COVER ARTIST: Katia Honour
COVER TITLE: Dance of Creation
MEDIUM: Oil, tempura and glaze on canvas
CONTACT: Phone 0421 128 110
Email: katiahonour@gmail.com
www.katiahonour.com
I aim to visually map the relationships between ethereal, esoteric, emotional and physical realms and share my views on mysticism and life’s strange, but blessed, experiences. As a teacher of art at Melbourne’s Visionary Art Atelier, I am passionate about guiding artists to explore their own relationship to consciousness, spirituality, disciplined techniques and striving for beauty.
Thank you for taking time to see my visions, and the world through my eyes and brush. Hopefully, I can dare you to explore your own relationship to art – whether in paint, music, dance, cooking… there are thousands of ways to bring your own beauty and art into other people’s lives.
As long as you are thinking you need something outside of yourself to create inner peace, you will never find it. If you need to be in nature, holding a crystal, chanting a mantra, eating certain foods or any other such rituals it will elude you. These things may help you feel peaceful for a time, but it will be fleeting, and only a shadow of what true inner peace is.
I learnt this lesson in a very troubling, and finally humbling, way.
In September 2000, I was backpacking through the Middle East with a friend, Natalie. We were on the Jordan-Israeli border when the second Intifada began and renewed fighting broke out between Palestine and Israel. We were terrified. All of a sudden there were men with guns everywhere, crying in the streets of Jordan’s capital, Amman, protesting at Israeli police killing a young Palestinian boy. We went north into Syria, thinking we could cross into Turkey and get out of the region from there, but we didn’t have Turkish visas. There were tanks and soldiers everywhere. All we had were flights out of Beirut in a weeks’ time, so we headed south again and crossed into Lebanon. That first night in Beirut, tired, dirty, stinky, anxious and hungry, we were waiting in line for falafel at a street vendor when a young guy in the line behind us recognised our accents as Australian and started chatting. His name was Safi, and he said “I’m sorry you’re here in my country at such a troubled time, but it is a very beautiful place, with lots of beautiful things to see, and if you like, my cousin and I can show you around” and he gave us his number. Nat and I had relied upon our intuition and gut instinct to get us out of so many sticky situations in the 5 weeks we’d been in the Middle East at that point, and both our intuitions said that this guy was worth trusting. So we called Safi the next day, and he and his cousin came and picked us up in their dodgy old Camry with clapped out suspension and drove us to their village in the hills outside of Beirut. We arrived at Safi’s house to find that his mother and sisters had been preparing food all morning, and all of their friends were there waiting.
We sat on Safi’s balcony eating the most delicious food all afternoon and well into the night. After an interesting translated conversation with Safi’s mum about my vegetarianism and yes, we were two single girls travelling on our own, neither of which were concepts she could comprehend, we were totally accepted. We were sitting amongst a group of friends, both Christian and Islamic, in a house riddled with shrapnel holes from the civil war. As darkness set in, the electricity went out, because they only got electricity for eight hours a day, and the boys jumped up and turned on the generators and lit candles and the night kept going as if nothing had happened. I was acutely aware that I was missing something. My vegetarianism and hippy jewellery and new age ideals felt like first world, indulgent, luxuries. My new friends’ external world was far from peaceful, yet their inner worlds shone with a peace that eclipsed mine. There was a certainty about themselves, their values, their friendships and loyalties, and a commitment to being in the present moment I’d never witnessed in any of my peers before. Their futures weren’t certain, yet they had a certainty of themselves I didn’t know.
It was a few years later, and long after my return to Australia, when it finally clicked for me. Someone had asked me which people had most affected me from my travels, and Lebanon and Cambodia came straight to mind. The two countries I’d visited with the most tragic histories, and the two countries where I had met people who rattled me to my core. I realised in that conversation that what they all had in common was a non-attachment to expectations or judgements, and a willingness to gratefully receive whatever the moment offered. There was no room for sweating the small stuff, or preciousness about privacy or personal space, or new age sacred cows. They all truly had their priorities and values in order, and a sense of perspective I was missing. Their inner peace came from the value they brought each other in just being there, just being present. It’s not about being enlightened, or needing to have anything perfect, or knowing what tomorrow will bring. It’s just being where you are, right now, where ever that is on your journey, accepting it for what it is, and making the most of the opportunities present.
I’m no longer vegetarian. I enjoy my crystals but I don’t need them. I’m content being human, imperfect and on my own journey. I’m at peace being me. As for Safi and his family, they took us in and we stayed with them for a whole week. Various members of his family and friends took us to see all the sites of Lebanon, and Safi and I are still friends thanks to Facebook. I will forever be grateful to him and his family, their generosity and grace, and willingness to take a chance in a moment that presented itself.
Amy Harrison
Amy is a kinesiologist at Life Tree Natural Therapies. She and her husband Michael also developed The Belief Switch. She can be contacted on 0402 759 726
I was walking in Yulara (NT) when a pigeon strangely swept with a loud flapping noise above my head determined to attract my attention. I knew something had happened. It was a clear sign. Deep in my heart, I knew my mother had left. That night, an email followed to confirm. I booked my flights and left for the other side of the world.
When my cousins picked me up at Brussels airport, they had no problems recognising me as I was the only person coming out of that flight with a small carry-on bag only and wearing winter clothes – it is currently winter in Australia but mid-summer in Belgium. The last thing that I was going to worry about was what to wear!
All went as smoothly as possible in those circumstances. Family and friends gathered for the funeral. Then… it was time to deal with mother’s belongings. That is a Titan task. I am sure that those of you who have been through this stage still have items they can’t leave. Those who haven’t, probably hope to push this challenging moment as far as possible away in time.
It is a time of total detachment, on all levels.
It is a time of remembering, healing emotions and letting go.
Material possessions are only important for the joy they give us. I packed clothes, shoes, bedding and gave it all to a charity. Some books went to a second hand shop, expensive leather cover encyclopaedias went to recycling as nobody wants those anymore. I placed all I could of her beautiful and quality furniture and decor on eBay, then finished with a garage sale.
I went through all of her detailed photo albums and wondered how many hours it took her to prepare such pedagogical tools; after all she was a lifelong teacher. It made me think of how we handled the photos decades ago. Then we printed them all, no choice, so we kept most of them even sometimes those that were blurry simply because we paid for the printouts! Nowadays with the digital photos, we have far too many of them. Yes, they take no physical space, only a virtual one. How many of you can say that you sort them out and only keep those worthwhile?
In my daily life, I declutter regularly and I named my Feng Shui photo-trick: ‘A year in less than 4 minutes’.
Since 2009, each year I create a yearly small slide show that fits onto the timing of one song – between 3 and 4 minutes. I gather all the good moments I lived during that year. People are happy to watch photos for a few minutes (only) and it is handy to place it on YouTube to share with overseas relatives. That’s all. No need for me to bother anyone with the thousand of photos of my latest trips, no, let’s keep it simple and short – that’s all that people want. I then erase all excess photos and the delete button is popular! Your photos are your story. Only a few good ones are important to keep for you and your descendants.
You may wonder what did I bring back with me to Australia? Very little: my baby plate in which I started eating and my first silver cutlery set. The rest is now gone. I am free… so is she.
Many blessings, Mum, thank you for everything you did and taught me!
Roseline Deleu, International Feng Shui Master, Author, Shaman
Mob. 0412 717 454 www.fengshuisteps.com BLOG www.fengshuisteps.wordpress.com
Feng Shui consultations in Cairns and FNQ also contact Carol Crumlin 0417 716 819