Posts

Together at the Edge

Image
  In case you missed it, my Border Corssings positngs have moved across to my Vision and Action website at  https://visionandaction.com.au/blog/   If you have been a subsciber and would like to continue to recieve email notifications of my new postings please subscribe at  https://visionandaction.com.au/blog/    I will not be posting any future postings on this blogger site.  Thank you for your interest in the past and look forward to you joining me at Vision and Action if you have not already done so. Together at the Edge What comes to mind when you hear the word “Edge”? In a general sense an edge is the extreme border or point of anything; the edge of a cliff, the edge of the table; the edge of cloth. An edge is particularly applied to the sharp border, the thin cutting extremity of an instrument, as in the edge of an axe, razor, knife or sword. Figuratively, it can refer to that which cuts or penetrates wounds or injures, the edge of slander. Edges are not always comfortable places
Post a Comment
Read more

New Horizons

Image
It is 2 years since I finished full-time paid employment.  Many of you have followed alongside me through “Border Crossing” posts, as I took some sabbatical time for rest, renewal, and reorientation.  I saw the months that followed as fallow time while I discerned what my unfolding future may look like, sound like, feel like, taste and smell like.  So many possible options were being entertained.  My “Border Crossing” posts became less regular as I allowed what was gestating to take form.  As the new year commenced, I could see new opportunities unfolding.  But 2020 did not unfolded as expected.   Instead COVID-19, a tiny piece of rna, possibly originating in a hardly known part of the world (at least unknown to most of us in the West) has shaken us from our complacency as it killed 750,000 people around the world and infected about 20 million.   Health and wellbeing has been prioritized over economics and our interconnectedness and interdependence has been highlighted.
Post a Comment
Read more
Image
  https://medium.com/@globalpurposeapproach/silence-is-complicity-holocaust-remembrance-9ad12843d9f5 At times, no frequently, I as a white, middle class woman living in a comfortable apartment in Sydney, feel powerless.   Powerless to act, powerless to make a difference.   I also feel conflicted.   My heart, my conscience, wanted to march in the Black Lives Matters demonstration.   I wanted to join the protests highlighting that there have been more than 430 Aboriginal deaths in custody since the 1991 Royal Commission and add my voice to those raging that despite this atrocious number no one has been held accountable.   Aboriginal people are still dying in custody.   Dying prematurely are disadvantaged by every socio-economic indicator.   Yes, I have had my wings clipped.   And I feel embarrassed.   What is my silence and non-participation saying?   Desmond Tutu says “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.”   And in a similar
Post a Comment
Read more

Oh how things changes in such a short time!

Image
It is just over 3 months since I created my last post entitled "Celebrating Life" following my 60th Birthday.  Now so many around the world are grieving.  Thousands have more than 20,000 have died from COVID 19 and there are nearly half a million cases of coronavirus.  (Interestingly there are over 800 millions people suffering hunger around the world and we have not responded with such urgency to this crisis!  I am also convinced that if as an international community we wanted to avert a climate crisis we have the capacity to do so given the way the world has responded to COVID 19 in recent months- but I digress)   Many, many countries are in lock down with job loses and ecomnic insecurity becoming the lived experience of millions across the world.  I am fortunate to live in a country with a great health system and infrastructure.  Many are suffering much worse than we are in Australia.  None of this could have been anticipated back in December when we celebrated my bir
Post a Comment
Read more

Celebrating Life

Image
Cake by Maria Wakefield, Photography by Julia Montgomery My reflection on the occassion of my 60th Birthday Celebration held on Sunday 15 December in the presence of family and Frineds at Little Bay, NSW, Australia. On my sixth birthday I was given “Now We Are Six” by A A Milne.   If I remember correctly, it was Christina, my older sister, who gave it to me.   I am grateful that Christina and Terry  travelled up form Melbourne to celebrate with us.   The final and title poem in the book, I loved, learnt by heart and still remember it some 54 years later.   Some of you may also remember it: When I was one, I had just begun. When I was two, I was nearly new. When I was three, I was hardly me. When I was four, I was not much more. When I was five, I was just alive. But now I am six, I'm as clever as clever. So I think I'll be six now for ever and ever. For some reason this poem came to mind as I was reflecting on turning 6 again, or rather 6 decades old.  
Post a Comment
Read more

I await, allow, accept and attend.

Image
I await, allow, accept and attend. The Blessings of Fallow Time- 12 Months from the Beginning of Sabbatical. I have recently returned from 14 nights away.  Six nights at St Mary’s Towers Douglas Park where I had a challenging and blessed retreat as part of my immersion in the Spiritual Exercises of St Ignatius.  I started the Spiritual Exercises in Daily life in January and anticipate it will take me the year to complete this 19 th Annotation of the Exercises.  This was closely followed by 8 nights in Melbourne for meetings, the ANSD (Australian Network for Spiritual Direction) Conference on The Dreaming and Dreams and a Professional Development Workshop on working with dreams.  Such an enriching time. While I was in Melbourne, I became aware that 12 months previously I set out on a 14-week sabbatical for rest, renewal and reorientation, hoping to explore ways of offering Spiritual Accompaniment among the fringes.  Following this rich, simulating and life changing sab
Post a Comment
Read more