dear my mad sisters

only you two crazy chickas know exactly what is happening in this photograph.

if anyone else knows, i'm pretty sure they will never, ever shake the memory of THAT wild dream.

this is kinda the best way to live.

i love you both more than i can ever say.
you are a part of me.

see you in india.

best.adventure.ever.awaits.

love,
bony
xoxo

Love From The Jungle

There are so many stories tumbling inside me. So many stories to be heard, known, understood. So many stories to make a home inside this soul of mine.

Stories of how the light looks at Brisbane dawn, seeping into you, waking you long before you are ready. Stories of sisterhood and fierce love and unexpected tenderness. Stories of sushi and curry and cupcakes. Stories of hospital beds and meds and a ferociously beautiful octogenarian named Phyllis sharing a hospital room with three mad sisters. Stories of walks in long green and black skirts, patterned with elephants, walks waist-high through the jungle of Brisbane's wildflowers and wilderness, magnificence and mangroves. Stories of taxi drivers who break your heart or set it free with love for humanity. Stories of wildness. And laughter that leaves you breathless and falling into trees, the kind of laughter only sisters know. Stories of hands clutching crystals. Stories of past lives and presentness and priestesses and puppies. Stories of seeing beautiful women and luscious men in my eyes, heart, camera lens.

Stories of walking through the city at daybreak with a thirsty soul, following your feet past ruptured concrete to a tiny breath of Mama Earth, a park carved into the bustle of a hill. Stories of butterflies and birds. Stories of old friends and new friends. Stories of seeing an old friend and telling him: you know who I once dreamed of being? I am that now. Stories of a picnic in an abandoned lot/park/fairy garden, a gathering of rainbow precious women. Stories of pyjama parties and making dreams come true. And the brave pleasure of being yourself, even when that self seems faintly otherworldly. Stories of pain and healing, vulnerability and loveliness. Stories of nestling with my sisters, legs and hands akimbo, revelling in our holy trinity.



So many stories. I do not know yet how to tell them, how to speak them, how to hear them for what they really are. They instead are streams of silk fluttering around inside me, and I clutch at them, threading long fingers through them, grasping them into a ball. And then I let them go, I breathe and I sit. I watch, knowing instead that on their own, with time, the silken threads will weave and warp into a quilt of understanding and wisdom. Maybe I could show you the quilt when it has discovered itself. Maybe I could share it in adorned squares: of photographs, of the little stories, of moments.

But for now, there are breaths to be breathed, and a deeply precious life to be loved.



All is well,
with love,
Leonie

Dear One

this came out just after i wrote this...


Dear Clinty,

I've been dreaming about you lately.

You've been in my dreams and close to my skin, and when I awake I find you're not just around me but inside me now.

I think, "you are my biggest brother" - not only my oldest, but the biggest - the man who is bigger than the stars and clusters of planets and a field lying yellow in the summer. You are bigger than exquisite possibilities and truth and body, and you teach us that.

A few weeks ago, a boy I knew when I was a teenager died. And he made me think of you. He would have been nearly the same age as you when you died. I turn your eternal age of 25 in a few short weeks. I used to think you were old enough to die - that 25 years is a good go at life. And yet, here I am on the birthing precipice of that age, and there is still so much to do. So much to live and feel and experience and know and do.

I dreamed that you died again, and I began to wail that I was losing you all over again. And the stars came out, and I stopped wailing, and I realised I knew how to grieve now.

My grieving made me yearn to dance, my bare feet thrashing the gravel, my sweat becoming stars, my heart pumping long, loving bursts of blood through me. I wanted to dance you into heaven, I wanted to celebrate you in the ways I now know how to.

I didn't want everyone to go home, to sit in our silent rooms on our own and cry, to not know what to say, to feel that the experience was too uncomfortable to sit with. So I gathered our family and friends together in a big circle near the shed. And we drummed, we sang, we danced, we prayed, we spoke, guiding you home to Great Spirit.

I danced you into me, in that dream.

I danced until my arms were a-swirl and every precious possibility, every piece of love, every dream, every promise, every lifetime was awake.

Today, I wake up and you are with me.

Today, I wake up and something I want falls through, but I feel you beside me, smiling down a thousand lifetimes on me, telling me that everything is sacred, everything is real, everything is new, and everything will happen.

I want to photograph you today. I will photograph the stars and the grass and the great looming trees instead. You are in them.

All My Love,

Bony


And then the sun came out and glowed through the rain
and the whole world looked like a miracle...

All The Ways The Universe Rocks

This is my beautiful little sister Maryanne.

And this is the story of how the Universe totally rocks, in totally unforeseen, unknown and intensely loving ways.

A couple of months ago the opportunity came up for me at work to attend a business conference in Brisbane, where my little sister goes to university. I jumped at it, thinking I could spend a bit of time with her and a number of lovely friends who live there.

And then my little Me-Me got sick with tonsillitis. Again. For the seventh time this year. So now she is having an operation and needs her kin around.

And guess what? It's when I'm there.

And guess what? I just got given extra holidays to tack onto my weekend.

And the day before I need to leave, my big sister is flying in to stay.

So the blessing and the miracle is that I will be in Brisbane for a week to work for a little bit, to hang out with my little sis, tell her hilarious stories, make her jelly, feed her ice-cream and just be with her.

It is a joy that I can do this. That this crazy little set of circumstances has worked out so the sisters can be together for each other. And it is the tenderest honour that I can look after my little one when she needs me.

Sometimes the most healing thing of all is just to be present to love each other.

This Universe leaves me breathless with beauty,
Leonie

grandmother wisdom

* This letter was published in the Letters to the Editors section of the Proserpine Guardian newspaper on Wednesday August 1, 2007. I have to say just how beautiful it was to see the words "Grandmother Wisdom" on that page, wedged between letters of complaint against traffic lights and various governments. Whilst those things are important, I know which is the most important of all. *












May we all know what is truly important in our lives.

With love,
Leonie

love is a light

One of the most beautiful parts of going home was meeting the new loves of my brother and big sister. They both met their loves on the same night a moon or two ago, and fell in love. My earthy Capricornian sister has found an earthy Virgo man. My ocean Piscean brother has found his water Cancerian lover.

My heart is so FULL seeing my siblings so in love and happy in their hearts. Love truly is a light, and there is this special luminous that is radiating from my brother and sister now.



And the best thing of all...
is I have another two hearts in my family.



And the other beautiful thing... was seeing, experiencing, honouring and feeling all the LOVE forms there are in this world, and this little world of family.


my tribe... all descendants of my grandmother...
we give thanks to her for our lives and loves...



my brother with his chilluns


water signs in lurve



dancing daddy


my mum's dear friend and the resident town crier/pirate gives a bit of loving to great aunt lucy...



utterly sweet



i adore my cousin michael.
at the party he said to me "you don't often get a party as good as this unless somebody dies. let's do this again next year."
right on, cousin-brother. i'll see you then.



my sweet cousin david with his lovely wife and bebes



my gorgeous gran with her older sister...
yes, that's right *older* sister. my dear great aunt lucy is a fuscia wrapped fairy, still sparkling at 94. their brother john was partying along with them too, at his ripe age of 93.
i love that these two sisters have been loving each other for ninety years.


group hug with my new brother from the cosmic uterus, my mum and brother


earth lovers



my cousin michael serenading my gran...
can you see the love between them?


my big bro still dancing with his little girl...


loving great aunt lucy is one of the greatest joys...


my gran is a goddess queen... how fabulous is that outfit?
(care of her Op Shop of course)
her escorts are her three grandsons and two great-grandsons...


And my very own spunkeroo to love and share it all with...

There is so much love in this world.
So much love in this family.

So much to give thanks for...

love and light,
Leonie

ten dear years

Dear Clinty,

It's been ten dear years since you left this world for the rainbow journey.
I have been through times of deep grief, disbelief, longing and missing. Now mostly though, I just feel incredibly and intensely blessed that I knew you and loved you, and love you still. I have discovered how expansive love truly can be (even as the tears rumble down cheeks like thunder over mountains). And babe, I've learned about all sorts of magic and miracles like kinship and starlight and spirit and healing and myself. Thank you, my brother. Thank you.

I want to honour the beautiful things I remember about you -
the way you smelled: a mixture of smoke and candy and cologne and sweat
your cackle
your big heart and sensitive soul
the way you loved your little sisters and brother
your little blue car that was always filled with white bags of milk bottles and candy teeth
how happy you were on the farm
how funny you were
your long arms and legs that you inherited from your dad
those baby blues of yours.

I was watching Enough Rope last night, and Susie Maroney was interviewed. Her story made me think of you so many times.
She had cerebral palsy just like you. She was an athlete just like you. She did things that nobody else in the world did just like you.

And she lost her brother too.
And through all her tears, she said:
"I'm just so proud that he was my brother."

Just like me.

Last week, back at home, all of us:
Mum, Dad, Mary, Brett, Becka, Sharne, Graham, Chris, Joshy, Alyssa and me - we went to the stone with your name on it and smiling face,
and we sat around in a circle in the graveyard, your stone included,
all of us laughing, sharing, sitting in silence, teaching our neice and nephew about their Uncle Clinty.
Mum cracked open a jar of barley sugar as a little tribute to your sweet tooth, and we all ate them, leaving one on your grave.

Looking back I think about how remarkable we are.
A family sitting in a graveyard, eating lollies with their brother.
We always were remarkable.
That's what love does to you.

Big love,
Bony

P.S. How are those stars up there?
I bet they are just beautiful.

Every One I Love Is Here

cousins and sisters and Grand-Mothers and soulmates = family


And all at once,
the girl remembered where her home was.

In the bosom of her heartland mountains,
in the arms of her tribe.



And some soul~tunes to play along at home...





"Cause everyone I love is here,
Take me home. Take me home.



Once in a while I return to the fold
With people I call my own



Even if time is just a flicker of light
And we all have to die alone



What does it mean when you belong to someone
When you're born with a name, when you carry it on



It means that I won't give in, won't give in, won't give in
'Cause everyone I love is here



All at once, and I'll show you how to get here"

~ Finn Brothers, Won't Give In




I'm feeling very very blessed
and very very soaked with love.

I have a homeland that is paradise,
a GrandMother who is a magnificent and inspiring tribal elder
and a big crazy family who loves each other.

I am one lucky girl.

with love and light,
Leonie


P.S. Thank you deeply for all the comments celebrating Magnificent Marion. I am so grateful for the outpouring of love and joy. I absolutely feel like the world is a better place for our crones, and our communities who celebrate them.

Every day is a good one.

Putting the GRAND in Grandmother

This is my super sassy Granny and her sister Sally in their early twenties.
Tomorrow I am flying back home for Granny's birthday, and a celebration of ninety years of magnificent living.

I want to hold in my heart all the ways my Gran has touched my life.

My friend Shan allocates a special type of description to the women she respects: she says they have "guts, balls, determination and integrity."
My Gran is that kind of woman. She also has a smile that she embraces the whole town with. She has a way of making people feel good and safe with her. She knows things intuitively before anyone else does.

On the phone not so long ago, she said to me
"I think your sister is interested in a suitor, Leonie."
"Really Gran? Why's that?"
"She's been taking to dressing herself nice of late, and she has a little glow around her... I think she might be interested in a young man."
Sure enough, Gran was right. As she always is.


She looks like she has wings here...

And she has SASS.
That woman looks good every day of the week. I took these photos of her in April, and she was wearing spunky pink stillettos, white pedal pushers, a striped pink flowing top and huge white framed "winkers" (otherwise known as sunglasses, for those who do not speak Gran-language.)

I'd just picked her up from the op-shop where she still works a few days a week.
She said to me:
"Leonie, do you know I sold hundreds of dollars of clothes today?"
"Really? That's awesome Gran!"
"Do you want to know why I am so successful at it?"
"Why?"
"Because I model all of the clothes!"

And with that, she placed her hands on her hips, and waggled.

My Gran has SASS.


My mum and grandmother, doing their dance of love for 55 years...

The morning before we took these photos, I was driving with Mum, and said to her:
"Mum, I've always felt different. Odd. Unique. A bit zany. Just a bit out of skew with everyone else. I wonder if it's genetic, and where I get it from."
And she sighed this tiny whisper of a sigh, and replied:
"I feel like that too sometimes. Maybe you get it from me. I don't know where I get it from."
And then we looked out over the yellow eucalypts rushing by.

Later that day, I told Granny I wanted to take some photos of her.
And she giggled like a schoolgirl, and said dramatically
"I don't know how to pose though... I'm camera shy... I've never been a model before..."
"Sure thing Gran, we'll just go with the flow."

I turned on my camera, and took some test shots.
"I know! Let's play on the swings!" she says, and she is off with a trot.
My Mum sits on the opposite end to even out the weight.

It must have been quite a sight really.

Three blonde women in hysterics of laughter. The two oldest playing on the swings. The youngest with camera full of smiles.

And there in her little pink stillettos, my camera-shy Gran with her little white bob, bouncing up and down on the swings, yahooing like a rodeo cowgirl.



It was at that point I turned to Mum and said
"I think we just found our genetic zany-ness."

This woman must have had ninety years of practice because she sure is good at LIVING.

So this weekend is a gathering of all my family and relatives, and ninety of my Gran's closest friends to celebrate this Woman.

This woman of huge strength, a lion's heart, a mother's courage, a shining smile and crazy diamond spirit. My grandmother has grieved two husbands, two sons and a grandson. But every time I ask her how she is, she replies with a thousand-megawatted smile:
"I woke up this morning. I was still breathing. So, I thought: it's a GOOD day!"

I have so much to learn from this woman. The whole world does, I think.

Happy, happy birthday my beautiful grandmother.
For all the good days that have come before and all the good days to come,
I celebrate and love you with all my heart, and am so honoured to have come from you.

Big love,
Leonie


P.S. If there was any way to get ninety birthday wish comments... that would be oh-so-freaking glorious... I could show her them on Sunday all the wishes from around the world!
All good either way... but just putting it out there ;)


~
Back next week! :)

My Wild Bushman Dad

This is my Dad.
My wild bushman dad.
The Blackbearded Pirate of Dadsville.

For years, we tried to convince my Dad that wearing a helmet while he rode his motorbike hellbent all over the farm chasing cattle was kinda, umm, a NECESSITY. It only took him one broken collarbone, numerous stitches, two severe concussions and a broken nose over the span of twenty years for him to start wearing one.
It was the broken nose that did it, I think.
I suspect that he's an appearance man underneath it all.

Anyways, me and my four siblings never did specify what sort of helmet he should wear.
Perhaps we should have.
This is my beautiful daddy, with his great big heart and furry face, sporting his 1970s helmet he found at the back of the shed somewhere, probably under a thick coating of dust and a petrified possum.

Coz us bushies, that's how we swing it.

If you'd like to vote on this piccie to go in JPG Mag's issue of Family ~ click here.

Big furry dad love, from me to you,
Leonie

medicine bag

When I was 16, my mum gave me a small medicine bag to hang around my neck.
I was living away at boarding school and going through what I called a "grey time" ~ weeks when it felt like grey, heavy rainclouds had covered the sky inside me.

Inside the medicine bag was small rocks, crystals, seeds and amulets... and a few pieces of corn kernels "to nourish and feed the soul".
Tonight, pulling the large green reedy heads from fresh corn, I remember that small medicine bag, and the tiny corn inside it. I remember the grey time, and the tiny shaft of light that hope can bring. I remember the words of Denise Linn, that our medicine bag is our body. I remember to feed my body, to nourish it, just as I feed my spirit and nourish it with love. And I remember the love with which that medicine bag was given to me from my mother.

So, in quiet moments, I find myself tending to experiences and light, knitting them together into an ethereal medicine bag. Into it grows small pockets of wisdom, tiny gold flecks of magic, memories of walking and sharing and two eagle feathers. I walk at night, lie on the ground of a black oval, peering up at blurry stars, deciding which to use as a fastener. I make a new bag, a new life, for me, for my mother.

In grey times, Mama waited for me, handing me the medicine bag with corn. And I hold the medicine bag for you now Mama.



I offer this to you, Great Spirit.
I offer this to you, Great Mother.
I offer this to you, My Mother.


"My spirit is with you always now.
And your spirit is inside me too now."
~ Aboriginal man on Going Bush


[LeonieLife.com homepage is now back up, thanks to a blue eyed god.]

the cowgirl hangs up her adventure hat for now

lena

I have returned, hung my blue cowgirl adventure hat on the doorknob (for now).

I have been on 12 plane flights in the last month. Adventure upon adventure. See what that hat does?

It is odd to be back here ~ I am still in two different places.

More than two actually.

I am:

Walking the streets of Adelaide.
Holding my breath, watching magnificent buffalos.
Making inspiration sandwiches with my magicmakingmistress Donn.



Making silly with my rather hilarious lil sister.


no, seriously, don't make me do that dumbass poetic look outside the window...
oh, okay then...

Breathing in the sea salt air of Hobart.
Living the pre-wedding week of my soul sister Shan and a gaggle of new goddess sisters.



Chanting by the river.
Leaving my personal belongings splayed across Australia (clapping sticks are planted in the sands of a creek. I hope the pigs don't gnaw on them.)
Dancing ecstatically with a new friend with the same mermaid hair as me.



Meeting a woman with priestess eyes and finding a crystal with stories in it.
Gathering with women for sacred rites.
Running barefoot down the dirt road of Shan's property at dusk.
Walking all the way home in the dark holding hands with my sweet friend Lena from school.
Photographing one of the women I honour most in this world marry her beloved, letting rain tears of joy and light.



Dirty dancing with my imaginary friend Patrick Swayze.
Laughing until it hurt (and it hurts so good).
Asking for healing, again and again.
Learning how to live in this world with my Spirit showing.
Meditating on a single bed with my big sister, niece and nephew. A breathing love sandwich.
Walking in the morning with my mama, finding two eagle feathers as gifts from the universe.
Meeting my mum's tai chi guru and being thoroughly told off by him in a loving kickbutt kinda way *gigglesnort*.
Looking for frogs with torches.
Laughing through the halls of a nursing home with my ancient kindred.
Being an angel.
Kneeling on the ground at my ancestral home, praying and smudging.
Playing on the see-saw with my mum and 90 year old goddess crone of a grandmother.
Crying and laughing and growing and healing and sharing all at once.
Family. Family. Family. Need I say more?
Savouring the moments at each place I travel to and each heart I meet.
Returning home to my crazily colourful and cozy home. Into the embrace of his arms and eyes, and the lickety-lickstering of my joyful dog.
I ask him: Why do we live here again? Away from our families and the land?
He doesn't know the answer right now either, but that is okay. We know for now, we are here. And we are here for a reason that is simultaneously unfurled and still blossoming.

This is where I am at.

I am a radically blessed woman,
Leonie


on the travels, charters towers beyond my window