onion post

Im not really a fan of The Onion- too much satire not enough politics. but this piece caught my fancy- enough tongue in cheek and real politik to make me happy.

'How Bad For The Environment Can Throwing Away One Plastic Bottle Be?' 30 Million People Wonder

WASHINGTON—Wishing to dispose of the empty plastic container, and failing to spot a recycling bin nearby, an estimated 30 million Americans asked themselves Monday how bad throwing away a single bottle of water could really be.

"It's fine, it's fine," thought Maine native Sheila Hodge, echoing the exact sentiments of Chicago-area resident Phillip Ragowski, recent Florida transplant Margaret Lowery, and Kansas City business owner Brian McMillan, as they tossed the polyethylene terephthalate object into an awaiting trash can. "It's just one bottle. And I'm usually pretty good about this sort of thing."
"Not a big deal," continued roughly one-tenth of the nation's population.

According to the inner monologue of millions upon millions of citizens, while not necessarily ideal, throwing away one empty bottle probably wouldn't make that much of a difference, and could even be forgiven, considering how long they had been carrying it around with them, the time that could be saved by just tossing it out right here, and the fact that they had bicycled to work once last July.
In addition, pretty much the entire states of Missouri and New Mexico calmly reassured themselves Monday that they definitely knew better than to do something like this, but admitted that hey, nobody is perfect, and at least they weren't still using those horrible aerosol cans, or just throwing garbage directly on the ground.
All agreed that disposing of what would eventually amount to 50 tons of thermoplastic polymer resin wasn't the end of the world.

"It's not like I don't care, because I do, and most of the time I don't even buy bottled water," thought Missouri school teacher Heather Delamere, the 450,000th caring and progressive individual to have done so that morning, and the 850,000th to have purchased the environmentally damaging vessel due to being thirsty, in a huge rush, and away from home. "It's really not worth beating myself up over."
"What's one little bottle in the grand scheme of things, you know?" added each and every single one of them.

Monday's plastic-bottle-related dilemma wasn't the only environmental quandary facing millions of citizens across the country. An estimated 20 million men and women wondered how wasteful leaving a single lightbulb on all night really was, while more than 40 million Americans asked themselves if anyone would actually notice if they just turned up the heat a few degrees instead of walking all the way downstairs and getting another blanket.

Likewise, had they not been so tired, and busy, and stressed, citizens making up the equivalent of three major metropolitan areas told reporters that they probably wouldn't have driven their minivans down to the corner store.
"Relax," thousands upon thousands of Americans quietly whispered to themselves as they tossed two articles of clothing into an empty washing machine and turned it on. "What are you so worried about?"

I love what you're doing now, Mum

That was music to my ears. B1 has been droppping reference to our lifestyle and living passions for a few months now. Im not sure if its because she's getting older and seeing things through a different and more mature lense or if that having ramped up our committments to volunteer activities, having lots of things going on and people dropping by she is encouraged to speak out. Whatever its source, Im stoked. Happy dancing pleeeased! It has been my one source of insecurity as a mother; to not be respected and appreciated by my kids, so her independent thoughts on the matter are priceless. I have to admit her sentiments were brought on by a mouthful of gifted organic rasberries from The Gnomes, but her comment fed into a feeling Ive been carrying for months.

Im very content right now in life and I think I may have to partly thank the girls Dad for moving away as its allowed us all to settle down and find a common easy pace. Ive never been in this place before. I feel so alive. Busy as all hell but really really connected. Volunteering my time to help get another business up and running and starting up my own has really helped me appreciate and value myself and get out there amongst 'life'. Academic life in my department is very male dominated, tough and an often thankless and isolating grind. My boss has NEVER told me told Ive done a good job; "Thanks Kel, well done". Can you believe that, after 10 years??? Its staggering. Its just not in his nature and lots of us struggle with it. So working for free and having some skills that others are grateful to recieve and being appreciated is really nice and novel(?!) Im gaining confidence and doing more, putting myself out there and trying new things. So life is chock a block busy and despite having this thesis to complete, life is well rounded and vibrant and I never imagined Id be here! Im totally enjoying being a part of my community.

the bus

Im fully fledged now. The complete and total 'take the lunch and to-go coffee mug and bus to work' package person. Its taken a while to get to full capacity but I have finally taken 'The Last Step'. The symbol of priviledge in my little wee world; The Car Park Permit has been Handed Over. Relinquished. Forgone. I shocked myself in a really scary way at just how difficult it was to hand over this final trapping of priviledged car ownership. People kept telling me 'its a four year wait you know' like i was handing over some totaly religious thing, a coveted icon without which I would be condemned forever. It freaked me out. So I wasnt driving, but I had this relic, this pass that was costing me $1000 a year but not being used but held onto 'just in case'. It got handed in yesterday. Catching the bus has been a revelation. A freedom like I never expected. I expected to feel stuck and trapped at losing the so called 'independence' of a car to work. Instead I was rewarded with a sense of total relaxation and joy. So much that it too surprised me. I get home relaxed and refreshed ready to take on the dinner/bath/Mum shift. Im happy. Chilled. Its a meditation. Driving really is a complete pain in the ass. A stressful pain in the ass, an 'I've been duped into thinking its easier' pain in the ass. Cant recommend it highly enough. Especially as a harried parent. Its perfect. I get time out- I read or just stare out the window. I feel reconnected to community. I feel a bit like a teenager again when I step off, free and cruisy out in public. I feel surprisingly in control. I really cant recommend it highly enough. Ive been known to reject a lift home so as not to miss this special feeling. You?

Ten things that piss me off about being Green

1. Crusts of bread hanging around for quite a while waiting to be smashed into breadcrumbs

2. Catching the bus to work in the dark, cold mornings in the dead of winter

3. Planning. Endless planning and organising to ensure efficient living on all levels. Sometimes I just want my brain to stop, it all to stop and hop off for a while!

4. The research and time that goes into any purchase. Sometime I just wanna 'grab' something!

5. Having to walk past the stinky and sloppy imported French cheese mountains at the markets

6. Everyone in the family having a good excuse when I get cranky at all the dishes thy have left piling up until enough are there to make a wash-up justifiable (i think this is my no.1 !)and knowing Im not going to have a comeback to this water saving argument

7. Always being the bad guy and endlessly reminding children to 'turn it off!' Besides which it just reminds me of my mother...

8. Wanting sometimes to just splurge to 'show my love' but pulling back in the name of less stuff and not necessary. Again, it reminds me of my mother...

9. That if I dont eat or organise the leftovers, they may get left in the fridge for a while

10. Coming home from work and making pita bread, tortilla or pizza dough coz all that plastic packaging really pisses me off

Small 'personal is political' potatoes I know, but I didnt even get started on the volunteer and activism work that gets done around here...

What pisses you off about Green living?

a free lunch with Team Friend

nothing quite like them. I prefer to think its not because im a tight wad or cheap or anything but the politely referred to 'catered' or 'lunch/dinner provided' has a way of bringing people together in a spirit thats unmatched. Its a freedom to revert to the somewhat irresponsible, unite as a group, feel a part of Team Friend. Thats why I really love weddings. The ultimate in TeamFriend, a party of oneness like no other. But the 'free meals' Ive been invited to lately have been for the ritual passing over into the 'shit, I really am officially in the no longer a groovy young thing realm and staying there may be a little embarrassing' camp.

Somehow, with the passing of years we have morphed into 'middle class, middle aged comfortables with kids' and after time apart when we we all get together we relive our misspent youth (some more than others) and wonder how 25 years has passed so quickly. These cliches of time inadvertantly arise, get dissected and declared 'how true' and the comfortable conversation of people who have been around each other for so long moves seamlessly along. We are doing this more and more, the amazed declarations of the passing of time.

I love these occasions, and as I get older these old friendships from high school and university have come to mean so much and catching up with families of these friends; the parents, siblings and grandparents gives us all an opportunity to remember those parts of our lives we shared together. The trouble we got into and the accidents we had, life events like death and divorce get discussed and all are viewed with the rose coloured spectacles of time and drinking too much wine together. Then we sing a silly song, candles get blown, cake cut and shared, cheers are called. Its all good fun and life affirming. Im looking forward to another 12 months of the passing into 40 of those around me and I have to say Im looking forward to mine.

primary bread person

The boybean and the Bloke have a fantastic relationship. Thats good. In fact its great, fantastic, wonderful, precious. It's so special to watch those two play; the bean squeals, cuddles, kisses, blows rasperries, hides, talks, all with an incredible sparkle in his eye when he looks at his Dad to check out if his behaviour and actions are pleasing. Its a revelation to me that look. Dads 'It'. The Main Man. Mr Love. When we're all together, he chooses Dad when he's fallen over and banged his head, when he wants a story or to play a game. I didnt realise I could feel this conflicted over two peoples love for each other. When I kissed them both goodbye this morning, having fun at breakfast with books and jokes and the bean pre-empted my departure with a wave, a finger point to the back door and a broom broom noise, my heart fell out and rolled across the floor. I came to work this morning with a rather bitter taste in my mouth. Primary bread winning, although it gives me a whole lot of intellectual freedom and exercise and some decent dosh, is making my heart just a little sore.

living feral

Can you spot whats so very wrong about this picture? We did, half way through our 'romantic' dinner for two last night as the girls were away with their Grandma. Yay Grandma! All organised by the Bloke. Nice.

Local fish, garden salad, champagne, music, candles...teeth?
Living with kids, life takes on that extra feral edge.

feeling rather enamoured with...

...life as describe by Belgian Waffle. Im not really the cynic at heart, Im an 'optimistic soul' but there are philosophical depths i tend not to explore here. I kind of feel i do enough hard mental work in my paid working hours and enjoy the lightness of debriefing about the other side of me on here. Sometimes i feel 'lightweight', like I should be all philosophy and contemporary political opinion but I figure thats what I read other blogs for! To fulfill that side of me that is feminist thinking and politically deconstructive. Sometimes my mind explodes with too much information that I cant process and write.

Over time I have dealt with my fair share of mental health issues, been at the brink of despair; Ive had moments where i have felt that life is not quite worth living at times, understood those who wanted to end it all, even with children. Im not there now, but I do 'get' the darker side, I appreciate and empathise with people's depths and I really do love a good dose of cynicism. Im a Black Books kinda girl. But right now, Im feeling rather grateful for,

:: the hour every morning I spend with my man and my boy just rolling around on our bed at dawn, playing, blowing rasberries, giving and recieving big boy and little boy cuddles, reading books, reading books, reading books and testing out a very small persons new language skills. Its such a wonderful hour.

:: the chance to have a new life, a loving life, an expansive , 'give it a shot' life

:: the opportunity to view myself froma different perspective, to have a whole new self paradigm.

:: the chance to reconnect with family

:: new friendships

:: the ability to think outside the square and view life from many angles

:: to see opportunity where i may not have in the past

:: to experience life , to know pain and sorrow and to really know that I can cope and manage on my own and live and love even when it feels like life is ending

:: to have choice

::to have knowledge, an education, space and time

::to have land to use and water to run

:: teenage daughters who give as good as they get, argue, call themselves feminist and want to win the lottery so they can spread the feminist word ( i did remind them that you dont need mney to be a feminist! but they arued it could do more work, further afield, for longer...)

:: to have food and wine and love and laughter

:: to have stability and peace in my life. A precious, very precious luxury

Im feeling rather appreciative at the moment.

wow. women rock

Thanks for the link Laura Jane. Wow. Hows that moment in the waterbirth! What an incredible snapshot of a natural birth. This has to be my pet peeve in life. The complete hijacking of birth by modern ...everything.

A Splendid Torch

My heart sang when I first met the Bloke, he had this pinned in the bathroom on the wall, one of my favourite pieces of writing of all times. I knew immediately i really was onto a good thing.

This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being a force of nature instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.

I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community, and as long as I live it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can.

I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no "brief candle" for me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.

George Bernard Shaw

the frugal widower

lying in bed this morning, sore throat and body aching, my mind was bouncing around its interior walls and slamming into all sorts of two bit memories, ideas, emotions. One of them was momentarily epiphaneous (is that a word? it is now), not life altering in any way but a small triumph of recognition, organisation and management.

I just need to reorganise the stuff under the kitchen sink and the laundry

This triumph in processing was in response to me wondering why cleaning here, in this house, is such an effort for me and requires a minor degree in logistics.

Im embarrassed to say its only taken 3 years to get to this point, but i just prefer to believe that Im a chilled, relaxed and easy going person and Im not really that thick. So the idea that Im very thick went bouncing around my head for a while and I ended up settling on the notion that it wasnt thickness on my behalf so much as gentle accomodation to living in a widowers home, accomodation to someone elses systems, that had just got stuck there. Hadnt evolved. No. New. System. Also, im not that enamoured with cleaning so dealing with the occasional frustration that is organising the cleaning gear wasnt rating highly on my radar.

Shacking up with a widower is not an easy gig and shacking up with a frugal widower at their place is an exercise in patience, love and a lot of introspection. When the Bloke and I decided to live together we went through the process of deciding where to live. my place? your place? sell both and buy somewhere completely new? My two bedroom unrenovated 1920 bungalow with a trashed backyard readied for an unrealised extension on a quarter acre block or his five bedroom masterpiece on two acres of landscaped heaven? Not surprisingly, we ended up at his place. To his credit, he was prepared to give it all up and come live at mine if thats what i really wanted (that fabulous idea was me having a hard time letting go of my independence and control).

Where is this heading? To the point that when i moved in here, there was still a lot of stuff around of the Blokes late wife. And i tiptoed around it for a while until i almost imploded.

Being green and frugal means using stuff up, not throwing useful things away, keeping things that you dont use for a rainy day. Throw widower with new girlfriend into that sentence and you've got a problem. While we were dating I hung on for a while, thinking that over time he would get around to dealing with the 'small stuff'...time passed and passed and so I had to initiated that conversation. Sounds easy enough but its realy hard to do "excuse me i have an issue with all this stuff around thats nither mine nor yours and is contributing to me not feeling very at home here and would you please just go around the house and throw away all the last reamining bits and memories that you have of your late wife coz I dont like them" Thats how it felt to me, like i was asking him to finish his memories with a toss-out bag of her personal pieces. So i did wait a long time to ask him but theres only so many times you can open the bathroom cupboard and not get confronted by the very pesonal feminine things one finds in womens' bathroom cupboards. I felt pretty strange at the idea of just tossing them myself coz they werent mine but they were in my cupboard, or is it really her cupboard? It was a confusing time. Actually, in all honesty I didnt really initiate a converstion and ask him in an adult way. I just lost it!


But we did talk about it. The dear Bloke had left them there coz he's a green frugal bloke who thought that I might like to use them up, why throw away a perfectly good almost new hairbrush? perfume that was just purchased? boxes of henna, clips, belts, hats, earrings, pads, face creams? He was pretty embarrassed in reflection that he hadnt really thought it through from my perspective and was very remorseful about putting me in such a situation. To cut a very long story short, he dealt with all the obvious personal bits. What is still left to do is to reclaim the space under the kitchen sink and the laundry cupboard. Spaces and bits that dont 'belong' to anyone but were fundamentally hers in choice, use and placement of stuff (the Bloke didnt clean or cook before I arrived). I need to confront the bottle of fabric softener, the dried up Gumption with the old fabric scrap and the dilly bits of doily that soften their blows and organise stuff in a way that makes sense to me (i do do more cleaning than him - he'd debate that but i reckon wiping down sinks with your hand doesnt count as cleaning the sink!) When a relationship ends wth death and not divorce, no one comes with a trailer to take all their own stuff away.. Moving into another womans physical space, shacking up with a widower, doesnt come with a manual.

pan fried gnocchi with wild mushroom and sugar cured bacon

this is definitely a waist line buster. Those of you that know me or read this blog will know that when the girls go away with their dad I break out the flesh at meal times. I get molto carnivore to make up for the endless weeks of vegetarian meals. Dont get me wrong, i love vegetarian and vegan food but when you're deprived of something you really enjoy and and you have some great meat choices available, whatcha gonna do? Eat Meat.
So tonight i chose to use the Black Big sugar cured bacon we bought at Lucias in the Central Market. God i love that place. They cook the most luxe sauces and bake amazing deserts on portable stoves sitting on the countertops people! You jostle between simmering pots for payment space. its fabulous. Anyway, I'd come out of there with some handmade gnocchi (i know- but i didnt, OK. Besides, my gnocchi never tastes like theirs; so light and fluffy, and its just the two of us. A treat!), and some Black Pig products. Have you ever noticed just how many almost vegetarian recipes call for pancetta or a bit of speck? You just can't not do it. That fatty salty essence is, well, the essence! Peas and zucchini on pasta just isnt the same. Digressing, sorry. So gnocci, bacon and gosh, surprise! I just happen to have lots of wild mushroom duxelle in the freezer, frozen for a moment just like this one.

Just for the record before this year i had no idea what a duxelle was, its knowledge only borne of necessity. About 20 kgs of 'got a bit carried away by the fun of mushrooming' necessity and was forced to research and make some glorious long-life mushroom goods, tidy bags of duxelle being one of them.

So I decided on some crunch and chew to compliment the squishy sauce and decided the pan fried gnocchi was the way to go. Major tip of the day. Dont boil the gnocchi if you want to do it pan fried. It doesnt need it and it will end up very water logged and smushy if you do. Just fry them in a bit of butter. I fried thin strips of bacon in their own fat and then when they were browned and a bit crispy on the edges added the defrosted duxelle to the pan which with a couple of cloves of minced garlic even though the duxelle already had garlic. I warmed the musroom mix through and when the gnocchi were browned i salted them, served them and topped with the mushroom and bacon sauce and some creamed ricotta and pecorino. Sadly i was in such a hurry to eat this delight that we forgot to add any greens but upon finishing, we both noted that some freshness and real crunch in the form of rocket or spinach would have really helped and had i had any parsley currently producing, definitely some of that. All up, about an 8/10. Pretty tasty.

The pic above I just liked coz it shows my very aesthetic sensibilities: can you see the good use to which I have put that piece of art on the windowsill? That sculpture made with love from our uber cool Flaming Lotus Girl/ Burning Man niece is my extra plastic bag drying aide when the PuraTap is fully loaded up. Noice touch huh?

dying to be green

Rixa wrote a great post on home burial a few days ago on her blog Stand and Deliver which got me thinking about the connections between birth and death and just how removed we have become in western, highly industrialised societies from the cycles of life and our propensity to hand over the 'management' of some of the most intimate expereinces we ever face as humans to commercial business. The baby/body becomes the comodity. Home birth may be still a fringe occourence, less than 0.1% of women birth at home today in Australia, the statistics on home funerals/wakes I'm unclear about.

When Simons wife died he brought her home and held her wake here. It freaked me a bit at first to know that. That my study... but in my heart I believed what he did was the right thing so i managed my weirded out feelings. When my twin sister died, my mum carried her coffin in the car to the crematorium. Being close and involved seems important in the grief process.

When i was living in Thailand and on holiday with my boyfriend in his rural hometown, his grandfather passed away and it was one of the most incredible expereinces i heve ever had and the memory has always been a wonderful one. For three days the whole community prepared. As Thais live in rather open style homes you could see preparations going on all down the main street where his family lived; grandma and grandpa lived across the road and cousins and aunts and uncles down the street, so you could see into peoples homes and the preparations the community was undertaking. Men were hard at work making the coffin and preparing the ceremony and women were sitting around threading flowers onto strings to make hundreds of garlands for the service and preparing huge pots of food.
Come the day of the service i was blown away. we walked across to his grandparents home/shop and the shop had been clearerd out to make rom for all the guests. The coffin sat in pride of place but set back into a corner. It looked fantastic. It looked like a tall decorative steamboat, and it stood three tiers high. The bottom tier contained the body, then there was a smaller long box on top and another smaller one on top of that. I am not sure if these other boxes served a purpose. The coffin was beautiful, painted black and decorated ornately with thousands of tiny coloured tinfoil cutouts. It looked like sparkly mosaic and it was draped in twinkling fairy lights and flower garlands. It was the most beautiful coffin Ive ever seen. The attending monk sat next to the coffin and conducted the service which was full of guest chatterings and not alot of listening! My boyfriends grandma seemed to pay more attention to my novel blonde hair than the service for her husband! After the service, the coffin was lifted by the men in the family and carried it low and we walked, some 100 strong down the middle of the main street of his small town, to the temple where the body was deposited to be burnt, returnng to my boyfriends house to feast. The ownership of that funeral was intense and is something i have since realised is so humane, normal and integrating.

Rixa talked briefly about home burial, now Im not sure what the legalities of that are in Australia. But I know 'green' funerals are becoming more popular as cremation and burial both have environmental impacts. Eco funerals in Adelaide provide cardboard coffins lined in calico, carbon offset credits and use Toyota Yaris! (how a body fits lying down in a Yaris i dont know!) and WhiteKnight, also in Adelaide, have removed the coffin completely, shrouding the body in cotton then hessian - no wood, no waste, no varnish, no metal, no formaldehyde leaching into the grondwater. Additionally , instead of burying the body at the "traditional six feet under, the body is buried at medium depth, allowing it to break down at a normal, healthy rate rather than the much slower rate imposed by anaerobic conditions further down in the soil" How green is that?

Bush burials are taking off and its this kind of burial that I'd like. Bushland setting, body in ground, tree planted on top. Yes please. If i could, id be propped under a tree somewhere in the outback, but thats not allowed. Burials, even so called bush burials must take place in a designated 'graveyard' and there are only a few in Australia, Lismore, Adelaide and Tassie. These kinds of burials coupled with a home wake and preparation seem to me to be more humane, more loving, intimate and meaningful and certainly greener. How 'bout you, what are your preferences? grin.

Haiku Friday

the pressures of time.
life runs away, weeds flourish.
f*#k f*#k f*#k f*#k f*#k

life takes over your life

if you know what i mean...
i finally hauled myself off to the doctors this week to get a full blood test done. Thyroid malfunction at both extremes have plagued many women in my family so i wanted to get this and my iron count checked. I have been experiencing tiredness like never before. The 'is this what CFS feels like?' tiredness. The 'ohh i know ive just had 10 hours sleep but i could go a whole days extra' kind of tiredness. She actually laughed at me "yes i know i work, am finishing writing a thesis, have a one year old, two teenagers, am trying to set up a business, have a garden to manage, a household to help run and exercise three times a week, but i feel more tired then normal" . I have to say after telling her all that i felt pretty stupid! hmmm, maybe i no longer know what normal is?

Life seems to be running away from me, im happy, interested, enthusiastic, but i cant seem to squeeze enough hours out of the day to do what i want to do. i need spares, time vouchers please. So this weekend im purposefully spending my time slowing down, sorting out my life by cleaning and organising the study, removing dead printers,sorting the piles that need filing so i dont lose track of where im at. im feeling like another week of chaos may tip me over the edge "sorry, what company are you from? who are you? i ordered what?" I know myself well enough now that a good tidy up followed by the reward of a few long hours chopping and stirring fridge and pantry contents into something special is literally just what the doctor ordered. Now, i just have to decide on the something really tasty and special to cook? What do you like to indulge in preparing when you're in need of some one-on-one with a saucepan? Some ideas would be great.

buying organic

an article on abc online this morning about new research results from a group in the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine reminded me of the change in my own approach to organics over the years. The research was a systematic review of 162 scientific papers published in the scientific literature over the last 50 years, and their conclusion was that they found there was no significant benefit to human health from eating organic food when using nutrient content as their main outcome of interest. This Cochorane systematic review forms the pinnacle of reference in the scientific comunity.


Over time, the idea of eating organic food for my health has been superceed by my principle for purchasing organics when the garden isnt forthcoming, for more environmental health reasons. When i say organics/organic food Im not talking about processed organics but fresh fruit and vegetables. The study admits to only measuring limited outcome variables; not micro-nutrients and not flavoids, so certainly some room for protest! For me, organics certainly can taste better (i have to say I have had some pretty shitty-quality organics over the years, probably due to being too long in the store)and they tend to keep better for longer periods of time. But now, I certainly prioritise local over organic and buy both where I can.

If you do or dont buy organics, supplement your home growns with purchased organics, what are your reasons?

Dancing Fingers at Jari Menari

Thats how the promo reads ,

dancing fingers, massage sessions by our all male team that offer strong, firm, consistent pressure.

We had booked a yoga massage session from Australia, my friend and I and really had no idea what to expect. Regular massage with a twist? We walked off the busy crazy street full of bikes and people into a calm white and wooden space. The obligatory piped music relaxed us and the fragrant oil for our session chosen from a selection of glass vials wafted under our noses. Amber. A nice start. We changed into the sarongs provided, quietly and with some discussion with each other as to what 'take your clothes off' meant...bra and undies or just bra? We opted for keeping the knickers on and in hindsight, Im glad we did.

We walked out into an open corridor paved in the Balinese way' stepping blocks amidst stones and made our way to the two smiling men who were each waiting at a different part of the garden. We followed the pathways that each led to 'our' man and our rooms. We entered clean simple spaces hidden behind shoji screens, a communal corridor of flowing water connecting all the rooms which were open to the skies; typical Bali "'Namaste' please lie down and remove your sarong". Thats not the impression i got from the website! They showed massage in sarongs! Okkk, no problem, as he was holding another sarong up with extended arms and proceeded to place it upon me as I lay face down.

I felt him pick up one leg, pull it sideways and lay it down on a soft firm pad, then the other. I'm now splayed face down , albeit covered in a thin filmy sarong, in front of man Ive never met. I can deal with this I think, it just feels a little exposing. Then he washes my feet. One long sweep of a textured pad on each foot. Surprisingly now i feel clean. Then he lays both hands on my lower back and I just know from this simple move that I'm in for a beauty. He radiated strength and knowledge. Wow!

I gave myself over to his very capable hands as he pulled and pushed and manipulated my back and shoulders and arms and legs and feet "Please turn over". No problem, I'm enjoying myself and feel quite comfortable. Then he starts to fold the top of the the sarong down, deftly replacing it with what feels like a bandaid over my breasts. Hmm OK, that could slip off at any moment but I'm sure that's quite common and nothing they haven't dealt with before, so again I tell myself to relax and enjoy it. He keeps folding the sarong , down and in, so I end up with a vertical strip of cloth between my legs. Double hmm, this could get interesting...breathe Kel, you've still got your knickers on. At this point am thankful Ive worn some respectable and sensible ones.

He starts to massage again. The tops of my feet, long sweeping strokes. I relax then he moves up my legs until hes sliding up and down their full length, using hands, elbows, wrists, up my thighs and under my knickers! Whoohoo. This is getting interesting. He whisps past my very inner thigh around to my bum and back again, and again. Boy, this is interesting and before my brain goes too far with the 'did he mean to do that?' he's back on my calves with depth and I'm feeling the professionalism again.

Im relaxing like never before, thinking that yoga massage contains all the elements of vigor that every other massage has lacked. Im loving it. Then he whips one leg over the other, twisting my torso to the side. He steps between my legs, standing in between my inner thighs and reaches over my body lying over me to reach up and around my back and neck' and begins a firm digging pressure at the base of my head. Im trying hard not to visualise the karma sutra at this point. Im also very avoiding opening my eyes; i dont think i could handle some eye contact at this point. I hear giggling from my friend in the next room. This is completely trippy. Water gurgles, roosters crow and i can hear the faint rumble of a jackhammer.

The masseuse starts to rotate my top leg holding my ankle and rotating my hip, holding my knee, opening out the muscles of my hip. At this point Im starting to freak out about farting, letting rip after all the stomach circling he has performed; my guts have been activated and now hes encouraging it in a dangerous fashion. Relaaaax Kel, dont tense your body. So im quietly doing pelvic floor clenches while relaxing, 'letting go', of my leg and butt muscles. I can multi task! Ive long forgotten my now minor concern about 'the bandaid' falling off the breasts, Ive got bigger things to worry about! Like, 'what is his view from there'? Still i refuse to open my eyes. i dont wanna know! He continues with the other leg. Im resigned to my fate by this stage and really do relax and enjoy it, only minor pelvic floor action required.

He ends the session with a gentle face massage and stroking of the scalp. I know the session is over when he waves a humming bell in circle over my limp body. 90 minutes of sheer heaven has just ended. I breathe out long and slow and smile to myself.
My body has been pushed, pulled, prodded and it feels great. My discarded sarong gets wound back around my body and I float back to the change room where i greet my friend .We exchange a myriad of laughs and mutterings of disbelief. Yoga massage Jari Menari style is not for the faint at heart, nor for anyone with the slightest hint of body selfconsciousness, but so worth the challenge!

relaxation and a good dose of...guilt

We have found ourselves in an unexpected heaven, paradise. We expected some heaven, but this is bliss. Three weeks of this? It may kill me.
We're camping out in a house found on Craigslist six months ago. Its a family compound of beautiful proportions, tropical gardens, resident mangy dog, a herd of cattle, roosters in bamboo huts, frogs, snails of mammoth proportions and two chefs! We were a little surprised to find upon arrival that the villa came equipped with an onsite manager, cooks, gardener, 3 cleaners and all the babysitting you can ask for (actually I have to be quite assertive to get the bean back, he gets whisked off quite frequently, i find him eating with strangers, out the front with the blokes and their motorbikes, on the cooks hip while shes grinding spice in the mortar and pestle- babies are hard currency in Bali. 'Just relax, just relax' we keep being told as we pack up after ourselves, try to do our own washing, look after my own kid. Its hard to relax when there are people wandering around cleaning up your own 'mess'. Colonial mistress I certainly fail at. The girls are finding it confronting too, wanting them to go home and be with their own families and let us do our night time dishes. So were struggling a bit. But its beautiful here, friendly and quiet. and were slowly relaxing. The chef, Nunga is a wonderful cook and lovely woman and she has agreed to show me some dishes in the kitchen and to go to the traditional market next time she goes; that's a motorbike ride Im looking forward too! So Im looking forward to learning some wonderful new dishes while we are here. The pic taken is a water spinach and mung bean cooked salad and Balinese chicken with cracked rice. Our first meal here and recalled in this post just for Veggie.

I love the tropics; the incense, the damp, the thickness of the air, the smells of spices wafting, the slightly cloying smell of waterways, the rapid fire language that you cant quite understand, the laughter, the flowers, the colour of the green. My favorite are the delicate plates of offerings made morning noon and night to please the Gods; flowers and fragrant pandanus leaves on flat woven banana-palm bowls topped with a stick of lit incense and a Ritz cracker. These gifts are placed in alcoves, on the grass, on a path, about 20 around the compound at any given time (i think the dog ate the cracker in the pic, else it was one of the kids). We are away from tourist town, located at the end of a long banana palm lined lane and amongst trees and families. Its beautiful, full of ancient culture, tradition and lots of flowering vines and mossy walls. I just have to manage the guilt.

a bit a me 'n' a bit a you

Blogging is a great way to connect, but it can be a little one sided at times. One writes about whats on the mind, whats important and at the end of that there lies some hope that you get some dialogue going, some feedback, some input. A conversation of sorts. As much as we all may say we do it for ourselves, it wouldnt be public if we didnt want some exchange.

Sometimes i feel like im talking to myself, other times i feel part of some delicious secret squirrel business; only we know whats going on. Sometimes Ive really wanted to know more about everyone out there but have failed to work it out. Sometimes asking questions is the only way to do it but the two way bit here online is such an organic thing and if it feels forced, its gonna flop. Thats the tricky part about blogging, that even if youre not blogging out of 'obligation';for others, sometimes you want to write but through lack of processing time it just doesnt make it to readable. Sometimes Im just so overwhelmed, awash with so many things all whizzing around that I cannot make a straight line out of a tangle of thoughts. Sometime insecurity sets in and you think oh crap, that was shit. how embarrassing, then you go oh well...and keep going, keep posting because it really is a means to ones own end, whatever that may be. I have been blogging way longer than I ever thought i would. Its magic and i keep meaning to read more, do some research into the social contructs around blogging coz i need some language for my motivations and the emotions attached to belonging to such a community. Is it really all about having a voice, being heard?

So i have a request for all you who read Taurus Rising, can you answer me a question please. It is this. If you think back to the past year or so and look at your own habits and choices, what would you say has been one of the most, or a few of the most significant things you have changed about the way you live, on any level, that you feel really pleased with, accomplished or proud. Oh, and why do you blog? I think i just need to find out a bit more about you.

any advice appreciated

Ok. so now I have an ABN (Australian Business Number), i have a trade name, i have a business plan (sort of) and I have a wholesaler for my very very favourite soft and filmy produce bags who can supply me at a reasonable price. The bags are made from certified organic cotton and are certified fair trade, made by a collective of women in a village in India. So now its all freaking me out. Between getting my thesis done, blogging, family, research, the garden and all, Im about to start importing and become a sole trader and all that's associated. Life is nuts sometimes. Watch this space.

*and now a registered web domain-whoohoo