Jean Burman

The other day I pulled from the bookshelf my poor old worn out copy of Julia Cameron’s “The Artist’s Way” and began flicking through the pages. It had been years since I had looked at it… the “dog-eared” pages (top and bottom) a poignant reminder of what I had considered at the time to be “important points” worth remembering!

oops… that’s a bit wonky… (not the best photographer!)

Thumbing through the pages, I came upon a paragraph which had been circled in pencil… and began to read. The author was speaking of “paying attention”… the act of focussing on the details of the “moment we are in”… as a means of coping in times of hardship. She had recently undergone a painful divorce and had retreated to a lonely house in the hills to recover and heal. In remembering how she had felt… this is what she had to say…

“In times of pain… when the future is too terrifying to contemplate and the past too painful to remember, I have learned to pay attention to “right now”. The precise moment I was in… was always the only safe place for me. Each moment… taken alone… was always bearable. In the exact now… we are all… always… all right”.

Here’s the new cover version

And then something Jools said the other day resonated with this notion also… and I realised that her words and thoughts were along similar lines. The cause of her pain… though much different to that of the author… was still in reference to painful human experience (and I hope she will forgive me for remembering her words here?)

She said…

“My days have been slow and I have had much time to reflect on many things. I have painted in small amounts and am paying much more time to details and colour separation - I am seeing things in a different way. I have developed a higher level of patience and awareness of others, which has seeped into my paintings. Best of all I am looking at those close to me… appreciating them more and forgiving them for any ridiculous foibles they may have… as they are doing for me. With all of the pain, discomfort and frustration comes understanding.”

Jools beautiful garden and artwork - image Copyright the artist - View more here

I had seen this “paying attention” before in my father… after my brother died accidentally as a young man. In the days and weeks following John’s death… Dad kept a small spirax notebook and wrote endless lists. Lists of people to see… questions to ask… arrangements to make… things he had to do… places he must go. My prevailing memory of that time was of watching my Dad make notes in that little spirax notebook! It puzzled me at the time for… even though I was only a young girl at the time… I was able to reason that all the lists in the world would not change what had happened. But it did “assist change” for my father… it kept him in the “here and now”… the very moment in which he felt he could somehow cope with the unspeakable loss. At the very least… it helped.

“The moving finger writes: and having writ

Moves on: nor all thy piety nor thy wit

Shall lure it back to cancel half a line

Nor all thy tears wash out a word of it - from the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam

I saw it again in the last year of my mother’s life. Terminally ill… but never without hope… she would greet me each day with… yes…you guessed it… a list!

This time it was a grocery list… or a list of practical “things to do today”. The items on the list were always of a practical and down to earth nature… phone Hazel… the fridge needs cleaning… ring the doctor… you know… nothing profound or life-changing. Sometimes she drove me crazy… but I came to see that the incessant fussing with the details of the moment… and more than that… “paying attention” in that moment… was comforting to her.

With all of us around her… and sometimes when we were sitting together alone… she would often fall silent and just observe… and as I talked she would be taking in every detail. I realise now how frightened she must have been. Her only way to cope with that fear was to focus-in on her life in that very moment… for it was only “there” that she felt able to cope with the enormity of the experience.

In “The Art of Happiness” a handbook for living… co-authored by His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Howard C. Cutler MD… the experience of human suffering is summed up this way…

“In the same way that physical pain unifies our sense of having a body, we can conceive of the general experience of suffering, acting as a unifying force that connects us with others. Perhaps that is the ultimate meaning behind our suffering. It is our suffering that is the most basic element that we share with others, the factor that unifies us with all living creatures”

image courtesy www.cloudappreciationsociety.org

The events of the past week… the tragedy in Virginia in the USA… the ongoing and terrible loss of life in Iraq… along with the losses and sadness that people in places all over the world endure each and every day… have served this past week to sharpen my awareness of the precious need to pay attention to the moment we are in… this one… right here… right now…

Your comments are always welcome…

We had a snake in the grass this morning… and this was the real deal… not the metaphorical “human variety” trying to slip the rug out from under! <grin>

Yiiiikes… take a look at this monster! Actually as far as carpet snakes go… at around 8 feet long it’s still only a baby… but certainly large enough to keep me off the grass and behind closed doors until it finally mizzled off into the bushes!

Alas… we are not a brave lot here. Upon discovery of the snake (err… which means someone nearly stepped on it) a few miserable attempts were made to move the monster by… wait for it… throwing a coconut at it from a very great distance. Hoikkk… kaaa-plonk…. silence… wait… no movement. Hmmm… that sure worked a treat.

(The coconut now lies abandoned at the edge of the garden as tragic testimony to the failed attempt… and as a stark reminder of our gross and comprehensive lack of intestinal fortitude!) <smile>

The hose was our next big idea… but after the drawing of straws (to decide who would go out to the garden to turn it on) failed… the decision was unanimously taken to let nature take it’s course and allow the thing to “go in peace”. Cowards all… with noses pressed up to the glass… we then watched and waited for the thing to move on. But I suspect the snake was too engrossed in watching the human antics “played out”… to be bothered going anywhere!

There have been many snake stories over the years… and I won’t bore you with all the terrible details here… except to say that snakes are a way of life here in the tropics. They come in all shapes and sizes and varying degrees of nastiness. We have all sorts in our little garden… from the big fat lazy colourful ones right through to the dark and evil looking venemous ones. We made a deal with them early on in our tenure here… “stay away from us… we’ll stay away from you… and you get to live”. And the point was not lost on us that the deal cut both ways!

So far… we have not had to dispatch too many… except for the one which slithered through the open studio door early one evening (okay… I was deep in the zone) and turned up three days later on Emily’s bedside table at 3.15am in the morning (where the heck that snake was for three days… I don’t even want to think about!) Like I said… we are not brave people here… but it is amazing how brave one can be when pushed to the wire by a taipan at that awful hour of the morning… (with the most unlikely tools)… a broom, a towel, and a shovel in hand!

And then there was the time the long suffering lawn mower man… (with 12 foot long 4 inch thick snake slung casually round neck) knocked on the door to ask me what I wanted done with my python!?

And at the kid’s party where a six foot black snake shot out of the bush… splashed wildly across the surface of the swimming pool (our lord was not the only one to walk on water that day) and took off out the other side and into the bush. (Now what was that all about?…)

artwork & content Copyright Jean Burman 2007

But my all-time favourite snake story comes from years ago when the kids were small… and I am almost too ashamed to tell it now… (oh hang it all… I did say almost!) I might just say… by way of apology to nature lovers everywhere… that this was the first and last snake I ever fatally dispatched. We made “the deal” with our snake population soon after this… and the story then lurched off into the stuff of family legend.

It was the day mummy killed the “gigantic” 3 foot green tree snake singlehandedly… by hurling a nappy (daiper) bucket filled to the brim with piping hot sudsy water over the verandah railing and onto the garden below (and hence that poor little snake) to save her young family from the imminent danger posed by this most insidious of evil monsters.

“Don’t even think about it” were the words breathed defiantly from my lips as I then sealed it’s fate with the fatal blow of three, rather overly-large concrete blocks that I’d hastily gathered and dragged from the back garden to finish the job. A mother will stoop to any lengths to save her children! <grin>

On returning home from work… DH found the snake lying stiff and bent in the front garden. Unceremoniously he picked the scrawny little thing up on the end of a stick to prove to me that “It was indeed… dead”.

Yes… I could plainly see that!

But… (another thing I couldn’t help but notice)… not only was it obviously very dead… it was also by now… the cleanest, flattest, dead-est, most “bent up and twisted” snake on the planet!

With sincerest apologies to environmental groups everywhere… *wink* and (smile)

Anyone got a snake story they want to share? All comments welcome…

I wanted to show you my friend Mollie’s garden. Isn’t it wonderful? Mollie lives in a beautiful rainforest home in the mountains near Kuranda… a 3/4 hour drive from where I live in Cairns. She has… over the past 10 years… eked from the rainforest her very own tropical paradise!

Come with me and see…

Last weekend Mollie opened her garden to the public as part of the ABC sponsored Australian Open Garden Scheme which is a self funding not-for-profit organisation which has… since 1987… raised more than $800,000 for community garden projects… and in excess of $3.5 million for various charities. Amazing what a few green thumbs can do isn’t it?

So.. over about half the time the Australia Open Garden Scheme has been operating… Mollie has been chipping away at her labour of love. Her garden draws on a rich history of family involvement with tropical plants and gardening… her parents were keen collectors, researchers and importers of tropical fruits, anthuriums, heliconias, palms, cycads and other tropical varieties. All these and more abound in Mollie’s verdant garden…

The air beneath the rainforest canopy was cool and fresh… the sun peeped through from time to time between passing rain showers…

We sipped tea and enjoyed homemade lemon cake on the verandah…and decided this place could be “anywhere” on earth… timeless and beautiful…

Seeing this garden… one could be forgiven for thinking that Mollie must spend her life in the garden… but no… into the mix of creative enterprise… Mollie has added an even greater talent. She is a renowned and accomplished ceramic artist!

www.molliebosworth.com

Mollie says:

“The fragile nature of the play of light on fragile translucent porcelain forms is the essence of the work…

I have explored the use of light and shadow as key elements of the porcelain work. I am inspired by the interplay of light on and through the porcelain and the way it reveals the subtleties of the surface and changes perceptions…”

You can see more of Mollie’s exquisitely beautiful porcelain work by visiting her at her website www.molliebosworth.com and clicking on her gallery. Enjoy!

As always… comments are very welcome! Sorry… you’ll need to scroll down…

As is the way of things… last week’s tsunami threat has now gone the way of all good editorial press… filed safely away in newsroom archives across the country for some possible future use. The memory of the potential disaster is now largely gone from the collective consciousness of the population at large. By mid week the dust had well and truly settled on it… and the Coral Sea was once again nothing more than a tranquil pond!

But… prompted by the events of last week… memories of another time another place… have come rolling back to me. Perhaps it was the magic of my childhood years spent with my family in the highlands of Papua New Guinea… along with my deep empathy for these people… that prompted the deep and lasting response to the devastating tsunami which struck the northern coast of that country in the early evening of Friday 17th July 1998.

aerial view -Sissano Lagoon PNG

From all reports… the night the sea rose up was “unremarkable” really. A warm and balmy breeze blew gently in from the Bismarck Sea as families gathered on the beach in the cool of the evening. Four villages in total lined the sand spit which divided the Sissano Lagoon from the sea. It was here… along this stretch of palm fringed beach… that the people lived and played… fished from the lagoon and swam in the sea. It was an idyllic life… remote from the troubles of the world.

Then… shortly before 7pm… what sounded like the roar of a jet aircraft filled the air… and many of the villagers in their wonder and confusion ran down to the water’s edge to see what it was. Expecting to see an aeroplane in trouble they could not have known that the noise they were hearing was the sound made by the first of four 10 metre waves generated from an undersea earthquake measuring 7.1 on the richter scale just 14 miles offshore. In less than one minute the first wave was upon them. The three successive waves took just 18 minutes in total to reach the shore. And then there was nothing. The sea returned to calm. The stars shone brightly as before.

But nothing was the same… or would be again. In the space of just 20 minutes… in excess of 10,000 people were displaced… homes destroyed… men women and children violently washed up by the impact of the waves into the trees and swamp surrounding the lagoon. 3,000 people died that night (most of them babies and children). Those who were unable to outrun the waves… or climb a coconut palm to safety… drowned in the lagoon.

Today… the lagoon has recovered. And so.. for the most part… have the people. Although they still fish off the beach and play along the shores of Sissano Lagoon just as before… no-one lives there now. Homes have been rebuilt up to 15 kilometres inland.

But the saddest memory of Sissano Lagoon… is the loss of a whole generation of children. Still… the mother’s weep.

Lost Babies of Sissano Lagoon - Jean Burman 1998

(I painted this back in 1998 as the disaster unfolded. I have… from time to time over the years… felt that improvements could be made… but somehow… I have never had the heart to change it… or to part with it!)

THE LOST BABIES OF SISSANO LAGOON

The babies have all gone now

from this stretch of palm fringed beach

Their lives snatched from her loving arms

and flung far from their reach…

She weeps in silence at the loss

of what had been before

A mother’s silent vigil kept

Along that lonely shore…

She seeks the children born to her

from safe within her womb

and bows her head to gently weep

For the Little Lost Babies of the Lagoon.

- artwork & content copyright Jean Burman 2007

All comments most welcome!

It’s been an interesting week here in Far North Queensland with much public debate in the media about the debacle that was our very first tsunami “alert”. (I wonder what used to happen… I mean “before”… you know… when ocean waves came and went unannounced?) But I digress… already! - smiles-

Many of us awoke last Monday morning to the news of a possible impending tsunami. The rest slept on… blithely unaware! (grin) Living on the edge of the Coral Sea… as we do here in the north… one would expect that the population would be more than accustomed to such things… but as it turned out… we couldn’t have been more unprepared!

At 6.40am Monday morning an undersea earthquake measuring 8.1 on the richter scale was detected by the Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre in Hawaii in the oceans off the Solomon Islands. Then around 7.50am… the Australian Bureau of Meteorology issued a tsunami alert for low lying areas along the eastern seabord of Australia.

Whaaaat?

As the urgent news slowly filtered through the media… predictably… people up and down the coast began to panic. With no emergency response plan in place for tsunamis (our only disaster plan in the north covers cyclones and storm surges - things we have time to prepare for)… and with vivid recent memories of the film footage of Banda Aceh in 2004 in mind… hundreds (nay thousands) of Cairns residents… by now on their way to work… turned their cars around in panic. Others still… arrived at the workplace only to be turned away again and sent home. Hospitals closed their doors and began moving patients to top floors…and schools closed calling parents to collect their children! As a consequence… the city emptied out and shut down very quickly… but not so the roads!

By 9.30am (the time the first of the waves was predicted to make landfall here) confusion reigned. Pandemonium had broken out on the roads as thousands of panicked people fled in their cars for high ground. It was the stuff of Hollywood! The roads… by now gridlocked were taking people no-where.

edvard munch - the scream

(I always wondered about this painting - now I know - it’s about a tsunami! *wink*)

What could have happened…

Had the predicted waves eventuated… entire families, attempting to flee to high ground, could have perished in their cars whilst stuck in traffic jams along the low lying highways! Mercifully… the waves did not come… well they came… but were only a small series of swells by the time they reached our shores.

What should have happened…

With a disaster plan in place to “look up and live”… many people would have realised that they were safer in the high rise office buildings they were already in… rather than out on the roads! In fact… the CBD is chock full of high rise apartments and office buildings more than capable of accommodating an evacuation plan.
They would have also known that they were only a stones throw from safety in the foothills. Many of the city’s suburbs are well above sea level and out of reach of even the most voracious of tidal waves! There was no need to head for the hills (in this case the Atherton Tableland) along low lying highways… as safe ground was a lot closer to home!

Ironically… many homes left abandoned would have been well and truly high and dry! (I should mention… I was 100 metres above sea level and more than okay… and DH was on the 9th floor in the city and not about to budge!)

What happened next…

Predictably… a lot of finger pointing… with the blame game coming hot on the heels of the ocean swell… with all levels of Government dodging responsibility.

What needs to happen right NOW…

With aftershocks continuing off the Solomons all through this week… it would be really comforting for people to know exactly WHERE the high ground lies… (and I’m not talking politics or morals)

Surely it wouldn’t be too much to ask of our local Council to issue something more immediate… like an interim public statement and a simple evacuation plan for residents. Let’s face it… even a map of high ground would suffice at this point!

Then maybe they could look at some of the obvious solutions mentioned above (I’m no rocket scientist… seismologist… or city councillor but even I can figure that much out in record time). They wouldn’t have to look too far to find other workable solutions either.

Hawaii has suffered many devastating tsunamis and now utilise among other things… (air raid) sirens installed during WW2 to alert the population. Now… that’s a good idea! It’s not some fangled high tech SMS alert system transmitted through the mobile network the likes of which is currently being proposed. It’s just a sensible down to earth solution to get everyone’s attention… and I mean everyone… not just those with the latest Nokia.

But still… the silence is deafening. We will just have to wait for the bureaucratic jugganaut to eventually get off it’s proverbial “posterior portion” and tell us all where to go!

I just hope there won’t be another wave before they work it out…

Comments always welcome!

On the surface of it (and especially upon reflection) there is nothing particularly remarkable about any of these special moments! The truth is, we all encounter moments like these every day of our lives… but I think it’s sometimes worthy of our time to pause from time to time to examine them closely… and more importantly to see our response to what’s really going on… and in so doing… maybe learn something about ourselves along the way!

Qantas - Australian Airline (Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Services)

Another close encounter of the “human kind” happened on my flight home! Scoring the hot seat in the front “exit” row I found myself wedged between a man snoring at the window and a young girl at my right elbow, who it would seem, had packed everything but the kitchen sink into her backpack for the 2 hour flight home. I watched in amazement as she pulled from that bag of tricks… first a drink… then a snack… then her sweater (which she put on and off three times) followed by a string of books… a diary… a calculator… and kleenex. Oh and I forgot… teabags (in case the airline didn’t have any). Mostly she studied wrote and read. A student I thought… and not a very friendly one either! I had decided this earlier on, as she had snapped at me on boarding, for taking too long at the overhead locker! Darned cheek! *wink*

After the usual safety drills and formalities of emergency cards and life vests and pleas for parents to put on their own oxygen masks before assisting children… the aircraft lurched forth into the early evening sky. I settled down to read my book… which I had purchased at the newsstand at the airport for the sole purpose of obtaining a stronger plastic bag in which to put the stack of cd’s that Claire and I had, earlier in the day, cleared out of the car.

It’s amazing how much more concise one’s packing has to be when travelling by air as opposed to travelling by road. It’s all very well to simply fill up the car with all and sundry requirements before leaving home… but the day of reckoning comes with the flight home! But I digress…

Somewhere after about her third cup of green tea… and well after night had fallen and the cabin lights had dimmed… I noticed that my student companion was struggling to read her book. By now I had decided that she was probably not such a bad person afterall… as I couldn’t help but notice over her shoulder… that she was in fact reading a book entitled “Live your Life” (and as far as I’m concerned) anyone who reads self help books is at least trying! (grin)

photo source: istockphoto.com

After watching her struggle around for a bit, unconsciously casting around for some light in the darkened cabin… I looked up and noticed the obvious… that she didn’t have her overhead reading light switched on. I wanted to help. But should I dare? Afterall… the memory of her earlier snap at the overhead lockers was still fresh!

Another moment passed… and then with great trepidation… I tentatively reached up and pressed on the light. The light beamed brightly onto her book… and I held my breath waiting to see what her reaction might be. Gathering courage now… I heard myself say in a squeak… “that better?” You might remember just yesterday I had narrowly escaped a broken arm… tonight, I thought, it might just well be a broken nose!

But to my considerable relief… for the third time in as many days… I was to be rewarded with positive confirmation that there is still life out there somewhere… and that people… when pressed… do still respond with kindness when kindness is offered. She turned and beamed me a smile as bright as the light itself… along with her genuine thanks.

We didn’t speak again… there was afterall no need. But in some inexplicable way… with that one brief exchange… a small victory for friendship had been won… and a very simple random act of kindness had been the key.

photo source: istockphoto.com

Sadly for all of us on the flight… I wasn’t able to silence the man snoring at the window… although I did request a rather large cushion towards the end of the flight! (nah just kidding) But by the crikey… it was loud… and I was tempted! LOL

Comments most welcome…