29/10/13 – Game Changer

About a week or two ago I decided to drop out of University which is a massive decision for someone who does everything to avoid feeling like a ‘failure’.

Studying Naturopathy has been my rock and only constant since I graduated high school four years ago. After some reflection and a heart-to-heart with my husband, I realised that a part of me was holding on to something that didn’t quite fit into my life anymore.
In recent years I’ve experienced the system, particularly the education system. I had my head constantly filled to the brim with knowledge (some of it seemingly irrelevant) only to find it empty after a short break or during exams. I experienced the highs of my anxiety leading up to deadlines and the lows of depression during my downtime.
I’ve been riding these emotional waves for four years and to be completely honest I’m very tired of it.

I still intend to become a herbalist but I’m going to wait a few years before I try again. I very much believe in the power of herbal medicine and nutrition and part of me knows that to heal others I must first heal myself.

Weather Observations – 29/10/13

The weather has not changed much since September. It’s still been hot, dry and sunny – summer has come early this year. Flies have been multiplying like crazy and our house has been temporarily overrun by them.
Bush fires have been burning through most of my home state with a couple of big ones located about an hours drive from my house. The skies have been filled with smoke ever since my birthday week (17th Oct). Thankfully we haven’t been threatened by any bush fires; my thoughts go out to all those who have been or are.
The sun is hot and burns the skin very easily.

Many of the ducks have been producing ducklings (daww) and surprisingly a majority of the ducklings I saw in May have survived and are looking like gangly teenagers now.

The ocean has been bitterly cold for the last few months but about a week or two ago had clearly warmed up – could this be changing tides?
Whales have also been migrating up and down the coast for the last few months… I haven’t seen any.
Dead mutton birds have also been appearing on the sand at the beach due to their long migration home. I’ve found a couple of alive ones who were clearly too exhausted to move on (they allowed me to pick them up). In this instance it’s hard to know what to do. I felt sorry for the birds but wasn’t sure if saving them now would really do them any good – they’ll just die next migrating season won’t they? I moved them into a nice shady area where they could peacefully die. I felt like that was the right thing to do.

As usual the magpies chicks are leaving their nests and we’re seeing extremely territorial behaviour from them. I’ve not experienced a swooping this year but I think they’re used to me (I feed them sometimes).

October – an important month in this House.

My husband and I are both born in October; we’re two weeks apart. Every year during those 2 weeks, we like to spend some time with each other and for each other.

It’s part of the continuing promise we make year after year. Some years it’s hard because we have very little money and we’re both extremely stressed but we now know, after many years of trial and error, that if we don’t take this time trouble arises.

It’s a time to remind ourselves that the other is there as guidance; to listen and share with each other. Where neither feels under pressure to say or do the right thing

Weather Observations: September

The weather has been really dry and sunny for the last 5 weeks. Lots of birds and bees.
Temperatures have been getting quite high and the fire season started a lot earlier this year.
The last week or two has been very sporadic with the wind picking up at around 3pm.
Daylight savings started last weekend (and now I’m all disorientated haha).

11\10\13 Another Adventure Begins

I’m a high achiever, I like to be in control and I put pressure on myself to always be the best I can possibly be.

As far as I know, these aren’t bad qualities and yet… I’m not happy. If anything, these qualities are making me continue along a path that might not necessarily be right for me at this point in my life. I’ve had dreams of being an important, successful person from a very young age so one thing is for certain – just because I’m changing my path, doesn’t mean it will be any less amazing than the one I was previously on.

Climate Change

When I was about 10 years old I started reading about the Earth. It was around this time in my life that I learnt about “global warming” (or what I now refer to as “Climate Change”) and that the Sun had an expiry date. I’ll be honest, learning that the Sun would at some point explode and engulf our solar system really scared me. Thankfully, I realised that it probably wouldn’t happen in my lifetime or even in the lifetime of my great grandchildren.

I wish I could say the same thing about Climate Change.

I understand that when I start conversations about the problems we face as a species some people just don’t want to dwell on something that sounds so big and completely out of our control because that’s exactly how I felt when I was 10 and first started putting 2 and 2 together.

As each year goes by, more and more evidence that supports this ‘theory’ of climate change is being released:

• The World Meteorlogical Organization released a 10 year Climate Report (2001-2010) indicating that, even though the study was quite short, “…[climate scientists] increasingly conclude that many recent events would have occurred in a different way – or would not have occurred at all – in the absence of climate change”
• This study, undertaken by the University of Queensland in conjunction with Skeptical Science analysed data from the year I was born up until 2 years ago! It is seen as the most comprehensive survey on global warming ever done.
• I’ve also seen many videos where scientists from the 70’s talk of approximately 30 years of noticeably erratic weather (unfortunately I can’t find the resources – but feel free to do your own digging).

When will the evidence be enough to convince the masses of this urgent problem? No matter what I do to fix this problem, as long as there are people out there mining for coal and oil, burning massive amounts of fossil fuels and creating tonnes of waste that end up in land fills every day – there will still be this threat of global warming. Waiting another 20 years for more research to more or less prove this phenomena even more is illogical.

I’m not saying that we should all just change our lives overnight… I still use fossil fuels on a day-to-day basis because I know no different, but you know what? At least I’m conscious of it and take care with how much I use. Any little thing makes a difference, because the more people who do something instead of doing nothing will put pressure on the powers that be to also do something.

Here are some links to get you started:

• https://www.1millionwomen.com.au/ “A campaign of daughters, mothers, sisters and grandmothers – Committed to protecting our climate, our communities and our future, leading change for the better. Our goal is to inspire 1 million Australian women to take practical action on climate change by cutting 1 million tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO₂), the main greenhouse pollutant causing global warming.”
• http://www.filmsforaction.org/watch/edible_city_grow_the_revolution_2012/ A feel good movie about what other people are doing to reduce their carbon footprint while also supplying jobs and food for low socio-economic groups.
• http://www.nativebox.com.au/getthebox.aspx A fun way to get a taste for eco-friendly products. Sign up for a monthly, quarterly or yearly subscription and receive a box with samples of great Australian eco-friendly products.
• http://www.psychology.org.au/publications/tip_sheets/climate/ This website helps people deal with the overwhelming feelings that may surface after learning of these issues. It also has some helpful tips to get people started on reducing their carbon footprint.
• http://sustainability.georgetown.edu/getinvolved/thingsyoucando/ Some easy things that you can do today to reduce your carbon footprint.

I feel like a broken record on this issue but I won’t be quiet until we make some real progress. In closing, I’d like to leave a video of this young girl, who is probably the same age as me when I learnt of global warming in the first place but more well spoken – she probably says it better in 5 minutes that I have for the last 11 years.

 

26/08/13 – Anxiety

I’ve suffered from what I call ‘anxiety’ for a good portion of my life. It’s always been there and I don’t think I can remember a time when I was free from it . Even now as I sit here writing this, I can feel my anxiety rising and my self talk responding most unkindly.

It is when this happens that I like to write. For years I thought that my anxiety defined me, that it was a part of my personality. On my bad days I thought there was something wrong with me. I tended to worry so much about things that no one else worried about; I used to get so frustrated. It was only when I graduated that I found a name for it and writing in my journals has really helped me find a cure.

After graduating I did a major spring clean of my life. I basically isolated myself for a month; I stayed in a country town with my family without much contact from my friends or family. I cleaned up my diet and started exercising regularly. I wrote everyday. I wrote about my thoughts, my dreams, what I thought they all meant. I documented conversations I had with people. I talked myself through a lot of my own issues, I saw the people in my life that were doing me more harm than good and I made the changes necessary so that I could live a full and happy life. When I look back on that time, I wonder how I found the strength to do what I did.

It’s times like this when I can feel my heart racing for no reason, when my breathing is shallow and my mind is telling me that I’m doing everything wrong that I’m grateful to journal writing. At one point I didn’t even know the triggers and I actually believed what my anxiety was saying to me. At this point in my life I can safely say that I have control over it and I’m doing all I can to hopefully be rid of it for good.

Weather Observations – 19/8/13

It’s been a wet spring – it hasn’t necessarily been raining but there’s been a lot of moisture in the air. The plants have been loving it. Majority of days have been sunny and quite warm late morning to early afternoon. Nights have been cold with fog and frost sometimes making an appearance.

About 2 weeks ago I saw a big group of Jellyfish in the river that I regularly cross to get into Sydney. I kept my eye out for them again last week and I couldn’t see any of them – was that their seasonal breeding time? Brian says he’s observed a similar group quite a few years back when he went for a holiday on the river during the summer months.

The birds have been pretty loud and fussy for the last 3 weeks as well. I’ve seen nests appearing in the tops of trees.

The wind has also picked up a bit on a few days – it’s a warm wind that seems to circle around (instead of coming from one location). This reminds me of a spring about 3 years ago when it was so windy that all the wattle trees had their yellow flowers blown off – they all sat in little yellow fluffy piles on the road.

The wattle is still out now though and hasn’t been effected by the wind much. Although it did only hang around for a day or two.

Death – 28/6/13

If you died tomorrow, how would you feel about the way your life is headed? Would you feel grateful for the people you surround yourself with? Would you feel content with the effort you made and the person you became? Is there anything you would change?

I’ve been thinking a lot about this since my friend Leah died in a car accident during the last year of High School. I think the reason why it battered a lot of people around so much was because it was so unexpected – a young girl of 18 dying while doing an innocent thing like getting a lift home from her friend.

Just think about that for a second though. Are you alive? Were you born?

Then you will die. It doesn’t matter how old you are or what you’re doing or how good/bad of a person you are.
Every.
Living.
Thing.
Dies.

You won’t know when or how old you’ll be when it happens or if it will be quick or painless. I kind of think this is a good thing that we don’t know how or when it will happen but why is it that in our culture it is so taboo to talk about? Why is it only old people that are expected to die and when do you even become old?

We have a lot of human rights issues happening right now regarding birth and pregnancy but death, and our rights regarding it, are just as important. If someone you lived with died and you were the only one in the house – would you know what to do? Do you know what the laws are, if any, regarding the dead body? Does your family have any specific rituals or rites of passage that need to be performed over the dying or dead person so that they leave this world peacefully?

I also find it coincidental that a woman’s period is also taboo (or even ‘frowned upon’). Any of you that have experienced a menstrual period can safely say that you have experienced a death of sorts. A feeling of being very withdrawn and down – maybe even mourning the lost opportunity of conception. Even miscarriages! Are women allowed a safe space to mourn for the loss of their fetus (if they so choose)? At that stage, in a metaphysical context, that fetus was apart of her. Did she feel the death herself?

These questions need to have answers because without death we can’t have life.

Weather Observations – 18/6/13

The first wattle tree bloomed about 2 weeks ago – wattle is my favourite flower so I picked up on it straight away. Ever since then more and more wattle trees have been popping up. I say ‘popping up’ because they tend to be very inconspicuous until their beautiful fluffy yellow flowers make their presence known. Their smell is amazing too.

The weather is hard to explain. It has been cold which is expected during winter (about 8-9°C during the night) but it has gradually gotten less and less rainy. After the floods in April there was a period of one week of rain one week of sun – which as then gradually changed into a day or two of rain before it gets sunny again for a good week or so.

It has been foggy and I’ve noticed the fog rising just before the sun sets on a windless day. Some days have been quite windy.

The Magpies seem to be ganging up again in their little packs. The Ravens are acting differently too – this could be because I’ve moved since this time last year. I noticed a group of them flying off to the north about 3 weeks ago. Since then I’ve noticed one or two stragglers heading the same way – now there seems to be only pairs left (Australian Raven Corvus coronoides).