Sep 9, 2014 | Belonging, Writing With Refugee Kids
”The value of drawing is that it slows you down, you spend time looking…and you discover things.” Betty Churcher, Australian art educator and gallery director, Brisbane Writers Festival 2014 I love that quote. Just reading it takes me to a sacred...
Aug 20, 2014 | Belonging, Interesting Ephemera
I was at a writing workshop on the weekend and, over lunch, began chatting with a woman who has recently started dating again. Dating was an ugly beast when I was single back at the turn of the century and things have apparently not improved. The writer I was talking...
Aug 18, 2014 | Belonging, Interesting Ephemera
I’m out of steam. But I’m not supposed to admit that am I? When people ask me how I’m doing, I’m supposed to say ”fine”. Since when did we all become such adept liars? I try not to lie. I try to tell them the succinct truth, but often I can sense their...
Aug 8, 2014 | Belonging, Interesting Ephemera
A few months ago, near the beginning of my year-long project in belonging, we hung a metal bird feeder off the balcony. My eight-year old daughter chose the feeder which is stylistically beautiful but perhaps not the most practical. The aim was to see whether we could...
Aug 5, 2014 | Belonging, Interesting Ephemera
I’m now seven months into my study of belonging here in Australia, my fourth country. This month I’ll be focussing on Reaching Out. I’m trying to see the world differently, looking for openness, behaving in a more inclusive and friendly manner, and making a real...
Jul 27, 2014 | Belonging, Interesting Ephemera
”We cry out only when there is hope that someone may hear us.” Jean Vanier Becoming Human In my last post, I suggested we reach out and replace the growing sense of isolation and loneliness in our communities with belonging. There are many things I’m...
Jul 25, 2014 | Belonging, Interesting Ephemera
”Our survival depends on our collective abilities, not on our individual might.” John Cacioppo, TEDxDesMoines A woman from a US ad agency approached me this week to discuss belonging. It ended up being quite an insightful email conversation. One of...
Jul 15, 2014 | Belonging, Interesting Ephemera
”Belonging then is a school of love where we learn to open up to others and to the world around us, where each person, creature, and thing in our world is important and is respected.” Jean Vanier Becoming Human I’m standing at the bus stop in...
Jun 23, 2014 | Belonging, Interesting Ephemera
”From time to time, the spirits seek us out because they are in need of human warmth for a little while. That is the time to listen very carefully to what they are saying because they are trying to tell us what we are really thinking.’’ Norman...
Jun 16, 2014 | Belonging, Interesting Ephemera
”The real Aussie girls crimped and permed to get frizzy post-eighties afros, but I was busy begging my mother for hair extensions, or saving up for Soul Pattison’s straightening goo. My blackness was the hulking beast crouched in the corner of every room, and...
Jun 13, 2014 | Belonging, Interesting Ephemera
”Vulnerability is kind of the core of shame and fear and our struggle for worthiness, but it appears it’s also the birthplace of joy, of creativity, of belonging, of love.” Brené Brown, 2010 Ted Talk The more I move into my year-long experiment in whether...
May 27, 2014 | Belonging, Interesting Ephemera
”Poetry is a ruthless muse.” Alice Walker at the Sydney Writers’ Festival, May 2014 This series of essays on belonging is all about me trying to find out where I belong or how I can make myself feel like I belong in Australia. Well last week I made...
