It is only rubbish right?

Several weeks ago while out running in my woods I saw someone’s idea of being creative, was to hang their used beer can on the local sign for the marking of the trekking route. This then had me reflecting what it is that brings us to think we can just "dump" what we do not need where we please. I think when we are honest with ourselves there have been times we have all done it (from small to larger items) - the question is why? Was it a youth thing, a lazy action or just not caring or thinking? Did we feel if we were in another country it was then not our problem or in another section of our town then not our business? Does your rubbish reflect who you are when you leave it behind?

I have a habit of picking up the rubbish when I run around my small patch of forest and often can be seen with bottles, bags of dog poo or an assortment of plastic in my hands as I return home. I worry about the animals getting hurt or trying to eat the items and being in agony as the plastic kills them from the inside out. Not to mention if a walker or runner stands on a piece of broken glass and receives a wound that hampers their further progress.

Honestly feel it is an issue of teaching the human being why when they make a mess, they need to be responsible for also clearing and taking away their rubbish, to the appropriate area. What we do not deal with when we make it will bite us in the backside later when we least expect it! That goes for physical rubbish as well as that which we act out in our actions, we place on paper in written form or that which comes out of our mouths.

If you are not able to deal with your waste in the correct manner then what do you expect when others treat you as a throw away commodity of no value! All items within life have a by-product that we later do not need. Be it the packaging from a item just brought or a value passed on which is disregarded for a new movement of thought. If I have not taken the time to look at how to handle the casing or covering, its poison contained within releases itself and simmers in its place of rest, creating an unbalance in that which I have taken on. The wastage I have disregarded will continuously drain me, when I use the item that was enclosed within.

That is why the fish of today, which we place on our plate, bites us back in our body’s cells by giving us our own plastic waste treatment. Or the water pouring out of our taps fills our body system with the residue of medicines used by the millions but creates for us as individuals our own new personal medical waste issues. Or the pesticides we have sprayed for years on our crops has changed their cellular composition and made them today unproductive, wasting our natural food chain. Or the bees are finding our handling of the world they live in so wastefully destructive they are literally leaving us. Or our pushing of one nations ideas upon another causes the wastage of valuable heritage, as we cause destruction with weapons of war that create the worst possible waste known to made kind - that of life and all it stands for.

Maybe if you throw away a scrap of paper, on the footpath, from an energy bar you are consuming, it seems to you of no consequence to your next moment of living life. Yet start to put together one persons carelessness with ten, then a thousand then ten thousand and it takes on another dimension.

We can create from our waste such wonderful new items to utilize for example in the form of jewellery, furniture, housing, electricity or the new constructions of fibres and materials for all manner of items. It is never to late to rethink your stand to wastage and how we utilize the hidden potential within its elements of "been used, no good, throw away" label. 

Next time you are about to chuck the casing of something used down or out think upon the cycle of the seasons and how today’s dead crap becomes the essence of nourishment for the growth of tomorrows needed product. Waste holds within its form the casing for a new item of usage. Don´t waste the chance to use it.

My forefathers would say to the theme of making a difference to how we view changing our attitude to waste: "Kaua e whakaarohia te mahinga engari te otinga"(Maori proverb)  - "Think not on the labour, rather reflect on the completion." It is worth the effort for all and in generations to come when we take effective pro action now. 

Your Korus 

The guardian angel

I am your inspiration. 

I am what gives you the breath of life. 

You feel me in moments of tenderness. 

In laughter and smiles. 

In the flow of your tears. 

I gentle show you often I am near, within but an arms length yet you seldom notice I am here. 

Often only at the door to the other side does your awareness become clear and you see me. 

It would be so nice for us both if you did not leave it so late. 

But you have been given free will. 

The mind to choose. 

The pathway you walk has only one pair of shoes. 

I follow behind upon wings light of weight, only to carry you when the way is uncrossable. 

Or reach out to push you from harms way. 

It is the task of the one who guides - to be near and hold you dear, my love.

Your Korus 

Changes

“Pat a cake, Pat a cake Baker’s man. Bake me a cake as fast as you can” are the beginning words to a children’s nursery rhythm that keeps going around and around in my head. A sibling wants something delicious and tasty almost instantly for him/herself and his/her younger brother. He/her then states further on in the rhythm it should also “be marked with a B”.

What we want, how we get it and then in which manner we define what we have then achieved is the essence of this fun and nonsense sing-a-long. Or is it nonsense? Can it be showing the various levels of our ego reaching out for and stating clearly, that which we desire – the adult (Baker) produces the commodity, the child (sibling) states the time span (quick, quick) and the baby (younger brother) wants it marked or branded as his/hers. Should it be showing us more the process we need to take when undertaking something?

When I became a parent, I of course knew what it was I would not do. My child would never be sent away from home, as I was to a boarding school. It would never experience physical punishment, as I did at the hands of the caring nuns. It would never be lacking in the toys it wanted or receive gifts that were way off the mark of the desired item. It would … mm; the list could go on and on yet what we received as children and how we are determined not to make those same parental errors, as we ourselves do the parenting, already falls short in the songs and stories we pass on. In these fairy tales and soothing ditties are hidden the truths and teaching mannerisms of our own up bringing and heritage. Without perhaps even noting what we do, we pass on mindsets and mannerisms, that are generations old. They give the child the information on how to be, react or undertake various steps within their lives.  All wrapped up in an unconscious, physiological manner.

Along with the above my children had also an extra information source that as a child I did not have and it’s influence was never in my hands to control - social media. This spinner of modern fairy tales and pulsating songs, which I had never known, covers a whole new spectrum that is not country or nationality bound. Instead the information given becomes truly diverse. It creates ideas and ways of undertaking what, how and when you achieve your desires in “out of the box” thinking and here the generation gap is felt today between the child and parent. I, as a parent, have wisdom in my experiences that lay before the technological revolution of the last twenty years that my off spring does not have. It is not the years that give me insight. So old I’m not. It is the knowing how to navigate life without a mobile telephone, Google, laptop or any other form of multimedia-connected wiring that gives me a sage’s insight into living. It is the "nut and bolts" understanding of what works and how on a practical level.

Last Sunday my eldest child, upon returning from a deserved "time out" after having completed a three-year degree, stated she was now going to take on a completely new employment direction. Reflecting back upon this with the above in mind, I feel that when two generations discuss today’s life's situations they are really coming from extremely contrasting stands. When it involves a complete new turn about in career direction, when just having completed studying one, then I feel my age because I would first at least work in the area just learned. Apparently not really required says the youth of today. Career switching can be done “just like that”.  All can be instantly reinvented, put together and created by the click of a button or key. No time for baking just branding. Gathering skills is for me a completely different terminology than for my child.

I look back to my young adulthood for understanding. What was I seen to be like to my parents, I wonder, when I was twenty-one and telling them of my decision to travel to the other side of the world to live and work in a field I had not learnt. Did they feel I was naive, unprepared for what I was taking on or did they wonder at what I had going on in my head?  From journalism to gastronomy is also a deep valley. I find myself listening more than speaking. Thinking more than doing. How I react will have an effect on various levels of our relationship, so I want to be true to me when I say something. Then my comments can be really beneficial. Not platitudes thrown into the wind but reflections on a fast and changing world in which we today all walk in. This tech-no-logical world holds what seems to be the answers needed for our future yet the basic requires of loving, giving and healing are not yet found within its framework. These never change with the times. 

I love David Bowie. When I worked in Brisbane and saw him in concert I felt as if his words were supporting, changing my world into the grandest dream of what I wanted to be. I listened to "Changes" and knew I could do or be anything. Now when I listen to this song I hear another message from its lyrics and these children let you spin on as they try to change their worlds and they are immune to your consultation and are quite aware what they are going through - changes" ... "time may change me but I can’t change time". He has not changed the times for me but time has changed how I hear him and this shows my versatility to change. I can hear what you are saying my child I am just standing at another point of time than you. It is good so.

We are but the bow that has been chosen to pull the arrow back, giving it the required velocity to fly forwards. The direction, the distance and the height; at which, the arrow fly’s is not of our control.  Was it the hits or rather misses and falls we cannot say. We stand but on the ground, back a long way from the start and view its process only knowing we provided the right framework for its release. So is the parent’s position to that of its child. Time, technology or a melding, multi cultural world never change that.

Your Korus 

Stag's mating song

I have my best suit on 

Just all spike and dandy 

for the hottest bug-zee in town 

she wont know what took me 

so long to come around

cause she too has been living up high t

hen laying down low 

waiting for the right time 

to just let go 

now we're out and about 

rollin and crawling around in the lush evergreens 

doing the “antlers tango”

swooning under the new moon 

making the moment worth the wait 

from years of built up potential 

oh la la la, I have my top hat ready and she 

has her red shoes on 

its the night of the butterflies ball and 

we are out on the crawl.

Your Korus 

Take a seat

Take a seat in my garden

choose from which ever one

each has a place with a view

and space for all of you

some are rather old

others made from bric-a-brac

yet no matter where you sit  

I will always have your back  

you can stay very still

or talk with me

we can communicate with words  

but it doesn't have to be

I will perhaps drift off for a minute or two

as the sun warms my skin ~ or need to go off to get a jacket  

when the wind begins to spin

no watch rules our day

we have all the time in the world

to just sit and ponder together  

on the joys of today or the hopes hidden away  

within the chambers of our hearts  

which ever seat you choose

know I am always by your side  

here just for you.

Your Korus 

Somewhere

The other day while running somewhere around in the woods, I came upon a sign that told me if I went down this path, I could possibly learn a bit more about the bee, that lived in the hives, hidden amongst the tall trees. Should I venture down this new road to a new “somewhere”? Or stay on the known pathway before me that would take me somehow away from here?

A wise woman you are to know, we should always walk only as far as our inner voice whispers to go, I heard softly in my ear. So I knew somehow I had to go because “somewhere” lies still and quiet under a clear blue sky, in a shady spot that I am sure was put there just for me! The place known as the somewhat solo tree space.

Standing there tall is my own solo tree that was placed with care, in this secret place, just a step away from reality; so I can dream of ferocious tigers, strawberry milkshakes, swinging hanging mats, lazy holidays or whatever takes my fancy. At somewhere lies for me my somewhat solo tree.  Somehow I need just to go around the bend, beyond the hill, deep into the forest to find it standing there waiting for me to arrive, to be myself without any fanfare or rummy tan tan.

A somewhat solo tree is rather magical. For it allows me to go somewhere quite still and peaceful. It needs only for me to see it amongst the woods thick to acknowledge it exists. It can be quite bare, fat or tall. It can have no branches at all. It will reach out to me when I pass it by, if I am ready. I will know it somehow when the time is ripe.

So I warn you if the bend in the road wants to weave its spell over the distance you should tread, let yourself only become bedazzled by it, if you know you have gathered your wits and are ready for the next sensation of natures touch. That somewhere, leading to the somewhat place, where you will stand solo under your own tree. Go only if you have the strength and are ready for what lies there.

For here the bird’s voices in the forest are varied and strong. They sooth the soul from up high, as the body gathers renewed varied energies, under the tender touch of the tallest or maybe the smallest solo tree.

Then the mind may wonder and dream a bit about whether or when you should even go onto the next bend in the road of your life, that beckons you ahead to take another turn than the one your on. To shed, what is not needed; to become a newer version of the wonderful you. To take on really living the life you where born to live, somewhere, somehow. Now.

For it is in somewhere that the somewhat hectic stand of today’s lifestyle can be looked at with hawk like clarity and viewed in the macro and micro at the same time. Somehow you have the moment in which to be the grandest version of the person you are living to be.

Somehow it will happen, that somewhere you will hear, there is a place that lies somewhat near to help you get to the place you can become aware.

Your Korus

Footnote: Somewhere in this strange tale, that might make you wonder if I have all my marbles because it seems a bit afoot and not quite real, lays a message to be heard if you are ready. 

Strangers are, known to us

Sometimes we have these moments in our “precious present” time, which makes no sense to us at first and yet these “happenings” are perhaps a turning point for those touched, affecting all our destinies without us realizing it at all. So was the case recently as we went to a cricket match, of our friend’s son James on this sticky, overcast English evening, in a region of England.

We; that is a Swiss, two Germans and yours truly, where there with, let us call him Charles the English Dad, a friend/business associate of one of the Germans. He had asked earlier in the day if we would care to watch his son play. I was the one who said immediately “love to” then thought afterwards perhaps the others were not so enthusiastic as me. Luckily this thought proved unfounded.

So Charles picked us up from our hotel and we went out to the local cricket field to watch the match. Now being from New Zealand I should know my rules back to front but something went screw whiff with my education. I am an ace on tennis but with cricket I am a risky card. So my Darls, a Swiss guy who lived several years’ Downunder, thought he would help out the Germans with the rules.

In the mean time I had sat down to watch and capture the moments on film. An Indian man beside me introduced himself (let us call him Rashid) and struck up a conversation with me. Suddenly he stopped speaking and turned towards Darls: “If you want to know the real rules of cricket let me explain them to you!” Rashid began to explain in detail and with a clarity, that before had not been present, the game of cricket.

Mean while I got us some drinks and the conversation was on a more personal level when I returned. Rashid’s wife called to find out how their son was doing. Turning to me he asked that I let her know what I thought and perhaps said a few other words to. What would you do? I introduced myself, chatted a bit saying we were being very well informed, by her husband, in regards to the game. Now here is where things took another turn. 

Rashid said he wanted to invite us to his house for dinner. So here we are at an English cricket match. A stranger strikes up a conversation with us. He asks I chat to his wife on the phone. He then asks us to come over for a traditional South Indian meal that he will cook the day after the Iron man event. I have never had this happen to me before. He is the head antitheist for a major hospital in the region. Rashid is taking his family on holiday the following week to the Maya pyramids. He finds us so interesting he says, that he does something he, has never done before. He invites four strangers to his house for a meal. Just like that. Naturally everyone is a bit weary. Even James doesn’t know him.  So what would you do?

Life sometimes presents you with a chance to “take the bull by the horns” and go with your gut feeling. This was definitely the case here. We exchanged addresses and contact numbers and made up a time, which we kept.

On Monday we got a taxi to the address given. This man had been intensively caring for other human’s lives upon the operating table all day and literally just arrived home to change and greet us before we bowled up. His wife, daughter and son all welcomed us warmly and with an incredible openness. The conversation flowed with amazing connections of similar interests and views. They had prepared for us as promised a traditional Southern Indian vegetarian meal with the exception of one special chicken dish. It was exceptional! It had us all “umming and arrh-ing”, talking about the various ingredients, cooking methods and reasons for using the various food combinations. 

This special soul had never done this before – inviting strangers into his house let alone cooking for them. His whole family were amazed at his boldness. Something compelled him to, he said. Rashid felt his children would learn so much from us. He wanted them to be open to other cultures and ways of thinking. He felt it was destiny.

Strangers are, known to us. Sometimes it is with just an eye contact or a passing comment. A gesture. We re-connect to a very deep instinct within us, which reaches out to be nourished. It cannot be explained. It is not rational. When we try to validate the action we take, it cannot be done. There is no explanation for our decisions or choices. Yet it is meant to be. Rashid was a stranger dear that became again our friend.

I was extremely moved all evening on a very deep level. I had often a lump in my throat. Upon leaving we were given a beautifully craved box with crushed gems ground down to form a picture. Mine is of a girl in a forest feeding three does. She is graceful and at one with all around her. Is that not saying it all?

When you walk as one with yourself and the world you live in; the mind, body and soul are nourished on all levels leaving you open to experience, the magic of life! 

My deepest gratitude to Rashid and his family; for being literally that magic on this evening and taking together with us, a step towards being a united humanity, in peace and love.

Your Korus 

How do you choose your gift?

How do you choose your gift? I feel so many of us have forgotten the enriching art of giving items we cannot put a price tag on! Are you one who at times forgets this too! I have asked you these questions before but I want to show you another way of viewing them. 
So that by each breath, which you take, you grasp more the understanding of this simple act of giving, and placing it into action over and over again. Must it be something that is tangible or can it be spoken or felt? 

I come from the land of the long white cloud New Zealand. My father gave me, as I left for Germany, a very small brown package folded tightly. Within it lay a rugged black stone no bigger than a thumbnail. This small stone came from Mount Ruapehu, an active stratovolcano at the southern end of the Taupo Volcanic Zone in New Zealand. This is the place of my birth. This small black, sharp edged stone represents to me, that I have always responsibility to the people I come in contact with, no matter where I lay down my head at night. This gift is to remind me of who I am, from where I come and how I take the steps forward to where I am going. It is the most precious gift I have ever been given! A stone. Actually it is a volcanic lava stone. A reminder stone symbolizing my place of creation. My father knew exactly what he was doing when he gave it. He was telling me time is but an illusion. You are always a part of what I am, where I have been and you walk now where I cannot go. He gave me the gift of understanding eternity. So often a gift holds for the receiver more than an observer sees. So is it in this case.  How often are you open to giving a gift without expecting anything back? 

 My dearest friend had her 55th Birthday recently. She insisted Darls and I go out to dinner with her to celebrate the various milestones in her life to date and she wanted to pay. A natural part of me did not want her to pay, which is what I should be doing, when it is her Birthday. I know what this means to her though and that is why I respected her wish. I gave her my time, presence, complete attention and love upon this evening. That was my gift to her. It is my time that she wanted, needed and I was there one hundred percent to do just that. It was a very special evening that we will all hold tenderly in our memories. So a gift can be for the one receiving it of such importance that to state what they would like and how is the top priority. So is it in this case.

Do you realize a gift can be given without wrapping it up in paper and string? 

I am giving the gift of my presence and support to my husband as he takes on an adventure of extremes - an Ironman. It is a triathlon event that requires months when not years of preparation. The physically, mental and physiological side of the person competing need to come together for a period of 17 hours in which they challenge themselves to and beyond their limits. It is something he does by himself within a field of 1300 participants but if he knows I am standing on the side lines, cheering, smiling and filming him it gives an immense surcharge to often a tiring body, weary mind and questioning soul. This sporting event challenges you to reach into depths that build character for life. It can change events within your life and be inspirational in developing your person. 

It also challenges the partner during the whole training period as well as on the day itself. I need an open, loving and giving heart to put my own needs from 4am Sunday morning till when we get back to our hotel around 11pm, on the back burner. In that time I too go through a transition of wondering what am I doing springing from one area to another so as to see him as many times as possible. I am made to look at what I want from the steps I am taking in life over the period of this day. Life is about experiencing the rush of your own power that surrounds you and within you, in all you do.  Perhaps with souls whom care to help you, so you need not quite do it all on your own. Lean on those helping shoulders when they are offered. They are there for a reason. They give you the gift of being treasured and deeply loved. They allow you to spread your wings and soar to heights unknown and come back to tell of the wonders you experienced there.  So it is in this case.

The time taken in choosing what to give and the time taken in being present when we give is the elixir of living! 

Your Korus