Tag Archives: bush

September 8, 2018 · 3:15 pm

La Capella (The Chapel)

Exhilarating – Word of the Day

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Beedelup Falls, Pemberton. For me the bush is exhilarating, it refreshes and restores me. This is my true chapel.

La Capella (The Chapel)

I drink,
breathe in,
those familiar smells
of this hallowed place.
Myrtles form your vaulted ceiling
which resounds with the chant of my praise.
While your aisles are damp, meandering paths
through open woodland,
and at its center
your altar of rugged granite.
And yet, there is no intended sacrifice
save that which surrenders itself for another.
Sunrise and sunset are your stained glass,
an ever changing story of light and life.
Ravens, your gargoyles, guard the narthex,
announcing every entrance,
for everyone is called to this sacred space,
a sanctuary of wonder and delight.
This chapel of life-breath and beauty,
a sublime offering,
healing,
refreshing,
life giving.

©Paul Vincent Cannon

Paul,

pvcann.com

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August 13, 2018 · 10:29 am

Monday Walk

Jos Monday Walk

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The upper reaches of Margaret River where it crosses a road, this year a steady flow.

paul,

pvcann.com

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August 12, 2018 · 12:09 pm

Vacant Mind

5 Lines – Vacation

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We’ve been more of a camping, bush travelling type of family. But a couple of years ago we decided to take the Ghan from Adelaide to Darwin. It was a great choice, and a great holiday.

Vacant Mind

Where are you?
mmm … O, sorry, I was miles away.
Really? I could see that.
I was thinking we should go on a holiday.
Yes but you’ve just been, miles away, again.

©Paul Cannon

 

Paul,

pvcann.com

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July 10, 2018 · 2:40 pm

Finding My Way

Deviate – Word of the Day

Connection

I once took an unknown path that led
across lichen encrusted granite.
I slipped and bruised easily.
But I made it to the top.
However,  it wasn’t really that.

I once walked blindly into solid bush
certain it was virgin.
Scratched, sore and hot,
I found the center and a rusted coke can.
So, it wasn’t quite that.

I once climbed a mountain,
a torutous path.
Wind, rain, burning sun.
I reached the awe inspiring summit.
It was almost that.

I once followed a tiny creek line,
there was no trail.
I heard frogs and birds,the rustle of leaves,
I smelt the humus and the sweet air.
It was close to that.

But it wasn’t my conquest,
or my discovery.
It was something deeper,
It was everywhere and everything,
and it was nowhere in particular.

At once it was synergy,
congruence,
a oneness, a different discovery,
where I belonged in the bosom of the earth,
and it belonged in me.

©Paul Cannon

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When was the last time you varied your route? When did you last enjoy a challenge like a side path or rock outcrop, a creek line, frogs, birds, moist earth?

When out in the bush, any possible path or route is likely to be a deviation for me. I am definitely curious and I love surprises and challenges. So another stop along the Norseman –  Hyden Road along the Woodlands Discovery Trail, just to see. A granite outcrop, a running creek, and a view from the rock, birdsong, and a variety of woodland flora. Well worth the deviation for such simple yet rich pleasures, and oneness.

Paul,

pvcann.com

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June 15, 2018 · 2:47 pm

You Give Me Fervour

Fervour – Word of the Day

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When the bush comes alive it is with fervour! The colour is rich and varied, the smell is glorious, the hum of insects and the sound of birds is divine. We are currently in winter here, this was taken a few years ago in spring in the eastern wheatbelt after the rains had been the best for a number of years. Hoping the rains are good this year so that we get a repeat of these wildflowers.

Seasons come and go, in order, and generally predictable. But our personal inner seasons are nothing like that. I’ve had long internal winters which have given rise to colourful, intense springs of growth. I’ve had long summers of basking in joy and contentment. I’ve had autumns where transition and change have prepared me body, mind and soul for new experiences. They never come in order, they are never fixed in duration, they are unpredictable. If they were, then life would be dull.

Our inner seasons are indicative of our lived reality, the stuff of relationships, love, joy, pain. It is the complexity of body, mind and soul as a receptor of a multiplicity of experiences. It is gift and loss. It is the giddyness of aspiration, and the sober nature of graft and heft. It is our senses open and engaged. None are negative. Winter is essential, a season of withdrawing, waiting, refreshing, washing, grieving gives way to spring. Winter waters spring. As we befriend our inner winters, we become wiser, integrated, stronger for the journey. Without rain there is no blossom, no juice. As we rejoice in our summers we store up memories that give back to us over a lifetime. Each season is lived and embodied, a respository of awareness. Nothing is lost. Each one gives me fervour, fervour for life, love and purpose.

Currently I’m in an autumnal time of reflection and revision and I’m seeking that next step into spring. I wonder where you are at?

dark clouds surround 
the rain falls inside of me
cherry blossom glows

©Paul Cannon

Paul,

pvcann.com

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May 16, 2018 · 1:37 pm

The Thin Place

via Daily Prompt: Thin

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Photo: My thin places are the bush: A walk trail near Bridgetown.

The ancient Celts believed that there were places one could go where people and the spirit world could touch. The Celtic influence on Christianity was such that this belief carried over, that the veil between heaven and earth was thin or transparent. The barrier between human and the divine were almost non-existent. For the ancient Celts these places were mostly forrest groves, but in other cultures they are rivers, billabongs, monoliths, mountain-tops, caves and more.

Not the same, but related in some aspects, the Australian Indigenous peoples created songlines, which trace the creation of the land, the fauna and lore, by ancestral spirits. Indigenous Australians used the songlines as navigation paths, for social connection, cultural knowledge – especially coming to know the flora and fauna, the availability of water, the types of seasons, and how it all came to be. Songlines are places to touch the past and the present.

My thin places are in the bush, these are liminal, threshold places, where the mind transcends the ordinary, where the soul is restored, where the heart is lifted, and the eyes are filled.

Thin places might be Angkor Wat, Machu Picchu, Uluru, Chartres Cathedral, the Pyramids, the Himalayas, the stars, meditation, music, art, and more, places or experiences of place that awaken the soul to something more, something outside the self, something veiled but near. Whether or not this is a spiritual experience or a transcendence of some other kind, thin places are restorative, they are places of contemplation, places of beauty, awe, play, rest, and renewal. We all need thin places, we will know them differently, but we will know them. They are treasures to fill the soul.

John O’Donohue wrote: “When you begin to sense that your imagination is the place where you are most divine, you feel called to clean out of your mind all the worn and shabby furniture of thought. You wish to refurbish yourself with living thought so that you can begin to see.”

Paul,

pvcann.com

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March 22, 2018 · 1:06 pm

Nature As Talisman

via Daily Prompt: Talisman

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When I was in primary school one boy created a bit of discussion one day because he brought along a rabbits foot, and he explained that this was his lucky charm. I was bemused. I never had one, though I had some favourite things that were sentimental and had I lost them I would have felt out of kilter, but no talisman as such.

I have a book that belonged to my great uncle Davey who died near Arnhem, Netherlands, during WW2, it is somehow a connection to the past. It is a large book, written for adults but yet fits the description ‘ripping yarns’ a bit like the ‘Biggles’ stories for those who knew them. I had a fave knitted red t-shirt that I’d had for years, it had holes in it, fibreglass stains and etc. I still had it when I got married. Lyn threw it out while I was at work one day! We now ask before disposing 😂 I still have a bedside lamp that was modelled on the story and cartoon character ‘Noddy’, I might repair it one day, it’s sentimental. But really, if these were taken from me, I’d grieve a bit, but eventually I’d not miss them, after all they are merely material.

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The labyrinth is for me a practice of meditation, but it is also a symbol of life, reflection and journey. It comes closest to talisman, as I would miss this if it were taken from me, it is important to my rhythm and balance, it is life giving.

But even more than that, the photo at the top, which shows a segment of Billyacatting Nature Reserve near Nungarin, was a regular haunt when I needed to meditate and take time out from long days of driving vast distances. Why is this a talisman? Well, because for me it is life giving and healing. I find natural spaces enable wholeness and awareness more readily than built environs. I come alive in the bush in ways I don’t or can’t in urban spaces. I’m certain I would go on living if I lived in a major city, one like Beijing or Tokyo, LA, London etc., but I wouldn’t thrive, I’d merely survive in such places. But give me the bush and time to walk it, soak it up, commune, meditate, and engage with it, and I am revived, refreshed, and whole. The bird song, the smell of the earth, the blossoms, eucalyptus and other smells, the visual feast, for me the bush, and all that constitutes it, is my Talisman.

What’s your talisman?

Paul,

pvcann.com

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January 18, 2018 · 3:38 pm

Can You Hear That?

via Photo Challenge: Silence

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Can you hear that? No? Exactly, relative silence.

Gordon Hempton and John Crossman published their book ‘One Square Inch of Silence’ back in 2009. It was an attempt to highlight the need for silence for healthy living and for the environemnt in general. It is a noise control project and has had some positive responce from commerce and industry in the US which is where the study was based. The book is a great read, and is really a biography of Hempton’s physical journey to establish if one square inch of silence could be found.

The photo is of Jindalee Breakaway, and there, there was the sound of birds, and wind, and nought else. But the search for outer silence is one thing, and can never trump the search for inner silence. My meditation teacher always said, you should be able to meditate in an airport lounge. And I laughed then, but now I know it to be true.

But the double bonus for me, as some of you know, is to meditate in the bush – this is a literal heaven. There I am nourished and truly flourish and become whole.

Paul,

pvcann.com

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December 25, 2017 · 2:51 pm

Cherish

Cherish

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There are so many things I cherish, I could be writing for weeks. But one in particular stands out (and which would be no surprise to readers of this blog), and that is the bush. The open road is always calling me, and I cherish the opporunity, time, and experiences that come with it. there is never a dull moment, and there is plenty of time to reflect and attend to what needs to be attended to. In fact, my experience of the bush is that it raises the things I need to atend to, it opens me up and enables me to be vulnerable, observant, and reflective. Awareness, that’s worth cherishing.

Paul,

pvcann.com

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October 28, 2017 · 2:02 pm

Prefer

via Daily Prompt: Prefer

I prefer this: (Photos mine: A breakaway before Jindalee, and a section of Jarrah Loop Walks, Bridgetown).

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To this: (Photo from Wiki Commons: Anshan City skyline)

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I know people need to live and work, but city living, though convenient for some things, is not for me. Give me the bush any day. I rejoice in the small house movement, and I rejoice in the rooftop gardens, vertical gardens, community gardens, but I still prefer the bush to the city. I wonder that we could have thought urban living differently if only we had valued nature above productivity and conquest.

I find peace and contentment in the bush, it’s where I feel most whole, but I feel busy and fragmented in the city. My experience of the bush is relational, I feel a part of it, and I know my dependence on it, I value the life of the bush which nurtures me, I don’t get that from the city.

Paul,

pvcann.com

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