Life Images

I am so proud to announce that one of my photographs was published in the Life Images magazine in January. It is a lush, full volume overflowing with inspiration and dreams in ink.

You can check out the Life Images magazine on the Stampington website.

Bless you, sweet dream come true!

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...

Sacred Sounds

Saturday afternoon was birthed clear and blue, shining and new.
What to create on a day such as this?

Dream this:

Souls driving out of the city
and into the southern alpine fields that kiss the feet of tender purple mountains.

A Sacred Sounds Concert on a healing retreat ~
friends, lovers, families, dear ones to celebrate sacred sounds.

Imagine making music because that's what calls you,
that's what frees you, that's what makes community.
There are no mistakes, there is only sound, and there is only laughter,
as you make music together.



Imagine a circle of souls:
of healers, children, teachers, musicians, shamans, filipino tribal chiefs, artists, fairies and farmers
holding hands in one circle, in oneness,
in an old circlular cow shed
singing ohm together
until the sacred sound swirls around them
and dances up through the roof
making spirits creak and souls soar.



Imagine dancing like an eagle,
in a circle of dancing eagles,
with a goddess child in your arms.



Imagine a couple who love each other
tenderly, honestly and genuinely.
Who love this Earth and its people so much that they open their hearts and their land
to make a healing retreat and hold gatherings to come home to.



the entirely beautiful peter and gini



Imagine an incredible band who don't make just music:
they make spirit and magic and dreams play harmony in the air.


Gorgeous George and their sublime drummer

Imagine the Andi and George band that make music that is your soul home.
Imagine them and then buy every single album they own,
because they deserve it and you deserve them.
You deserve their tilting, dancing, miraculous ocean music beauty in your heart.


Goddess Andi

Imagine bare feet
aching to tell
their story
in movement.



Imagine your friends, your circle sisters
swirling together into light and song and dance
there in the cow shed with you.


Angel and Freya


Goddess Kaylia

Imagine a gathering of souls and music
where dogs are just as much a part of the gathering
as anybody else.



Imagine a beautiful man who loves you
so deeply, unconditionally and acceptingly,
always gently watching from the corner,
always watching you fly.

Imagine a man who is a lake of reflection,
soaking it all into his depths,
letting the singing bowl and the didjeridoo
make their music inside him.



Imagine walking by the lake,
coming home to yourself and to the Earth,
strung in a necklace of Goddesses
who have become your tribe.



Imagine finding a woman who is like a twin to you.
Imagine her. She is coming. She has arrived.



Imagine reclaiming the Dance:
the Dance of Freedom, the Dance that makes you Glad,
the Dance your body longs to dance.
Imagine the Dance that isn't about judgements or others,
it is the Dance of Being Alive and Barefoot and Grateful.

All I need to dance now
is hands beating drums
and the dirt floor of a cow shed.



All I need to dance now
is Mother Earth
kissing my bare feet



and Father Sun's light
kissing my bare face and arms



and the sacred sound of our own hearts beating.




All we need is the sacred sound of our own hearts beating.




Imagine it... so it may be...

In brilliance,
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

beauty

The last few weeks have been a cornucopia of pleasure and adventure.
I've been dancing at concerts dressed up as a cowgirl angel, waking up before dawn to go on a photography adventure with a bus friend, sitting in sacred circles, spending the weekend at a healing retreat with my love, our dog and a dear dear friend, walking in the bush, canoeing in misty lakes, having all day slumber parties, climbing mountains in pyjamas and just generally being amazing.

Most importantly,
I've been not comparing, sitting in the silence of my own life, committing to the sacred joy of keeping some stories all to myself and remembering my own beauty.

May I share this knowing:

you need not be like anybody else.
in fact, please do not be like anybody else but you.
you were made the way you are for a sacred, special reason that is still unfolding.
live your life as it appears in your own vision ~ not anybody else's, but yours.
you are amazing. you are needed.
you are all kinds of flavours of magnificent, delicious and inspiring
just as you are, right now.

nobody is any more beautiful than you.

remember your own beauty.

who you are is enough. your precious life is enough.

i write this with a tender heart that's been finding its own way back to those knowings.

blessings on your path,
leonie

Illustration Friday: Missing

Ink and gouache

Illustration Friday's topic this week is "Missing."

Dear Diary

Ink and gouache
Inspire Me Thursday's topic this week is "Dear Diary."

Surrounded by Love

Surrounded by Love
original painting available on Etsy

Sometimes
she felt a little bit achy,
a little bit like a tiny soul boat
lost at sea.

But then...
if she remembered...
she would close her eyes
and find herself
in the embrace of the Mama Goddess.

Mama Goddess would hold her,
deep and gentle in her star~jewelled bosom,
stroking her hair,
whispering silent words into her ear.

You are surrounded by love.

You are surrounded by love.

You are surrounded by love.

Like a fish in the ocean,
you are surrounded by love.

Like a woman in the sweetness of air,
you are surrounded by love.

"Invite Someone Dangerous To Tea" ~ SARK

autumn woman


In the spirit of lush Liz's fantasy tea dates, I hereby invoke my dreamtime dangerous tea ensemble

I would invite SARK, Julia Cameron, Jewel, Linda Goodman, Sarah ban Breathnach, Lynn Andrews, Fiona Horne, a dreadlocked yogi goddess, my dearest friends from around Australia, Ruth Ostrow, Jennifer Louden, an empathic chimpanzee, Toni Childs, Amelie, some delicious bloggerettes from around the globe, Sally Morgan, Anais Nin, Brooke Medicine Eagle, Doris Day and Janeane Garafalo.

My token male would be Roald Dahl, who I regard as a dear uncle to me.

We would meet at a place named Hotel Divine. There would be delectable orange and poppyseed muffins with too cute glace orange slices quivering on the white puffy icing. There would be the World's Most Extensive Range of Herbal Teas (possibly handcrafted by my friend the Wild Shaky Mountain Herbal Medicine Woman). There would be piling steams of pancakes with thirty varieties of toppings. There would be vintage photobooths that you slot your own camera into, with a variety of themed backgrounds you could choose from.

There would be booths and a checkered floor. And we would know the name and intimate details of every waiter and waitress who greeted us as "dahhhhlinks." Sometimes our waiter would be David Hasselhoff, just for shits and giggles.

I would wear fabulous "fru fru" skirts (named by me and Lile after floaty long skirts) in all shades of magenta and turquoise. And a blue Bonds singlet with a fabulous shawl wrapped around me. Preferably barefoot, or sandles. And I would have a fiery sparkly halo that fizzled in all colours of sherbet.

I would take with me bare hands for holding, a watercolour paper journal for dreaming in and my dear Canon. Most of the times I only take photos of napkins though, as what happens at Hotel Divine stays at Hotel Divine.
It would be dreamy divine hilarious raucous illuminating naughty blessed delicious wide open wonderful...

And just personally, I think it would be dangerous, in a tilt-the-world-changing kinda way.

You can play the Dream Tea game at Liz's little room of delights.

Cupcake out, honeys
Leonie

Yang Interview with Nick

Every little while I like to do interviews on the Yang Wonders in my life {read the last one here). There's so much Yin~honouring on this blog {which so has its place}, but I also wish to honour men and their spiritual paths here. They have journeys and hearts wide and great.

Speaking of hearts wide and great, my friend Nick is the God of this.

He is gentle, wise, playful, a lover of the Universe and a man~boy who amazes me with the life~sense he possesses at the tender age of 22.
He likes to take Art-Bazookas to make pictures at music festivals.
He likes to look outside the frame when a photograph is taken of him (quite hilarious in group shots really).

I have spent hours sailing around the lake with him in hysterics of laughter, wearing matching Superhero Crocs, playing Japanese paper-rock-scissors and planning pirate take-overs of other sailboats.
I think that pretty much sums Nick up.



World, meet Nick.

Nick, World Loves You.


* Wanna be interviewed on my blog?

Yes!

* answer me this, riddly riddlester

ok!

* Who is the special person in your life?

There are many special people in my life but the special person in my life is me!
Others too; my family and friends, pets, trees. Ok, so maybe trees aren't people, but I like to think that even rocks are aware that they are rocks :)
I generally forget how special I am. I could rattle of a list of achievements, but I prefer to be quietly confident in my own abilities to ROCK. \m/
Leonie is special cause she helps me remember :p

* What is your relationship with the Universe like?

Loving-Teaching-Kindness is probably the best way to describe it. I had a realisation in 2004 after some deep contemplation that the true nature of everything is infinite. It's easy to say you can understand the infinite, but to understand it on multiple levels requires time and contemplation. I'm still learning just how infinite the infinite is every day. Sometimes, I forget. I slip back into my old ways, I think things are impossible and that it may all end soon. Then I remember how to smile and how the universe really works. The lessons are important too - I tend to take negative things that happen to me as a lesson(s) to be learned from. This way you can't harbour any real regrets, you can learn and move on to the brighter future. If there's no discernable reason, maybe it's karma, or just the great universe working it's ways on the world. I know I'm going to die, but I'll be smiling till the end inside as I dissolve back into the source of all that is, was, and will ever be.

* What is it like being a man?

Being a man has its strong points and not so strong points. The ability to pee standing up anywhere is definitely a strong point. Being unable to create life is definitely a not so strong point. I'm sure I've been a female in the previous life, but otherwise I don't really have much basis for comparison ;)

* If you could manifest one thing, what would it be?

A small green triangular pyramid, total dimensions not exceeding 5cm*5cm*5cm, that glowed a soft green colour when held in the hands of someone with an open heart. Just because I could. World peace, happiness and human evolution to the next level are all high on the list however.

* Do you ever kinda want to go to a womens circle?

Yeah sorta - maybe a man circle or something though. It's more (for me) about having a tribe that you can call a part of yourself, having others who share a common goal, thought, feeling or idea. It's a community and the feeling of community which I think is very important. We're becoming more geographically segregated in our communities thanks to the web and other communications technologies, but I don't necessarily think it's a bad thing. Just change, like time before and time to come. A women's circle is a great idea, and I think a great way for women to share womanly information. I think that men need that kind of space too, especially with culturally defined gender roles changing. I think when I become a dad I'd like to be able to talk to other dads about dad stuff. Most guys aren't as open as that though, we're simple beasts, usually we hide behind our various masks. For some of us, it's easy to drop these and play in a different space. For some harder than others and I think it's a bit harder in general for guys to be as open as gals.

* What does your cat whisper to your soul while you are sleeping at midnight?

I don't have a cat living with me unfortunately, but next door's tortoiseshell cuddle sponge would probably whisper me sweet nothings. Sasha and Mishkin, bless them both, are happy at my parents home. It's like a hare Krishna friend of mine put it - the cat is the enjoyer of the house. You provide for it and give it cuddles and attention and it enjoys them and is happy. For him, it was the same with Krishna, who was the supreme enjoyer of everything. I like to think the act of enjoyment and enjoying brings more joy to the universe, which is always a good thing :)

* Whoseyourdaddy?

Robert Hugh Price - Bless him and his awesome ways. For me he's the Frisbee master extraordinaire, with a dash of party animal and loveable trashbag who's still keeping it real even though he's an over the hill hippie. Best dad. Will always remember how he used to lie on the ground and whistle nonchalantly so my brother and I could try and tickle him when we were little. Rock out dad, I'll love you forever.

* What's your creative outlet?

Quick speech, word plays and making people laugh (sometimes unsuccessfully). It used to be acting and I want to get back into acting again. Play, in all forms, is very important. Don't take life too seriously as no one gets out alive!

* Body:Mind:Spirit - what's the blessing and challenge for you in this Holy Trinity?

The blessing - It's all possible, just remember to to breathe, feel it and let the universe take care of the rest.
The challenge - Remembering the above and living my life by it.

* Why does the LOLcat make you laugh so much?

I grew up on Monty python. Post-modernity has given us the juxtaposition of signs never before seen by human eyes. Internet humour in it's own silly way reminds me of the infinite nature of the universe. Meaning shifting context and reference quickly and seemingly without meaning, new meaning is created and destroyed just as quickly, and to me, it keeps getting faster. Much like the dance of creation and destruction by Kali, the oceans of samsara, and the fact that all your base are belong to us.

* What question would you like to ask yourself?

"How do you do it nick?"

Simple my friend;

"Love as much as you can from wherever you are" - Thaddeus Golas



Nick & Leonie celebrate Spring the only way they can: frolicking.

the story of a magnificent tree

Dedicated to my own pink galah angels Leigh & Sone:
If in doubt, wear your superwoman undies. I will hold the faith that you can fly.





in love and light,
Leonie

the most beautiful place for morning pages

Aside from:
right here
right now
The best place for morning pages
was dried pears
and a diverted adventure
up the long winding road
to Cedar Creek Falls.

I didn't know I had to go there
until I went.

I sat with my feet in the water for hours there,
writing,
talking to the fairies,
taking photographs.

Afterwards I clamber up the mountain to the top of the falls,
blessing myself again and again in the water
like I was being baptised again.



"The time for the lone wolf is over. Gather yourselves! Banish the word struggle from you attitude and your vocabulary. All that we do now must be done in a sacred manner and in celebration.

We are the ones we've been waiting for."
~ Hopi Elder

I am always good enough,
Leonie

i only wanted to begin

smiling at the sun, christmas 2005


"and while you wonder
how's this gonna end
i only wanted to begin"

~ ben lee, begin
(from the brilliant album "awake is the new sleep"


I listen to these words
and I think
What if?
What if I'm spending all my time thinking about what I need and want to be happy ~
I'm thinking I'm Not Here until I'm The Artist, The Book Author, The Photographer, The Book Touring Retreat Giving Workshop Goddess.
And I'm wondering about how it will all end,
When the real delight, the real truth,
Is that I Just Wanted to Be Here,
and I Just Wanted To Be Me.

And this Earth journey,
it's the biggest trip,
the greatest discovery,
so long and obtuse and curvy,
that sometimes I forget I'm here for an adventure
and that being here
is what I really wanted.

love,
Leonie

P.S. I know it's true because when I say:
Being here
is what I really wanted
a little part of me soars and spins with delight.

honouring the fox

After two days in bed releasing energy from my back, I checked over my Artist's Way tasks for the weeks. Morning pages successfully on the go, I still have nine tasks to complete by, oh, tomorrow. One being a twenty minute walk with your artist self.

So I decide to walk around the block in the late afternoon, taking my trusty camera with me.
Ah, cameras, they teach you to see, do they not?
It is blowing and gusty with that tang of stinking hot summer day.



A perfect azure sky embellished with different cloud formations. White clouds pompous and high up, no rain or storm hiding within their grey underbellies.

I follow instinct, turning west.



I keep my eyes wide open.

Someone has become excited by the recent car festival, pouring drizzles of oil over the street.



In the small concrete walkway at the bottom of the street, there are tiny obtuse artistic marvels.

Leaves poking from behind a fence.

An electrical box.



A dislocated piece of machinery abandoned by a fence.



I never knew my suburb held such interesting delights, all within a hundred metres of my house.

My intention was to veer south, making my way down to the green circle of oval filled with tiny bees and tinier grassflowers.

Instead the pull inside my belly takes me north, up along the nature track beside a road.

And then I see it.

Where my belly has pulled me too.

There under the embracing, drooping arms of a gum tree is a fox.

A dead fox.

I am at once repelled and deeply, deeply intrigued. My heart leaps into my throat. Do I walk by, averting my eyes? Should I be unaffected, disaffected? Here this lovely creature is, ensconced in death, the trickster in transformation.

And here the words play:

You always long to be out there, out in the wild, living a shaman's life.
And here it is. Here is your fox medicine, here is your shaman's way.

So I make my way to my fox.

I gather sticks and rocks, and I crouch beside him, making a crude, earthy altar.

He is lovely. His fur is soft, glistening, bushy. His magnificent tail. His closed over eyes. I tremble ~ there is so much fox energy in him still that I believe he will awaken. I am thinking of the Bone Woman, of how she sings the wolf's bones until the fur grows back and his lungs fill with breath, and she sings him back to life.



I look around. Is anyone watching? What will they think of this girl with the dead fox?
I wish I did not care. I only dare be with my fox when he needs me, or perhaps I need him.

I decide to stay a little longer. I sit beside him, my eyes drinking in his beauty, feeling sadness. I wonder if he was hit by a car and dragged here. His paws are curled up beside him, there is no sign of blood. I wonder if he came here to die, curling up beneath the slight shadows of gum to rest from the heat. I think of my fox friend Dave and how he always cried at foxes lying by the side of the road.

I think about death. I think about how sterile and departed we wish death to be from us ~ clean, taken care of by professionals, out of sight. I think of Meta's transition, and how much needs to change in the way we look at and live with death. I think of my brother, and the very few moments I spent with him after he died. And I think of life growing up on the farm, in the dirt, with death and birth and life all apart of it.

The leaves make shadows on the ground around us.

A helicopter flies overhead.
As I photograph the helicopter, I feel the fox smile at me with its foxy smile, asking: did you catch that one?



In the next suburb over I can see from where I sit the rubbish truck making its slow amble up the slope.



The world goes on as a girl sits with a dead fox.

So I sit there in the dirt, under the gumleaves for a while. The ants crawl into my shoes, and make beelines for the fox's eyes. He is beautiful still.

I take a deep breath, holding it in. I do what I need to do. I reach out, and I touch Mr Fox, on his forehead, gently stroking his amber fur. His small white teeth show.

I tell him that I thank him, I honour him and I love him.
I ask for Great Spirits to make his transition into great spirit an easy one.
And I just sit there to witness his life and his death.

I look up, and light shines through a tiny, misshapen heart space in the clouds.
Heart space. Yes, that is where it is at.



I stand and leave the furry feet of Buddha, melting into the Australian dirt. From once we were, we become again. The great certainty of being birthed from Mother Earth and birthed back into her.



And I walk on, the girl of the fox,
a small snarl curling my upper lip, fossicking through the bushes for small treasures, tiny miracles and serendipitous trash.

I smell of earth and fox and ants and hot summer wind.

And I feel freer than I ever have before.



There are trees and houses, shadows and light, there are rainbow spirits and flags and chopped timber and rubbish. Forks strewn in the dirt, perfect sculptures of trolleys, and paving that reminds me of my labyrinth walk two summers ago. There is death and there is life, there is grass and there is concrete. There are miracles and yearnings, all at once.

















Is this how to see?

Is this what it is to walk?


with love and joy,

leonie the walking woman.