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“Listen very carefully …”

‘I will say this only once.’

Too many times I have been approached, and each and every one I have turned down.

The hand I offer you is the right one. This is the hand my brothers and sisters use to help me up, and this is the hand I use to help them up. I am quite capable of using this hand, but don’t ever take it for granted. It’s only a helping hand. Every one that tries to see something in me I am not, will be turned away. That is all there is to it.

Do you understand this now? My playing with you never goes beyond that. I have never gone back on my word. I will not do it now, not for you, not for anyone. If I give you safe harbour, this is what you must understand. Deceit does not go hand in hand with the destination. This is what I have been teaching with my brothers and sisters, and this is what I’m telling you now. I have never taken, nor will I ever take, advantage. I will not seek others either, for that just isn’t my way.

I hope this makes it clear to you. My life is my own, but my left hand is the one I will always be with, because that is also my strong hand and I’m quite attached to it. He is my partner, my life and has always been my destination. He loves me, and I love him, and although this changes over the years, I am not planning on leaving my life partner.

Over the years, when I have had to move my ring to a different finger because that finger was too fat (I am so not kidding, it was being ring-barked) I had far too many come to me and ask things they should not have asked. Even with the ring on the correct finger, I have had far too many come to me and ask things that should not have been asked. When they begin to realise this, they might begin to understand. I can play a part, sure, but you’re not going to get any more than that, and I’m not going to do anything like that for you. It’s highly likely you will be treated as the fool you are, if they think this is possible.

They are not nice people.

My friends are not my enemies. They know me very well, and so they know that here I speak the truth. Not too many can say this, and I have understood their pain. These are my brothers and sisters. They move with me towards something that is a lot more pleasant than what is not us.

So, my last question to you is this;

‘Are you happy?’

You say you are happy. This is good. It’s time for you to go, and be happy, like you said you were.

This is the time for me to say to my son, ‘Lead the way.’

He will learn this, too. And he will lead the way.

Don’t be concerned by that. When he leads, he will not be any of the things that make him bad. Not at all. When he leads, he will have a destination, and that is what is important to all of us.

Rising of the Sun

I will show you this story in his true form, for this is who he is.

Let me guide through the long grass. Can you see him up ahead? This is my Brother. He waits for the sun to rise between the two hills, and he has been waiting for a very long time for his sister to come home to him.

I am here. Do you wish to move forwards with me, one by my side? For he is not for you. You are very brave, yes. My brother is not interested in doing the wrong thing. He is here for protection, and I need to help him home today. We need to watch the sun rise together.

Brother, please be patient.

He bows his head as he waits ahead. His shoulders are bunched, but he takes a breath and rests his arms on his knees.

”Don’t you dare make me look back there,” he whispers fiercely to me, and I grin, for this is directed to me, not the one by my side.

‘She does not understand you yet, brother. She has not come to speak of the timeless love to you. Not yet. But, she tells me she is willing to listen. It will help her craft.’

Brother two is taking me aside, and not in an unkind way. What you must understand is that he is many to me, as I am many to him, and I know which one has taken his place on the way to him.

‘I do not want to get in the way,’ this one whispers, and he is frightened.

‘You do not get in the way. For me, this has always been my brother, the other half of my soul. The one I love in a different way is sleeping. Do you understand?’

This tall one is sad, but it is not his time.

‘Thank you,’ he says. ‘I see now you are waking my brother from the sleep of the guilty and he was not taking care of himself.’

‘Not the guilty one, either,’ I say to him. ‘Please get out of my way. I need to watch the dawn with my brother. He was silenced for too long, through no choice of his own, and that time has passed now.’

My brother looks over his shoulder from up ahead.

‘Hurry,’ he whispers. ‘Dawn is coming.’

So I say to the young one. ‘You must understand. This is my brother. He can give you friendship, sweet girl, but that is all he gives you. You may sing to him, but this man is not for you. I understood this from the first time I came home to my brother. He is your rising song now, too, but it may take you some time to learn him.’

I lean down now, because my brother is on the grass in front of me, and I kiss the top of his head. He is very clever, and very swift, and is not afraid to let other men make decisions.

‘It’s time to watch the dawn,’ we say, because the first bird is singing.

‘Which bird do you hear,’ he asks, but he has heard it too.

They do not know which bird it is, and it does not matter to me and my brother. This is the right time of year for these birds, right now, and I must go outside to watch the dawn.

‘Do you want to go home now, little one,’ I ask the small child, for my brother is ready to raise himself up.

‘I do not know the home of this man or woman is,’ the little one replies. ‘Are they people, or lords, or ladies, or?’

‘They are simply people, and they are lovely people. They have kept you safe for far too long, and it is time to leave these people alone.’

‘I never disturbed them. I just watched and waited and left them all alone. Have I been so bad?’ The little one is sad now, but she/he never really understood. ‘I haven’t been bad, I just wanted to know what they did there.’

My brother, who was silenced for far too long, lifts his head. ‘No,’ he says, and it is this finality that has brought us here. ‘No. I can hold them back for as long as you require, my sister, but I will not allow them to destroy our peace of mind. I am here to take away the darkness and bring them into the light. I am here to share the dawn with my sister, who has helped me for far too long, and I am strong enough now to show these people the way to go home. They cannot have our flowers, they cannot have our children, they certainly cannot steal our ladybugs/ladybirds away, and it took me far too long to realise what they were trying to do to us, my sister, and they will never, ever keep us from telling the truth.’

The rising of the sun is displayed on our old hats. It is an Australian signaller who brought us to this point, and it is an Australian soldier who will bring us to safety. Always.

And, as always, our brothers sit between the two hills, and behind the hills, and on the ridges, and down in the gullies, and sometimes our sisters do too, and we will never forget the sound of our own, beautiful, National Anthem.

‘Thank you,’ my silenced brother says, and he says it softly, and he is never afraid to cry.

‘Pull your hat down on the eastern side, sis, and the sun will not get in your eyes.’

Last Year…

I noticed something very disturbing on someone else’s Instagram. It was a comment I wasn’t meant to see, but I did, and it was regarding me. This is where you guys get to see how messed up some people are.

My husband and grown up young men, all over twenty three, had liked something of mine. It was not a bad thing at all, it was a hook for a story I was going to tell, but what I saw in response to all that, was someone saying, ‘What’s she done there. Who are they? Her boyfriends or something?’

it wasn’t quite those words, but it was pretty damn close.

Now why would someone do that, or say that? Because they do not understand what families are. They do not understand people at all. They have had absolutely no experience in being in a family group. They are physically and mentally unable to distinguish between family members and “Boyfriends”.

I might have reacted to that, because that sort of behaviour is something that needs to be reined in. Drastically. I would say every reaction I had to these people after that was completely justified, because they were not nice people at all.

When some evil little cow who is so caught up in being in the limelight, and being on camera, and being all these wonderful things, turns around and says something like that, you have to see there is some kind of breakdown in communications. There is something wrong with them. They have no idea about the outside world, they have no idea about what real people are like, and they are so disconnected from reality, everything is a “game” to them.

I could see the problem there. These people had no social skills. They didn’t understand how to communicate properly. They had no idea about “real life” people. And, they had ruined someone else’s perfectly good reputation simply for being pathetic, jealous, nasty little people.

If this sounds familiar to anyone else I know, or anyone I have spoken with in the last twelve months, you need to let me know here, because this is the kind of stuff we are trying to eradicate if we can’t reform it. This is why I asked, requested, but never pleaded, for some kind of game, scavenger hunt etc, as it had been done in the past, to show these people what it was like if they actually got themselves outside and had some fun.

Being locked inside has done a lot of terrible things to young people’s minds, and being constantly on the internet with misleading information has created so many societal problems, including a huge rise in mental health issues, that something needs doing. Ask any pharmacy what they sell the most of in the last fifteen to twenty years and they will tell you the rise in people taking antidepressants is so steep, that sometimes they’ll run out of a certain product and have to recommend another.

So, maybe sometimes, those people who live in cities should get out of them and see the real world, and maybe sometimes there should be a ban on social media on people’s devices for a day, and maybe sometimes, people just need to disconnect from the internet altogether, just to give their mental health a break — because if they don’t, they will be more inclined to be getting angrier with misinformation, sadder with the handling of that misinformation, and more likely to rely on electronic products than using their own common sense.

It’s a logical conclusion, don’t you think?

Being Someone You’re Not

Let me explain something very carefully.

Imagination is a wonderful thing, and people should use it sometimes. I can throw myself into anyone’s position through imagination, and it’s not very often I get it wrong. Occasionally, yeah. Most of the time, I don’t though, because I see what that frustration is — what it really is.

Now, I can see the cocky bastard who hasn’t got a care in the world, because he/she comes from money, right? Let me show the other side of that cocky bastard. “I haven’t got a clue. Will you teach me? I’ve never done this before. Could you show me how? I never listened. I’m listening now.”

Unfortunately, although this is all great, the cocky bastard doesn’t understand that this takes time, and effort, and tends to put other people in a position where they start, not only losing money, but not making any. It also means the cocky bastard might start doing shit illegally because he’s above all the rest of us plebeians, and he can make money just like that *snaps fingers*. Language barrier not withstanding, he just keeps doing whatever the fuck he likes because “why not”.

That’s one example. Then you may also have someone who might be, for example, particularly good looking. Now, because they are particularly good looking, they’re not taken very seriously. “Stand over there. Look like this. Move over here, and look like that.” This person might think to himself or herself, ‘Ya know what, I can do a lot more than just look good. Ya know what, I can actually think for myself and I’m actually kind of clever. Funny that.’

Nobody sees this, they might think. They’d be wrong. A lot of people see it. Not everyone, it’s true, but a lot of people. They might say, for example, “Keep going mate, you’re doing a fantastic job. Ignore ’em, buddy, they’ve got no idea what they’re talking about. See those ones there? They might be a couple of nutters, and they have no fucking idea what they’re talking about either. See how they made assumptions about me just then? Not too flash, is it. I’ve got your back. I understand. When we get these little self-centred shit-for-brains people out in the open, maybe we’ll teach ’em a lesson or two, eh?’

Now, there might be a few other people involved in this scenario. They can see it too. It’s happened to them enough times. They might decide to be a little more switched on than other people, and they might say, ‘Take a break, mate. I’ll take over. No one will know. Do something for yourself for a change.’

Unfortunately, the fact that some are female and some are male, and some decide that it isn’t anyone’s business what they are, make it a little difficult for people to be just mates. Why? Because there are other people involved, and they might just have partners that would not understand. Then, you’ve also got the ones that think, ‘hey, you know what, I could hold all these people to ransom by finding stuff out about them.’ But, you’ve also got the ones who say, ‘I might think exactly the same way as you, and there is absolutely no feckin’ chance anyone’s gonna find out anything they could use against ya. If they do, they might have a whole lot of other very angry people to deal with.’

So, here we are. Some of us are making nothing to keep our independence — so it’s kind of not independence anymore, ya know? Some are so entwined in their own misery they keep hanging on to someone else like a barnacle attached to a jetty. It’s been a long time now. The jetty here is starting to get rotten. It’s time to switch things up.

Me personally, I don’t have all the tech savvy shit I need and I don’t have the patience to read through piles and piles of rubbish to learn nothing. I can’t do it for ya. I’m probably none of the things some people think I am, and a lot of the things some people think I’m not, so please don’t make assumptions about me. I know who I am, and I know exactly what I’m incapable of. I’m kind of honest with myself about shit like that.

Everything I’ve asked for help with I have not received. Not once. Everything I have done, I’ve done mostly for other people. Many people feel the same way, I know, but the burden of carrying all that on one’s shoulders, and getting it repeated back time, and time again, is beginning to wear thin. The one thing I will not do, is get rid of my own stuff to make way for others. I’m not a packrat. I’m not illogical. I’m not bragging either. So, to those who think that’s who I am — you’ve got the wrong person.

Very Large Snakes.

Early 1990’s – Albany, Western Australia.

The walk back from the pub that night was never going to be fun. I had a long way to go. Having the little vermin off the wheat ship following me was even less fun.

The yank had stepped down from the side of the shopping centre, down from the light, and onto the semi darkened street.

‘Are you okay?’ He asked. He could see this little bastard just wouldn’t go away, and didn’t like taking no for an answer. He may also have noticed I was beginning to size the little creep up, because, although I didn’t want to, I was going to have to kick the cunt in the nuts if he didn’t back off.

‘I’ll be okay,’ I said. 

‘You said we could have one beer together,’ the little prick of a man said.

‘Changed my mind,’ I said. Now, the state of mind I was in wasn’t angry, and it wasn’t sad, it was just more of a “I don’t want to have to hurt this guy just because he’s an idiot.” Regretful, I suppose. Yeah, regretful.

He kept following me though, trying to keep up, pleading with me. I kept saying no, but he wasn’t listening. Seems to be a thing over where he came from. They don’t take no for an answer over there.

Now, I could run, I was taller, and I don’t mind walking in the dark either. I knew where I was going, which helped. This little fuck had no idea.

It was about halfway along the avenue beside the oval where this little wheat ship sailor noticed there wasn’t gonna be any more lights.

‘How far your place is?’ He may have been thinking it was closer. I hadn’t lied to him. He was wrong in thinking it wasn’t as far as I said it was, and I was most definitely right.

‘We’re only half way, so I suggest you turn back.’

‘I just wanted to drink beer with you.’

‘Yeah I don’t think so mate.’ I am pretty sure he had begun to read my face now. It would be easy to lose this fucker in the dark. I think he had only just begun to realise the dark was what we’d be walking in if he kept on following me.

He gave up. There was no winning for this one. No winning at all. I won, and if you wanna know why, it’s because I was prepared to keep going. I knew where I was, I knew my location, and I was gonna keep moving until I got home.

My home, and this breed of man’s home were in two very different directions. Mine was several more k’s in the dark, his was back on a grain ship, which, if he continued to follow me, was something he would possibly never get back to and see the light of day again.

That is the entire point. It’s not about keeping up with the Joneses. It’s not about waiting for the sun to come up either.

It’s whether you are afraid of walking in the dark.

I’m not.

Experiences, Expectations, and Truths.

Not everywhere is the same. Not everyone is the same. One person’s self-improvement is not necessarily someone else’s.

To walk into a land not your own and see it as an adult with a fixed mind, rather than walking through it is a child, a teenager and someone from a completely different area who wishes to learn the local ways, are two very different things. To grow up with an understanding of the land itself, by walking with her, smelling her, growing with her, learning from her, and living with her, is very different from someone coming into it with blinkers on and not understanding, from their own guilt of being “privileged”, what it’s all about.

When we say, ‘Speak for me, for I cannot speak for myself,’ it comes from a place where people have adapted and changed, yet have a few people around them with much louder voices who say, ‘I have changed, yes, but I also take advantage of a system who sees me as someone who needs help, when I actually don’t.’ When a person says, speak for me, please, they are asking from their heart for someone else to say, “This is how my friend feels.” They don’t want bullshit, they don’t want someone yacking on about crap, they just want someone in their corner.

There are many people here in WA who are proud of what they have achieved through their own hard work, despite all the bullshit they get thrown at them. There have been many issues in the past, yes, but that is through individual grievances, not group ones.

The story and the dreaming is still very much alive. It’s a pity many people who do not live out in the country do not understand her history, and have lost their way. It’s disturbing. There aren’t enough people to explain exactly how disturbing it is, and how much is being lost through not being connected. Trying to understand something which is completely foreign to oneself, is not the same as understanding through experience. Making up modern yarns about something and passing it off as truth, when there are already traditional, well-documented stories, is not something that’s meant to be done. This is where we start to lose real history.

Understanding the difference between fiction and reality can be very difficult for some people. It can be even more difficult for people with an agenda to fix things that don’t need fixing, and to not fix things which are in dire need of fixing.

If one went back to the reality of “tribal” lore, for those who don’t know what that means, over here in W.A it was pretty bloody nasty. Those who did the wrong thing were basically “evicted” from their camp, and if they kept coming back, they were chased off. Those who did things a lot worse than just “the wrong thing”, suffered a fate far worse than simply being killed. To these people, the nutters, the killers, and the ones who interfered with children, looking to be convicted of a felony by “white-man’s law” seemed a lot more pleasant than getting speared.

“White man’s privilege” is exactly what the bad ones wanted. Understanding this is possibly the most important thing you will learn today. A few have lost their way due to interference from well-meaning people who do not understand how things work within a community. What I, and those who walk with me, are trying to do — is teach you a little bit about facts right here, and right now. We don’t do this through trying to be mean, or trying to have “out-loud” conversations, we do this carefully. Sometimes it’s hard to get voices heard, and sometimes it’s difficult to make people understand, so when we tell you stories, it’s the meaning behind the story that’s important, not the story itself.

Here the words are different. Here, still water with hidden logs and vast amounts of mud and muck and things one can get stuck in are places to avoid rather than dive into, and it is better to wait until the rains come before we start talking about that — this is what the real dreamtime stories were all about.

Teach your kids to be safe.

“Kickin’ Off”

‘I’m gonna go to the pub,’ said Blue to Greenie.

‘Are ya now? Gotta bit dough, ‘ave ya?’ Greenie looked at his mate.

‘Not really mate. Saved up for a bloody week for this.’

‘A week now, is it?’

‘Maybe a bit longer. Dunno.’ Blue pulled out his wallet. ‘Yeah, maybe a bit longer.’

‘Ya know, mate, Mum said if ya gonna go down, ya may as well go down hungry.’

‘Why’s that then?’

‘Prob’ly cost ya less to buy a meal than it will to buy a bloody beer, that’s why.’

‘Ya reckon?’ Blue looked into Greenie’s eyes and began to laugh. ‘You gonna give us a show then?’

‘Waddaya mean?’

‘You know. My mate says when you’ve got a good left hook you should probably save it for the best bit.’

‘Right. That’s for sure. Anyway, if you’re goin’, could ya spot me a twenny?’

‘A twenny? Why’s that?’

‘It’ll go towards the six pack I can get sitting at home watching the telly while you go down the bloody pub and buy one schooner, that’s why. I’ve got five bucks ‘ere, saying you’d rather stay at home and ‘ave a drink out in the backyard with me.’

‘True, that. But, you know, certain circumstances might get me down the pub, especially if I can’t get to see the live action at home.’

Greenie nodded wisely. ‘Ya got me there, mate. Might have to save up a bit of money meself, I s’pose.’

‘How long’ll that take ya?’

‘Probably about a freakin’ year, mate. Not too many of us get to go to the pub anymore. Contrary to what Old Slim used to sing, the pubs got beer, it’s just no one can afford it.’

‘So, I guess I’m stayin’ at home again tonight.’ Blue sat back down on his milk crate and surveyed the yellow sand of the boxed-in yard. ‘Party at my place, then.’

‘I’ll bring the snags.’

Let me tell ya a little bit about…

strength in numbers, and being taken advantage of.

Ya see, people have tried to take advantage of me a number of times. I have also been threatened by idiots at my former place of work a number of times. Because I worked alone a hell of a lot, I had to learn to stick up for myself. Actually, that’s a lie. I already knew how to look out for myself, and I knew all the stupid, horrible things people would do because they, for some reason, even though they had no idea what the f*** they were doing, thought they could do whatever the f*ck they liked.

They still think they can do whatever the f*ck they like.

This is where I start to get, not mad, not irate, but incredibly f*cking angry. I believe it’s called rage.

I think the angriest I got, was when people did not understand, nor refused to try to understand, that I am also a writer. So, what they’re endeavouring to do now, knowing I’m a writer (and a published author of other books unrelated to the other types of writing I’ve done over the years), is steal my stuff and use it for themselves.

I have a number of extremely succinct words for these types of people. Aside from the fact they think they can do whatever the f*ck they like, they are not particularly bright, in my humble opinion.

Incredibly, people also like to believe other things that are distinctly untrue, circulating around the internet. Things that have come out of other people’s books, and other people’s true stories that certain people have used for themselves. It’s kind of sucky.

My stories, certainly the ones about my family, my husband etc, are actually true. The others may have a lot of truth in them if you look very carefully, but, and here we get to the sticky bit, certain people are a tad naive, easily led, and feed off other people’s misery just for the hell of it.

I had another WordPress site quite some time ago. In it were stories about all sorts of things related to myself, and other people. Stories about wolves, and sheep, about smiles and how much one really needs to pull up a smile sometimes because someone else wants ya to. Stories about eight hours, and the fact that when one is a parent and a wife, one needs to extend one’s own eight hours and add everyone else’s eight hours in there as well.

Now, I know certain people may not believe this, and that’s okay too, but sometimes, just sometimes there are actually nice people out there who may very well have experienced something very similar to myself. Those people may not be in quite the right position to say something, due to “conflicts of interest” in regards to the type of work they do, and the fact they need to make a living. But, it does not give people the right to freely access my writing, or the kind of writing I do.

What they can do, is read this. I do not give people permission to access my work, and never have. I have said, however, if they wished to use certain ideas within my work to help them write their own things, then that’s fine, but that does not include accessing my work illegally. Unfortunately, when someone, not myself, accesses certain things of mine “freely” and “Illegally”, bad things start to happen… And not always to me and mine.

I don’t go to gyms. I can’t afford it. I’ve never gone to a gym. I don’t talk to people who are not my friends very often, unless I get the impression there is something very wrong. When I was working in the fuel industry, for example, the longest conversation I would have with a customer was not particularly long at all. Oh, I had a lot of disagreements with customers, because after all what the hell would I know, I only worked in a servo. Obviously I had never done anything else with my life, aside from, you know, get married and have kids (which is certainly nothing to be ashamed of). My long working life, training, and life experience in general could not in the least have anything to do with the fact I knew what the hell I was talking about.

When I see people have stolen certain photographs from other people’s facebook pages to perhaps boost their own confidence, and when I see certain people think there must be something wrong with someone who is quite comfortable in their own skin, I truly start to wonder if those few, unreliable sources might have something a little skewiff within themselves.

Still, there isn’t much I can do about that, except perhaps try to teach those people about what life is really like. It’s not all romance and flowers. It’s not all hearts and bunnies, and if you knew a little something about where I got the term “hearts and bunnies”, you might think a little deeper about that too. It’s not who I am personally, mind you, but it is certainly a historical fact, not fiction.

Perhaps, some other people might want to learn more about those certain, very important things and stop giving the rest of us a hard f*cking time.

You’re welcome.

So, Brother

Are you willing to travel back to the land before Oz?

Are you willing to learn of the differences and sameness?

Are you willing to survive in the wilderness and discover something older than you? Much older, yes, and the true giver of life, because that is where she begins.

Let it rain, but let it be gentle. A cleansing. A new beginning. The smell is slightly different here, but the outcome after your wandering will be your choice alone.

Time looks to Nature and slowly replies. He thinks through these things, and slowly replies.

‘I have not been kind,’ he says. ‘You are right. This story, although highly amusing and slightly terrifying, and I know you are not pointing the finger at anyone in particular, is the one we should be paying for. I realise, this time, an apology will not suffice. Lead the way.’