Protected: Reflection on Lesson 8 Ruhi Book 3, Humility

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Gone Editing

Gone Editing – Back Soon

Yes, I’ve gone editing! Wish it was fishing, but there is fishing waiting at the end of editing. I’ve been amused reading about fish whisperers- and came across poetry whisperers too! Hmm an editing whisperer!

(C) June Perkins

More News
Oh my the book is closer to completion! It is becoming exciting as soon it will be off to the designer! I’ve been doing a lot of collaging in picasa, and well as making wordles- here is one!

This week I am looking forward to seeing the other Licuala Writers! We have started to set a few goals as a group and as individuals.

EXTRACT FROM BOOK

Introduction

I hunt for poems everywhere – in the rainforests, oceans, memory, and holidays of my experiences and imagination. It’s inspiring and magical to walk with my camera and click away at what captivates me. At first my family would say, ‘Come on Mum, hurry up?’ Now they scout out photos for me. ‘Here’s a good one, Mum. Hey, can I have the camera?’

Two of the main influences on my writing are the Romantic poets and music. I love the Romantic poets, like John Clare, who observed nature so carefully and wrote on anything available including old newspaper. It’s amusing to imagine William and Dorothy Wordsworth having some of my experiences. I’ve been chased by a cassowary, seen snake skins in the yards, and spent time listening to kids talk about their monster trucks and mermaid friends. There are no cheetahs living here, yet they are always running around in the rainforest because kids say they are. My mum used to tell me fairies could be anywhere. I didn’t think about mermaids when I was little but maybe it’s the proximity to a warmer ocean that brings these creatures into kids’ imaginations in North Queensland. Some of these poems are nonsense poems and inspired by the works of Edward Lear, Pam Ayres and Spike Milligan.

‘Rain’ has many musical terms in it because rain reminds me so much of music. A poem called Reading becomes a poem about reading the soul. Some of my poems like ‘Monster Truck Boys and Mermaid Girls’ and ‘Unity’s Beat’ are songs!

I think children need to be encouraged to be the best they can without being preached to and there should be ‘lovefulness’ trees everywhere! ‘Kids will be Kid’s is about the need for adults to set the example they want rather than just criticize. ‘Love Gumboots’ is about peace and if you look carefully you’ll notice something special about its structure. My Sorry Day poem is dedicated to all Australians and anyone who needs to go through a process of reconciliation with their country’s Indigenous peoples.

Protected: Steadfastness

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Sky Dress

If I had a dress made of sky
I would fill it with light wispy clouds
That did not flood the plains
But rather darted across my dress to add interest.

I’d take that dress and give it rain that forms
Rainbows in a thick arch across a field
So I could have all the colours of light
Washing out from white.

As I wore my dress I’d gently spin it
To calm my cyclone children
Larry and Winifred
Into an indecisive Hamish.

My dress would feel light and airy
Full of space and lightly touch
The Misty Mountains with
The edges of sunrise.

I’d like to float in my dress made of sky
Imagining I was an angel who could
Fly like a kite in the sky to
Make sure memories would never die.

(C) June Perkins all rights reserved.

In memory….

In memoriam.

For my brother Bill
Who has climbed far and over the hill
Into the next world
Far too young
Before he got his wisdom
Yet maybe he is happy now
And peace has found
My brother Bill.

He loved to listen to Jimi Hendrix
He taught himself guitar
He wandered streets
He searched for peace
But never it he found
Yet peace found him
In quiet moments
When clarity visited

He could be most charming.

So we’ll remember him at soccer games
at plays
and circuses–

We’ll remember him dancing
Proudly in a grass skirt
That’s the Bill we are proud to know
And let’s leave all the rest behind.

Remember the Bill he could have been
Remember the Bill we dreamed.

(c) gumbootspearlz, all rights reserved.

My Grail – in wordle

I’ve just joined soulpancake, looks awesome. I had a go at a wordle.
Here is my very first one.

This was generated by Wordle

A Circle of Sisters in The Abbey Garden

From Series Walk in My Shoes

Happy International Women’s Day- This post seems apt for today.

It is part of an ongoing series  in Unity’s Cabin

I touched down and placed my wings in my walnut. I came to what initially looked like a large ornately carved door, but as you looked closely at the door it appeared there was a much smaller door within the large one and that was the one I had to open.

As I went through it I came to some stone arches which curved over soft grass. I took my shoes off and felt the soft mossy grass through my toes. It was comforting to feel land again after being in the sky and on the ferry.

I pulled my tiny map out of the walnut and tried to make out its details. I wonder if it might hold clues to my grail, after all it seemed to have both the universal and my individual heart beat etched into it.

I could see a loaf of bread, a candle and a rock with nails on it. I touched the map and then the images vanished. What could this mean? Were they clues to my inner grail?
I continued to walk under the endless row of arches until I came to a cloister.

A nun was sitting on a stone bench, her fingers thumbing furiously through a book. She came upon what she was looking for in the pages and a deep sigh emanated from her.

As I went toward her I paused, maybe I shouldn’t really bother her, but as that thought entered my mind she looked up.

From Series Walk in My Shoes

“Ah, Unity, we’ve been expecting you.” She motioned to me, “This way child, you are to come to our area for inter-spiritual dialogues. They’re waiting.”

I followed her into the Abbey and now the archways covered cool stones that felt smooth under my feet. I saw arched windows that had tiny splinters of light peering into the large room. We didn’t stop there though.

We passed through the abbey it seemed to an outdoor area, with the most exquisite flowers, almost every fragrance and colour you can imagine. Roses, hibiscus, wattle – oh it was just so vibrant and lush. The scent of all the flowers rushed out at me and I took in the sound of hummingbirds and honeybees.

From Series Walk in My Shoes

We came to a circle of people. I think there were nine or ten there.

A Buddhist nun in a humble orange habit clapped her hands
“Unity has come,”
They all jumped up and came to welcome me.
There was a slender Indigenous women from the Americas. She wore a dress with intricate geometric designs,
“The Great Spirit welcomes you,”
Then a young girl from India, with a red dot on her forehead came forward
“Hare Krishna.. and then Om….” Came from her as she bowed to me and to all gathered.
A small lady with large eyes and a simple white habit came forward.
“It is all in the actions what you do, that we will know if you can carry on the work we need done.”
The little girl from India, pulled at my sarong (“She speaks like that because she’s one of the nuns that worked with Mother Therese”)
Another woman with a long veil draped around her came to greet me next.
“We come here to remove all the spiritual veils we place around ourselves,”
She lifted her veil “I am in the company of women and so I will remove this for now.”
Another woman, who was I realized, the Angel of Water, but who was now young and dignified, came over to me.
“Unity please take a seat by me, my sisters we must begin. We can have any more introductions later.”

For the rest of this post and more of Unity’s Travels go to …

Circle of Sisters in the Abbey Garden

(c) all rights reserved June Perkins

I am Camera

Top Hat by gumbootspearlz

I am your first Kodak camera, capturing the Kodak moments of your Life. I point and take the image, I am uncomplicated to love, but
You have to use me sparingly and can’t take too many pictures for
Films are expensive and your parents won’t let you waste film
They yell at you if you cut off heads, take images only of feet saying “What On earth are you up to can’t you take what’s in the frame” not realizing this is your first foray into art and that this is your frame and one day you will take images like,
Feet and hands, walking every texture of earth, stone, gravel, and Soft soft grass, hands scooping up water, scooping up sand and Sifting it through fingers, your models are your children whose first Cameras are digital see they can snap and snap away at feet, flowers, soft toys in elaborate poses and then edit them However,they like on computers and they even do stop animations of
Dinosaurs eating robots on the lounge-room floor.

30 years later I am your latest love, Digital SLR,
I am your sepia, colour and black and white eyes and your dream to Capture Cairn Bird Wing butterfly perched in fingers before it feeds on Nectar of a vibrant red plant. I can Take still like frames of every
Movement of your daughter on a trampoline, your son Bowling to his Poppy and his Dad and I capture sunrise and sunsets
Better than you ever did before. Oh how Monet would have loved Me, dawn and noon and night, and Vincent even too, who I imagine Would send me to capture poverty and Crows out in the fields. Now Everyone can capture snapshots of family and sunrises and sunsets But the tool is not the be all and the end all, because there is still the Choice in the subject, what you put in backgrounds, and capturing Images in raindrops the back of a helmet, or in a mirror and even now The Artist calls to you to push the Image to the envelope in the first Choice, and says,
“Come with me my love. Take a top hat for a walk in the sunset and Make it a story about a lost groom in the sand, watch out for crab Holes and ripples and lie down on your stomach to be the insect Scampering on the sand.”

© June Perkins, all rights reserved.
March 2009.

Butterfly Eats by gumbootspearlz