Music for a Warming World

Nivy Balachandran	10 August

Dear friends,

Check out the event below for one of our fellow CCs Greenfaith 

"Music for a Warming World", taking place on 13 August 2017 in Melbourne.

Try Booking site for this event

Thanks Jonathan and Andrea 

for sharing this with us and for inviting us along.

Do get a long and check it out, 

and please share with your networks!

(Please email me if you have events you'd like to share with the URI network).

Kind wishes

Nivy

Nivy Balachandran

Regional Coordinator,  Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Islands  Part time - Office days are Wednesday and Friday.

Phone: +61 433 238 406 | Skype: nivy.bala | www.uri.org 

Grandmothers Against the Detention of Refugee Children : World Refugee Day : The Billy-Lids Song

Last Sunday was World Refugee Day - celebrated in City Square in Melbourne.

Grandmothers Against the Detention of Refugee Children - Ballarat

trained to Melbourne for the event which concluded Refugee Week.

More pictures from the day can be seen here.

Here we are at City Square, Melbourne - before the huge crowds turned up!

Below are two links to the Billy-Lids song which comes to us from

Grandmothers ADRC - Melbourne Ports

Please take the opportunity to learn the song and spread its message.

Great song. See who you can recognise. To me, Margaret Roadnight's voice is instantly recognisable.Thanks to Brigid Walsh for introducing me to this group of Artists.
Posted by Denis Wilson on Tuesday, 23 June 2015

And there is another interesting site for the song here

Light the candles

Last Sunday, Christian faith communities int he Western Tradition (the Eastern tradition operates on the Julian calendar, the Western on the Gregorian calendar) celebrated Candlemas.

Below is the beautiful music of the great Arvo Part  celebrating the presentation of Jesus in The Temple. The words of the prayer 'Nunc dimittis' are uttered each day in The Prayer of The Church otherwise known as The Liturgy of The Hours.


Picture above is from here

Now, Master, you let your servant go in peace.

  You have fulfilled your promise.

My own eyes have seen your salvation,

  which you have prepared in the sight of all peoples.

A light to bring the Gentiles from darkness;

  the glory of your people Israel.

The Song of Simeon

The Gospel of Luke : Chapter 2 Verses 29-32

Over at Interrupting the Silence, Father Mike Marsh has included in his post for this feast, 

Arvo Part's wonderful Nunc Dimittis performed by The Tallis Scholars.

Music at The Buninyong Brewery

The Buninyong Brewery in spring

One of the loveliest Trad Pads in the Ballarat area is the beautiful Brewery, home of Merle Hathaway, at Buninyong on the outskirts of Ballarat.

I recently spent a lovely Sunday afternoon at The Brewery listening to a range of entertaining music, enjoying a marvellous afternoon tea, all to raise money for refugees and asylum seekers and organised by the Ballarat Circle of Friends.  The afternoon was a huge financial and social success.  It was standing room only with the overflow amusing itself conversing in the wonderful outdoors surrounding The Brewery.

Below are some lovely photos taken by my friend Ian Hall, visiting from Inglewood.

World Matters 2011 Writers - Missing Peace @ Montsalvat - 14, 15, 16 October 2011

Diamond Valley Oxfam, Montsalvat, ELTHAMbookshop

Present

The 7^th Annual

World Matters 2010 Writers - Missing Peace

14, 15, 16 October

Venue: The Barn, Montsalvat, Hillcrest Avenue , Eltham   

 The Great Hall, Montsalvat

Session 1 - Friday 14 October 7.00-8.30pm

Superb storyteller Elliot Perlman is known for Three Dollars, The Reasons I Won’t Be Coming, Seven Types of Ambiguity. He discusses his epic new novel The Street Sweeper dealing with memory, love, guilt, heroism, the extremes of racism and unexpected kindness.

Chair: Sally Warhaft, Journalist and Commentator

Session 2 - Saturday 15th October
10.00am: Registration and Morning Tea
10.15am: Welcome: Stephen Lavender, Diamond Valley Oxfam
10. 30am: A Noongar Voice

Miles Franklin, Commonwealth Literature Award and Premier’s Literary Award winning author, Kim Scott, shares his colourful, warm optimistic view of the indigenous heart of our country and the need to honour the languages in which we first learn to speak. Kim will discuss his recent novel, That Deadman Dance, and children’s picture books Noongar Mambara Bakitj and Mamang.

Chair: Morag Fraser
This session is supported by Nillumbik Reconciliation Group

12. 00pm: Lunch Time Launch:
The Boy and the Crocodile

Teaming up with artists from Arte Moris, a not-for-profit art school in Dili, East Timorese children have painted scenes from the Legend of East Timor, a parable about the kindness of strangers narrated in Tetum and English. Proceeds from the sale of the book go to the Familia Hope Orphanage.

 

This session, which includes lunch, will be held in the Great Hall and costs $15.00
Supported by East Timor Women Australia who will run 

a fund raising handicrafts stall at World Matters

Session 3 - Saturday 15 October
1.15pm: Growing Up

Listen to unexpected stories that emerge when cultures clash and the mix of identities that make up a life. Elaine Kennedy’s Waiting for a Wide Horse Sky details the plight of migrant factory workers in South Korea. Tanveer Ahmed’s Exotic Rissole is an irreverent, funny memoir spanning rural Bangladesh through to western Sydney, looking at the complexities of managing tradition with modernity.

Chair: Jane Sullivan, Literary columnist, The Age.

Session 4 - Saturday 15 October

2.30pm: Futility of war

‘The war’, wrote one of its fiercest opponents and 19th century diarist Charles Gerville, ‘was founded in delusion and error.’ Chief political correspondent for SBS, Karen Middleton, An Unwinnable War, philosopher-historian Ian Bickerton, An Illusion of Victory, academics Fay Anderson and Richard Trembath, Witnesses to War, present their views and research on the mythmaking, propaganda and the tensions between political and military decision .

Chair: Carole Wigg, Medical Association for Prevention of War

3.45pm: Afternoon TeaSession 5  - Saturday 15 October

4. 00pm: Family Disturbances

Novelists Tony Birch, Blood, and Francesca Rendle-Short, Bite Your Tongue, discuss the worlds without sanctuary where characters find the strength of innocence amidst violence and genuine evil. Presented within a world of obsession and trauma the writers ask whether any of us is immune to the forces of destruction.

Chair: Morag Fraser

 Session 6  - Saturday 15 October

5.15pm: Poetry for Humanity

This perennial and highly popular session at all World Matters presented by Adelaide based Friendly Street Poets Elaine Barker, Ros Schulz and Serbian born Jelena Dinic. These empathetic poets couple their concerns for humanity with great poetic skill and strong personal voices in their profoundly moving, sometimes dark, writing that quietly and at a deep level open up their subjects for reflection and contemplation.

Participating chair: Elaine Barker

6.15pm:Twilight refreshments

Session 7  - Saturday 15 October

6.30-7.30pm: Singing History

John Lander, former Australian Ambassador to Iran and Permanent Delegate to UNESCO, sings songs
that are personal musical reflections in situations of conflict and disaster including the Song of the Children of Chernobyl which world premiered in Minsk. John will be accompanied by one of Australia’s finest pianists
Matthew Field.

Session 8  - Sunday 16 October

6.15pm: Morning tea and Registrations

10.15am: Welcome

Stephen Lavender, Oxfam and Helen Coleman, Mayor, Shire of Nillumbik

10.30am: The Voice of Reason

Professor Ian Lowe, The Big Fix, Living in the Hothouse, pre-eminent scientist, environmentalist, cultural commentator and president of the Australian Conservation Foundation, thinks we have a chance, but we have to act now. Ian’s new book is an environmental and community call to arms – through logic rather than fear-mongering.

Chair:Morag Fraser
Supported by the Victorian Climate Action Calendar

Session 9  - Sunday 16 October

11.45am: Missing Peace-Spotlight on Sri Lanka

“We all have to take positions when the temple bells ring.”

A child soldier with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, Niromi De Soyza, Tamil Tigress, activist Jeremy Liyanage and photographer Michael Baranovic share their insights and the compelling need for freedom amidst oppression.

Chair: David Feith , Teacher,Globalisation, Monash University

1.00pm:Lunch $15.00

Session 10  - Sunday 16 October
1.45pm: Singing For All He’s Worth

Essayists Raimond Gaita, Arnold Zable and Morag Fraser pay warm and thoughtful homage to an extraordinary life and a late-blooming creativity that was as heroic as it was humble. Melbourne citizen Jacob Rosenberg, liberated from the Lodz ghetto lived to become a unique poet and writer of novels and memoir.

Session 11  - Sunday 16 October

3.00pm: Our World in Poetry

A good poem is one that the world can’t forget or is delighted to rediscover. Australian Poetry from 1788, is a landmark anthology of Australian poetry with over 1000 poems from 170 Australian poets, including translations of Aboriginal song poems, as well as short critical biographies. This afternoon we hear poets Geoffrey Lehmann, Ian McBryde, Emma Lew and Craig Sherborne.

4.00pm: Afternoon Tea

Session 12  - Sunday 16 October

4.15pm: Digging up a Past

Whereas it was once assumed that Australia was settled by humans only in the past few thousand or even hundred years, research dramatically proclaimed that in fact Aborigines had been living here before the human race inhabited the Americas. Among the individuals who proved that Australia did have an ancient history, Emeritus Professor John Mulvaney, AO, CMG has been the most persistent and successful. Digging up a Past is a lucid engaging story of Australian history coming of age.

Session 13  - Sunday 16 October

5.20pm: Banning Islamic Books

In 2005, a few days after al-Qaeda terrorists killed many people in the London tube, newspapers in Sydney began a campaign against what they said were terrorist books on sale in a bookshop in Lakemba. Shortly afterwards Attorney-General Philip Ruddock, attempted to get eight books banned by the Film and Literature Classification board. Richard Pennell, Pam Pryde and Emmett Stinson discuss the dire consequences of knee jerk reactions and laws that attempt to muffle dissonant voices.

6.00pm:Twilight refreshments

6.15-7.15pm: Raga Dolls Cost: $15.00
“ it’s good to be reminded of a mythical world of honour,beauty, optimism and even a little wit.”

The Raga Dolls Quartet, co-founded in 2000 by composer and violinist David Osborne and piano
accordionist George Butrumlis, has long championed such a world. Come and listen to their vibrant original new Australian music and retrospective reflections on an age where domestic music-making and small scale ensembles abounded.

Festival Pass: 

$60 includes 13 sessions, morning and
afternoon tea and twilight refreshments

 
Daily Pass: 

15th, 16th October: $30.00
Each Session: $7 unless otherwise stated
 

Students: 

$40 Festival Pass; $5.00 per session.
Lunch $15
Prepaid, early bookings are essential:
ELTHAMbookshop@bigpond.com
970 Main Road, Eltham 9439 8700

PLEASE NOTE:

Meera of the Eltham Bookshop has written to me saying: 

Please let fans of your site know 

that if anyone quotes your blog the cost for each session will be $5.00.

With regards,

Meera

Miss Eagle says:

Don't stand upon the order of thy booking

but get thee to thy booking now.

This program is tremendous.

If you don't believe me,

then you haven't delved into the links I've provided! 

elthambookshop@bigpond.com

970 Main Road Eltham

9439 8700

It's only words, and words are all I have.....

Stephen Fry - language and fonts
~~
From our beloved BeeGees:
It's only words ...
...and words are all I have to take your heart away.

These words, found in the classic BeeGees song Words, are at the heart of this blog. I'm not influential, even in the Blogosphere, but if I have anything it is language, words...and a few photographs of doubtful quality.  But words can make all the difference can't they...when babies go from gurgles and coos to whole sentences; I love you; I'm sorry; what a great idea!

Indeed, words are all most of us - 

but, sadly, not all of us - 

have to take a heart away.

Transfiguration - a festive re-creation

To-day is the Feast of the Transfiguration. Three years ago, the fruit tree beside my home office window was covered in blossom (the picture is from 2005) but my fruit trees have very few blossoms at this time and my magnolia seems to have blossom as a permanent condition since they have been there so long without flowering.
In the Northern Hemisphere, Easter coincides with new life in nature. In the Southern Hemisphere, Easter happens in Autumn when the leaves are falling and nature prepares for Winter.
I love the Feasts but, on those occasions when we observe those that are not Easter and Christmas, I think we talk about them in a way which does not give any depth to the experience. I think that, in the main, this is how the Transfiguration is treated.
The Transfiguration was a supernatural event intervening in the natural order of things. It was transforming and predictive of the new life to come. Just like the Southern Hemisphere is experiencing at this time. How wonderful then if people in the south of the globe could take this great season of the soul and transform it to mirror the wonder of regeneration that is happening in the environment. We could then experience both the transfiguration of our environment and of our spirits.

The Transfiguration Lyrics

The song is on this YouTube videa at approx 42mins

Wikipedia entry on the album, Seven Swans