Night Shift

Speaking of which (hypermania) - lack of sleep can be a trigger for me, as can impending travel. I'm going to try to have some more rest before it warms up too much. Will probably catch you some more on here later. Planning to do some more MoodGym today too.

Sleep well and enjoy the day.

Sorry @eth my bright eyes and bushy tail didnt last long... my head started to feel really heavy and I went to bed ... I didnt mean to be be rude ... I seem to need soooo much sleep .. I didnt get up til after 1....so I missed another wonderful dawn. I like the idea of dawn . but dont get there often.

I had a brief look at the slam movement in Melbourne ... but mostly I was reading my poetry about family and it wasnt the best outlet for it ... is it better on the page or the stage?

I liked the idea that it has been growing as it empowers a lot of people on the edge ... I went back to uni and read hip hop in a class on extreme poetry ...

But cos my head is too busy I try to keep busy with less verbal things ... so did a little hip dance ... and of course the music helps me be grounded ... I need it to function ...so I guess it could be called an addiction.

Great that you did massage ... another sciencey type

Hi sleepy head, no not rude at all @Appleblossom sometimes you just have to surrender to it and it must've been really late (early am) where you are anyway.

I wouldn't say that on page or spoken poetry is better than the other, both have their value, but personally I've been able to put a lot into my private poems than I'd ever share publicly. I miss just getting the 'urge to splurge' as one workshop teacher called it. I think writing about deep personal stuff is very healing even if you never look at it again.

I've been listening to chants from all over the world this morning - a double CD called Holy Ground by a woman called White Eagle and various others. I love music too and haven't been using it enough recently.

Hey @eth

I did the Inanay Capuana chant with my a capella group. I also like drumming movement thats come out from West Africa.

It was funny first I got taylor Swift when i looked up Holy Ground ... but then found a youtube with White Eagle. It is good that indigenous people are putting their cultures out there ...... it is amazing how many white people love it in Melbourne and need it to get connected again ... there is a tourism started which might at least help the financial situation a little.

My dad used to introduce me to his aboriginal mates in Hyde Park .. when we were in Sydney and I was a kid and before that my first friend in an orphanage was aboriginal ... so i am onside with them .. but the real issues are complex.

I was singing that very chant only an hour ago!

I have been very influenced in my path when I was working and training and travelling a lot over east by Aboriginal and Native American prophesies and healing methods. I was given the name 'Running Deer' around 28 years old by an Aboriginal man who had toured communities in America, Canada and Australia and felt it meant I needed to find out more and understand more. Particularly about hands-on healing and ethnobotany (hence 'eth'). But the last few years I've been feeling really disconnected from that path. Have a new(ish) friend who is inspiring me to reconnect and lent me the CD I mentioned. I've had quite an online journey this morning about the work of the people who made it.

I've only seen a few references to your childhood so far and don't really know much of your story but it sounds like it was a pretty hard road at times. If you want to share I'm here.

You're right about the issues for Aboriginals being complex and many. Very aware of it up here. Lots of racism around me.

But the issues for any stolen children are complex too. My mum was forced to give up the daughter she had before me by her family. It was 1960 and she was single.

I like that "eth" ..

It is good that different indigenous groups around the world learn from each other and deepen their links with the dignity of their own culture and become more viable in this contemporary world.

One of the reasons I became more introverted was all the racism I encountered growing up ... I am white and didnt even twig til I was an adult that those people were in fact aboriginal. I cringed from all the loud freely expressed anti aboriginal sentiment ... that seemed to be everywhere ...

My grandmother gave up my dad at 6 weeks .. Irish bloody catholics ... she was a single mum in1925.

Both of my parents were hospitalised when I was 6 ... (1966) and the welfare came and got us eventually. I put 2 + 2 together from reading my ward file ... my mother seemd to blame me for everything ... but not directly ... it is just the way it played out long term ... what I am still figuring out.

Do you have any contact with your sister .. or half sister ... was she or are you Aboriginal.

I went to a Rivers to Recognition talk in my local area ... slowly slowly things might get better ... a lovely lady who had started a deadly kitchen here ... ended up having a hypo from diabetes at the community centre ... when I point out sugar problems to many christian mission types they dont get it and play funny games about their own diabetes ... but we need to keep the conversations going.

Thats not good about your mum ... did she fall and hit her head ...

Mum hit her head and then fell on bitumen but she says she's ok. They're still watching her in hospital and then she's going home with a friend from Church who stayed with her thank goodness. My younger sister's in Bris but almost never sees Mum. My older half sister has been in distant contact with Mum for about 20 years now but I've only met her twice.