what matters most...

 

Its the Christmas morning service at St Clements of Mosman. About $10 million of German luxury on wheels sit in the carpark outside as inside we pray for world peace and, alongside Bill Gates and Bono, an end to poverty. Then we chuck a $50 note in the collection plate seeing its Christmas and we won't be here again till next year this time.

My thoughts go to toddlers and grown-up kids in countless malls lining up to whisper a wish into a "make-believe" Santa's ear as the moment gets frozen digitally and e-mailed to relatives continents apart...

...and my thoughts drift to the words of the Janis Joplin song "Mercedes Benz" , and I wonder....what indeed could we possibly wish for? We have so much, such abundance, so much material wealth...what could possibly bring happiness beyond the Mercedes Benz, the Porsche?

But then God/the Cosmic Brain/ Mother Nature/Allah/Santa or whatever people want to believe in...delivers....

He/She delivers what matters most in this dry brown parched land.

Not diamonds or pearls, no Prada or Tiffany, not iconic electronic toys or luxury goods, not Italian or German automobiles...but that what matters most...

...that which is the quest of scientists, geologists and cosmologists alike...the very life source...thundering, loud, splashing, soaking, drenching, luxurious, miraculous little drops of water falling from the heavens like angels of salvation...the one thing we cannot manufacture in Stuttgart or Silicon Valley, Guanzou or Bangalore...rain, glorious, cooling, life-giving rain...

...and I give thanks. I dance with joy, and to my wishlist for next year, I add:

"Dear Lord, please make the State Government build more dams, but this time...IN the catchment areas, please?"

Too few cooks in the kitchen....

Tonight, I cooked.

This statement would not have raised any eyebrows or been remotely a subject worth contemplating even 15 years ago. A woman, especially a mother, cooks!

Its just that I haven't cooked in some 6 weeks. Life is altered. A woman's existence redefined.

Time for browsing through markets, carefully smelling, probing, testing fresh produce to select the ripest, sweetest, firmest...a chit-chat with the butcher or fishmonger to select the best cut for dinner, and then home to lovingly prepare it with snips of fresh herbs, gentle simmer, slow roast etc...table set for dinner as the dessert bakes, family all arriving home from playing with neighbour's kids, husband and breadwinner arriving with the evening paper and stories of the latest deal signed, and cheeky children falling asleep from all the bike riding and tree climbing that they got up to after they finished their homework.

That's the world I was raised for.

The world I inherited lost the plot and instead, Mummy is breadwinner and cook, arrives late from board meeting at office to daycare to pick-up child from sanitised indoor "Occ healthed-and-safed,risk-averse" cage behind locked doors, kids not tired at all but hyped and hungry and wanting to eat NOW because the high-carb preservative-rich white bread with processed cheese spread or cheap margarine and strawberry jam served for afternoon tea did not dull the boredom of playstation or the same DVD for the 9th time.

So, forget going home, because last night, while you were finalising a whole year in advance's strategic plan for an 8am this morning deadline, you definitely weren't thinking about tonight's dinner preparation needs and consequently the piece of fish you bought to boost the omega 6 oils on the menu is still happily lying deepfrozen in the freezer and you know the asparagus have gone limp and the basil all slushy and slime green, and the vegetable store was just pulling down the shut grill.

Variations on the theme above, interspersed with weekends where you really just want to NOT have to do anything for anyone other than sign a credit card slip, is kind of how things went for 6 weeks leading up to and post a crazy busy overseas trip, with mercifully, someone else cooked and washed for your future genetic hope at boarding school.

So...meandering through the grocery store aisles today as if its some new discovery tunnel and actually deciding what to cook with all the yummy fresh things was actually like entertainment. I can recommend it!

Beaver tails (tales?????)

 

Friends, can you help please? I am looking for a native or near-native from the Colorado Rockies...I want to explore family holiday options around Beaver Creek and Vail for Easter (5-10 April 07) next year. Have booked airfares for moi and kiddiewinx to go snow-ball fighting, but internet research is no good if you don't know the "lie of the land". I am initially attending a conference in Aspen (its part of me investing in my own loooooooooong-term future as a independent consultant/ speaker/ author) and then want to travel by car to Beaver Creek or Vail or Arapahoe Basin where the snowboarding facilities are better.

All advice gratefully and gracefully accepted! 

Canada photo album:click on top page to open album

Canada

Skippy goes Froggy

Some piccies on tabblo...click heading or this link and cross fingers it works
http://www.tabblo.com/studio/stories/view/134465/

SURVIVOR a la Parisienne

I have invented a new "game" ...its called SURVIVOR! the location? Paris!!!

So...the clue above would suggest that I am NOT in Hong Kong now as I should have been....instead, I am stranded penniless and identityless but at least not humourless in the world's most beautiful and expensive city...also home to the most sophisticated pickpockets! In this case, they work the Paris 5 star hotels...everything from the George V to the Meridien Etoile where I am at (much lower on the food chain at 195 Euros a night vs George V at 865 Euros a night!)

Yes, if I was in the little Jean Paul Gaultier boutique hotel that I wanted to book into for its superior charm and style instead of this characterless chain that the corporate travel agency insisted was company policy, I would not have been a target!

c'est la vie! Suffice to say....after I packed all my gear, left my luggage with concierge, bought a ticket for the airport transfer bus, I went to have breakfast. It happened between the concierge desk and the breakfast room- for which access is controlled by a maitre'd- or in the 15 mins while I was having breakfast. My wallet and passport wallet was lifted out of my handbag! I discovered it as I exited the breakfast room to retrieve my just-purchased ticket to head for Charles de Gaulle airport to fly to Hong Kong for my speaking engagement at the university!

Well....you know that sinking feeling..................?

I instinctively KNEW I had been robbed. Funny thing is...the same thing happened to me 25 years ago in the American Bar in Paris....luckily that time my passport was not taken and I was a poor backpacker so a string of credit cards was not a headache.

I wont bore you with the tedium of what ensued....but I still have a throbbing headache almost 24 hours later as a consequence of the stress!

Luckily my company has insured me but dealing with global organisations like Visa and AMEX aint as global or 24x7 as the advertisements say. There is NO EXPRESS in American Express!I would love to place their Marketing Manager in this position and strip him of all his contact numbers and see how he or she manages! It has been a diabolical experience, but Visa is way ahead of Amex in the efficiency stakes I am hoping that by tomorrow I can get emergency cash and a replacement credit card, and then I will be camped out at Australian Embassy who says they no longer provide temporary travel documents, I have to wait for a full passport replacement- 48-72 hours.

So...what is a hungry and penniless nameless vagrant to do today but enjoy the free fresh air and scenic beauty of the nearby Bois de Bologne Park and indulge in my favourite past-time....a picnic on the grass among the lillies and swans, dressed in a fur coat, feasting on the exquisite handcrafted Belgian chocolates I had purchased as gifts in Ghent and a bottle of vintage Bollinger that I bought as a gift for my host-to-be in Hong Kong! Ah...the torture!

Yes, some music would be nice...maybe I will hear some if I am open to it...maybe even enjoy a slow waltz?

Last night, wandering a bit aimlessly trying to find a taxi in the non-tourist part of the city after going to the Police Station which is MILES from my hotel, I stumbled upon a tiny pedestrian lane in a non-descript residential area of Paris teeming with locals shopping at delicatessens, Boucheries full of local delicacies like dressed and feathered pheasants, ducks, and other feathery flesh, rabbits (lapin) in various stages of "undress", and even wild boar hams still covered in the hairy black skin, and...to top it all, the release of the 2006 Beaujolais with wine tastings everywhere, a fromagerie or 6, several exquisite patisseries and boulangeries selling pastries and bread too picture perfect to eat....and a juggler and Little Sparrow-like waif playing the accordion and singing the melancholy Jacques Brel songs made so famous by Edith Piaf.

Yes, I fell into a picture, plonked myself down by a little table, splashed out 6 Euros on a glass of new season Beaujolais, a baguette, some fromage and foie gras (with some emergency cash the hotel manager advanced me to pay the taxi fare to go to the police station!)....and then walked the 4 kms back to the hotel instead!

La Belle Epoque-click on photo to go to online album

Picture-purrrrrfect Brussels

I've fallen in love!

I have landed in a little spot of preserved old-style unglobalised pure Europe like a long-lost story!

My hotel is a candle-light and Christmas-junkie fairytale....romantic and cosy beyond my wildest expectations.

Roaring fires everywhere, fat white candles emitting a soft golden glow over rich plush upholstered furnishings, lit Christmas trees and tasteful decorations framing corners of the bar and fireplace. Tealights dancing around brilliant red pointsettias on the gleaming black grand piano.

Then out to dine on the famous Moules mit friten (mussels steamed in aromatic broth with hand-cut chips and lots of beer) at Chez Leon in the Grand Place-its picture-perfect row upon row of traditional cafes on cobbled streets.

One can only say thank God that Belgium is not the rockstar of Europe...it has escaped with its soul intact! I shall return to Brussels for sure-long may this city remain au naturale!

Boston: The brightest city?

Click on the title and it should...hopefully...take you to my Boston pics....ghhhrrr.....getting annoyed with technology here...Google has changed its software and what was easy before to publish directly on the blog aint so no more!

http://www.tabblo.com/studio/stories/view/134014/

lost in a great big Christmas cake!

That's just what northern Canada looks like-a giant Christmas cake, thick icing sugar dripping off cutesie log homes with little chimneys puffing real smoke, row upon row sugar- dusted pine trees, wild elk grazing on bits of green not yet frosted to a crisp and the frozen lakes a bit like the mirror on the cake-you expect to hear a Ho-ho-ho from a jolly old fat guy and the jingling of bells any minute!

As a kid, I loved the figurines on the Christmas cake even though it seems de rigeur for all kids to say-Yuk! I don't eat "brown cake full of dead flies" and only ever ate the thick white "snow" though insisted on having a Christmas cake every year and now I even bake and ice it myself in an exercise that brings me great joy! .
Yet, history repeats itself with my kids having the exact same relationship with both the decor and the guts of a Christmas cake! Cub2's first sighting of snow in France at age 6 was accompanied by a tasting test to see it was sweet like icing!

I digress-yes, I missed the turn-off to Lake Louise after finishing my business in Banff and ended up on an amazing little adventure that gave me a deeper appreciation of the vast Canadian wilderness than I had anticipated. Don't you just love life's little surprises?

Having driven along the main Trans Canada highway for miles without sighting any signposts, signs of human activity or the elusive Lake Louise (it was snowing so be gentle!), and finding myself agog at the size and magnificence of the mountains (baked Alaska's I'll call them!) I took a turn down a little dirt road to Lake Emerald. 6kms in, there it was. Quiet as the dawn of Earth, no humans or cars, just the soft swish of snowflakes falling and my totally inappropriate boots squish-squashing from being soaked in a puddle of icy water, I had my first face-to-face encounter with a real live wild beaver!

Unfortunately, the little devil refused to surface again by the time I squish-squashed back through the same icy puddle to retrieve the camera from the car, but I did get a photo of its log nest. (Perhaps there is a lost Beaver in Scotland which would account for the strange goings on at Loch Ness? Same deal, different accent?)

I did find Lake Louise in the end, had a glass of Moet Chandon and a wee lunch at the Chateau, but saw none of the brilliant blue for which its known due to cloud and snow. But a magical day nonetheless!

Creatures of Habit

Quote spotted in advertisement carried by The Star-Telegram, a major Texas newspaper which I read as we took off from Dallas to Boston: "We are what we repeatedly do."-Socrates. (The newspaper was just AWFUL-not a shred of international news and coverage of US election results mostly in terms of Texas-the home of GeorgeW, so not a mention of voter backlash and Democrat gains!)

But let me not judge an entire nation on the lack of depth and perspective of one newspaper because we know the likes of The Washington Post, NY Times and Wall St Journal are not in the same category.

Back to how our actions, repeated many times, become habits, then become hard-wired in our muscle memory and even at cellular level through neural pictates (spelling????) in the cell structure.

I admit, as an analytical thinker, I was a bit dubious about all this cellular intelligence stuff, but at a non-rational level I chose to keep an open mind about it, especially in taking an Eastern philosophical approach to life.

But.....I have now had a powerful Eureka! moment and have become a true believer in the powerful way our habits are hard-wired into our bodies. It came through a simple and common pattern-breaker: having to drive on the"wrong" side of the road.

Absolutely everything is reversed, and there are so many actions in driving that are simply repetitive habit that dictate to your body and all of a sudden, your muscles are on auto-pilot and if your brain doesn't take control back and actively "think" and problem-solve, you are going to be indeep doodoo up the wrong side of Santa Monica Boulevard in peak traffic!

But sure, those are the big issues and your brain is on alert for them, so surprise surprise!-you hire a car and discover an entire city/region you have no prior knowledge of in the course of a day, without calling 911 or waking up in a hospital emergency room!

3 factorso are at play here:
1. Courage (otherwise known as chutzpah or stupidity, based on where your own comfort zone sits, and
2.Intuition-listening to the inner compass, and
3. Acute observationskills-taking in clues that you don't even know are clues until your intuition deliberately accesses them in your brain's random access memory in a moment of panic!

This is a long-winded self-congratulatory back-slapping story because I was astounded at how my "comfort zone" was threatened at the thought of walking out of the LA + Calgary Airports at 1 am in the morning, hopping into a car without any orientation of the city/province and only rudimentary tourist maps, no passenger to help navigate (maybe that was a good thing because Mars/Venus tells us that a man can't ask for directions) and armed with only a determination to see and do as much as I could in limited time and an attitude of allowing myself to fail, have an adventure and a giggle, smile brilliantly if I upset the locals and ....well, just doing it!

The more I succeeded, the more my confidence grew and the bolder I became.Driving sans map into the CBD of Calgary for a frantic one-hour shop yesterday at 5pm (and finding parking!) when all of Calgary was pouring onto its congested streets heading home, is a personal best. LA wasn't so bad because it was Saturday and Californians at the beach are meant to be a little laid back, and Rome to Venice by car 20 years ago doesn't count because my sister was navigating although central Rome through the Via Veneto is worth a black belt!

No, its not the big things that tripped my brain-its the little things. Where cerebral process is bypassed and hardwired into a habit, that sparked most of myEureka minute. How my body consistently walked to the wrong side of the car where the steering wheel was meant to be, and how even in walking on thestreets and in airport terminals crowded with purposeful walkers, my body automatically steered left, much to the consternation of the Americans who must have thought me a stubborn upstream salmon!
Vive la difference!
The purpose of this business trip is about deepening my knowledge base and expertise around Innovation in organisations- and my first profound insight comes from a bodily not a cerebral process. The lesson I take from this is that just like we navigate traffic with eyes wide shut when we are in familiar territory, we operate on auto-pilot at work when executing our routine day-to-day roles and our powers of observation and thinking devolve to a muscular and cellular level where we are unable to "see" what is clear as daylight to a fresh pair of eyes.

In order to get a "fresh" pair of eyes, we have to pattern-interrupt: Swop tasks, swop roles, or if too hard, invent a different way at least once a week of performing a routine task because we will bypass the brain AND the senses if we don't- and there's no way we will get fresh ideas for innovation that way!

The Smell of Canada

Well, Ms Mav's mojo has bounced back and the bastard who smashed it is no longer a factor.

Now, where were we? Oh, let's just start with now and forget about chronological correctness. We are in Canada. The Oak Room of the Palliser Fairmont Hotel in Calgary to be precise and yes, unlike in the US, this Blackberry technology is working so I can update this blog in real time! Seeing the Blackberry is a Canadian innovation, its the very least one expects!

After a stupendous 44 hour day of travelling and exquisite experiences on a 14hour transit in LA yesterday (more about that in another Blog), I was finally able to lie horisontally in a bed ( a heavenly one too!) at about 2am Calgary time.

I woke 8 hours later, quite capable of sleeping another 8, but there are things to be achieved, experiences to be had and life to be lived. As I stumbled into the lift, it pierced my conscious awareness, my Epicurean being, into instant recognition: the smell of Canada!

Yes, right up to the 11th floor wafted the smell of freshly cooked waffles and maple syrup. Unmistakably! My descent was rewarded with confirmation. In the magnificent palatial reception rooms I found a stupendous set-up...a breakfast/brunch voted as best in Canada 5 years in a row.

Well folks, they sure know how to do brunch in GRANDE style....I have never seen anything like it! Everything from fresh fruit and yoghurt, anything you could imagine under the theme of an English breakfast, to pancakes, waffles, a complete Sunday roast lunch, an an entire three tables devoted to desserts!

Much as those waffles winked at me and nudged....I decided I couldnt possibly do that and the beef...but it looked soooooooooo good and was assured by the waiter that "if you've never tasted Alberta Beef, you ain't tasted beef"...so he promptly cut off this 1 inch slab and buried my plate under it.

That was it...I am now an advocate for Alberta Beef....never tasted ANYTHING like that....sorry South africa, sorry Australia, sorry Texas...in my book, Alberta is king...for now...until I go to Argentina and give their beef a whirl.

I couldn't eat that huge slab of meat, but what I ate left no room for anything else....and I wasn't about to tackle the long road to Banff feeling droopy and sleepy from an enormous meal!

Whilst driving to Banff, I stopped by the roadside for a leg stretch...and was joined by a Rocky Mountain cowboy who was very proud to hear of the impression his native land's beef had made, so he told me where to go in Banff for a good steak...the Salt Lick.

So, I ate like a bird next day whilst visiting at the Banff Centre for Leadership and Monday night I went to The Salt Lick...expecting a steakhouse but instead finding a fantastically sophisticated, very trendy restaurant and yip...the best darn steak EVER!

It was so nice to look at different menus and innovative items....I must admit its been a looong time since any Sydney menu wowed me with anything new....(I hope you are reading this Luke Mangan and Bill Granger)

Taste and smell, as well as visual appeal are such important senses....and particularly smell goes directly to the right brain...its highly associative and connected to memory....its so important when designing menus, restaurants and other experiences where we want positive mental connections, to involve the senses!

Thanks Canada...the smell of a freshly grilled piece of Alberta beef has been filed alongside the maple syrup and waffles....and will live in my memory till I die.

One day in L.A

One day in LA

Click on the cover photo to open the album

Gathering of the goddesses

See my Tabblo>

Three places I'm not...

 
We ain't where we wanna be
We ain't where we're gonna be
But thank you, Jesus,
We ain't where we used t'be.(apocryphal African-American spiritual)

Thomas Edison failed 9998 times before the Eureka moment. He said it wasn't failure...it was all new information and 9998 ways of how NOT to invent electrical light.

What few people understand is that the prevailing paradignm of light in his era came from thinking only in the metaphor of fire....candles, paraffin etc...he had to completely break that pattern of thinking to create a new method of making light...it wasnt a tweak of existing beliefs!

So it is sometimes with our own lives too...our thinking is what can keep us trapped where we are, and old or out-of-step thinking and wishes preclude us from totally different possibilities...possibilities that can illuminate our lives and fill it with infinite light if only we were prepared to let go of attachment to our beliefs.

I am a bit vague and abstract here...its deliberately so...these words are merely for reflection...not a story. I know what some of my dearly-attached beliefs are...do you? As they say in the 12-step doctrines...awareness is step1 of letting go!

I use the lyrics of one of my favourite songs by Josh Groban, used by Cirque du Soleil for their show Quiddam, as a beacon to remind and inspire me when I feel fear. Its called "Let me fall" The person I will grow into once I let go of what I'm holding onto, or once I take that leap to cross my fear, will catch me...but...I HAVE to let go and take the leap!

Let me fall
Let me climb
There's a moment when fear
And dreams must collide

Someone I am
Is waiting for courage
The one I want
The one I will become
Will catch me

So let me fall
If I must fall
I won't heed your warnings
I won't hear them

Let me fall
If I fall
Though the phoenix may
Or may not rise

I will dance so freely
Holding on to no one
You can hold me only
If you too will fall
Away from all these
Useless fears and chains

Someone I am
Is waiting for my courage
The one I want
The one I will become
Will catch me

So let me fall
If I must fall
I won't heed your warnings
I won't hear

Let me fall
If I fall
There's no reason
To miss this one chance
This perfect moment
Just let me fall 

breakthrough technology!

  Its been a while...I know...but sorry, its raining cats and dogs! Its raining ideas and opportunities! And its raining men! Hallelujah! (Actually...its a nightmare juggling so many balls!)

Today's headline is about something I am REALLY excited about because I love learning so much, and when I learn something, I have a compelling (if sometimes mis-guided) desire to immediately pass it on!

You know how serendipity works...and that other wonderful New Age word: SYNCHRONYCITY? well...its corporate speak for the nature in which stuff just unexpectedly comes together and tap you on the shoulder to see what you couldn't see before!

It seems to me there is a new "global warming" of sorts in education...a return to basics to teach...connect....transfer knowledge...its called "making the invisible visible"...its cutting edge technology in the corporate and educational world....picked up by Harvard's Faculty of Education from studies in Italy among children.

The technology? Drawing, talking through pictures and a revisiting of the visual arts....remarkably like our earliest forebears did on cave walls!!!! (Last year it was story-telling...yes, I kid you not!)

These things are BFOs...BLINDING FLASHES OF THE OBVIOUS...but, in our complex and large hi-tech, high-rise towers of knowledge, we seem to have perfected the art of alienation from truth and meaning...our employees working with only small pieces of vast global puzzles and our leaders lightyears removed from customers, yet steering the ship with only one source of information: numbers!

Hooray for a return to rock-painting...after all, they have endured for eons....wonder if this blog format and code that created it will last beyond 2010 before its unreadable?

 

My father who is in heaven...

   Isn't it funny how, when someone you love, dies, even the most agnostic choose to believe they are in heaven and not in nothingness? Why is this so? I shall have to ponder this more deeply...but not at 1:38 am.

I wanted to simply remember my father on Father's Day...and say sorry for all the socks he got on days such as these. Socks are the ultimate cop-out, along with hankies and jocks.
Its unlikely that I will make anyone a father again, but hypothetically speaking, should it happen, I solemnly swear that I will not give him hankies, socks or jocks ever for a celebratory event (unless they are seriously funny and NOT the main course!)

What would I give you Dad...if you were here? I'd give you time. I'd simply sit with you in your quiet way, and hold your hand. Wish away the things that got in the way.

I'd retell to my children the stories you made up for us, our favourite being "Piet Pompies + Hanswors" - two simpletons from the circus who stowed away on a train from Johannesburg to Cape Town to go and see the sea for the first time- and all their misdaventures from being discovered and thrown off in the middle of the night in the Karoo...jackals wailing in the distance...crickets chirping, farm dogs barking and the icy winter wind biting into their shivering, quivering bums as they argued about whereto next...

That story wasn't written down ever- it was all in your head. You varied it, added new twists and adventures to keep us intrigued and laughing, but 40 odd years on, I still remember it in minute detail...perhaps it was you who awoke my wanderlust with all those adventures and misadventures?

Of all the things I remember about you, some stand out more as I get older, live longer, grow wiser (hopefully!). They are
Tolerance: I can't think of a time when you would criticise or judge others. You may have thought these things, but, you kept them to yourself. I haven't met many people who can truly claim tolerance as a value. Nor forgivenness- and you had that in abundance too.
Generosity: No matter what, through tough times and good times, you always shared, gave, found something for those who didn't have.
Confidence: A secret shared with you was as good as written on a piece of paper and burnt to ashes in a fire. You took many to your grave. Sometimes I wish you didnt. Too much weight can weigh you down.

The words that a father speaks to his children in the privacy of home are not heard by the world, but, as in whispering galleries, they are clearly heard at the end, and by posterity.

And finally, another acknowledgement of the importance of fathers, for raising little people into balanced adults by renowned American feminist Gloria Steinem

"Most (American) children suffer too much mother and too little father"
And, the fathers suffer too...its so good to see this changing especially among GEN Y. Ninety three cheers for Dads who reject overdemanding careers so they can enjoy parenting their kids too, and may there be lots more of it.

Revisiting blogpost of 1 July- a forgotten art

I bumped into this today on "listening" - good follow-up to something I wrote about on 1 July. Its from the blog of Stephen Shapiro, an ex partner in Accenture and given that background, oddly the author of a book called "Goal-free Living."

Stuff about Spring

  This is my 44th Spring, not that I can remember much about the preceeding 43, except one year when I went on holidays to Cape Town and surrounds to be totally charmed by the carpets of native wildflowers. God's tapestries!

Though my head and my heart is full of things I want to write about(because its been a reflective week), I am not quite ready to spit it out on screen! (Yukky...that analogy doesnt quite work with modern technology, does it?)

But, I thought this glorious 1st day of Spring deserves to be acknowledged...not only for the warmth and beauty of the day itself, but the promise that it represents. The promise of regeneration, freshness, youth, hope.

I wonder if this Spring will be memorable? Memorable in a happy sense, not memorable like in planes flying into buildings.

I also want to thank people who read this blog, who barely know me except through these writings, and thus have come to know me well, and gives back to me in countless ways that they may not even understand. Its very special.

Some marvel that my writing is so straight from the heart...others find some discomfort with aspects of it and say so, and some ask me why I write?

I honestly haven't given much rational consideration to that. I write because I can. Because it orders my thoughts. Because I love it. Because the voices in my head wont stop until I do. Because I need to talk to someone after the homework has been checked, the lunch boxes packed, the bedtime stories read and the cubs are tucked snugly in the cot. Because I have a need to share.

Neither man nor woman was created to be alone. You know? Spring stuff? Birds and bees and pollen and stuff...? 

Cerebral combustion

 
This is a photo of the car-free medieval city of Ghent in the fatherland of my favourite modern composer, Jacques Brel, and where I hope to be strolling along the canals in late autumn (November)for the Creativity World Forum.

To predict that I might explode from creative combustion is an understatement, because Ghent will be preceeded by a week of visiting technology geniusses in Silicon Valley, then on to the Ivy League Business Schools of Boston for a Post-Grad programme for Innovation Leaders from corporations all around the world. I am pinching myself as I am writing this because to visit Boston and its history of New World academic success has been an impossible dream - especially in those Zululand years that seem a millenium ago, though those were some of the toughest challenges an executive could ever face and we practised Innovation on the trot!

But as the saying goes: How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice man, practice! So it is with all dreams...keep at them! NEVER GIVE UP!

I will have a free weekend to take a drive down the America's Cup East Coast, Martha's Vineyard, perhaps enjoy a famous Cape Cod Clambake, then pop in to New York before flying to London where I will hook up with a friend from Sydney now working in Innovation there, then cross the channel to Ghent.

I'll be flying home via Hong Kong to deliver a presentation to the Masters students at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. I think I will have enough cribnotes from the gurus by then to appear half-knowledgeable! For if there is one thing I know, the more you learn, the more you realise how much there is to know, and teaching others is a true test of mastery of any subject matter!

Any volunteers to babysit Cub2 for me while I'm away?  

Mermaid Tales...with evidence!

This is a story about a mermaid....several in fact. One still a guppy, one a puppy turned 12, and one a mummy....so old, that her mermaid tail had, unbeknown to her, become little more than a show tail, and when she needed to use it one fine day in the big blue Pacific Ocean, it was useless!
She flapped and spluttered, wriggled and wiggled, and all to no avail...her tail refused to support her, dressed in full mermaid regalia, modern mermaid artefacts like Blackberry and Digital camera in her breast pockets. (seeing it was a family-celebration, she had to cover her mermaid breasts!)
But, ever the classy mermaid that she is, she went DOWNUNDER, without getting her hair out of place or smudging her immaculate make-up, and splashing about just enough to float her torso above water to rescue her technology tools, her social life and her terra firma job as one Blackberry has already bitten the dust in less adventurous circumstances!
Ah....even though King Neptune didn't send a school of seahorses to save the old mermaid, she knows that the little mermaids would miss her if her tail fell off and she sank to the bottom of the big blue. They wept....and then took photos!

 

... See my Tabblo>

A happy story out of Rwanda

  
To think these beautiful peaceful mountains played witness to the most atrocious killings as the Hutu tribe slaughtered 800 000 Tsutsi people over 100 days in 1994- just like the rest of the world stood by and watched.

But...such is the spirit of Africa's people...they cling to hope, and hope is what makes us conquer the unimagineable.

Nothing was a more touching example of such hope than the story on the front page of today's Sydney Morning Herald. I can't repeat it all here, but someone could not dream this up...an example of how the truth can be so much more fantastic than our wildest hopes and dreams...

...that a man, beaten to a pulp and left for dead along with his 11 brothers and sisters and another 140 murdered family members, as his pregnant wife scrambled with a 3 year old toddler to escape the clutches of panga-wielding genocidal villains, could find one another 12 years later...2 continents and 2 hemispheres apart...and everything that they have endured inbetween including his incarceration in illegal immigrant centres for more than 10 years...that is a story that I will revisit everytime that I am even beginning to dwell on my own dramas.

It was a moment that demanded action. My action. I went from the coffeeshop where I read the paper to the computer, googled the Red Cross who assisted Damascene and his wife Jeanne to find one another through registries and the tireless work of wonderful compassionate people, and made a donation so they can help unite more in this situation. The earthquake victims in Pakistan. The Tsunami. The Middle East. The floods in Asia. The war in Sudan and Ethiopia. The ever-present food crisis in East Africa. The refugees that will still come. As our planet scorches.

My contribution felt hopelessly insignificant. But, thats not the way to think.

Its contributions like these that have made ALL THE DIFFERENCE to one family...and their story has brought a lot of happiness to my day!

God bless them that there will be nothing but happiness ahead.

Trading places: home exchange holiday?

   This photo was taken from my terrace at about 3 pm today and shows only a third of the 270 degree views across Sydney Harbour and the heads- entrance to the harbour. Temperature was about 25 degrees, and its officially still winter in Sydney!

Had my usual fantastic coffee with a friend at Bather's Pavillion on the esplanade, hugging a safe and sheltered beach- a 2 minute stroll from casa mia. Followed by a lazy read of weekend papers in the sun, and then hiked up the hill for a gentle workout, crossed the road to pick up a few things from the shopping centre offering everything from world-class delis to fantastic fresh produce, major supermarket, boutique wine store, plus trendy boulevards of designer shops, a great library and 3-level gym and aquatic centre. Strolled back home,then popped some champagne to watch the sun go down with some friends who dropped in on their way home from the beach!

Perhaps tonight Cub 2 and I will walk to one of 2 cinema complexes for a movie, or shall we rather get a dvd from one of the 3 local hire shops and pick up authentic Italian pizza or a Goan curry from Taste of India to dine in? Or, hop on the bus or harbour ferry and in 18 minutes, dine in the city or catch Turandot currently being performed at the Sydney Opera House?

The point of this real account of a day in the life of us is that I am looking to exchange this paradise for 2-4 weeks in Aspen, Colorado in March 07, or Tuscany, Dubrovnik, Prague or Provence in July 2007...or offer me an alternative? Bariloche in Argentina? Banff or Lake Louise is perfectly good too!

I will list on the international home exchange websites too, but hey...with a wide network of international friends and blog-mates, perhaps you know someone who knows someone who wants to do the same in reverse!

Contact me via "comments button"...it goes straight to my e-mail address, and I will be in touch.

La famiglia: Nella neve a Mont Hotham

Snow....that white magical crystal fluffy flakes of frozen water ...it simply brings out the child in us....as does flying above the mountains like an eagle.
No matter how expensive...its a great family holiday!

See my Tabblo>

12 years later...

 Around 3 o'clock tomorrow morning, it will be 12 years since my first cub was born...and changed my life forever.

As I page through my "paper blog" of that time, a fat & worn black journal, reading poems I wrote for my unborn baby since her 6-week fetal heart practically leapt off an ultrasound screen , through to cards from friends and flowers sent to the hospital...112 in all, to the sleep-deprived ramblings before mum and bub found a rhythm...the memories flood back like yesterday.

How I had planned it all...in exquisite detail...the birth, the breastfeeding, the little dresses, the fairy tales, the doll collection preserved for 35 years, the life I envisaged raising a little girl. How none of it went according to plan.

How we learn to adapt...quickly too...and how I love this child for who she is, not what was in my head. I marvel at discovering how she thinks and how her mind gets shaped. How I struggle some days to balance spirit with guidelines and boundaries.

We are so generously gifted with survival instinct and protection of the species skills (and thank God for GOOGLE some days too!)...and even 12 years on, those traits are as strong as ever...allowing nothing to threaten the wellbeing of our children. Moving countries if necessary, sacrificing personal love and happiness if there is a perceived conflict, going without so they can have.

She is far away today...at a school where I hope the emotional price of separation will pay handsome dividends some day...but I know tonight, probably this minute, she lies in her bed longing for her mummy's heartbeat...as I long to hold her in my arms, and sing "Hush lil baby, dontcha cry...mumma's gonna bake ya a chocolate cake".

Though she doesn't know it, her cake will be delivered tomorrow...in the form of a snow-capped mountain conquered by the snow-boarding queen! And next week, when she returns, a cruiser to take her and her mates fishing anywhere they want to go on Sydney Harbour.

So...more photos and memories and a print-out of this blog entry will go into the big fat black journal...to do the talking when I am no longer there...and remind her how special she was to her Mum. 

A cosy little nest

 Balmoral Castle is beginning to look more and more homely...the lounge suite finally arrived today after a 3 month wait but not without a moment of drama!

I am beginning to form a little prejudice here based on NUMEROUS experiences with delivery folks these past few months of to-ong and fro-ing and deliveries...and the prejudice is NOT against migrant labour. Those people have a great work ethic and are all too happy to help, to be in this beautiful country and earn an honest and decent living. No, I am afraid there is a different class of white trash...but let the facts speak for themselves.

I ordered the furniture from a somewhat upmarket boutique on the EXPRESS terms that I want an end-to-end service. NOT ANOTHER BUNNINGS BARBECUE STORY IN OTHER WORDS!

That means the product, which is modular in design for urban lifestyles (read: you must be able to carry it around steep and narrow staircases and doors), has to be delivered, assembled and all packaging removed as part of the deal...otherwise NO DEAL.

So, said white trash arrive with delivery today, and tell me..."Nah! Ugh-ugh...Nope! We don;t assemble...that's extra. The shop will charge you $100 for that, but if you pay us cash, we'll do it for $60."

Smelling a rat, I nodded calmly, and as they cart in 7 boxes, I ring the store to politely enquire how come my contract says assembly included but Boofhead here wants to charge me extra? Store confirms...assembly is paid and Boofhead is meant to assemble-without collecting an additional $60 in cash!

Well...testosterone explosion! Chief Boofhead starts cursing, tossing papers about and talking about being here till 3 am, phones the boss, complains, jiggles his toys and performs a melodrama for all of Mosman to hear-lasting roughly 10 minutes.

All of which came to naught. The store phoned the boss, the boss phoned him, and in less time than his Oscar-winning performance lasted, the entire thing was assembled.

I love putting corrupt jerks like that in their place. Consumer=1. Boofhead=0. 

Jungle laws

 
I always forget to say thanks for the e-mails, the compliments...and now and then the delightful debate as someone decides to take on the big pussycat! I love it.

I also receive many questions about "the Chocolate Guy"...laugh!...who would have thought he would stir so much imagination?

Sufferance

   Funniest quote of the day: Overheard at the Mudgee Food & Wine Fair: "The liver is EVIL, and MUST be punished!"

The Appetite of Wonder

 It starts in the womb...when our senses first perceive...and it ends as we exhale that last breath,even if we are a hundred...that sense of wonder, that yearning for learning.
For me, there is nothing as sweet as a new discovery...it doesnt have to be a world-first or unique, but when the clouds of confusion lifts for you as an individual, its no less grand than Columbus discovering the New World!

So it must be for history's scientific and mathematical geniuses...yet, to the masses, their work remains largely inaccessible and ignored because no-one can take the complex and decode it into simple everyday terms!

I am one of those masses, but ever so often, my universe inexplicably collides with another, and invariably, it opens a delicious new frontier and indescribable pleasure.

In keeping with an earlier analogy of seismology, I had a tectonic shift in my appreciation of the magic of maths this week. Its the most amazing discovery when one finally sees the pattern in things...to be exact, the maths. Its everywhere!

It all started with a picture that fascinated me...the picture was used as a logo for Seed Magazine (a favourite of mine), and designed by Jonathan Harris as an expression of the crossover between science and culture. That is the image posted here, with science represented by the ordered and precise image on the left, and culture by the image on the right that appears random, and the phylotaxis the central image.

Being the curious pussycat that I am, I simply had to find out more. So, phylotaxis led me to the Fibonacci Sequence, the Golden section, Newton's Laws of Determinism, and chaos theory.

But, what are the odds, that in two consecutive days, I would in completely random fashion (or is there in fact a chaotic pattern in the universe leading us to one another for some mysterious and unknown purpose?) meet firstly a Romanian Maths boffin ex CSIRO who is a fractals freak and so passionate about this subject that he would whizz around the beach pointing out the manifestation of this wondrous concept right there under our noses in the shape of shells and the branches of trees through to the replication of individual leaves...re-surfacing long-buried maths lessons from high school to dance like some wild gypsey music, lifting a veil into a new paradigm of understanding- as arousing and exciting as Armstrong's first step on the moon!

...and secondly, whilst attending a Masterclass of Regional Wine appreciation at the Mudgee Wine and Food Fair today, find myself sharing a table with two Americans on holidays Downunder, the one a Professor of Maths at UCLA and co-developer of a an alternative curriculum for high school Maths to teach children Maths by doing...by observing fractals through studying the fern that grows on the school wall or the broccoli they dont want to eat on their plate, or the algorithms used by Google to search the internet, or the deciphering of the human gnome sequence, or plotting the way the world feels today through systematically analysing 35 million blog postings on the internet every few minutes at wefeelfine.org.

...and so, a whole new world is discovered...I feel such a thrill! A lifetime of joy and new insights...like when I first read Richard Dawkins and "The Selfish Gene"...and the start of my interest in evolutionary biology, and what has become a bit of a passion ever since!

Dawkins, another good thing to come out of Africa (born Nairobi, Kenya 1941) is my equivalent of the male fantasy of some sex siren like Schiffer or Shakira.
(Laugh...yes, I have a bit of a thing for an enormous....errr ....pair of frontal lobes!It lasts a lot longer than a few minutes!)

Yes, this sexy man is inter alia, the Professor for Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University, where he has studied and taught for more than a quarter century.
Dawkins has been liberated from routine academic duties to fight full time for science, enlightenment, and plain common sense in a world where the forces of superstition and deliberate obscurantism prevail. Plainly, his job is to make science accessible to ordinary men and women, boys and girls, and I say there should be MUCH MORE OF IT!

The point is not to understand it all...but to be curious. Science runs the gamut from the tantalisingly surprising to the deeply strange, and ideas don't come any stranger than Quantum Mechanics. More than one physicist has said something like: "If you think you understand quantum theory, you don't understand quantum theory."

Needless to say, wine-tasting and quantum mechanics at the beach turned into a random lunch, and lunch turned into a looooo oooooooong afternoon with all ending up here at my chaotic castle for coffee and spirited discussions of self-replicating mathematical patterns in the greatest pieces of art our world has ever known...with the geniuses that produced them, Mozart, Bach, Da Vinci, Stradivarius and even Shakespeare...all applying these mathematical principles intuitively!"The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. If I were not a physicist, I would probably be a musician. I often think in music. I live my daydreams in music. I see my life in terms of music. ... I get most joy in life out of music."-Albert Einstein

I know I am a sick puppy...but notwithstanding my Epicurean passions, there simply is nothing as exquisite as multiple mental orgasms!

Give thanks for blessings

 1. Thanks for Cub1...she lives up to her name!
2. Thanks for Cub2- she is so much like me, we don't fight...much!
3. Thanks that I am not flying to America today!
4. Thanks that I live in a castle in heaven.
5. Thanks for work...it keeps me out of the shops!
6. Thanks for friends...they say if you have five, you are a rich person. I think I am rich.
7. Thanks for brains...if I have to choose between beauty, a great body and a magnificent brain, I just say thanks ...could have been zero out of three!
8. Thanks for family...come to think of it, I have more friends than family on this earth! And those i have are very far away.
9. Thanks for health...when I look at the stiff botox faces around me, I love my laughlines more and more and I know my self-esteem is intact too!
10. Thanks for freebies...good water, pure air, sunshine, peace.
11. Thanks for the beautiful man who makes my coffee every morning. He reminds me of the joys of being a woman
12. Thanks for my Crackberry. Its the extrovert's ultimate toy!
13. Thanks for my cat. He makes no demands and loves me flaws and all!
14. Thanks for everything I forgot and that I'm obviously taking for granted. 

Seismology

  (Refer previous post). Bloggie, your thoughts came back...one suggested "VERTIGO", inter alia, as a title...I thought that was interesting...but not an accurate descriptor of the emotions. Just proves how a picture communicates different things to different people?

No, the more appropriate caption would be: NOT SOLID AS A ROCK!

The world observes a MsMaverick...as a rock...a symbol of stability, calm, capable, alone, unwavering, strong. And so she is...ostensibly... mostly.

But, Mother Earth, when she overheats due to factors internal and external (yes, such as human activity),the built-up pressure has to go somewhere...radiating from that inner core outwards in seismic waves to escape where there is one tiny little crack...or forcing one open where none can be found..and so, rips apart mountains (see photo) so that once solid rocks crumble ...fall, gravitate to sea...sink! And then comes the tsunami.

Daily, Mother Earth experiences multiple small earthquakes that do not even cause a ripple, but there can be a multiplier effect...with each mini-quake triggering another and sometimes resulting in mega-quakes years later- with devastating effect.

Thank God humans aren't rocks. They are much stronger...they are NOT solid...they are soft...made of flesh...can absorb...bruise...tear...bleed...break... heal. They can flex...laugh...cry...get angry...punch back...go for a run...have a period...

But even so, every little quake, takes its toll. Creates tsunamis.

Every wound, big or small, even if healed, leaves a scar. An ts never as it was before.



 

Hang in there!

 Dear Bloggie ...when you feel the mountains are caving in on you, what do you suggest? (Other than HRT?)
Do let me know your thoughts?

Me
 

wah-wah, blah-blah.....but what a way to tell some stories!

   Behold the only monarch I have ever met...King Goodwill Zwelethini of Zululand, (in the traditional symbol of Zulu royalty, leopard, pictured next to King Mswati II of Swaziland)Believe me, the pomp and ceremony and shananigans are no less -in fact probably at least equal albeit in a totally different style-to those accorde British Royalty!

So what brought this post on? Nostalgia I guess. Have just returned from Swaziland in the 60's, by way of fine cinematography and acting in Wah-Wah, Richard E Grant's powerful portrayal of his own childhood in the final moments of British rule in Swaziland. We have a philandering bitch of a mother, desperate alcoholic father, confused boy, the "club" as the centre of society in all British outposts, the ever-pleasing servants, a flurry caused by a royal visit in aid of the transition to Swazi Independence (aside from the royal visit, a non-event for the expat community!) and a lot of French spoken in the poshest of English accents which doesn't make it sound like swearing at all- more like jolly good adjectives, my dear fellow!

I visited Swaziland on many occassions since the 60's,and its beautiful rolling hills, friendly people, social decadence and bubble-like economy jumped straight to the fore of my memory. In my twenties, Iconducted an audit of a large mill in the capital Mbabane, and stayed two weeks at the Royal Swazi Spa which by this time had lost its lustre as "Top Naughty" after new casinos in the erstwhile Black Homelands, like Sun City, in South Africa lured its decadent clientele and prostitutes away. It had returned to being a sleepy hollow, and everyone I met had the name Dlamini (descendant of the King). Hardly surprising since King Mswati annually holds a virgin parade to pick a new bride, and currently sports 21, which is still 59 shy of his father, King Sobuzo,the longest reigning monarch, who had 81 wives at the time of his death.

So, obviously when in Rome, do as the Romans do, and what a jolly fine time was had by all those expat Britons in them good old days!

Now, in stark contrast, Ten Canoes, (see link as per yesterday's blog), paints a very very very different picture. A tale about family, community, honour, harmony and living by what was unwritten but widely understood laws for civil harmony. Though shalt not covet they neighbour's wife! What a fantastic piece of work and a wonderful opportunity for us to get a glimpse into an ancient culture, its values and tradition of upholding them to this day, through story-telling. There should be more of it...LOTS MORE!

I would be a terrible film critic, and I am not trying to be that...but for what its worth, I loved both these movies that dealt with the history and cultures of both my former home in Southern Africa, as well as my new home Australia.

I think I will definitely be in the dreamtime tonight...Go see it.