Camping

Monday 13th October 2008


“All of life is nothing other than the story of a love affair: a romance between the universe and the human soul that liberates us to love one another.”


Camping at Deep Creek
Camping out bush, wide open spaces, campfires at night, birdsong at dawn. The two days I spent out there with my three beautiful companions will haunt me forever.
I cannot begin to describe the glowing aura that surrounds and encapsulates the memory of those days. The entire experience had a timeless quality, a depth and richness of experience and communion that is only possible when that mystical synergy is present between people; soul speaks to soul, gentle openings occur and a natural energy circulates between and through multidimensions of our personal space.

There we were, two yogis and two artists. For two days the four of us walked together in a lucid dream, through bushland and deep lush gullies, exploring the terrain around us and between us. Only occasionally did conversation softly give way to silent walking. The changing pattern of our walking dynamics fascinated me – we moved so seamlessly from walking and talking four-astride, to pairing off in a new combination where more personal one-on-one relationships developed. What beautiful and meaningful conversations evolved with each of my fellow travellers, intimate, warm, soul stirring.

On Friday afternoon we packed up camp and drove to the ridge above Blowhole Beach, hiking down and collecting a couple of large, dead branches on the way to erect a makeshift sun shelter at our destination. The cold, energising surf washed our skins clean of whoever we once had been, as only the ocean can.
I wandered over the rocks that encircled the tiny beach flanked by cliffs that Kosta scaled with wine-induced bravado (here is the view from the rocks). The half hour steep climb back up to the car culminated in a sunset viewed from the ridge through languid silhouetted kangaroos.

We talked about taking a couple of Canadian canoes along the Glenelg River for a week next year. Or maybe the right circumstances will never occur to rekindle our special communion.

These mysterious links we form with other souls are rich with meaning and should not be dismissed, no matter how brief the encounters. Alex especially shifted something in me and me in him. Our conversations brought to life our spirits, our creativity, our beauty, our struggles and our humanness. Never have I been touched open by simply being in someone’s presence. We parted with an unspoken acknowledgement that some special chemistry had affected subtle and personal changes in our lives.
It feels as if my love has grown larger.


“Some people come into our lives and quietly go. Others stay for a while and leave footprints on our hearts and we are never the same”


Is it possible for someone to come into our life for two days and change us forever?

Nothing is random. Everything has great meaning if we adjust our inner vision to focus on the hidden workings of this gracious universe.

If Kosta manages to download his photos, I’ll choose a couple to post here.

On The Mat
So I fell into bed, slightly sunburned and exhausted at 12.30am Friday night and got up at 6.15 to practice with Kosta at 7am. My muscles were tighter than usual – lactic acid overload from all the climbing yesterday, but the sun’s warmth was still in my body and gave it some malleability.
Sun Salutes and Primary up to Marichy C, spending extra time in the seated poses to disperse the lactic tension. It was a quieter, reflective practice with a vinyasa only between each pose. From Navasana I skipped to the Baddha Konasanas and Upavista/Supta Konasanas – just not physically or emotionally up to challenging my lower back today. Supta Padangusthasana, then my usual trio of preparatory backbends: Salabhasana, Dhanurasana (which is finally beginning to develop serenity and reveal its more subtle dimensions), and Ustrasana, another pose that just keeps surprising me, then two Urdhva Dhanuarasanas before the finishing inversions.

“When is the ego sufficiently healthy that we can stop using the practice to build it up... and instead use the practice to break it down? Maybe finding that tipping point--moving from building up to breaking down--is when people become their own teachers, if they're ever capable of that.”
(Who said this? Which one of the ten books by my bed did I copy this from?)

After practice and coffee I went to work in the gallery and arrived to find a message from Fleur. She’s leaving Adelaide next week so I can move back into the mansion permanently next weekend – 6 weeks earlier than expected.
My heart sinks a little as I prepare yet again to separate from my son, but he knows my love for him is eternal.

Even after all this time
The sun never says to the earth,
"You owe Me."
Look what happens
with a love like that,
It lights the Whole Sky.
- Hafiz