The Light in Mid-Winter: a story for the winter solstice

To-day I go to Cindy-Lee's at Cockatoo in the Dandenong Ranges (I live in Upper Gully in the foothills) for an afternoon barbecue and story-telling and lantern-making session. Then we go to Belgrave in the evening for the Lantern Parade. For the occasion, I have written this story:

THE LIGHT IN MID-WINTER
A story for the Winter Solstice

The Earth is in winter once again. The Sun gets out of bed later to find the Day and tucks itself away earlier to bring Night.

But there is a place that we can’t touch or feel. We scarcely notice it when it is come and it is gone. It is Mid-Winter. The Winter Solstice. This is a very special time. Before this time the hours of The Sun are getting shorter and shorter. After this time, the hours of The Sun are getting longer and longer. Or we can think of it another way. Before Mid-Winter the hours of Great Darkness are getting longer and longer. After Mid-Winter the hours of Great Darkness are getting shorter and shorter.

The Sun is s-o-o important to us. It is the bringer of Life and Light. When we put our plants in the ground to grow our food, to produce beautiful flowers, and start big shady trees on their journey of life – our effort will be wasted if there is not Light. We need Light to live. And while plants and animals and human beings have adjusted and adapted to living with cold in most places on The Earth, we do need Warmth. The Sun gives us Warmth. Our life is in Light and Warmth – not in Dark and Cold.

Our bodies love to be warm. They do not like to be shivery cold.

But it is not just our bodies. We human beings are not just our bodies. We are spirit too. And sometimes, in our spirit, we do not feel warm. Sometimes, in our spirit, we do not feel full of Life and filled with Light. We feel the Dark and the Cold coming inside of us and this does not make us feel happy. Instead, we feel s-o-o sad. We don’t want to get out of bed. We don’t want to talk to people. We want to huddle into ourselves because the sunny parts of our lives feel as if they have gone away never to come again.

So what do we do when we feel dark in our spirit?

It helps to look around at the world created for us. When we make a garden we have to think of all that a plant needs. This includes thinking about the Light. If the garden is too shady because of big trees, we have to prune and shape the trees. The plants in our garden will receive more Light to grow.

We look at our spirit in the same way. We do this by sitting quietly. We sit quietly so that the spirit inside us can listen. We sit quietly so that the spirit inside us can be still and not disturbed. As we still our spirit inside us, it is like pruning and shaping that big shady tree. As we are sitting, as we are still, as we are quiet we find the Light comes to our spirit just as the Light comes to our growing plants.

A long time ago a man called George Fox learned about the Light. He said then – and his words have come down to us to this very day – I saw an ocean of darkness and death BUT – and this is a great, lovely, big BUT – and infinite ocean of light and love which flowed over the ocean of darkness.

A photographic walk

Upper Gully from Glenfern Road - home of The Trad Pad

Gina has posted on a recent walk. Set off on a l-o-n-g walk from The Trad Pad on Monday. I walked up Glenfern Road, turned into Ferndale Road, walked past the Sherbrooke Archers meeting ground, took a diversion along a creek, walked by Gilmour Park and its lake complete with ducks.

Then I came to the beginning of suburbia with lovely mountainside homes. I stopped to chat to a newer resident who had purchased a home with an overgrown garden and he was doing battle with rampant ivy over the rock wall. He was interesting - a retired horticulturalist with a penchant for cacti and succulents.

On my walk, I was able to feast upon wild apricots and plums. I took pictures of some beautiful "weeds": rampant convolvulus "Morning Glory" intermingled with agapanthus. Agapanthus is beautiful but it has found its way into our close-by national park. It does look beautiful - the mauve blossom against the grey eucalypt trunks - but it is indeed an interloper there.

And then it was down into Upper Gully village and home by a walking/bike path tucked away behind the main shopping roads. And then past the Neighbourhood House and School, across the park, along the creek and home. Two and half hours on the hoof and on the loose and here are the photographs:

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A picnic inthe Dandenongs.

Yesterday I had a beautiful day. It was St Thom's Parish Picnic. It was held at Kirrang, the property of a couple who are parishioners of St Thom's. We had a beautiful day in beautiful surroundings. Here are the pictures.

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Ripe and rhododendrons

Miss Eagle's sister, The Director, has been in Melbourne again this week-end.

Yesterday, we lunched at Ripe in Sassafras. It had changed a little since last I was there. Ripe is an old house and it had a verandah/deck at the back. The deck has been extended. Access is by two sets of folding glass doors. There is a marquee with see-through walls. Features of the space are a rhododendron and communal tables. It was a chilly, overcast day so there was one one of those huge outdoor gas heaters.Inside, in the house section, it is still the same wooden tables and chairs for a more intimate ambiance.

Here we were - each of us with gastric lapbands. So we ordered the vegetable and coriander soup and the risotto - with two spoons and two forks so we could share. Beautiful warming, comfort food. The risotto - with fresh asparagus, beans, and feta - was the best ever. As you can see, dear Reader, substantial portions.

Ripe also retails some luscious, high quality goodies.

Great to think about as the Christmas season draws near.

After lunch, we visited the National Rhododendron Gardens at Olinda.
The Gardens are magnificent - sitting on the edge of the beautiful Dandenongs.
The Dandenongs are a temperate rainforest area with huge eucalypts from which masts of sailing ships were made.
There is a huge variety of colour represented in the rhododendrons.
The native Australian bush makes a beautiful backdrop and contrast for the rhododendrons.

For more pictures of this masterpiece among Australian gardens, please visit here.

Drop in on The Dandenongs

Hat Tip to Winza for the photographs This post is blatant promotion. Miss Eagle lives in Upper Ferntree Gully in the foothills of beautiful Blue Dandenongs. The Dandenongs comprise large tracts of temperate rainforest - tall, ever so tall Mountain Ash and valleys of tree ferns.
For more than 100 years, The Dandenongs has been a leisure and pleasure getaway for Melburnians - particularly in a hot, dry summer. Sometimes they come from day trips. The wealthy had/have week-enders in The Hills. These days it is B & B territory with wonderful restaurants.
At the moment, there is a competition on and you could win a wonderful week-end experience in my neck of the woods. So, I didn't want you to miss out on an opportunity. So please go here and enter. And when you win, please email me so that we can do coffee up at Sassafras or Olinda.

Snow snapping cold

Can I have what he's having?

John So, Lord Mayor of Melbourne in a traditional Wurundjeri possum-skin cloak (Jiawei Shen, 2005 Archibald Prize Finalist)

In south-eastern Australia, where winters can be very cold, Aboriginal people kept warm with possum-skin cloaks. Check out this ancient craft here. After a life-time in tropical and sub-tropical climes, Miss Eagle still feels the cold in Melbourne even though this is her third winter here. So she could really, truly do with a possum skin cloak.

Forest Glade Cottage, Olinda : St Matthew's Anglican Church, Mount Dandenong


Will this be what it will be like up the road in The Dandenongs this afternoon? Last night, here at Upper Gully, it was like sleeping in a wind tunnel. Cocooned from wind with an electric blanket, a doona, a minky, a Rose and a FootFoot maybe - but oh the howling, noisy wind.

A little while ago it started to rain.

The Age carries this story. They are calling it a cold snap! What do they think we have been having for the last ten days! A fortnight ago from last Friday this was the scene as I breakfasted beside Lake Wendouree. My weekend in Ballarat was oh-so-cold. But here is the picture in The Age to-day just a short step away from my breakfast place:

Brrrrrrrrr!