Julie and I have been looking at the trees and vegetation of Saltwater National Park for green signs of rebirth. They’ve been hard to find: tufts of grasses, epiphyte-like growths, occasional new leaves. The enormous heat generated by this fire seems to have nuclear-blasted the paperbarks and grass trees. Some are burnt-out trunks with branches intact, still standing. Others resemble resinated black statues.
I’m worried and ready to declare myself a Climate Yogini. I’m not sure exactly what that means at this stage. So far, it’s business as normal. We go about doing our laundry, planting vegetables, walking on the beach with very little threat that the weather will spoil our activities. But it seems to me that the times they are a-changin’, and not that slowly, and not just in Australia. You can google ‘global warming hotspots’ and you’ll see the areas that are most at risk.
As part of my Aussie love affair, I finally had a chance to meet cute koalas face-to-face and up-close-and-personal. Here are a couple of examples of my encounters with koalas in the wild.
We didn’t plan it. Actually, we’ve done remarkably little planning on this our 4-month odyssey around the eastern half of Australia.
But we lucked out!
Apparently the central and southern desert regions of the Northern Territory have had more than their fair share of rain this year–i.e., the whole year’s precipitation to date.
So almost everywhere you look there are sprays and bouquets and even meadows of flowers. […]
Our camping trip through gorgeous gorges and ranges of the Northern Territory has been more beautiful than I ever expected. The Katherine Gorge area and south to Mataranka and Bitter Springs, from big landscapes to small, rejuvenating springs for bathing, these were stunning. But Alice Springs and the MacDonnell Ranges, and Kings Canyon, and now Uluru, they all should be on everyone’s bucket list–the ultimate nature experience.
The kindness of friendsI’ve always thought that practising kindness was one of the most beautiful yoga practices there is. I’m not always good at it but kindness and generosity are my aims.In this post, I’d like to credit some of the many people who have extended kindnesses to Daniel and me thus far on our northerly camping odyssey. Even though, if these people heard me praise them, these special people would probably declare, ‘Aw, it’s nothing.’From the very first of our camp sites in the Coopernook State Forest, we’ve been pampered. Ken and Sal McGowan did everything for us. […]
I’ve been away for a couple of weeks, visiting family in the U.S. When I came back to Australia, I went on retreat for 8 days.I want to share with you a few things I learned on this hiatus. These are insights that I might even categorise as spiritual practice.Gifts From My FamilySpending time with my family is sometimes the toughest test of my life commitment to be kind and non-reactive. However, in the company of my family, when I reacted in a non-loving way, this is when I got to practice forgiving myself. […]
Enough Already!Extropical cyclones, low pressure troughs, East Coast lows, whatever you call them, they all have the potential for giving us the rain blues. On the eastern seaboard of Australia, and even inland, we’ve had record-breaking rainfalls this autumn. What’s a yogi to do to keep his or her spirits up? A specialised yoga practice, of course! You want to do a sequence to balance your energy and dispel any negative moods. When the humidity has been high for a period of time, it creates excess dampness. […]
An Ancient Landscape
Why is it that we admire things from Nature that are tremendously old but that we have so little regard for aged people?
Recently a group of us plied the Murray River in South Australia on a houseboat.
As the sun set on our first night out, I stood on the upper deck awestruck by the millennia-old ochre cliffs, seemingly on fire. […]
via pinterest
My husband and I celebrated our 20th wedding anniversary last week. For many people this milestone could be considered an improbable achievement, given that the median duration of marriage was 12.2 years in 2012.
Twenty years of marriage is almost time enough to experience three seven year itches. It’s time enough to fall into dull routines and think that you’ve said everything there is to say to each other. […]
via Meryl Fox – Pinterest
Things are hotting up over here on the eastern seaboard of New South Wales. Well, probably not just over here if you think in terms of the planet heating up. But, for now, let’s skirt the global warming issue and focus on right here.
It’s early spring, and because we’ve had very little rain the last few months, our property is crackling-dry. […]
Photo by Julie Slavin
On January 1st of 2010, I launched the “Yoga Suits Her” blog. That was 999 posts ago and lots of writing practice under the bridge.
Writing has parallels with yoga practice. Do enough of it and something changes. It may that your technique improves, or you will get more life experience which gets poured back onto the page or into what you do on your mat. Writing or practising yoga over a long time will change you, you can be sure. […]
It’s a gorgeous day here on Mitchells Island – twenty degrees c. (70 degrees F.) – with a light breeze. Spring blossoms are plentiful in our gardens, and I’ve spotted various species of birds building nests. A bevy of ducks have been parading their young around our property, an area relatively safe from predators.
Another day in paradise, you could say, and you’d be partly right. Except for the fact that it has scarcely rained this month – 2.5 mm. – that’s all. On the other hand, the Manning Valley has been burning for weeks. […]
We live on 4.5 acres of semi-rural land on Mitchells Island. Some of our property is tamed and most is not. Not that we haven’t been working on it on and off for the last nine years. It’s a big job trying to do bush regeneration.
Today, as I was cutting and poisoning lantana and blackberry bush, I was thinking how much more work there was to do compared with my current feeble efforts. […]
Our closest beach on Mitchells Island has lost about a half kilometre of its length in the last couple of years. That’s a big chunk.
The area concerned is at the mouth of the Manning River, but the dunes all along in a southerly direction, including Old Bar Beach, are seriously eroded, too.
The encroachment of the sea has devastated the little tern breeding ground. These tiny birds are very vulnerable and have been declared endangered. […]
We on the mid-north coast of New South Wales, the region that’s known as the Manning Valley, are incredibly privileged to live and in such a stunningly beautiful area.
Today I got to explore the coastal part of it that includes Khappinghat Nature Reserve and Creek, and Saltwater National Park.
Friends John and Julie took Daniel and me on an adventurous bike ride up and down dirt tracks and bush trails for 2.5 hours.
It was tough for me – not being a regular cyclist – and also, I was the only one in the group who’s sporting titanium/ceramic hips […]
I went to Trent, the hairdresser, in town today, and he gave me a pretty ‘do’. In my old life as a city girl, my hairdresser would say, ‘I hope your husband is taking you some place special for dinner tonight.’
Instead of a glamorous outing, in my current incarnation as a country girl, I took myself and my new hairdo home to work in the garden. Specifically to muck around in the compost, a job that’s needed doing for some time. […]
Daniel and I went on a bush walk in the Kattang Nature Reserve today, just north of the long sweep of Dunbogan Beach. It’s been a mild winter which probably accounts for the early season wildflower displays we discovered scattered among banksia shrubs, casaurinas, and paperbarks. […]
A news bulletin just appeared on my computer regarding a surfer who was knocked unconscious by a whale today. He had been in a group surfing at Bondi Beach when a whale (‘big as a bus’) showed up. […]
I’m a 37-year resident and naturalised citizen of Australia and I still never cease to be amazed by the long, sweeping and inviting beaches that often remain completely empty.
It’s the height of the school holidays here and still, as you can see, Kylie’s beach (above) was deserted today. I might add that it has been a weather-perfect day, windless and 22 degrees.
I’m not complaining. […]