A dinner party, and my trip to work...on foot.

Well, two weekends ago I went to canberra to pick up furniture from some relatives. Last weekend, I had my first dinner party. It was a lovely night of delicious food and great company. Robi and Adam on the right brought a lasagne, salad and garlic bread, Tracey and Jill on the left brought dessert (cheesecake and apple pie) and Lynda brought drinks. I provided an entree of a Tom yum soup, with fish and dried mushrooms and rice noodles.

All these guys are people I know quite well from my church, but none of them really knew each other before the night. I quite enjoy introducing people and building community. Invite them, chuck them in a room together and watch new friendships grow. Whether anyone decides to catch up again apart from at another dinner party I hold, I love the fact that when they meet again they will no longer be strangers.




Also, I thought I would share my walk to work with you. This is only possible because of the direct decision I made to buy a home close to town. I am now located in a place where I literally would never need to drive a car again. At the moment I am still driving, although only to places I can't walk to. My church is a 7 minute drive away which is not realistic to do late at night. Should petrol become un realistically expensive I will either have to carpool more with others (I am already trying to do this where possible) or consider moving churches, which is not an option I really want to consider as I love my church. The other option is riding my bike, which I have bought and used now. Anyhow, also withing walking distance are all the local shops, the town's main bus station, from which I can get to the train station, the beach, and most capital cities in Australia. I can also walk to my mother's home, and numerous friends, hospital and doctors etc.

These hibiscus bushes are my first stop. They were overgrown and completely covering the path until someone who will remain nameless and is not me took to them after an evening shift (about 1am) with a pair of branch loppers. This has made the path accessible and the bushes a profusion of flowers.

The bushes are next to a doctor's surgery which has the most beautiful cottage garden, including a pathway of lavender bushes. These are always full of flowers and smell divine when the sun is out. I am planning to take some cuttings soon.

This is our central town park. Within the park is the local guide hall where I did Brownies and Guides from age 7 to 15. This park was definately part of my childhood. It has some lovely rose gardens and more recently camellia gardens which add to to park. A regret for me is that council decided to remove the waterlillies which used to cover the surface of the water. Now the ponds are much dirtier and much less attractive, and I worry about the nutrients which flow into it I believe as storm water. I have often thought of secreting a couple of plants in at night. Any one have any that need dividing???

One thing I love in our town is that local artists were commissioned to paint all the electricity boxes. There are some brilliant ones and this one is by no means my favourite, it's just the one I pass on the way to work. One has a circus theme, another cows. If I remember, I'll try and photograph some more if anyone would like to see them. It definately improves the streetscape.

This photo is one of the last parts of my walk, and probably the most depressing at the moment, a constant reminder of the rising cost of living, but also as I walk past it an encouragement that everytime I walk I am not only saving the environment, but also my hip pocket. It definately motivates me to think of ways to not need to use the car, like shopping at the hardware store in town rather than Bunnings, like riding the bike to my friends house, which is harder and takes more time, but leaves me fitter and the planet healthier.

What does the rising price of petrol challenge you to do??? I'd love to hear some of your creative ideas, and focus on what we can do to change. There's lots of fears and concerns but lets help each other find the answers.

Hannah

ps. Rhonda at Down to Earth just pointed out an interview that screened last night in Australia with Richard Heinburg, oil expert. You can read the transcript here

Lights off....thinking caps on

I, like many others will be participating in earth hour tonight. This was started in Australia last year and picked up by many, to the point where this year it has gone global. The idea is that for one hour (8-9pm friday 28/3/08) as many people, businesses, govt depts turn off all lights and non essential technology.

There has been some criticism of it claiming to have reduced emissions by so much depending on how many people sign up. My understanding of this is that it takes a few hours to switch a powerstation down and then similar time to start up again and if they do not know exactly how much less will be used they can't really cut back the power production.

I personally see this event as a part of a growing recognition by people and communities that things need to change. It's exciting that people are getting involved. However, if all people do is turn their lights off for one hour a year nothing will change. Instead use this time as a household to brainstorm ways of reducing your emissions, your waste, and your energy usage. Look at ways you can get involved in your community, in lobbying govt for change. Be creative. If this doesn't build momentum for change then why bother.

I personally will be enjoying earth hour over some candles and a bottle of wine with my friend Sue in her strawbale house talking about the national permaculture convergance she has just been to. Better finish work quickly so I can get there sooner. Talk later. Hannah

At last, Sorry.

Today was a very special day for Australia. This morning in parliament and broadcast live across the nation, the Primeminister apologised to the Aboriginal People, and the Stolen Generations for the systematic removal of children from their families for the eradication of the culture, language and identity as a governmental policy until the 1970's.

There is a misconception among many people who believe that this was done because the children were being neglected or abused, and while that may or may not have occurred in some of the situations the facts are that there were official governmental policies to remove children to eradicate the aboriginal "problem"

Brisbane's Telegraph newspaper reported in May 1937,

Mr Neville [the Chief Protector of WA] holds the view that within one
hundred years the pure black will be extinct. But the half-caste problem was
increasing every year. Therefore their idea was to keep the pure blacks
segregated and absorb the half-castes into the white population. Sixty years
ago, he said, there were over 60,000 full-blooded natives in Western Australia.
Today there are only 20,000. In time there would be none. Perhaps it would take
one hundred years, perhaps longer, but the race was dying. The pure blooded
Aboriginal was not a quick breeder. On the other hand the half-caste was. In
Western Australia there were half-caste families of twenty and upwards. That
showed the magnitude of the problem (quoted by Buti 1995 on page 35).

By the 1930s Neville had refined his ideas of integrating Indigenous people into non-Indigenous society. His model was a biological one of `absorption' or `assimilation', argued in the language of genetics. Unlike the ideology of racial purity that emerged in Germany from eugenics, according to which `impure races' had to be prevented from `contaminating' the pure Aryan race, Neville argued the advantages of `miscegenation' between Aboriginal and white people.
The key issue to Neville was skin colour. Once `half-castes' were sufficiently white in colour they would become like white people. After two or three generations the process of acceptance in the non-Indigenous community would be complete, the older generations would have died and the settlements could be closed.

The local protector of NSW, James Isdell, supported the mission's concern to rescue `waifs and strays from the bad contaminating influence of natives' camps'.

The half-caste is intellectually above the aborigine, and it is the duty of
the State that they be given a chance to lead a better life than their mothers.
I would not hesitate for one moment to separate any half-caste from its
aboriginal mother, no matter how frantic her momentary grief might be at the
time. They soon forget their offspring (quoted by Dr Christine Choo submission
385 on page 14).

In 1927 Dr Cecil Cook was appointed Chief Protector and Chief Medical Officer of NT. He was the first full-time Chief Protector since 1914. Cook was preoccupied with the continuing increase in the numbers of mixed descent children, foreseeing `a danger that half-castes would become a numerically preponderant under-class, in conflict with the white population of the north' (Markus 1990 page 92). Cook's solution was similar to that proposed by Chief Protector Neville in WA, namely, the absorption of people of mixed descent.

"Generally by the fifth and invariably by the sixth generation, all native
characteristics of the Australian aborigine are eradicated. The problem of our
half-castes will quickly be eliminated by the complete disappearance of the
black race, and the swift submergence of their progeny in the white ... The
Australian native is the most easily assimilated race on earth, physically and
mentally" (quoted by Markus 1990 on page 93).

the Governor-General stated in August 1996,

It should, I think, be apparent to all well-meaning people that true
reconciliation between the Australian nation and its indigenous peoples is not
achievable in the absence of acknowledgment by the nation of the wrongfulness of
the past dispossession, oppression and degradation of the Aboriginal peoples.
That is not to say that individual Australians who had no part in what was done
in the past should feel or acknowledge personal guilt. It is simply to assert
our identity as a nation and the basic fact that national shame, as well as
national pride, can and should exist in relation to past acts and omissions, at
least when done or made in the name of the community or with the authority of
government ...
The present plight, in terms of health, employment,
education, living conditions and self-esteem, of so many Aborigines must be
acknowledged as largely flowing from what happened in the past. The
dispossession, the destruction of hunting fields and the devastation of lives
were all related. The new diseases, the alcohol and the new pressures of living
were all introduced. True acknowledgment cannot stop short of recognition of the
extent to which present disadvantage flows from past injustice and oppression
...

ONe thing I feel strongly about is that the policies regarding the Aboriginal people were not to protect the children from harm so much as protect the purity of the European race. What happened in Australia to the Stolen Generations is Genocide

Genocide is defined by the International Criminal Court and the United Nations as,

... any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or
in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: a. killing
members of the group; b. causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; c. deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to
bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; d. imposing measures
intended to prevent births within the group; e. forcibly transferring children
of the group to another group (article II).

I am glad that our government has acknowledged this, and I applaud the Labour government for following through on the Bringing Them Home Report Working and living in the Redfern community and growing up on the south coast of NSW where there were numerous children's homes has deepened my respect for the Aboriginal People and the struggles they go though. I hope, as the Prime Minister said that the apology given today will help remove a great stain from the nation's soul and in the true spirit of reconciliation to open a new chapter in the history of this great land Australia.

I pray that we will learn to give every person a fair go, regardless of the colour, creed, or gender. I pray that those who have been sceptical about this apology will change their minds. I pray for those who have been touched by these policies and grown up hurt and lonely and confused, for those who were abused, beaten, demoralised and isolated. I pray that you will have peace, and that this apology would start to mend the wounds in your hearts.

Making Aprons

I am hard at work at the moment making my apron for my swap partner Bren. This is the second swap I have participated through Rhonda's Blog "Down to Earth" which you can link to through the links on the left hand side of my blog. I am really enjoying working with the fabric I bought to make it something with beauty and meaning and not just something practical.

I really like aprons, but I like the ones with bodices as well as skirts. There is something special about putting on an apron when you get ready to cook or clean, or to go and pick vegetables from the garden for dinner. I have a lovely babushka doll apron that is my favourite to wear. My mum got it for me at some markets on a holiday once, and it has lovely colours and fabrics. A friend of mine has a lovely hand appliqued apron with birds and dragonflies that she has never used because she likes it too much (it was made for her as a gift). We decided she should use it for a peg apron, as then it will not get very dirty.
I found this picture of a patchworked apron that I would like to try copying, I like the idea of incorporating those skills of beautiful handywork into something practical like an apron, that takes it from being something to keep the dirt off your good clothes, to a thing of beauty in itself.

An apron was the very first thing that I made on a sewing machine with my mum, learning how to hem and to decorate it. It was green with a pattern on it, but I can't remember what. It was a waisted apron, which I probably wouldn't make now, but I was very proud of it at the time.

Aprons speak of working to me, but working with purpose and passion for a house you care for and a family and friends that you love. It speaks to me of not being afraid to get your hands dirty, to make a mess, to be creating. It says I am happy in my home and in my family. It says that doing the little things well are important.

Pink Balloons

Today I went to the funeral of my friend's mum Lyn. She has been struggling with breast cancer for 11 years and this monday gave up the fight after developing a serious brain tumour. My friend was her full time carer for over a year as her capacity to function gradually decreased, but never her love of life or her family.

Everyone was asked to wear pink, which is the colour that represents breast cancer research. It was lovely as Lyn had planned her own funeral about a year ago, and her biggest instruction was that she wanted it to be fun, no sad funeral for her. My pastor conducted the funeral and decided to talk about the colour pink. He even rang up the cancer council to see why they chose the colour pink - yes it was because pink is a girls colour!!! He gave out pink kit kats and tim tams (both Australian chocolates, which have been made with pink fillings as a fundraiser for breast cancer research) and talked about the artist "pink" She has a song that says If god was a DJ, Life is a dance floor, Love is the rhythm, You are the music. If God is a DJ, Life is a dance floor, You get what you're given, It's all how you use it.

It was a challenging week for me as my mum has just had a mastectomy and has been fighting breast cancer for almost 4 years now. Things look good at the moment, but who knows what tomorrow will bring. We know that over then next 6 months she will undergo some really vigorous chemotherapy and then need to be driven 3 hours each day to receive radio therapy as our city does not have a linear accelerator (we're lucky - people up to 2 hours south of us have to drive 6 hours return for the treatment.)

We each only get one life, and we don't know what life will serve us. We can't control that. The only thing we have control over is ourselves, how we respond. Do we get scared and shy away, give up and lose hope. I choose to live, to believe, to take steps like eating well and exercising that give me life, to try and live with no regrets, never pass up an opportunity to do something new.

My challenge to you is to do something new, it might be a bit scary, but it's likely going to be really fun as well.

Go horseriding,
Learn to dance
Play a new sport
Explore a bushwalk/trek and find a beautiful bushwalk
Make a new friend
Learn to sew
Try a new recipe
Do some volunteer work
Work in a soup kitchen
Offer to babysit a friends children to give them some time alone (or together)
Paint a picture
Go for a swing at the playground
Join a choir
Go see a musical/opera/play etc
Go to a day spa

If you do one of these, or something else, please let me know and tell us about it, and have fun.