Our hearts are with those caught up in the awful events in Paris and with all who long for peace.
Category / Spirituality
Changing everything
Today we enjoyed a long walk midst the wild beauty of Ahipara beach.
Last night we watched ‘This Changes Everything’, a documentary based on the book by Naomi Clines. The cinema was full. We saw challenging stories from around the globe calling for a new post industrial story in which we humans are not the rulers of creation taking whatever resources we want from the earth and in the process devastating vast areas of land as well as people’s lives.
Naomi offered a different story in which we, who are part of creation, need to take greater care of it, now, before it is too late. This is a story about the power of local communities working together to ensure the poorest and most vulnerable do not end up paying for the greed of the corporate and wealthy world. Given the imminent climate change talks in Paris, this challenge is timely.
For more information search ‘This Changes Everything’
Fireworks and stars
Today we headed up to the Bay of Islands where lunch was a picnic on a long beach of white sand.
Tonight we joined around two thousand people of all ages at the local community bonfire and firework display. Our first spring Bonfire Night!
We returned to our rural bach to gaze at a southern sky full of stars. Beautiful.
Mission Beach
Walked along the coast East of the city from Mission Bay, through Kohimarama & St Heliers Bays to Ladies Bay, returning to Mission Bay to eat fish & chips whilst dangling our feet over the sea wall.
The day concluded with a labyrinth walk in the grounds of Auckland Cathedral of the Holy Trinity and a wonderful candle lit concert inside the cathedral by the Australian a cappella quartet ‘the idea of north’.
We heard fireworks on our way home.
Now
Just finished a book by the explorer and traveller Robyn Davidson. Looking back over thirty years since she walked half across Australia with her dog and 3 camels she writes of that adventure
‘The past caves away and dissolves behind us, leaving a few clues with which we try to reconstruct it. Hopeless task. History lives in the present’.
Tracks: One woman’s journey across 1,700 miles of Australian Outback. 2013, Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Thanks & Yes!
In the centre of the ACT hospice labyrinth some words of Dag Hammarskjold came to mind, “For all that has been, thanks. For all that will be, ‘Yes’!”
We are full of gratitude for the warm and generous hospitality we have received in Australia, and ready now to move into the journeying ahead of us with open hearts.
Within without
In the sculpture park of the National Gallery of Australia we came across a fascinating concrete and basalt stupa, set in water, earth and landscaping. It lent itself to reflection and stillness.
Artist: James Turrell, 2010
Art & Soul
Ken Tjungkara of the Pitjantjatjara people painted this beautiful story of the journey of the Seven Sisters – the Pleiades. This star Dreaming is one of the most ancient stories amongst Aboriginal communities.
The painting hangs in the National Gallery of Australia.
Words for a traveller
‘Smile, breathe and go slowly.’
(Tich Nhat Hanh)
Driving the orange labyrinth
Nearby the Space Needle a young boy was driving his remote controlled truck along the path of the labyrinth. A first for me!
(parental permission granted for this photograph)
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