George Johnston | Author

Fiction Stories Verse

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Story tellers

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We are all storytellers, gathered around the fire

fired up by limited memory, unlimited by possibility

What lies beyond the fire glow?

Made up, made of, limited memory, unlimited possibility.

We are made to sit around the fire in each other’s hearts

Emotional echoes resonate long after memory fragments

lose any connection to lived reality.

What is made up is made of limited memory unlimited possibility.

But around the fire, around the safe place

of a limited community, unlimited possibility

connects and reconnects memory fragments

with the check and balance of other storytellers

other sets of ears hear the bits that bring them life.

Only in a community of real people in a physical space

can there be the place, the safe space

to develop as storytellers, as people, as all gather around

fired up with the imagination and the courage to take

raw fragments of memory

and live as the author of our own stories.

This is not a solitary journey

for the story not told goes nowhere and does nothing

which would be a shame because it is amazing

just how much, just one story

can bring life in so many different ways

Gather up your stories and do tell

Fishfull Thinking

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Beneath the hat
his face is red
his nose painted white
his singlet curved
ripped and torn
grey in early light

Perched on rock
patrolled by crabs
waves besiege his ledge
his territory marked
by esky, bait and a flagless pole
 hung over the edge

He held the pole
with meaty paws and tree trunk arms
his face a total blank
a dull expression often seen
on people queuing in a bank

So why do this?
What is his quest?
Here now I’ll take time
to guess.

He may search for rest by sea
to dream by waves alone
he may meditate in peace
away from mobile phone
viewing another world
from the safety of the rock

Of course his purpose may be different
he may have another wish
he may long to make
just one story true
by catching a single fish

The things that broke you

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Recollect the things that broke you
shaped you, made you into who you are today
Burrow deep inside to meet and mourn
who you were, who you could have been
to live with who you are in the light of today
and be sad and happy and washed by tears
that flow from pain and sadness and relief and
all the temporary things that come and go with
everyday life, with every life… and there is the thing
that phrase ‘every life’, everyday every life
has some recollection of the things that
broke, shaped and made what is here today
burrow deep inside to meet the things that broke you
and meet every life as being just like you
even if you can’t burrow inside to meet
and fully connect who they were
who they could have been
and who they are today
Respect the other, the mother , the father
the brother, the sister and as you have
done first for yourself do for them also
Walking on the same beach
with the ocean that ebbs and flows
dredging up from the deep
the lost things that wait for recollection
and all you do is walk together

Making connections

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I am sitting in my seat with my head turned to the left. It rests on the window as I look down. We are at thirty five thousand feet above the ground which is a map transformed into reality. Turbulence makes the plane shake laterally and I can easily imagine pockets of warm and cold air mixing like the different layers I felt while snorkelling on Magnetic Island. These are the layers of reality that are not seen but are certainly felt.

Beneath me the coastal rivers are mud veins that spread sediment across the flat brown landscape. The heart of the country is huge and beats slowly to its own rhythm. A light brown line stretches from horizon to horizon. It is just one of the long roads that cross this country. I wonder what it is like to drive across that desolate place. Maybe there is someone down there driving their car across that vast distance. A rooster tail of dust feathers out behind them which does not trouble the cattle dog that sits in the back. The driver holds the wheel with one hand in the casual twelve o’clock position. He is listening to the rural report on the ABC. If he glanced up he would see me though I am just visible as a contrail. He would see just a light white line that stretches from horizon to horizon.

Now I know this could be seen as daydreaming or idle speculation but somewhere out there is a driver crossing this vast land. As a writer our job can be making the connections that people do not always see. We uncover the layers of reality that are not always seen but are certainly felt. It is not something that we can tell you but we can show you.  All sorts of turbulence can shake you day and the day you map out is always transformed by reality. Our hope as writers is that we can show you something you might not have noticed.

In a different light

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There are no fish here to see
No fish to see as murky water
has sand in suspension floating
obscuring anything beneath.
This is the jetty at Picnic bay
it points towards Townsville
we look back along the structure
back to the shore where
the deep shade of the fig trees
invites us to shelter from
the heat and humidity
No fish to see here
maybe in a different light
but not now, not here
we climb the two headlands
in the heat and humidity
two vantage points to look across
the expanse of water and sky, and land
and it is good but hot, so hot
our clothes cling to us as we
cling to the notion to come back
and see this place in a different light
At night the jetty is lit
above and below the water
Blue lights attached on the jetty
deep below the water line
Attract a multitude of fish
So many shapes dart back and forth
we gaze into the blue
Amazed by the transformation
of seeing a place
In a different light.

Waiting…

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Beneath a dark sky Brisbane airport became wet as the morning shower became rain. Behind a variety of masks people held in check their expectations. Above them within the thick clouds planes held in holding patterns circled. Beneath the clouds the thoughts contained within the stranded travellers circled endlessly. When would circling stop and the journey begin?

Time moves slowly when you watch it. It doesn’t watch you and cares not for your attention. It just is. Circumstances just are. The morning progressed, the people didn’t. They remained stranded in time and place. But delay is not denial and in time the wait would be over. For some the relief of movement lightened the load even as they strained to move upright after so long as human pretzels curled over their phones. Along with everyone else we boarded the plane.

I met a lady on a deadline. For her the clock was still ticking loud in her head even as the engine whine rose in pitch and we thundered down the runway. Pressed into our seats we accelerated hard and rose through the soft white clouds that obscured all sense of motion. She closed her eyes and willed the plane a burst of extra speed so that she would not miss her friend’s funeral.

I will never know how her day progressed but I do know that tomorrow her delay would be just another story to tell. There are many stories that are never told. They circle endlessly in the imagination. Writing stories is not done by forcing them into existence. They wait to be discovered by checking our expectations at the door and practicing presence that is to say being fully present in all circumstances. 

Does anyone feel like sharing how they draw from experience to write? How do you stay in the moment to harness something good out of your circumstances?

Mercy Ships Part 5

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(Fufu is made by pounding the Cassava root into a paste.)

Emotional memory packs a punch. It lasts long after an experience has soaked into who I am. I remember so many emotional experiences from my years with Mercy Ships. Now I don’t use the word emotional to refer to grand mountain top experiences. I am talking about the diverse range of people and places that nudged my understanding of the world outward. Mercy Ships has taken me to eighteen countries, nine of them in Africa. Another country is just a shaded shape on a map until you step foot on the gritty dirt and walk with the people who live in a very different culture. Being on the ship for my DTS partly prepared me for this. I started in Reception.

In Reception I dealt with European, North American, Asian and of course African people. Everyone had a different accent, different words, even different ways of writing the alphabet and on a deeper level different ways of thinking about the world. For a week, I volunteered with the village medical team.  Initially I tried doing triage where I was quite confounded when each person seemed to have “body aches.”  We were always trying to ensure that things didn’t get lost in translation. This would take time and patience and of course a little mercy; mercy on ourselves and on others.

One of the first countries we visited was Ghana. Ghana is a tropical West African nation with a reputation for friendly people. I found myself walking through open air markets that sold food that was new to me. In the absence of refrigeration they sold a chocolate that had something in it to stop it from melting. Unfortunately that made it taste a little like candle wax. Yum. Another food was fufu which is a paste made from cassava, a root crop. I thought it tasted like wallpaper glue. Of course when I think about it people from other countries often found the taste of Aussie Vegemite disgusting.

At that time the ship was not air conditioned so it felt like living in a hot tin can. Getting my feet on the ground and looking around the ports of Tema and Takoradi on the weekends was something I enjoyed. We did have a few air conditioned vehicles that could be lifted by crane off the ship. They were used when a team from the ship had to venture further afield. I made several trips with those teams to lend a hand and I mean that literally as I with the puppet team. Kneeling in the dirt on a hot steamy day making my puppet dance to a song that a translator had introduced, well it was surprisingly rewarding. Hearing laughter and seeing smiling faces needed no translation.

Behind the smiles there was something that took time to see. I knew that living standards were different but that difference was in what I did not see rather that what was visible. Many of the houses were made of concrete blocks and had corrugated iron roofs. In the country they were often mud brick houses with thatched roofs. The thing that was often missing was running water. I had running water on the ship. Many people did not have the basics that I took for granted. That is of course the whole reason for Mercy Ships, to provide health care where it is either insufficient or nonexistent.   Seeing the reality of this need packed an emotional punch for me. I don’t remember all of the details about my time with Mercy Ships but I do know that I now have my own hard-to-define body ache.  It sounds like a cliché to say you feel someone else’s pain but it is the beginning of mercy – after all I did not choose to be born into a wealthy country. I hope my meaning is not lost in translation. Have a little mercy on yourself and others for we are all the same under the skin.

Mercy Ships Part 4

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Looking back on my ten years with Mercy Ships I see a kaleidoscope of recollections. Places and faces come in and out of focus. In writing my story I have no wish to look back through rose-coloured glasses, nor do I want to over emphasise the things that were difficult for me. I remember my first sight of people coming on, then later filing off the ship healed. In time I would get to know some of them and then they would be gone again. Memory has its limits and from this distance of time I do remember much but the order of events and the specific details are sometimes hazy. At the heart of this story though I clearly remember how a little bit of mercy can transform lives.

As I write this I can hear the sound of the surf and the wind through the trees. I am at Rainbow Beach in South East Queensland. I have Mercy Ship pictures on my lap top and the glow of colour from them lights my face in the fading light after sunset. When I framed those pictures all those years ago I did not realize how valuable they would become. When you photograph a scene you are choosing what’s worth remembering. Today I value every opportunity to capture the essence of the moment as tomorrow it will become part of a story worth remembering.

 I framed some pictures yesterday at Poona Lake, a beautiful freshwater lake in the middle of a rainforest that somehow manages to grow on sand. The foot prints that I left behind will wash away but the memory of floating in the cool water watching little yabbies (tiny lobsters) dart around will stay with me for a long time. I switch off the lap top and in the darkness am amazed at the massive contrast between my life in Australia and my previous life on the Anastasis.

The Anastasis is now gone, broken up and gone. The memories associated with it have not gone; they live on in so many people. Yesterday I stood beside the propeller of a ship that for a while was well know in this part of the world. The propeller is one small part of the Cherry Venture, a ship which ran aground here and became a tourist attraction. As the sea rusted the wreck into memory, people would souvenir parts of it until it was no longer deemed to be a safe place to go. It was removed and now it’s just a story. But stories do matter; they are how we understand the world. If you have been on the Anastasis you would have collected something that was precious and evocative to you. Your memory may not be perfect but your stories are worth collection. As I look back and remember my time with Mercy Ships I realize that right now there are people still over there looking out on difficult circumstances. Can there ever be a time when there is no need for healing in this world? For a while I was part of a team that brought mercy to people who desperately needed it. Gorome was one of those people.

Gorome was in her teens, but there was no giggling with friends at school about boys for her.  In fact, she did not go to school.  She tried when she was younger, but the cruel comments were too much. Gorome was born with one of the most common birth defects – a cleft lip.  Her upper lip had a split in it that extended up to her nostril and inside to include the roof of her mouth. The surgery that could have been performed while she was still a baby was not affordable or even available.  So she hid away from the world, looking after her younger siblings and helping with the housework.  She dreamed of an ordinary life where she can go out during daylight and not have to cover her face to avoid the ever-present stares of all who see her deformity.  But the skilled medical team on the Anastasis transformed her face and her life with a relatively simple two hour surgery.  This girl’s transformation reminds me of what is possible. I know so many times healing is not so obviously visible. That’s why we tell stories of hope. That’s why I will draw together ten years of experience into this series on my life with Mercy Ships. Hope heals.

Mercy Ships Part 3

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With her permission, I am writing about my wife’s experiences with the Christian charity, Mercy Ships. This is part three.

I had mostly forgotten about the awkward self consciousness that happened when I first stood up to the public scrutiny of performing in front of people. I am back on the Canary Islands. After my first three months on the ship it was time to serve Mercy Ships on dry land. When I chose to be part of this outreach team I thought I would have been able to hide my face and speak through puppets to children. The reality in front of me was not the reality I envisaged in my head.  I am performing to Spanish speaking adults and I know that my face could be revealing my feelings and my body is probably looking dorky. But with Mercy ships when there is a job to do, we learn to forget about ourselves and just get it done. This challenge would seem trivial after I had spent ten years with Mercy Ships. But it is still 1994 and I am illustrating the gospel message wearing garishly bright baggy trousers and a white tee shirt while a handful of people and a startled dog watch us. I could treat the dog if necessary as I have been formally trained as a Veterinary Surgeon.  But I am operating on a different level today standing on this beach outside in the sun, outside of my comfort zone. The strange thing is that I am learning so much by doing the thing that was not my first choice. I came to serve on a ship but here I am back where it all started on the island where I first came on board the Anastasis.

The Canary Islands lie 100 km west of Morocco. This subtropical place is a collection of eight main islands that is geographically part of Africa but politically and economically connected to Spain. Before I left the ship to travel across these islands I had to decide what role I would play when I came onboard again. I gravitated to what I thought I knew. As well as choosing the ship drama team as one of my preferences, I also chose working in Reception. Some of the Reception duties would be similar to what I have done as a Vet. I can answer the phone, I can greet people, but would the reality in my head match the reality I would experience?  I enjoyed my time on the Canary Islands but I was also very keen to step back onboard the ship. We spent one uncomfortable night sleeping at an airport because we had arrived late in the day and our connecting trip to another island was very early the following morning. I could never know when I would step outside of my comfort zone. I did know that this new life was for me because after the fact it felt good to be a little stretched.

Stepping into a new life takes time and it was in this time and on these islands that I had to continue to take baby steps into forgetting myself and just acting confident. Feeling confident would come after acting confident. In drama there was a lot of acting. I remember almost stepping into the path of a car when crossing a road as they drove on the opposite side of the road to what I was used to in Australia. So yes I soon sensed the need to be cautious as I stepped into my new life on the ship. It could be exhilarating and challenging at the same time.

Reception would be my first job on the Anastasis. In Reception I would see so many people file on board the ship. Many had their faces deformed by life threatening illness and I could see in their faces fear and hope. Many had been shunned because of what they looked like and in some communities people believed that their illness was the result of demon possession. Just the act of stepping onboard a ship took bravery as many had never been in a large structure in their life. I would see many of these people file off the ship healed, their faces changed forever. I would be forever changed by my time aboard the ship. I would eventually run Reception myself but in 1994 I could not know that this would be just the start of a long journey that would take me to so many places. As I forgot about how I might be perceived by others, I gained the freedom to choose my next Mercy Ships adventure some days and on other days be ok when the adventure chose me.

Mercy Ships Part 2

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With her permission, I am writing about my wife’s experiences with the Christian charity, Mercy Ships. You can read part one in my previous post.

For the last four years I have cocooned myself off from new experiences and have tried to make my life safe. My vain attempts to deal with the grief I felt from my mother’s death led me to hold people at a distance, and I had been gradually pushing God away also. I wasn’t really close to my mother but her early death changed me inside. Witnessing her suffering was very hard. The discipleship training that I was to experience on the ship would teach me many things, one of which would be the discipline of serving people in need and being with them in their suffering. A Mercy Ship is a hospital ship that provides essential medical care in areas of the world where there is little hope of healing.

In my first months of training on board the Anastasis I struggled as an introvert whose inner life had become walled up compartments of pain and loss. I would leave four years of grief behind and find ten years of richly rewarding life experience, but at the start I could have no way to knowing this. I would live on a floating hunk of metal that contained a melting pot of humanity confined on board a vessel just 159 metres long. It was a melting pot in every sense. People from all nations, walks of life and cultures rubbed sweaty shoulders together in the hot cramped confines of a former Italian cruise ship. I was here to move out into the wide world to meet the needs of others but I felt compressed in the narrow confines of the ship where my need for healing initially held me back. I was here to move forward into a new life but even on the steep staircases between levels I had to crab sideways to pass people going down or up.

I sought to spend as much time as possible up on deck away from the claustrophobia of narrow halls and small rooms. It was a cooler, quieter space. On the ship I thought my window on the world would be opened up to me straight away but the little round port holes did not reveal much of the outside world. Navigating the low ceilings I quickly learned to protect my head from injury and my feet from various trip hazards. Navigating so many new relationships on board the ship would be an essential skill if I was to chart a course between the personal space I needed and the public space where I could serve the needs of others with Mercy Ships.

 A joke comes to mind, a Polish doctor, an American, a Swiss lady and an Australian walk into a small cabin; yes, that was my first cabin on board and no, I wasn’t sure what punch line would be at the end of the joke. It was not always clear if I should laugh or cry as life just came at me with a loud vibrancy which was exhilarating yet also confronting. I had a love/ hate relationship with the noisy dining room where everyone ate in shifts because of the limited space, but up on deck the sight of the sea and the sky invoked in me a sense of peace. In the open space I was reconnecting with the faith I sought to revive. But these times would be limited as ship board tasks had to be done; an ageing vessel needs ongoing maintenance. We had to clean everything, to help in so many ways that there was always something to do.

My first port of call was Senegal and my first three months went from November to January so that meant for me a Christmas like no other. I was welcomed into the cabin of a Canadian family and I felt at home with their kindness and generosity. At the Christmas dinner I chose to be part of the team that served the meal and as I enjoyed this simple task I felt the walls within me crumble a little more. In time I would move from carrying dinner plates to cleaning the bilge plates in the noisy engine room. There I was, a former veterinary surgeon working with a Japanese anaesthetist in the bowels of a ship. Over the next ten years I would get to do so many things from scuba diving under the ship to handling customs issues. At the end of my first three months I had made the transition to ship life and I was beginning to hope that Mercy Ships would be the life for me.

Mercy Ships Part 1

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With her permission, I am writing about my wife’s experiences with the Christian charity, Mercy Ships. Come aboard the Anastasis, a ship gone to history but doubtless not forgotten by the many dedicated people who served onboard. What was it like to have this experience?  Let’s find out…

There is another life for me across the sea, beyond the horizon. It is beyond my comprehension. I can see it just a little in people who have been there and come back different, changed, better. I am looking across the horizon now and I am focusing on a ship as it gradually approaches Brisbane.  It is a container ship pregnant with maybe cars or other consumer goods. I wonder what life will be like contained within the metal walls of a ship. I will be heading out to sea myself but first I have to say goodbye. My father, a quiet and deliberative man is not given to strong manifestations of emotion. My brother is also a restrained presence. I know that they will miss me and that I will miss them. They are good people but it is time to say goodbye. I have done this before. I have been here before, saying goodbye and wondering what will come next.

I said goodbye years before when I began my epic journey in my little car to an exotic location across the horizon. Brisbane to Adelaide seems like a small journey compared to what I am about to embark on but at the time it was all new to me. I would work as a vet for many years before I decided to say goodbye to that life. I said goodbye to my mother when she left this life too early. That goodbye was protracted and painful. That was four years ago now. It is 1993. It is time to go. I think that I will be away for a few months. I think that those months will change me. They will, but months will turn to years and the years will take me so far away that from where I am now that today will seem like a dream that happened to someone else.  Across the sea another life beckons. My new home will be a ship but my new life will not be contained within its metal walls. That lies beyond my comprehension at the moment. So let me tell you what I thought I knew then about my new home, the Anastasis.

The Anastasis was the hospital ship used by the Christian humanitarian organisation, Mercy Ships. Anastasis is the Greek word for resurrection. I would come to life serving on this ship but that is all ahead of me now as I begin my long journey to meet her. She started life as an Italian Ocean Liner in 1953. After extensive renovations she would become a specialist Hospital ship from 1978 to 2007. Sitting in Brisbane airport in 1993 I am about to fully leave behind my speciality. I still wonder what a burnt-out vet can offer the world. The extensive renovations within me are yet to occur so along with my bags I have a portion of old anxiety to carry with me. I won’t be renamed like the ship but I will constantly be repurposed on board. None of this is visible to me as I sit in the airport. Airports would become familiar territory over the next few years.

I fly Brisbane to Singapore, Singapore to Madrid, Madrid to Teneriffe.  I sleep the last portion of the journey and wake on the plane as we descend to Tenerife.  The sight of a snow covered volcano outside the rounded window makes me doubt that I am on the right aircraft. Later that day I would doubt if I am the right person for this new life when I can’t open the doors on an elevator. All elevators open automatically all over the world don’t they?  I sleep walk into a city that is an eclectic mixture of old and new. I can’t speak the language and I have three days before I can enter the ship which is already docked in port. I will just be a student on the ship. My initial tenure is five months.  I haven’t set foot on the ship but I am already adrift in a sea of unfamiliar faces and customs. I seek the familiar and eat at MacDonald’s. The comfort food sustains me. I haven’t yet understood how much the unfamiliar can nurture me. That lies ahead. Tomorrow I will step on board the Anastasis and the wider world of Mercy Ships. 

Expectation

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What did you expect to find here?
On this winding road that took you
to the top where the air is cooler
the trees are greener and a carpet
of leaves colour the wet mud floor
Expectation is what you decided
would be there before it discovered you
and moved the goal posts…no
it changed the goal posts
for there is no goal…no score to measure
Trees compete for a space of sky
Bell birds compete to fill the air
with the sound of so many voices
Blended into orchestral harmony
and you are in harmony
with the quest that finds you
When you follow the winding road
without the weight of expectation.

Content

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Content waits for me
for my compulsive
finger touch to flick
and scroll on and on
and on and on with
plans and predictions,
someone’s predilections
there is forever more
calling for me on my feed
but what I have
outside the door
before the light has lit
this hungry world
and its appetite for
more and more
is to be content
in what I have
in who I am
in where I stand
content in cool
predawn air
with no plan
for that was done
yesterday and
waits on the bench
with the rest of
yesterday now shed
like a snake skin
like rumpled covers
on the bed
I sleep, I dream and
I am fed
before a morsel
has touched my lips
it dawns on me
I dawn on it
at break of day
old habits broken
and all without a word
read or spoken
I am content.

Southern Cross

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Some people see a cross but I see a kite tethered to the ground by two stars that belong to a different constellation. From the end of light to a bright new day, it moves up and down. It can dip low on the horizon but it always rises up again just like a kite flown over the earth.

But its journey is our journey as it is actually our world turning that makes it appear to move across the night sky. We make patterns out of the stars based on two things; our position as an observer and our constructed reality or story that we attach to what we see. We live in an objective universe but we perceive that universe through our own stories. We live in a ‘Storyverse’. The best way to move into that Storyverse is to look at it from the outside and the inside. My book ‘Into the Storyverse’ tells a story about someone’s struggle, through traditional narrative and verse.

We see a story from the outside and the inside. We see outside to the stars and inside to the observer. I have no intention to change what anyone sees. The Southern Cross will always be the Southern Cross for it exists in the stories that have accumulated over the years until it seems that they are just objective reality, fixed in the sky. But most of the stars in the sky are great distances from each other and the pattern we see is totally dependent on our position in the Storyverse. ‘Into the Storyverse’ will be published later this year. Till then take some time to avoid over exposure to dreadful pandemic stories and be still under the cool night sky.

There are other stories out there waiting to be seen and heard. Watch this space.

The Black Hole

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What follows is a dialogue of sorts between two people.

Billie:
I stumbled into a black hole, a time and place when I had surgery after surgery. I could not see beyond the black hole. The hole got bigger and I grew into it. The hole had opened in that place between the past and the future where life should flourish. It was defined by pain. The present was no gift at that time. No simple reassuring phrases would cut it. Time revolved around resolving the pain, ending the suffering.

But my words stated intentions and I intended to stay positive. Easier said than done I suppose. What do you do when you are lying in a hospital bed? Not much. I had visitors of course. Some talked about my condition, some talked about the outside world, and then there was George. I will let him take it from here.

George:
I could see someone in a black hole. What do you take into the black hole? It was not my experience. I could not minimize it; I could not make it better. But I could bring some humor into the dark place. Now humor does not have to be superficial. Humor is a serious business. It is a way of being in the moment differently. The profound and the absurd live together in the same moment.

Billie:
It did end. I did find my feet. I will spare you the details regarding spinal surgeries. But things did get better though sometimes better is just the different I had to grow into. But grow I did, and I am still growing and changing. When I was in the black hole the struggle was to get out. Now that I am out it is up to me to find out where I fit. I have retired early and I am happy with my life in the quiet regional town of Alpha. Some people say that I am too young to retire.  It’s funny how people can say that you are too young for something because they can also say you’re too old for something. I think I will decide what’s right for me.

George:
I remember writing a short comical piece for Billie. It was based on something she had told me; so I wrote about it. It is not great writing but it did encourage Billie.

Billie told a story
Of a field with patties
Round and brown and rank
She was happy on the fence
Then her feelings sank
For she heard a rumble
A deep throaty roar
She turned and saw
A beast possessed
With hunger on its mind
Its eyes were red, its drool was wet
That horned beast she would not forget
The ground was a minefield where
Many tails had risen to the sky
But through this bovine doo doo
Billie just……… flew
Tony was stunned
As he could not see her feet
For they spun like cartoon pistons
Round and round and round
Touching not the ground
How did she zig and zag so quickly?
Missing every poo
Maybe Dodge by name
Dodge by nature
Who can say?
But as Billie told this story
From her hospital bed
In another field of poo
I pray she will remember
That then
As now
For her
It can all pass in a Blur.

Billie:
I remember the bull story. It was one small story that made me smile for a moment. I don’t know if things did pass in a blur but it is all a bit of a blur to me now. I have changed and I continue to change. I know that I am more confident, more decisive. I speak my mind more freely now. I hope that people accept the me that I am becoming. But then again why should that matter?

George:
I see the last line of that silly poem. It can all pass in a blur. It states the hope that bad things pass by quickly and the intention is good. No one wants suffering to drag out but maybe this is no longer helpful for Billie today. Does anyone really want life to pass by quickly? I mean we all want to pass the bad things quickly but good and bad things inhabit the same real estate of today.

Billie:
Ok so now I have acceptance of myself and my circumstances. I have discovered art and my colourful sketches are the opposite of the black hole I had been living in. I am watching Anzac the cat doing the cat things. My husband is doing the things that he does. And me I am being who I am which is an evolving mix of who I was and who I am becoming.

George:
Embracing the good and the bad and seeing clearly enough to be fully present in each and every moment, now that’s a challenge. Don’t let anyone tell you it’s easy, just ask Billie. It takes a little faith to bridge the gap between the past and the future.

Something new

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Today let’s observe deep space, the deep ocean and deep within your mind.  You, reader are reading these words, joining them together to form sentences that you hear without your ears. You hear with your mind. It constructs meaning based on the patterns it understands. It can’t observe and understand everything so it connects the dots to form a picture. Let me give you a picture.

You stand under a dark sky. There is no light pollution so it is really dark. You hold your hand up to your face and you can barely see it. What you can see are a vast multitude of stars. I will assume that you can recognize the constellations. You can see the Southern Cross, Orion, Taurus, maybe a few more. If you have never looked at the night sky with a knowledge of the constellations what are you seeing now? I think that your mind will connect the dots automatically to form patterns. It will join the dots to form a picture.

Let me give you another picture. You sit on a cliff looking out on the ocean. A straight line of waves is coming in to the land. As you expand your field of view to take in the whole picture you can see the curve of the earth. The view is so big, it is hard to take it all in. Actually you don’t take it all in. Your eyes are actually sampling portions of the view but your mind is connecting the sight samples to make a picture. It connects the dots to form a picture. You don’t see with your eyes they just collect the light. Your mind joins the dots to make a picture.

Now let’s go to a third picture. Let’s go into your mind. Imagine all of your thoughts to be like stars in the sky all connected in a pattern that seems fixed. These stars fire off messages to each other to help make a picture. Mostly they make the same picture. They make this picture to keep you safe.  They identify a pattern from the past that they project into the future.

Now let’s draw back to see things from a different perspective.  Let’s see the night sky, the ocean and your mind at the same time. Observe it by not thinking about it. See the dark between the stars, the empty space of blue ocean and the dark spaces between your thought patterns where there is nothing. Go to the silence and hear what’s there. Go to the dark and see what’s there. Stop thinking – to see the space between the thoughts. Where there is nothing. It will be hard to do this and you will flick between thought and no thought.

The space between everything holds nothing and everything. It is the empty vast space where you are free from the past and the future to potentially fill the blank page with something new. You can reconfigure what you see and who you are. But it is not a process of rational thought; it is an emptying of thought to see the boundless possibility of the blank page.

Today you will observe many things automatically applying your patterns of learned understanding. If something is not working then maybe you might have it work better by not thinking about it. Maybe you could go to the dark between the stars, the empty blue of the sea and the dark spaces between thoughts where a blank page always waits for something new.

You, reader, can create something new.

Dry Brown Land

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A ribbon of mirrored glass recedes into the dry brown land
it flows with a lazy indolence and a calm assurance that
one day rain will come…. I am not so sure
I see in the distance Hundreds of birds
when they move there is the sound of applause
wings beating out like so many hands but those
wings for all their Furious intensity
keep the birds bound to the water that
is receding into the dry brown land
hemmed in by dry riverbanks
 the water slowly drains into memory
The memory of large trees is preserved with the
huge tree stumps that stand on exposed spider leg roots
one day rain will come, maybe it will come
 I am not so sure, I have paddled
on this ribbon of mirrored glass
in the middle of the wide brown land
if I drift on this river with a lazy indolence
and calm assurance that the wide brown land doesn’t need our help
then maybe one day the ribbons of glass
will recede for good, but I fail to act
Maybe I am bound like the birds to the river
to something that is receding into memory
I am left with the disconnect between wanting to help
and knowing how to help this wide brown land
with its ribbons of mirrored glass