BEING KAREN

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

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

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

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

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

Things done in private. Stare at the crone in the mirror, wonder how that wild white hair multiplies so, no idea. Eat toast for dinner, chocolate for breakfast. Dance. Try on lipsticks I no longer wear. Ignore the phone and watch the same movie over and over. Paint. Build piles of books around my home, oases. Yes oases. Sob, weep and wail, attempt to put my heart back together, the gold won’t stick. Kintsugi is a lie. Write, delete, write again. Laugh at m

I miss the wind. The clear skies. There is no blue like an Amdo sky. And the deeply dark, silent temples, with towering deities, who don’t even notice me. Shy smiles and wide stares. Elders. Malas always moving. A constancy of chanting, soft drone of mani bees, breathing the mantra in and out, turning the world as if it were a giant prayer wheel. It is. Butter tea, hot, salty, fill my cup, please. I miss throwing a handful of lungta high on a mountain pass, the wind takes the

Melbourne enters day 200 of lockdown days since march 2020. A sober thought, two thirds of a year spent at home. Like everyone else I miss travel, even the idea of travel, so have been spending time with photographs and journals from past journeys. The Jowo Buddha is the most important statue in Tibet. It is believed to have been personally blessed by the Buddha. It came to be owned by the king of Magadha , who gave it to a Tang emperor of China. One of the emperor's clansma

This is me drinking poop coffee, or more politely, coffee made from beans that have passed through the digestive tract of the Asian palm civet (Paradoxurus hermaphroditus). In Indonesian, Kopi luwak, it is also called civet coffee. Poop coffee. Yes I am drinking it and smiling, but that is the least remarkable thing about this picture. I had never been to Bali, which is practically un- Australian. It was on my radar as a beautiful place that I had no intention of visiting be

Last year I turned 60. That was expected. However 2020 was not the year any of us were expecting. Here in Australia we started the year in the grip of truly catastrophic bushfires. Our country was burning beneath our feet. Our Prime Minister was in Hawaii on holiday. It was a grotesque Circus, the worst nightmare. I painted water and prayed for rain. My palette was white, silver, grey, all the blues I had on hand. It rained the next day and I could not stop laughing. We thoug