Life is for living: and living abundantly

Talk about the lazy, hazy days of summer. That's how I've been feeling since Christmas. I haven't felt like maintaining my blogs. This happens to me quite a bit these days - and it is one of the reasons why I have not been very good at journalling until blogs came along. Life is for living, for being in the present moment.

Now, don't misunderstand. I believe in the reflective life. I do reflect. I think reflection is a continuous part of my life, my spiritual existence. But to sit down each day and write what has been lived, what has been thought, what has been experienced takes a lot of time. And to go back years later and relive what I have written? Nuh-uh! Not my style. Not that I haven't done this. I just don't manage to maintain consistency in doing it. I have a large brown paper shopping bag full of journals, jottings, attempts at journals - and I have a couple on the go. But, by and large, they are not literary efforts. They are jottings. They are the working through of ideas, notes of where I am now and where I might be going.

To sum up, I think there is a spiritual narrative of my life going on inside me. The stars of the narrative are me and my Creator and the story is about the journey we are on together. And my recent insight is that, just as I am on a journey, so is my Creator: a journey of surprise and delight in his/her creation, a journey of wonderment in how it is all going and how it will all turn out.

So my summer has been full of the joy of my garden - the pumpkins and tomatoes and basil and beans competing and co-existing and producing. A wild mixture of edibles which I have tended into existence. I have been reading more consistently and voraciously than I have in a long time. While I am always reading one way and another, I have taken the time to be absorbed by and in what I am reading. I have made some new friends simply because I have stepped out in some new ways - and there have been some lovely lunches with Harriet, Lee and Marian. My carport has been turned into a lovely, simple, and most unfashionable living area. The perfect venue for lazy lunches and lingering coffees.

So, dear Reader, please excuse your correspondent if she goes missing in action from time to time. It's because she is living a life which is to be lived - and lived abundantly.

Water for beer but it's a drought in the garden

I reckon Miss Eagle can say without fear of contradiction that Denise Gadd is hopping mad. Denise blogs at The Age where she is also the gardening editor. Now the blog is in a bit of a hiatus for the silly season. Denise burst into the Opinion Pages of The Age with this piece to-day. Almost a year ago to the day, Denise was having her say with this piece.

You will have noted, dear Reader, that Miss Eagle is promoting the petition, to which Denise refers, on her blogs. Go for it Denise, I say. Anyway can we send Tim Holding a ticket to a Permaculture design course for a New Year pressie? He clearly is not a gardener and has no sympathy for those who garden. I get mad when I think of all the water that it takes to make beer - and I don't drink a drop. I presume that Tim drinks his fair share - so how about giving me some leeway with my veges, Tim!

Water, water everywhere in the Outer East.

The previous post was talking about our lack of water and water restrictions. Clearly, a day is a long time in weather and climate. This afternoon, there was no shortage of water in the Outer Eastern suburbs of Melbourne. Huge downpours this afternoon and flash flooding all over the place.

For the first time in three years, the creek in front of our house is full and flowing: flowing fast, in fact.

Possum skin cloak - can you spare one?

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!