I have a trick for when I get writers block – which I do very often!!! I ask someone to give me three random words or short phrases. Then I bring these words together into a storyline. What follows is the text which arose from three words suggested by a friend: Essence Ka tha’ras on 25th July 2026
A mysterious alien walks out of a glowing portal onto a cobbled street in Transylvania
I learned a lot on that trip, but it wasn’t what I expected to learn.
Let me explain. My name is Glale and I come from a blue star circling around one of the suns in the Almaak cluster. Since I was a small child, I have had a fascination with the history and ethology of the peoples who populate a tiny little blue planet several light years from Almaak. The inhabitants call their planet Earth. Many of my family members think I am totally insane being so fixated on such a minor planet and they are absolutely fed up with me constantly repeating the stories which originated from there. But I didn’t let that stop me.
As soon as I was of the right age and had gained the necessary qualifications and permissions, I signed up with the Galactic Discovery Force. The GDF is a research facility whose task is to record the characteristics – physical, mental, emotional etc of different dominant species. They also have a specialist area which records the history of the planet. My research field is in the preservation of the stories passed from generation to generation. Study of these things gives us information from which we can project the likelihood of the alpha species of the planet becoming mature enough to join the Galactic Council.
The GDF were planning to send an exploratory team, under cover, to a very small part of the planet which the locals call Transylvania and it just so happened that this is the exact part of that globe which fascinated me so much. I applied to be part of the team, and, after many interviews, medical and emotional stability checks it was finally announced that I would be joining the team boarding the highliner ‘Galactic Starlight’ on its maiden voyage to Earth.
I was very excited when I boarded the Starlight. I was less excited during the very long and tedious journey, but I utilised the time researching the natural habitat where the stories and the creatures which intrigued me most, were birthed. In particular I was interested in a very strange creature which inhabited the Transylvania area and seemed to hold all kinds of magical abilities but had failed, during their evolution, to utilise these abilities for the benefit of the Earthen population.
Apparently, these beings could change shape. Often choosing to become a small flying creature. They were nocturnal, finding sunlight to be perilous; and as they lived in large stone castles perched on the top of mountains, that ability to fly would definitely have made life a bit easier.
Eventually we arrived and moved into orbit around the planet. The Galactic Starlight unfolded to it full length and we all settled in, waiting for clearance to proceed with our various research projects. I was very excited as we prepared to descend to the planet and although our physical form is not dissimilar to humans, as in, two legs, two arms and a head, it was necessary to undergo some temporary cosmetic changes so that we could blend in with the populace. For example, I am a lot taller than the average human and my blue skin and blue hair would definitely mark me as alien to this planet.
Finally, it was my turn to walk through the portal, which was programmed to take me to Sighisoara, the ancient town known as the birthplace of the very first vampire – a man with the most intriguing name of Vlad the Impaler. I stepped through the portal and arrived in a narrow street with colourful houses on each side and a cobbled road winding its way uphill.
A human, probably just as awed as I was, bumped into me.
“Sorry Mate,” he said. “I’m so busy looking at my map, I wasn’t watching where I was going. You don’t happen to know where the pub is do you?”
“Err. No. Sorry. I just got here.” I replied, hoping my translator was working ok. I had understood him, so it was entirely probable that everything was fine.
“Bugger,” said the man. “You look like you could do with a bevvy – want to come with me? Find it together?”
I was excited. I’d made contact with a human already! I followed him up the hill and eventually into one of the houses. There were a large number of humans in the room, all making a lot of noise and drinking glasses of some golden-coloured liquid. A glass was pushed into my hand, and I very carefully tasted it. My immediate analysis was that this was mildly toxic – definitely not something to ingest a large amount of. I was interested in the human experience, so I drank some more.
Over the course of the next few hours, I drank several glasses of the beverage and spoke with many people, discovering that no-one had ever seen a real vampire. Most people thought that they were something imaginary, made up about Vlad the Impaler who, by all accounts was a nasty piece of work. Then, an American woman who had obviously had more than the required amount of the toxic beverage, told me where I was most likely to be able to see vampires at work. A place in her hometown of Hollywood called Universal Studios.
I was a bit wobbly on my feet as I went back to my transit point, reset the portal and stepped through into a very different world. I had no idea where I was, or where I needed to go, so I stopped a passer-by and asked where I could find the vampire. He looked at me with a very strange expression on his face and then pointed to a door and hurried away.
I walked through that door and immediately a large person grabbed my arm and shouted at me, “Finally. You got here. We’re just about to shoot your scene with the vampire. Come on. Follow me.”
You would not believe how excited I was. I was taken to a large couch and told to lie down and not to move. I needed to pretend to be asleep and I must not open my eyes until I was told to.
I lay still. I heard people around me and then I felt someone lean over me. I kept my eyes closed as I felt breath on my face and the person took hold of my chin and moved my head slightly to one side, exposing my neck. I felt his breath on my neck and I braced myself, ready to become the first alien species to be bitten by a vampire.
I felt his mouth on my neck. His lips. His teeth grazed my skin and something cold and horrible overflowed from his mouth and ran down my neck. Then I heard someone shout the word “Cut” and the vampire moved away, leaving me alone on the couch. I touched my hand to my neck, and it came away red which was unusual because my blood is blue.
I looked up at the vampire, he looked down at me and he spoke.
A sparkling diamond floats amidst a vibrant cosmic galaxy full of stars.
These meanderings often begin with someone saying a word which catches my mind unawares. It can happen in the most innocent of ways and is often a word which is part of everyday life; a word that is so overused that it’s true meaning becomes lost.
Today I was talking with a good friend and the conversation turned to love. More specifically with my understanding of this word. My friend frequently talks from a perspective of her beliefs: she studies many different belief systems and holds wide and interesting knowledge which I am more than happy to listen to. Some of these things I discard, some I hang on to, some I worry over like a dog with bone often losing sight of the original thought as I grapple with understanding in a deeper way the topic in question she posed.
Today’s word, which triggered an emotional response from me, was a word that is frequently used in everyday life, and, in my opinion, overused so much that its true meaning can be lost. That word is Love.
For me, Love is like a very rare jewel. Something so precious it deserves special attention, nurture, care. It is not something I learned to feel in my childhood. It is not something I experienced fully, until I first held my daughter in my arms. That initial recognition of my Love for my daughter, and eventually each of my grandchildren, was so intense it was scary. These are the only times where I have felt anything approaching the reverence in which I hold that emotion of Love. And my daughter rejected that Love. From birth she built imaginary brick walls around herself, preventing me from getting close. Maybe the love I felt was too intense – too much for her. I don’t know. It’s very possible.
I said that I loved her father. I said I loved my family. I said I loved my dogs, but in comparison to my Love for my daughter and my grandchildren, that other emotion we call love is but a whisper.
We also say we love a certain pair of shoes. We say we love driving, swimming, smelling flowers, the comfort of our home, running into the ocean. For me, these are things to enjoy, to take pleasure in, things which raise our spirits…. But love? Compared with the depth of Love I hold for my daughter and her family? There is just no comparison.
Three years ago a clinical psychologist diagnosed me as autistic. She also diagnosed me with alexithymia – an inability to recognise emotion. Not an inability to feel emotion, but an inability to name what it is I am feeling. So when I struggle over a word such as love, and I have a grasp on an emotion I feel in every cell in my body and believe to be Love, and I know that it is an emotion which is not reciprocated, the fall-out is massive. It is soul-destroying. And that soul-destroying emotion is the closest I have got to Love in almost 50 years.
I was asked to list 100 things I love. That is impossible. There is only one. Anything else is a mis-naming of other things which fill my life with joy, with happiness, with desire and pleasure. I love the freedom of retirement. I love my friends. I love going to the foreshore, listening to the waves, feeling the breeze, talking with strangers. I love the taste of scotch, and of chocolate. I love writing. Not one of these things is untrue – to a degree, but not anywhere near the emotion I, personally, understand as Love. In each of these examples I could easily substitute the word love with ‘enjoy’ or similar.
Today I felt, in that conversation with my friend, the gap in my understanding of Love. It is a gap which, most of the time I can ignore. It’s not something I generally spend a lot of time delving into. There are, after all, some benefits to being AuDHD. Out of sight (or thought) is usually out of mind too.
And now, having written this, I have made a choice to accept that Love – as I prefer to know it: the deeper soul-sharing Love and not the preference of one thing over another, is unlikely to happen in what remains of my life.
But – I am not going to close the door on the hope that I can feel that emotion again and have it reciprocated – which is something I realised, as I stood under the light of the full moon, I have never truly felt.
Sometimes we can be pushing so hard to find what is right for ourselves that we miss the fact that it is right under our noses. For me, this truth was highlighted earlier today.
I’m a meditation therapist. I have meditated in very many ways for decades, mostly not realising that what I was doing could even be described as a form of meditation. Many times it was, I am now sure, escapism. As a young child I disappeared into books. My reality became the stories of Hans Christian Anderson, R.M. Ballantyne, and Jules Verne. I also disappeared from this world into an alternate reality I described as ‘Walking with the Elephants’ and my partner for these ‘walks’ was huge, blue, protective, matriarchal elephant called Emily. These were my means of escape from a world I found difficult to be in.
From the westernised versions of ancient eastern practices to modern therapies, I have dabbled in many forms of meditation and, until a few years ago meditation was a fundamental, daily aspect of my life. So what changed?
I did. My focus changed dramatically when, within a meditation I hit a wall – a wall of fear and I turned away. I still meditated, but my heart was no longer there. I still taught meditation but kept to the bias of secular assistance for anxiety and stress – both things I know of intimately.
In the past couple of years I have been exposed to some of the deeper aspects of ancient meditation practices through my good friend and spiritual teacher of many years who is currently doing a deep-dive study of such things. Today, within an open-eye mindfulness meditation, that wall of fear returned – and it hit me hard.
We later discussed, in depth, why this fear returned and the things we talked about made a lot sense on a personal level. I won’t be doing that form of meditation again and there are a few factors in that decision. I’m neuro-divergent and my mind got itself all twisted up. Strangely, the innocuous words of “Just let it go” became a threat. At first the ‘let it go’ bit was fine. It was the word ‘just’ which triggered me. There was no ‘just’ about letting anything go. Letting go of something is not an easy thing and the word ‘just’ seemed to me, in that moment, to minimise something that was difficult to deal with. And if I released whatever ‘it’ was? Where would it go to? And how can you release something without opening a gateway and risking a stampede. Silly questions in most instances, but for me in that moment it was major. It was an aggravation which triggered anger. At times like these I cannot recognise the emotion. I can’t describe it or understand it. This is Alexithymia. I don’t know I am angry – I only know that there is an overwhelming spiral of emotion. I cry, I can’t help it. I get embarrassed and even more anger arises. Before I know it, I am spiralling downwards.
I do cycle through periods of high and/or low emotion and was probably due for a downward spiral – I’ve had several really good days and I have been gentle with myself – not pushing my boundaries very much. It is good to be able to come out of such a spiral and to be able to gain some understanding of what happened and why.
I came back into balance a few hours later. And I did it through meditation. Not anything that a large number of people would consider to actually be meditation, but for me it is right up there as a method – because, for me, it works.
I live in a small town perched on the edge of the Coral Sea. I went to the foreshore, sat on a bench overlooking the water and found my peace in the magnificent and raw beauty of the deserted island just off shore, the hypnotic movement of water, the warmth of the sun, the very gentle breeze and the flight of birds and insects.
My truth is that this is where I feel whole. No religious or spiritual belief is needed. No demands to sit, or think or move in a specific way. No ‘Just…’ demand which leaves me feeling as I am lacking. No need for anything other than being within the energy and the life of this little part of this beautiful planet.
There is a need to understand that not every form of meditation is right for every person. For some, the adherence to methods tried and tested over thousands of years is perfect. For others, that adherence to something is not comfortable and can even be disturbing, especially when that discomfort is a pointer to the very things which need to be let go.
I have let go of so much. I am not ready to let go of more. I accept that and will go to my peaceful place on the edge of the ocean, and watch the clouds overhead form into fluffy animal shapes and feel that right now, for this moment, in this part of the turbulent world, there is a place which is peaceful.
I have a friend with the most amazing mind. She holds immense knowledge and spends hours contemplating all kinds of things which my mind wouldn’t even give a passing thought to without her asking the question first. The topics are wide ranging. Things dealing with how we travel through this life, physically, emotionally, and spiritually; belief systems from both ancient and modern times; science, psychology and more.
In recent years, she has asked me a few questions which have triggered, unexpectedly, a really deep dive in my finding an answer. She regularly contemplates from a perspective of expanded knowledge; I contemplate, once in a blue moon, by digging deeply and narrowly within myself.
The first such trigger question for me was “Who are you without your wounds?” I’ve mentioned this before – my wounds are the traumas of my life. She asked this not long after I learned of my neuro-diversity and as I can organise my thoughts best when writing, that’s what I started to do – and my first book Hidden In A Dark Place was born.
She recently set me on a similar journey when I was in the middle of an autistic meltdown. She knows I best work my problems though by typing so she asked me, “Why don’t you write a fiction story about your autism and your meltdowns?” It was probably phrased differently, my mind obviously wasn’t working very well just then, but I understood the gist. The book was born almost immediately. It is a fantasy called “In-Between Lives” and in little over a week I have written about a quarter of the book. The words simply flow from my inner self – my silent mind, through my fingers and onto the keyboard. My physical self works on the re-writes and edits!
About 12 hours ago my friend asked another such question. It’s been sitting, silently, in the soft darkness of my mind, doing its own thing in the same way that grass grows without you ever being able to see or hear what is happening and, less than fifteen minutes ago, as I was getting ready to go to bed, my mind decided that it was time to write. I know better than to ignore that urge. When I do, I completely lose the information, so here I am, letting those words flow from my fingers without any conscious idea about what my answer might be. The question?
“From a soul perspective, not superficial, what do I want from this life?”
My answer is “Nothing.”
I’m in my 70’s. The law of averages tells me that I have – give or take – ten years of life left. My physical life has been filled with many experiences and I’ve also had the opportunity to explore spiritual beliefs; plus, in the past five years or so, I have had the opportunity to answer those previously posed questions. Finding those answers was painful, enlightening and releasing.
I have things from my past I want to resolve, things in my present I want to complete, but from soul level? I have a strong feeling of already being where I need to be. Physically aging, a mind filled with knowledge, experiences, and memories: they are all there even if I have difficulty accessing them.
In the writing of this latest book, In-Between Lives, I am discovering a place to explore my beliefs and my imagination about what comes next. And it is turning out to be one heck of a ride!
A glass jar filled with handwritten notes of gratitude and dreams rests on a rustic wooden shelf.
There are things in life that are precious. They stay with us throughout our lives, sometimes in physical form, sometimes only in memory. They glow in the times of love and laughter and manage to survive the pain of darker times. I’m not talking about precious stones or gold or money I am talking about the simple things that we hold close to our hearts and we will do everything we can to make sure that they are not forever lost.
There are many things in my life I have lost. Precious things which have broken my heart and trampled my soul into the dirt; things which will never be recovered.
I have lost precious relationships through distance, time, misunderstandings, and death. I have lost precious items through poor choices, financial destruction, and ill health. I’ve lost people I love and all the potential which that love may have held, but I also have managed to hold on to a handful of small things which are so very precious to me: a photo of my first husband taken when a dream of his was realised just a few months before his death and another photo of myself with my daughter who shared a rare smile.
I have my teddy bear. Special Ted. He belonged to an aunt, who gave him to me when I was born. He’s a Steffi with articulated arms, legs and head and a squeak in his belly which still works – but you do have to give him a good thump to make him squeak. He’s close to 100 years old and he shares space in my bedroom with Angela my Rosebud doll given to me by my mother for my fourth birthday in 1959. She still wears the white dress and petticoat, and the red coat and hat which my mother made for her. I had the identical outfit. She was special because she had eyes which closed when you lay her down and opened when you picked her up. She no longer has her original eyes – my sister’s curiosity about how they worked required Angela to go to the dolls hospital to have her eyes fixed.
There are also some simple items which remain part of my every day life. They are cared for in a way that prevents them from being lost or broken: little things that no-one else can understand their importance to me, like the teaspoons in my kitchen drawer. The ones I use every day to make coffee or measure ingredients. They are all that remain of the cutlery set my first husband and I bought when we migrated to Australia in 1991. But the item I want to particularly mention today is one which I use every day and have done since the mid 1980’s. It’s a small glass jar, with a green plastic lid and a picture of leaves and flowers etched into the glass. It’s the kind of jar that you get at a dollar shop. Cheap, mass produced, nothing particularly special to show why it should be so close to my heart.
This jar was first given to my daughter for her 8th birthday. A school friend gave it to her filled with sweets. My daughter ate the sweets and then gave the empty jar to me. A simple giving, no major drama or presentation, just a “Can you use this mum. I don’t need it.” Since then it has held sweets, sugar, herbs, beads, sewing pins, pencils, ear-rings, hair grips, cotton wool balls and more. Right now, it sits on my desk next to my laptop and it is holding stitch markers used in my crochet projects. I’m crocheting the final row of a massive blanket I have spent about a year making and my next crochet project is to finish the temperature blanket I have started representing my daughter’s birth year. The glass jar will be with me right through the making of several thousand little puffy stitches each representing a hug for my daughter. Two whole rows of hugs for each day of her first year of life, one in a colour representing the highest temperature of that day and one row showing a colour representing the lowest temperature of that day. And each row will be celebrated by a stitch holder which is stored in that glass jar my daughter gave to me over 40 years ago. A glass jar filled with so much more than mundane everyday things. It is filled with many, many precious memories.
Do you have special items which are precious to you? Something filled with memory, a holder of your dreams? How long has it been since you sat with it in your hands and allowed the memories attached to that item to flow through your mind and through your soul. Memories that are bitter-sweet, joyous, or dark? Wherever they take you, they are all so very precious.
I never heard the term ‘bucket list’ until decades after I made my first entry on what was to become my personal bucket list. I was very young at the time and watched an elderly couple as they walked hand-in-hand down the street. The man said something to the woman and she looked directly at him as she answered. I have no idea what was said, but I did recognise the emotion they shared. It was, I was absolutely sure, Love. Strong, abiding, Love. The kind of love that carries you through fifty years of living. It could not be, to my young mind, anything else.
I made a vow to my child-self that one day I too would walk down a street hand-in-hand with someone I loved. Even as a young child I was a storyteller and, naturally, I embroidered the story a little, made it a bit more dramatic. This, I decided, was destined to happen on my fiftieth wedding anniversary.
First though. I had to grow up and find that husband.
I’m now in my 70’s and many more things have been added and removed from the bucket list I started on that day. Things like sitting in one of Europe’s great cathedrals listening to a live performance of Mozart’s Requiem; of lying on my back in the snow watching the Arora Borealis dance overhead; of seeing my child walk down the aisle and knowing that powerful love; and holding my first grandchild in my arms.
Only two of those things have come true. Each became, in their turn, the most beautiful, blissful experience of my life.
That first Bucket List entry, to walk down the street holding my husband’s hand and still being deeply in love, should have become true today, 13th March 2026. Today it should have been the fiftieth anniversary of my marrying that grandchild’s grandfather and setting the path that brought our whole line of descendants into being.
Just a few weeks after our 22nd wedding anniversary my husband died. I was 42, he was 47.
So many ideas and ambitions came to an end at that time. And now, all that is left on this day, which was supposed to be so very special, is the cold ash of collapsed dreams.
Instead of walking down the street holding hands with my husband, I spent it at the hospital checking on the progress of a surgery I had undergone three months ago and organising my next two surgeries. But I still saw Love. I saw it in the eyes of my surgeon as we spoke about his son. I saw it in the eyes of a student radiographer who is learning the joy of her job. I saw it in the soul of the lady who drives me to the hospital, a lady who like so many others has intimately known pain yet can give her time, her caring and her love freely to everyone she meets. I saw it, as we arrived back at my house and I got out of the car. There was an old man, he would be about the same age my husband would have been had he lived. I do not know this man; I have never met him, but my driver has. They stopped to say hello and then the old man turned to me, gave me his hand and drew me into a hug.
He was not my husband, he was a stranger. he was not the person I expected to hold hands with on my 50th wedding anniversary, but he hugged me and then said, “Hello Love”.
Yes. He was a stranger – but I am a storyteller, and my story ends with two older people holding hands in the street and feeling that love still exists. That it will always exist. We only need to see it and not be afraid to share it.
Thank you for reading this. I invite you to think about the people you love – go, take their hand, give them a hug and for no reason other than “Because you can” tell them that you love them.
And if you need to – allow yourself to cry.
Walk in Peace – the Path of Peace is already beneath your feet.
Almost 30 years ago I stopped playing the piano and the reason I stopped was because I had become obsessive about playing just two pieces – House of the Rising Sun by The Animals and Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata. I would spend, literally, hours playing those two pieces over and over again.
At the time, my husband had died from a very aggressive and virulent brain tumour. He had been given just three months to live but he had held on for 16 beautiful and awful months. After he passed, these two pieces of music soothed me. They held me together, gave me focus so that I would not fracture into a million broken particles. They allowed me to escape this world of pain and sink into pure emotion and, sometimes, I could even glimpse the possibility of peace.
Then had come a time when I began to believe that this constant repetition, often for hours at a time, was probably not healthy. It was time to move on, so I packed up my keyboard, sold it and have never played – or consciously listened – to either piece since.
Now, 30 years later, I am retired and I spend far too many hours in front of a different type of keyboard – my laptop or my tablet or phone – and last week, to encourage keeping my brain active, I bought a piano keyboard. It was a cheap one from Amazon. One that was labelled as suitable for children and beginners. I sat at that keyboard and realised that I have lost every bit of knowledge I used to have about playing the piano.
I’d started school when I was just two years old and already able to read and write. Piano lessons began when I was three and ballet at the age of four. Then came a time when I had to chose – ballet or piano and I chose ballet. So it was rather a shock when I sat at that keyboard and realised I knew where middle C was, but beyond that…. nothing.
Tonight, before settling down to sleep, I was doom-scrolling through Face Book and a reel appeared which was of Moonlight Sonata re-recorded as 8D – the method of making the sound alternate between ears with the intention of soothing distressed minds. It doesn’t help me become calm – quite the opposite. I remember a few decades back when alternating the sound tracks produced a similar effect that was very experimental and quite exciting, but listening to that music reminded me of those weeks and months spent playing Moonlight Sonata. I searched in You Tube for Moonlight Sonata, and, with my bone conduction headphones on, I closed my eyes, let the music wash over me and allowed the emotions to flow.
So much has happened in life since I used to escape the hardships of the world by playing this piece – some things good, many things difficult, and I have been trained from a very early age not to show emotion – which is very difficult because I am an very emotional person. I see the world as a field of emotion; I experience life as emotion; any memories I hold are tied to the emotions of that time. I cry all the time, and because this was not acceptable as I grew up, I get embarrassed, frustrated and sometimes even angry with myself as I try to push the emotion down – to hide it. It gets blocked in my throat and frequently bubbles up completely outside my control.
Tonight, listening to Moonlight Sonata in the quiet privacy of my home, I allowed that blockage in my throat to relax, and I cried. As I type this, I am crying. Later, as I edit it, I still cry.
Music has the ability to release emotions you don’t always know that you have bottled up inside you. It has the ability to by-pass the tendency to swallow pain and fear, to squish it down and hope it hides forever, just so you can function and get through whatever your life is throwing at you.
There are two other pieces of music which also release deep emotion for me. They are Mozart’s Requiem and Symphony of Sorrowful Songs by Gorecki. Symphony of Sorrowful Songs kept me company during the months when I was full-time nurse for my husband. At night when I knew that medication would keep him sleeping, I would head out to work, alone in a large office in an otherwise empty building on the edge of a deserted car park. Afraid, absolutely exhausted, but so grateful that the business owner allowed me to retain my job by working when I was reasonably sure that my husband would not need me. It removed the worry of not being able to pay the mortgage and perhaps losing our home as well as my husband.
Mozart’s Requiem also brings tears – I played it at his funeral. But there is also joy in that music as I remember my niece, visiting from England, a trained opera singer with a dream of singing at the Sydney Opera House. We went there and asked permission for her to stand on the stage in front of an empty auditorium and sing. She was refused. Instead we took a ferry ride in the Harbour where she bravely climbed onto the roof of the ferry, faced the Opera House and sang at it. Not quite the same, but so very beautiful. I was not the only person on that boat who was crying.
So many memories raised by a piece of music. And as I once again head off to bed, I recall the music that lifts me up. I used to be a 1980’s dance-aerobic instructor… Yes, 1980s dance music will not only get my toes tapping but will also elicit laughter at the fashions of those times – especially those leotards we all wore!!!
If life sometimes feels hard, or you want to celebrate, laugh, dance, cry, sing at the top your voice, music in all it’s many, many forms will help release what you are holding inside.
And just for fun, go make your own music. You don’t have to buy a keyboard – or any other instrument.. banging a wooden spoon on a plastic bowl or a saucepan is awesome therapy.
A little piece of the serenity of where I live.
Thank you for reading this. I invite you to think about the music you love – go listen to it and allow yourself the freedom of experiencing the emotions it brings to you.
And if you need to – allow yourself to cry.
Walk in Peace – the Path of Peace is already beneath your feet.
As I write this there is an ending happening. From one perspective there are many endings – there are six hours left of this day, six hours left of this month, this year; the final meal has been eaten and shortly I will go to sleep for last time and will wake to a new day, new month, new year and so many possibilities. As many people are driven to do, it is time to review what I have achieved, what I have learned, what mistakes I have made, what has brought me joy and what has brought me to tears.
I don’t recall the start of 2025. I know that Christmas would have been hard – it has been for the last almost 30 years. My intention this year was to put aside fear, anger, pain. It didn’t happen. I probably made that intention last year too. And all the years before.
I live in the Far North of Queensland, in the Wet Tropics – and this is the wet time of year. Hot, humid, biting insects and pouring rain, and it can often seem as if the only promise for the coming weeks is that of mould, damp, cyclones, floods….. but that is normal life here. We get used to it.
Hinchinbrook Island on a windy day
The floods in 2025 were spectacular. Devastatingly spectacular – with the emphasis on ‘devastating.’ There are people in my town whose homes flooded almost a year ago and they still have not been able to return. When I place my troubles and worries against that disastrous background a new perspective is recognised. Many of my difficulties are made more, simply because of the way I looked at them at the time.
My house threatened to go under water, but before any danger occurred, a friend drove through the growing flood water to pick me up and take me to her home to wait things out. I was lucky, the water only broached one small room which was easily cleaned.
I fell over some flood debris in the garden and landed on my nose, breaking it. My landlord was visiting and he took me straight to the doctors. If he hadn’t been there, it would have been a totally different story.
Over the year several things that could be called ‘horrible’ happened, but in every case there was someone I could reach who helped me out.
I have a friend who lives in the USA. I talk with her on the phone almost every day. Sometimes hers is the only voice I hear for days. That, for some people would be dreadfully lonely. For me, I enjoy being alone, but I do look forward to her call and her question “What are you up to?”
There have been a lot of medical things happening over the year – I’m getting older and my body seems to enjoy giving me a fresh challenge every now and then! I’ve had a number of procedures and major surgeries, recovery is definitely in the ‘challenging’ category – but I also have people who help. Cleaners, a gardener, a driver to take me to hospital visits, meals delivered to my home, disability/mobility devices provided.
In every case, in every potential difficulty there is a choice. I can view whatever is happening as a hardship, I could get angry, lock myself away and bemoan my hardships – and sometimes it all gets too much and that is exactly what I do, but mainly, once the fear is under control, I am so very, very grateful for the blessings I hold.
I have a house which has survived cyclones and floods, owned by a landlord, who will happily call around to fix something when needed. I have a friend who visits when she is passing and almost always brings me dark chocolate or some other little gift. I have people around the world who message me to ask my advice. I have my American friend who listens to me rabbit about mundane, probably boring stuff such as my crocheting, the invasion of ants that usually herald the next downpour of rain and the recipe I am using to make bread. We also talk of deep and meaningful things, of spiritual growth, mindfulness, Taoism, ego, and the purpose of human life, but I especially love the peek into her life which is chaotically filled with family and animals, Qigong, the books she is reading, the work she does. I love that when we finish talking and hang up the phone, I can step back into my quiet, silent life where I feel safe.
We all have lives filled with drama. Sometimes that drama is huge, such as a house going underwater, major surgery, accidents, money issues and so much more. The drama is real, but how we face the drama can affect how we get through, how we recover and how we move forward in our lives.
These things happen. We are human, we can’t avoid drama – and by ‘drama’ I also include trauma, pain, illness, fearful situations and more. We are told that each of these happenings are experiences and if we can learn to walk through the experience, recognising it for what it is, remaining calm when we can, and knowing how to bring ourselves back to calmness when we lose it, life will appear to be less… dramatic.
This is what I am going to work on for the coming year – now just five hours away….
My Mindfulness Bell is turned back on. It is my hourly reminder to stop, take a deep breath and consciously bring myself into a calm and centred space by acknowledging the experience without allowing it to engulf me.
I have already worked out that when drama happens, I am never alone. Other people are also having that experience, other people are there to help where needed. And sometimes all that is needed is to take that deep breath, that moment of stillness, and then take a step forward through the experience.
And so we move forward into 2026. I feel that there will be much drama and many changes in this year. Let us all try not to enter the chaos when drama shows its face, but rather allow ourselves to acknowledge the experience, keep ourselves centred and calm and move forward in Peace.
Thank you for joining me on this journey through life. May 2026 bring for you the opportunity to work towards making the changes you desire in your life.
Chronic pain, in one form or another, has been with me for most of my life. In the very early years it could be said to have been self-inflicted… I was a ballet dancer and pain seemed to go with the joy of dance. Bleeding toes, cramped feet, over-stretched – over tired muscles….
After the birth of my daughter, I moved into the world of fitness: 1980’s aerobics. My body was stronger, more flexible than at any other time in my life. I was at my physical pinnacle but, inevitably, the price was paid in the pain of an over-extended body.
Just before my first husband died in the late 1990’s, I collapsed on the floor of the bathroom in the most agonising pain of my life. I lay paralysed on that floor for hours, and started a period of my life when I never knew if I would be able to trust my body. Pain was an inescapable part of survival which I had no choice but to ignore. To give in to that pain, to move into the wheelchair recommended by the medical folk, would also have meant the loss of my job and, ultimately, my home. Many, many people walk that tightrope of ignoring body pain in order to survive.
Pain is a part of the human condition. I cannot imagine a world in which even a single person has travelled without knowing what pain feels like. And it is not just physical pain – emotional pain equally travels through life with us.
Pain can also be an amazing teacher. Yes, it can lead us into the world of fear, of overwhelm, of anger, of tears and despair, loneliness and aloneness. But it can also teach us acceptance, tolerance, forgiveness. It can show us our strengths, our compassion, the amazing levels of endurance the human body is capable of and the strong desire of survival.
Recently, I entered a world where the many facets of pain are constantly faced – a major hospital. The decades of pain from the physical overuse of my body, and the contributing affects of emotional pain have caught up and I was booked to have surgery – one of those ranked in the top five most painful surgeries. More pain to endure, but with the expectation of, eventually, less and the blessing of on-going independence.
Hospitals are places of extremes, places where the majority of the people passing through the portals are hurting in some manner, but it is also a place where many human angels can be found. I can only imagine how difficult it must be to get out of bed and go to work in a place filled with every form of pain you can imagine – and some! These human angels come in the forms of surgeons, doctors, nurses, administrators, porters, cleaners, cooks, physiotherapists, counsellors, baristas….. the list is extensive. A major hospital is a small city devoted to the easing of pain.
I entered hospital on Monday at 6.00am. I was booked to have a reversed left shoulder replacement. By 8.30am I was prepped and wheeled into theatre and the procedure was started. It didn’t happen. Everything, apparently, screeched to a halt when it was discovered that the prosthetic was ‘contaminated’.
I have no idea what was meant by the term ‘contaminated’. I don’t need to know – my mind can make all the possible scenarios it wants to, but the truth is I am just relieved that the problem was discovered before the surgeon’s scalpel pierced my skin. That could have been disastrous.
I have watched the reaction of other people. I have seen them feel my disappointment but, perhaps, not my Peace. Yes, shit happened – but it could have been so much worse. I have absolutely no doubt that behind the scenes there will be an enquiry and I hope that such an enquiry will result in greater understanding about what happened so that it can be avoided in the future. I still have an arm and I have had the amazing experience of seeing angels walking this earth, dealing with the pain, the suffering, the fear with a smile, a compassionate touch, a reassuring word or two.
Things happen in this world of ours, this world filled with all manner of pain, but I also see opportunity. When we see others in pain we have an opportunity to grow. Sometimes that involves the dedication of those who work to help others – and sometimes it is just a smile which says “I see you. You are not alone.”
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