institute for a particular therapeutic approach. It was a family day so there was a bunch of us, apprehensive, curious or simply bored (in the case of a couple of adolescent girls, whodid warm up as the workshop went along) who went along to see what our family members actually do when they go off for weekends and come back all radiant with purpose and clarity and centredness.
This week in philosophy we talked about three states of something, I'm not sure what exactly, being or energy or something, called Goonas. It's from the Bhagavad Gita (so therefore must be true...).
Sattwa: Is a meditative or illuminated or peaceful state. Sunsets have lots of sattwa, also cathedrals and so on. I reckon deserts have sattwa but a lot of people hate deserts.
Rajas: is the moving or creating state. Our culture emphasises this.
Tamas: is the regulating or stopping state. Sleep is a tamas state. Also death.

The idea is that you need a balance of all three but we all tend to one state or another. My homework this week is to notice what state we are in at different times. I think I find the North Coast a tamas region for me - good for slowing down, or retiring.