November 25, 2011

#43


you have probably worked out that i am a big and i mean BIG procrastinator,
which leads to a lot of paralysis and not much to show for.

it saddens me i have this in spades and i know it frustrates the hell out of my
husband who wants me to be doing a whole lot more than i am.

i have ideas. lots of them. most i don't even write down. which i have no real reason why
i don't. i think i gave up long ago when i realised that i rarely followed through on things
i was days before very excited about.

so this week i started to learn how to crochet. a friend who lives nearby is a bit of an expert
on these things and i had mentioned i wanted to make a blanket for my kids?!? so she has
been making space to teach me for the last few weeks and i finally ran out of distractions that
had me not showing up for my lessons.

i am not that crafty a type and anyone who knows me could attest. and i know we were
only doing crochet 101 - the easy beginner steps - but i actually could do what i was shown.
the stitches and casting on pattern that i learnt is all leading to creating a beanie, which
i love to wear, but not where my passion lies, but even still it felt really good to be making
something with my hands. i'm kinda sad in a way that whatever i am making as a practise right
now is really not leading to and end product, although both my girls are bagging it as beanie for
their favourite toy!

i just watched a short inspiring tedtalk with the theme about just making stuff, whatever it is
just make - given by the creator of threadless - that great online t-shirt&hoodie company that
we love in our house. so i am feeling like i am sort of getting on track here, getting messages
supporting what i am doing and even though i can't imagine crochet as my way to save the world
or be my income path, who knows, sillier things have happened.

maybe it will just get me back into creating, and then i can try and weave or crochet that into my
other passions like herbs, healing and consciousness raising.

have a look here for some inspiration

November 22, 2011

#44

It's so Wuthering Heights up here. Last week heavy fog hung around all day long. It was hard to tell what time of day it was because it just looked the same ALL day. But when the fog finally lifts, scenes like this just take my breath away.

Peat bogs form in wetlands and moors. It is still an important fuel source in some parts of the world and avid gardeners use it without much thought to where it came from. It has the same energy capacity as burning brown coal. Peat grows at a rate of 1mm a year. The area where I am living has 8000 year old peat beds. Peat bogs are seen by some scientists to be as important and fragile as rainforests. Here in Germany they also rape (harvest/mine) the moors. And what they are doing here is just the tip of the iceberg. This absolute destruction is going on all over the world wherever peat exists. Delicate moorland ecosystems are completely depleted and ruined from the drainage and drying out and mining of huge areas of land for agricultural, forestry and housing purposes. This not only destroys the habitat of many species, but heavily fuels climate change. As a result of peat drainage, the organic carbon that was built up over thousands of years and is normally under water, is suddenly exposed to the air. It decomposes and turns into carbon dioxide (CO2), which is released into the atmosphere. It takes centuries for a peat bog to regenerate. Recent studies indicate that the world's largest peat bog, located in Western Siberia and the size of France and Germany combined, is thawing for the first time in 11,000 years. As the permafrost melts, it could release billions of tons of methane gas into the atmosphere. Indonesia, China, Malaysia and Papua New Guinea are currently creating the biggest problems in terms of peat fires.
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I found myself speechless standing beside this open cut peat bog, and looking at the destruction of this ancient land. Here is a piece we picked up. At 1mm a year I guess that piece is about 200 years old.





November 20, 2011

#42




so you know it's summery weather right?
and the temperature is fairly warm these days
around 30c this weekend.
so you could imagine how the beach would be
looking right?

wrong!

there's a fog spirit lurking around our parts this
weekend. the headlands are shrouded. the bay is much
smaller this way. the colours are all muted and the
crowds are staying away. yay.

here's a little snapshot of bondi this week via