A Kind of Hush

I had thought it had been a kind of rush for the whole day....and night. Such feelings were however mixed with doses of satisfaction and inner contentment, more of a kind of food for the soul.

It commenced with just food, partaking of vegetarian wraps with the Hindu worshippers on a mid-Sunday morning. The meal may have been simple, but the communal communion was sweet and embracing. Two little Indian boys sitting at a nearby canteen table were engaged in a banter of conversation in all innocence as childhood can bestow. The nearby temple was full of people engaged in ceremonies for an important holy day. Having grown up comfortable with this culture, to me, it was also food for the soul, even just as an observer. One of my fellow visitors, Phylis, remarked that it reminded her of elements of Jewish prayer. It struck me there and then that the world' religions can be somehow related, and that there is this invisible but strong bond of a string that connects to all things holy. The worshippers were decked in their Sunday best, holy smoke prevailed and there was the lilt of song in a sung prayer - we could have been attending the Papal Mass at Randwick Stadium in Sydney's eastern suburbs that very same morning.

The hush continued at a hilltop Buddhist temple complex which brilliantly shone under the blue sky and mid-winter Wollongong sun. The bare branches of deciduous trees and the flowering native succulents underlined the essence of Buddhist philosophy and thinking. A few of us wandered to a room dedicated to portraits in oil. The theme was perhaps womanhood. The expressiveness of the artists jumped out literally to me. A nearby pond, usually brimming with flowering lotus in early summer, had been mostly drained short of the muddy centre, which was now a playground for the resident ducks in winter.

Religion need not be organised. It can appear in the forms of Nature, and that late afternoon, I felt religion not in another man-made house of worship, but in the clean sweeping sand of Geroa, an hour by car south of Wollongong. The ocean side golf course links already put me in the mood. And then the seduction of an empty beach appeared and totally caught my heart and soul. It was windy but there were no surfing waves. Despite this, the vibes of the place appealed to my inner self and offered a calmness, just like in the Hindu or Buddhist temple earlier.

To wind up this special day, I found myself in the company of good friends a hundred kilometres from my Wollongong home, in a beloved recreation of Austria. We could not resist having our fav dishes of duck, snapper and pork, in a bush setting restaurant manned by true blue Austrians. Then we whizzed past the Sydney Bahai Temple by night, a circular structure with a light at the top. We had to return to the Austrian-German restaurant to retrieve a handbag forgotten in the midst of relaxed laughter and social enjoyment, but one of the staff members, brown-haired and blue-eyed Mario, was already waiting for us to return it.

So as it had been throughout this special Sunday in mid-July, the special kind of hush continued under the moonlight as I drove back to Wollongong late at night.

Calming and Magical

For just a rare hour and a half, I was engrossed in a captivating conversation with someone I felt so comfortable with. Someone I can trust, relax with and respect. And open my heart to.

You don't ask for it. There are no expectations. Then it all fallls into place - the vibes, the flow and the synergy. It is so reinvigorating. My conversational companion takes the lead by talking about something exciting to make me change dimensions and to embrace a more nurturing dimension. I let go of my imposed inhibitions and my caution learnt the hard way in some unfriendly places, now seemingly so far away. I can feel my whole self liberated like cold water doused on a hot day, or letting my senses glow in the warmth of enjoying the company of someone I instinctively feel so calm with. I cross the threshold into the dimension of what I know is happiness - so difficult to define but I am so sure I am in.

I enthusiastically follow the lead offered to me. I offer mine back and we then exchange flows of encouragement, tinged with humour and ease. We lavish our opened souls with the temptation of food and drink. My gratefulness swells inside asking myself how fortunate I am to know this person and be able to expwerience these magical snippets of talk and interchange of ideas. Each of us then get bold - we ask each other questions, and I know in my heart, these are questions from me that I have longed to share with someone like this. I expect confrontation and challenges to my sense of things, and I get them, not in a negative way at all, but in a way I should be provoked for my own good. I accept the need for me to change and to review. I am so glad I got it from this person in front of me, who looks at me, my inner self and my dreams through sunshades but through which I can see the eyes and the eye of the heart. Oh yes, it was a sunny day with blue skies, even in the so-called winter of my neighbourhood. I realised how lucky his lady partner is.

It is so unreal, this experience but I know it is real. I ask for opinions, I make my observations, I share things that I have not told anybody else. A calm and open heart leads to a similar mind - and then the state of contention which I recognise as a hallmark moment. Each of us do not want to leave this optimal moment. I want to get further insights and I want to offer more of my thoughts. We have to leave, but there is no regret - I have been sustained to last more than what I deserve, and I thought my lunch mate has also enjoyed it. I secretly hope that what has been given to me in this electrifying encounter has also been returned back to my giver. I don't say it, but my straight talking companion said it - it was great having this opportuntiy to talk about things that should be thought about, but which we hardly have a chance to. I just said I find it so good about the insights I had obtained, but I know it was much more than insights. It was simply magic.

The Wind

Slight branches with leafy brushes were strewn almost everywhere on both sides of the road. There was a sense of pandemonium and yet at the same time, a feeling of cleansing. The howl of the gushing air overhead underlined the dynamics of whatever caused the swirling and twirling of atmospheric forces. Things that stood in the way were showered with debris, or were buried by fallen things. Both Nature's creations and human artifacts were affected, if they had not not been secured properly.

I was up on a mountain road, eagerly dashing to hope to see someone. At times it may have seemed futile, for the winds from the heavens roared, as if to tease me and make it difficult. Overhead, the skies moved at frightening speed, with dark clouds changing their positions in a furious and obvious agitated dimension.It was an impeding storm, but up on the twists and turns of sloping roads, I could see the potential havoc thrown at the plains below. I had to see someone, whether or not it was sane or reasonable. Something in me had this relentless grip and spell that was only broken by knowing where this someone was that Sunday morning.

It was not exactly riding a wild horse bareback and galloping away to the object of my affection. Maybe it was better and faster, with a good performing engine of the car I was driving. The gush of wind reflected the climax of longing and passion that was teased and tested. The winds whipped up from the open ocean below was a mixture of uncertainty, the lure of feelings fulfilled and the hope of satisfaction. This potent combination decided that I had to do something.

I found the house. It was all closed up but not empty. Despite the wind, I had arrived. Maybe because of the wind, I had found myself so near. The wind in my heart was equally volatile. Nor rain or hail, nor wind or other obstacle, placed before me, I had made it to the inner sanctum of the one I sought.

Contradictory Reality

A supermarket chain offers you petrol discounts at its associated network of stations, provided you buy more liquor from them. Does it mean we get to drive more for our petrol expense budget, only after getting more alcohol?

Binge drinking is currently perceived as a serious problem amongst Aussie youth. It should not come as a surprise to anyone in the community. Liquor store outlets are as accessible as fast food retail chains, are easier to get into by car than gyms and fitness shops and are often adjuncts to family-orientated grocery supermarkets. Sporting events are liberally littered with intense alcohol-related advertising and promotions - try finding big time salad and fitness banners in sporting venues. The urge to fulfill high levels of alcohol consumption cannot be left to market pricing alone. Chilling out after exams or having life's celebrations mean the compulsory dosage of drinking - and let's not worry about having food during the same social occasion.

Gambling is an ingrained habit offering many opportunities for training and reinforcement in Australia. Starting with the innocent act of buying a lotto ticket at the neighbourhood newsagent, it culminates in the obsession one feels - and sees -amongst punters in casinos in each capital city. In between, any adult can drop in to play the pokies - addictive machines that lure potential players with one cent games that thrive on turnover and staying power. Games of chance mock as entertainment, with lots of hype of possible financial return and reality of no or negative returns. In the worst interpretation of an observer friend, the banking circles employ the best gamblers in currency , hedge and options trading. Counselling, after the fact and the damage, is always not as effective as not allowing the problem to begin in the first place.

It may make good business and tax revenue sense to have a captive and recurring market, but more sectors of responsible society have to ensure their impact on family and personal lives. If we have every adult, or teenager in that sense, contribute willingly to spend moderate amounts every day on a specific service or product which they have remote chances of giving up, we surely have a revenue spinner. Call it a mug of cappuccino, a schooner of dry or gigabytes of broadband, they do lead to a personal satisfaction level - but what is the collective impact on the health and social order of society as a whole?

Wintry Windsor

An American visitor remarked that it suggested to her of a small town in Oklahoma. The wind was bitingly chilly, but people moved about in a purposeful manner all rugged up, especially in the central pedestrian mall which happened to host a craft market. The outer approaches to the suburb heralded farming country, and I was not surprised that we saw signs of trucks, tractors and other agricultural machinery - real sized or in the displayed craft - as a possible main stay of the economy. Welcome to Windsor, New South Wales.

It was not the best of weather we had to put up with that middling Sunday in June.

However, there was a crispiness in the air in Windsor that afternoon, which made the camellias, hibiscus and other blooms even more of a sight. We were fortunate to come across a couple displaying their rather healthy nursery plants for sale - and I could not resist obtaining their parsley, mint and succulent jade. Hand painted plates, wooden receptacles and household knick knacks in other stalls were also irresistible. Located at the foothills of the NSW Blue Mountains, Windsor exudes an atmosphere of the old Australia, and so we were delightfully amazed to find a shop selling Egyptian wares, fabric and icons. I was given the impression that it is also a lifestyle place, where migrants from over crowded parts of the greater Sydney area have found refuge - hey not dissimilar to Wollongong and the South Coast. Large punnets of freshly picked strawberries were sold for ten dollars for two.

Will the march of mass housing inevitably overcome the present charms of Windsor? Maybe it already has. However I still take comfort in admiring the sandstone and the architecture that remains in this essential village community, and you sense that every resident knows everybody else, and can pick out a stranger like poppies sticking out in the field. Windsor was settled in 1810, very soon after Captain Cook landed, even if it is located relatively distant inland from the coast. How it has kept its charm in these past 200 years can be a most interesting secret. The Big Smoke of Sydney city centre can be reached by car in under 90 minutes.