Winter Solstice Meditation

The exact moment of Winter Solstice was 9.59am Sydney time. The week was far too hectic to organise a proper ritual of Sunreturn before dusk last night. Instead, in an impromptu meditation, this crisp Saturday morning sees my tiny pearl of tealight flame battling an irregular, gentle breeze.

I protect it with my cupped hands, and smile. I can always re-light it if it blows out. No-one will notice the ceremonial faux pas but me.

Breathe. Listen…

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Not “Projections 2007” but a cat

Photograph of a small white bowl and several chillies I was going to tell you about Projections 2007 — a photography competition whose finalists were shown tonight at the Chauvel Cinema. Billy Law’s “Pumping Iron” series was one of them, and there was some very cool stuff indeed.

But… the Projections 2007 website still reads as if tonight hasn’t even been planned yet, and the only details online are the event announcement. So there’s no pretty pictures to link to and rant about.

So instead I’m going to tell you about the cats.

I’ve already descended to the level of blogging about pets by telling you that Artemis caught a Noisy Miner. So this week you need to know about Apollo and the chillies (pictured at left). But I won’t bother with a detailed story because such domestic trivia is really, really boring.

Suffice it to say that I wanted the freshly-harvested chillies — from our own garden! — to stay in the white bowl. Apollo had other ideas. Four times. And I took a picture.

Now you really do need to bow down before me and worship me as your god.

5 species of birds: delight!

Another reason to love this village: just walking to the post office, I encounter five different species of birds!

Rainbow lorikeets (noisy and obvious, but still pretty), Australian magpies (confident and my favourite), Australian ravens (with their languid calls), noisy miners (yes, they’re noisy!) and pigeons.

OK, the skyrat pigeons can go. But the rest are just wonderful — even the aggressive miners. And add to that the family of pied currawongs that live nearby and several other species and you have a wonderful community in which to live.