BEING KAREN

I boiled an egg for breakfast, easy delicious mashed on a piece of toast that was well dressed with butter salt and pepper and that was it. I boiled an egg for breakfast, an egg from a farm where the hens are free to do as they please. this comforts me. And anyway, chickens living their best lives are hilarious. So much wisdom from the hen house - don’t count them yet, they are not hatched get up early, greet the sun, find that worm don’t run like a headless one - lesson lear

I'm sharing a post I wrote in 2012 on my old blog. These times remind me that we sometimes need to seek comfort and find the quiet joys. It's like standing in the sun on a winters day... Do you ever watch that movie Love Actually? I really like the voice over part at the beginning where the Hugh Grant character talks about how he feels much better about the state of the world when he thinks about the arrival hall at Heathrow, all that happiness and love right there. My feel-g

She was so beautiful that no one could gaze at her. All those who served did so with eyes downcast or wearing a hood. They knew that beauty was the last thing you saw before your eyes went dark. Maybe it was a spell. It was said that her great great grandmother was born of a demon after all. Powerful magic ran in their family, and so it seemed that powerful beauty did too. The courtiers were used to it. The servants got used to it. The portrait painters? They worked with mirr

It was a quiet day, Tuesday morning does not scream tattoo. When she walked in I thought she was looking for her kid, not looking for ink. She wasn’t looking for ink either. She wandered over to the display and my heart sank a little, she was too old for a tramp stamp, too elegant for anything wild, and then I wondered if she already had some, just not where they could be seen. That cheered me up. She made eye contact and that was her way of smiling and saying hello. “Do you

One day, after the countless retellings under the turn of the stars and the unfathomable winds of time and space, beneath the venerable oaks, (because the tale is always being told) the Lady will rise from the lake, and wield the sword herself, high above her head, arm stretched and strong, and she will say - no, this I do not give. Never again. Countless times you have come to me and I have gifted you this which is priceless. (oh the making of it, I still feel that in my bon

She sleeps high in the tree, frail and slight, finely built, a small bird. Wrapped around a branch tightly, although she can fly, a little. Awkward flight. Always arms outstretched to grasp the nearest sturdy perch. She never learned to fly. She just woke up one day, in the trees, flying. … To fly was surprising. And tiring. She can’t rely on it. She must rely on the trees, and shun the ground until she knows why. To land feet back on the earth may be through falling. Not-fly

Eating social media She opens the door with one hand and gives her friend the glass full of wine with the other “Come in, sit down, try to be quiet” “As if!” her friend takes two big gulps, throws her bag onto the only free space on the couch and wanders over to the kitchen. “What are you doing?” “Cooking” “No no. What are you doing? What’s the story? Why aren’t you set up to film” “I’m cooking, see”, the knife is waved vaguely in the air and then returns to the board and the

A memory from Melbourne lockdown surfaced this morning ... I might be Australian, but I am a Melbourne girl. This is my city, she shaped me and we have grown up together. My personal compass has pointed me far from home often. My cardinal points are here, they do not change. Melbourne sleeps now, her thousand eyes are closed. Soon, soon, not soon enough, the shops and galleries, arcades and bookshops, cafes, theatres and market stalls will come back to life. And so will our

Warrior Magic The master pulls his cloak more closely around himself, the room ice cold and drafty, all the windows open to the air year round. He stands quietly as they came in. They rattle and clank, bump into each other in passing, looking around for a seat or a place to lean against the wall. He sighs, and is thankful he only has to do this a few times every year. When their training is done, warriors are granted one small magic. He feels the tension in the room, they all

It was a busy night. Saturday night. There were countless young men who had broken themselves in so many different ways (oh, being a mother never stops being hard.) There were old women who were alone sick, no-one there to hold their hand, it will be okay. And Dad. Dad who was having a moment, and it was making us a have a moment, and it was causing the nurses and interns to have a more than a moment. But they just couldn’t get it to work, they could not do what needed to be

The Arrow I slip a hand into my witches bag, and to my surprise, draw out an arrow. What to do with this? I have no bow. I do not hunt. A single arrow could point me in a direction, but would it be the right one? Can I be my own compass? Targets abound. I have no bow. I do not hunt. “Do you shoot?” “Yes. Very well, as it happens:” A woman wiser than most wrote of the arrow, through the voice of her brilliant archer, “one of my vanities, you see. It’s handsome to watch, and s

The only angels here The only angels here are draggling, Flightless, Barefooted. Each lovely Renaissance arch – dirty. Sunburned. Hung-over, oh the rich cocktail of our air. A child’s fascination for the slickly shiny. Harbouring secret longings, Hopeful, For the ghetto fabulous bling wing. Why are they here? I only ask because these faces that appear in corners, like sad day-after-the-party balloons, look unsure. If the angels are unsure… So why are they here? “It’s a job,”

Second hand is a cold term, these books have been loved and now are moving on to new lovers. ‘You are the only person I know who reads poetry’. A phone call from a friend who is helping another friend pack up the home of her parents; both of whom had been life long academics at Melbourne University. The house looks like an opium dream I might have, every room crammed with books and the daughter begging me to take as many I want to. I am open mouthed and shocked that she can’t

Reproductive rights, in the US and everywhere else really. A few short things and then a longer one. Firstly. Good men , you are there, we see you, we know you, I raised two. This is not an attack on men. Stop referencing The Handmaids Tale, in that story WOMEN let down other WOMEN. And it’s not a great book anyway. Would-be allies please stop using that song ‘if we go down, we all go down together.’ No one is going down, we are rising. Without body autonomy, any person of an

This photo popped up in my Facebook memories today, it's a lovely moment to be reminded of. It’s not me, but it is my chuba. I was in Mahlo which is up in the grasslands in Amdo, Tibet. The rest of my group had gone off on a small trip but I had stayed behind to take the Lum or bath therapy. You have two very hot baths with prescribed herbs every day for a week. Normally you stay at the facility to keep the warmth in your body. But as I was there alone I didn’t have help to

I made a home with a man I made him sons We grew it, a family home And then it was not The waves that crashed through were made of time and betrayal Sons do not stay at home forever And neither do some men I opened my home to another man I ran here, ran there, gathering, to welcome him, This home a gateway, new life, new country The wave that took him, he caught it like a bus. Picking up small things he left behind, seaweed on a sorrowful beach, learning how not to be a thin

So while we are all being distracted by the Depp/Heard trial, and Kim K wearing Marilyn Monroes dress to the Met hoohaa, a terrible erosion is expedited with the news of the overturning of Roe V. Wade. But it's in the US you say. Doesn't matter. Do you really believe this issue is gone from our politics here in Australia? Roe v. Wade (1973) was a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in which the Court ruled that the Constitution of the United States protects a pregnant

not all realisations are bliss some are brutal gut punched, breath out others a measureless instant when lonely transmutes to peace where emptiness becomes spacious where questions fade and nothing replaces them a peace of my own making a space that is expansive in every direction I could desire from my cushion, the horizons are infinite and nothing is small 25/4/22 Photo taken at Dratang monastery, Tibet

Life is strange, and not all surprises are good ones. I am thinking about this day a year ago, which turned out to be not a good surprise. And then my thinking took me down a path of why we measure pain and recovering from said pain in time? (Or indeed any experience.) Why this need to say how long it takes? How many creatures lived out their full life span in the last year. How many didn't, having 2 months instead of their allotted 3? How many people have endured days that f

For His Holiness I used to wonder about the karma of it all. Why this strong connection and this belief that yes you are the Buddha, blessing us by placing your feet on this earth. Complete belief. Utter trust. From a far away place, just a small person, why would I feel this? This thinking western mind would take it on, but turn it over often, like a piece from a puzzle. I saw you many times, me a face in the crowd, you above, golden and shining. I showed up every time wonde