My chook, Pesky, looking for a star to steer by

Stars to steer by; we need them, whether we know we’re using them or not.

A pilot needs a harbour light, a navigator a star or compass bearing, a car driver a traffic light or roadside edge.

But inside the mind as we choose how to steer, what happens there?  How do we ‘see’ the star, what thoughts do we have as we choose how to react to it?

At some moment during so many years in prison, Nelson Mandela chose forgiveness as his star.

So it was that when he was released from prison he won more power, and brought more peace, than if he had left with revenge or hate or bitterness in his mind and heart.

When I lose my bearings I try to remember to ask, “What would Mandela say?”  It’s a beaut question to turn to when things get tough, when things are said or done which might damage me or others.

The answer often brings me to a smile, or a moment of peace or silence or, best of all, laughter.

My chook Pesky asks, “What’s next to peck?”   Or, “Should I run away?”.  She is in perpetual zen, always in the moment – of pecking, or preparing to run, or sunning herself.

Just my thoughts,

M

“When Szymborska was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1996 “for poetry that with ironic precision allows the historical and biological context to come to light in fragments of human reality,” the Nobel commission rightly called her “the Mozart of poetry” — but, wary of robbing her poetry of its remarkable dimension, added that it also emanates “something of the fury of Beethoven.” I often say that she is nothing short of Bach, the supreme enchanter of the human spirit.”

To hear Amanda Palmer read the poem, it’s here:

LIFE WHILE YOU WAIT

Life While-You-Wait.

Performance without rehearsal.

Body without alterations.

Head without premeditation.

I know nothing of the role I play.

I only know it’s mine. I can’t exchange it.

I have to guess on the spot

just what this play’s all about.

Ill-prepared for the privilege of living,

I can barely keep up with the pace that the action demands.

I improvise, although I loathe improvisation.

I trip at every step over my own ignorance.

I can’t conceal my hayseed manners.

My instincts are for happy histrionics.

Stage fright makes excuses for me, which humiliate me more.

Extenuating circumstances strike me as cruel.

Words and impulses you can’t take back,

stars you’ll never get counted,

your character like a raincoat you button on the run —

the pitiful results of all this unexpectedness.

If only I could just rehearse one Wednesday in advance,

or repeat a single Thursday that has passed!

But here comes Friday with a script I haven’t seen.

Is it fair, I ask

(my voice a little hoarse,

since I couldn’t even clear my throat offstage).

You’d be wrong to think that it’s just a slapdash quiz

taken in makeshift accommodations. Oh no.

I’m standing on the set and I see how strong it is.

The props are surprisingly precise.

The machine rotating the stage has been around even longer.

The farthest galaxies have been turned on.

Oh no, there’s no question, this must be the premiere.

And whatever I do

will become forever what I’ve done.

And there’s this one:

POSSIBILITIES

I prefer movies.

I prefer cats.

I prefer the oaks along the Warta.

I prefer Dickens to Dostoyevsky.

I prefer myself liking people

to myself loving mankind.

I prefer keeping a needle and thread on hand, just in case.

I prefer the color green.

I prefer not to maintain

that reason is to blame for everything.

I prefer exceptions.

I prefer to leave early.

I prefer talking to doctors about something else.

I prefer the old fine-lined illustrations.

I prefer the absurdity of writing poems

to the absurdity of not writing poems.

I prefer, where love’s concerned, nonspecific anniversaries

that can be celebrated every day.

I prefer moralists

who promise me nothing.

I prefer cunning kindness to the over-trustful kind.

I prefer the earth in civvies.

I prefer conquered to conquering countries.

I prefer having some reservations.

I prefer the hell of chaos to the hell of order.

I prefer Grimms’ fairy tales to the newspapers’ front pages.

I prefer leaves without flowers to flowers without leaves.

I prefer dogs with uncropped tails.

I prefer light eyes, since mine are dark.

I prefer desk drawers.

I prefer many things that I haven’t mentioned here

to many things I’ve also left unsaid.

I prefer zeroes on the loose

to those lined up behind a cipher.

I prefer the time of insects to the time of stars.

I prefer to knock on wood.

I prefer not to ask how much longer and when.

I prefer keeping in mind even the possibility

that existence has its own reason for being.

A recommendation.

Travels with Epicurus by Daniel Klein.  (Sub titled, A journey to a Greek island in search of an authentic old age.)

Funny, smart, direct, thoughtful.

Above all, honest.

He also wrote, Plato and  Platypus walk into a bar.

This tries a bit too hard while the Travels book doesn’t.  Funny, too, but doesn’t resonate with the words one might choose when time seems . . . to be running out.

Just my thoughts,

Michael

The stylish black integrated inverter and battery system on the balcony of my house

It’s all solar systems go.

After the solar info evening last night, we’re going to do it – over 30 of us from across Australia will buy in bulk to bring down individual prices for solar power systems for schools, houses and offices.

A solar power station or three is in the making, those already with solar are keen to try out the new battery technology and we feel stronger by buying and working together.

The conversation took place in this room where the metal fixing that once held the main grid line to my house now rests on the wall as a sculpture

Forty four people came to the evening.  Everyone was keen to act, keen to do, to get beyond talking, to forsake complaining and blah – just to get on with it.

Yes, the sculpture looks like a futuristic cockroach but it gives me a childish delight and sense of achievement. Every house could have one . . .

Several already have solar systems that are grid connected and are keen to add batteries.

And we’re keen to add social capital to our spending money by investing in social enterprises such as powering remote communities.  If we’re going to buy solar why not use our money at the same time to invest in adding value to, say, another part of society which can benefit from the transactions?  Now, that’s a real return on investment.

It’ll all be lawful.

Legal questions and answers about how to install solar energy, how to go off the grid, how to sell your power are in a website I’ve set up and the legal advice is generously funded by the NSW Government; it’s here.

Thank you to Larissa and Marianne who prepared the data and presentation, to Paul, Brom, Laurie, Judy and John, Richard and so many who brought food and laughter and ideas.

But most of all – thanks to all of us in Australia who, in moments like these, give ourselves permission to be the leaders and shape our own futures.  Who would remain bored waiting, waiting for political leaders to lead when they just don’t?

It’s just plain fun.   Epicurus would approve.

And now I’ve written an article asking, Is climate our dictator?

What do you think?

I’d like to hear from you if you have a moment.

Thanks,

Michael

Hello Michael,

Thank you both; oh, and Andra, you’re welcome to post your photos of the tour on the facebook page for the house, or email them to me:  https://www.facebook.com/sustainablehouse

Michael

May I offer Will Shakespeare’s 29th sonnet in this sense, and invite you to read it aloud with a song in your heart:

When in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes

When, in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes,

I all alone beweep my outcast state

And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries

And look upon myself and curse my fate,

Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,

Featured like him, like him with friends possess’d,

Desiring this man’s art and that man’s scope,

With what I most enjoy contented least;

Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,

Haply I think on thee, and then my state,

Like to the lark at break of day arising

From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven’s gate;

For thy sweet love remember’d such wealth brings

That then I scorn to change my state with kings.

Oh, my.  Isn’t that beautiful.

Enjoy,

M

Cutting leaky drain to size

Each year in Chippendale we save over 4 million litres of water to irrigate our road gardens.  We built the drains for this ourselves at a once-off cost of $300.  The story is here.

The itinerary includes special tours and experiences of buildings, architecture, restaurants, streets, museums and some of Sydney’s special spaces.  Travellers will roam from Wendy Whiteley’s garden, to the Mint at night, Janet Laurence’s studio in Chippendale to some hidden-away places in Sydney.

There’ll be a special tour of Sydney’s Sustainable House and a ‘breakout’ dinner there where a feast of fresh local healthy tucker will be on offer.

AFAR specialises in boutique tours and giving those who travel a deeper understanding of the people and cultures around Earth.  The Sydney tour itinerary is here.

Go well,

M

M