Author: colleen

An Indigenous Map depicting a holistic world of a sacred land by Colleen Keating

colleen General , , , , , ,

 

Our recent visit to the Museum of Contemporary Art  with a new exhibition on recent Indigenous Art.

This full wall mural was the one i kept returning to. It made me feel so much joy and every visit I learnt something new and yet it is about a desperately sad story.   Uranium Mining is threatening their homeland. Hence there is fear, stress, worry and powerlessness as it has happened before.

The map is unlike a Western Map which depicts a linear idea of a place . This map depicts water  –underground, shows geography, culture, seasons, biodiversity, environment, fragility,  beauty of the land and our interdependence on the it.

 

Kalyu 2014

“We painted to save it from the uranium mine . . . and to tell them there is underground stream. There’s no water on the surface to keep the dust down. That’s why we painted this big painting – to tell them and to teach others about the water system in our land “

–Ngalangka Nola Taylor, 2014

 

This extraordinary painting depicts a vast area in the Pilbara region of Western Australia that encompasses the Martu Aboriginal communities of Parnngurr and Punmu,

and represents the Martu Native Title detemination area in its entirety.  

Painted by nine artists from Parnngurr, it reflects the Martu people’s intimate knowledge of their desert country.

The work is a map in the most expansive sense.

Representing the landscape from below the ground to above the surface.

It brings together aspects of geography,

cultural knowledge

and seasonal time.

Through careful sequenced layers, the painting documents

the fragile, interdependent relationship

between different environmental elements,

indicating how the hidden underground waterways (kalyu) play

a vital role in the biodiversityof the areqa.

 

Kalyu was made in protest against uranioum mining exploration taking place on the edge of Karlamilyi National Park, which continues today. The national park is exempt from the 2002 Martu native title determination yet is considered by the artists to be

the ‘heart of martu Country’.

 

My poem written many years ago but still relevant today.

ghost of terra nullius

(in the search for a nuclear waste dump)

i arrived at Newtown community centre

free coffee  plenty of flyers  lots of chatter

and then sat as a welcomed outsider

beckoned by an email  that plucked the right chord

(amidst all the other vibrations including

marine parks   fracking   dumping  our reef)

a woman from Muckaty country stood 

quoted a prominent politician

why on earth can’t people in the middle of nowhere

accept low and intermediate level waste

and then she faced us 

unfortunately the already converted

and she answered his question

this is not nowhere mister politician

this on your Canberra map might look remote 

and empty

out of sight   out of mind 

this is not uninhabited space

this is somewhere   a sacred somewhere

we are here in this back of beyond 

our ancestors breathe and live in the red dust 

we are the land   our dreaming

our journey   our story 

this land is our song

the journal we write

the pictures we paint

this red earth is home to our people

creator and  creation 

no separation for us 

do not come here mister politician 

treading this desert

puts red soil on the soles of your shoes

and you wouldn’t want that

red dust gets into your soul 

makes you feel somewhere

it might choke you when the wind blows

here our horizon is circular   shimmers its mirage 

our population is sparse

yes it gives you space 

for your uranium dump I hear you say

            but we have reason to revolt at ignorance

maralinga   jabaroo and we hear of chenobyl

            maybe just words to you

     

            our song is our blood poured forth

            our hearts pound for our children

            for us life is timeless 

            for you I sense a rage of time 

but we have our animals and our food 

we have our water  our soil

our precious billabongs and springs

they are not for your contamination

Hildegard of Bingen by Colleen Keating just keeps giving.

colleen Hildegard of Bingen, Poetry , ,

One of my favorite books is Hildegard of Bingen, A Poetic Journey by Colleen Keating.

It is a brilliant approach to sharing St. Hildegard’s story.
(I have a few copies of it in The Green Shepherdess!)
Today, I was reading the poem, “A New Earth” from this book and I just love the following: 

“Hildegard looks across the gardens 

pleased to see Guda with her workers, 

breathes in the scented blooms of jasmine. 

Raspberry leaves catch her attention, 

crunches them between her fingers, 

murmurs approval, 

‘almost ready for the teas.’ “

Thank you Professor Shanon  Sterringer, Pastor of Hildegard Haus and owner of The Green Sheperdess LLC in Fairport Harbour, Ohio.USA
for your affirmation and for the amazing story you are creating for our future. I love Hildegards of the 21st century.

Beachcomber featuring Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Colleen Keating

colleen General, Poetry Collection now available , ,

 

 

Most gulls don’t bother to learn more than the simple facts of flight –

how to get from shore to food and back. 

For most gulls, it is not flying that matters, but eating. 

For this gull though, it was not eating that mattered, but flying. 

More than anything else, Jonathan Livingston Seagull loved to fly.

– Richard Bach

 

A poet as beachcomber walks the beach, sometimes with pen and paper,

gathering sights and sounds, shells and stones, scents and seagull scenes.

Yet it is not always about the waves and wind, for the sea  carries the stories of the world;

how it connects and disconnects, how it gives and takes, reveals how we treat it. Humanity is always present in its deep moans and its dance of exaltation. When you listen, the ocean has much to say. Pick up Beachcomber  and, like Jonathan Livingston Seagull, these poems will take you flying.

 

 

Colleen Keating is a Sydney poet. Her

      poetry explores the paradox and wonder

of nature, the realities of life, of inequality,

injustice and the increasing threat to our

environment. This is her sixth collection of

poetry. For Colleen, poetry is vocational.

            I not so much choose it as my medium

of expression as much as it chooses me.

Awareness, mindfulness and an unperishing

sense of wonder are my guides.

 

 

Launch of a new book, Sandhill Island 75 by Jo van Kool

colleen General , , , , ,
Congratulations
Jo van Kool on the launch of her new book Sandhill Island 75 .A quintessential Australian conservation story. I was honoured to join with Barry Melville, Director of Radio 2RPH to assist in this .
   
Sandhill Island 75 is inspired by the late John Sinclair, who fought to save Fraser Island from sand mining and maintain its pristine beauty. Set in the 1970s on an imaginary island off the NSW coast, the story chronicles the ideological clash between conservationists and economic rationalists.
Central characters include aging artist Jim (inspired by Ian Fairweather who spent his final years living on Bribie Island) and 18-year-olds Tracey and Steve also inhabit the story.
It was a warm welcoming launch twith writers, poets, and interested friends enjoying comraderie, wine and nibbles at the Lane Cove Municipal Library. It was also very special to launch her new poetry book Here and There.
Thanks to Ginninderra Press and thanks to Library for their hospitality.

Beachcomber by Colleen Keating with some of our little summer beachcombers

colleen Poetry, Poetry Collection now available , ,
Some of oury little beachcombers on a summer beach
My latest collection of poetry BEACHCOMBER is available from Ginninderra Press, and online from Booktopia, Amazon , Fishpond, Barnes and Noble. like Jonathan Livingston Seagull, these poems will take you flying. Thank you to Stephen Matthews AOM Ginninderra Press and my writing family for their support, positive editing, courage and affirmation.
A poet as beachcomber walks the beach, sometimes with pen and paper, gathering sights and sounds, shells and stones, scents and seagull scenes. Yet it is not always about the waves and wind, for the sea carries the stories of the world; how it connects and disconnects, how it gives and takes, reveals how we treat it. Humanity is always present in its deep moans and its dance of exaltation.
When you listen, the ocean has much to say. Pick up Beachcomber and enjoy wave by wave.

Beachcomber by Colleen Keating with some of my little winter beachbombers

colleen Poetry, Poetry Collection now available , , ,

Beachcomber, my latest collection of poetry   is available from

Ginninderra Press and most on-line book stores

And here are some of my little beachcombers on a winter beach.
My latest collection of poetry BEACHCOMBER is available from Ginninderra Press, and online from Booktopia, Amazon , Fishpond, Barnes and Noble. like Jonathan Livingston Seagull, these poems will take you flying. Thank you to Stephen Matthews AOM Ginninderra Press and my writing family for their support, positive editing, courage and affirmation.
A poet as beachcomber walks the beach, sometimes with pen and paper, gathering sights and sounds, shells and stones, scents and seagull scenes. Yet it is not always about the waves and wind, for the sea carries the stories of the world; how it connects and disconnects, how it gives and takes, reveals how we treat it. Humanity is always present in its deep moans and its dance of exaltation.
When you listen, the ocean has much to say. Pick up Beachcomber and enjoy wave by wave.

Beachcomber by Colleen Keating unveiled

colleen Poetry, Poetry Collection now available ,

My latest collection of poetry BEACHCOMBER is available from Ginninderra Press, and online from Booktopia, Amazon , Fishpond, Barnes and Noble. like Jonathan Livingston Seagull, these poems will take you flying. Thank you to Stephen Matthews AOM Ginninderra Press and my writing family for their support, positive editing, courage and affirmation.
A poet as beachcomber walks the beach, sometimes with pen and paper, gathering sights and sounds, shells and stones, scents and seagull scenes. Yet it is not always about the waves and wind, for the sea carries the stories of the world; how it connects and disconnects, how it gives and takes, reveals how we treat it. Humanity is always present in its deep moans and its dance of exaltation.
When you listen, the ocean has much to say. Pick up Beachcomber and enjoy wave by wave.

Kur-ring-gai Botanic Garden by Colleen Keating

colleen Poetry , , ,

between breaths

“Nothing more beautiful under the sun than to be under the sun”
Walt Whitman

On one of those chill winter days
when rugged up in your woolies
you don’t mind it being such –
with stay of azure sky’s low sun

an in-breath of wildness to interrupt
day to day mindset

distant ring of the honeyeater
a creek tinkles      gold      glint
tones of green     all  beckon

into a world charged with a Hopkins vibe
sienna beacons of banksia
enlivening the way

sturdy trees usher us onwards
some  ramrod sentinels
others lazed-back like friends
free   in size and shape
red gum turpentine iron bark
 peppermint    scribbly gum
thickened roots flow like treacle
into rock crevices


white trunks with stories to tell
their scribbled language intrigue

suddenly crunch crunch in the undergrowth
alerts us to wallabies
that bump bump bump away
we miss their peering eyes
but so happy they are here

deep in the forest we find a spot
in a clearing for our picnic.


magpies warble their presence
a brush turkey befriends us
two kookaburras entertain our stay
one like a zen buddhist on the bough above

the out-breath of wilderness comes
reluctantly
like the end of a symphony
that holds you in its other world

 

Some surprises y in the undergrowth

Scribbly Gum by Colleen Keating

colleen Bush walks, Poetry , , , ,

Scribbly Gum

who writes the scribbly dialect
written into trunks of eucalypts ?
I watch the trunk of a gum-tree
no sign of a scribe

who writes the scribbly dialect
written into trunks of eucalypts?
i run my finger along the rambling lines
and enjoy the mystery

May Gibbs found inspiration
for her writing on the gum leaves
Judith Wright peeled its splitting bark
and wrote her poem
of this life she could not read.

how lovely to enjoy wonder 
believing in fairies 
at the bottom of the garden

who is this secret poet ?
who is this hidden creator?
this graffiti artist?
leaving its tag  on trees         
and what is it trying to say?

a brown moth rarely seen
is the curio   its tiny eggs hatch
mysterious larvaes  burrow down
like children in class taking up their pen
they tunnel along writing  their journey
and as the circle of life comes round 
form moths and  like students fly free

 

May Gibbs 1876-1969    May Gibbs MBE was an Australian children’s author, illustrator, and cartoonist. She is best known for her gumnut babies, and the book Snugglepot and Cuddlepie  and her scary old Banksia man.

Judith Wright 1915-2000   Judith Wright was an Australian poet, environmentalist and campaigner for Aboriginal land rights. She was a recipient of the Christopher Brennan Award in 1975.  Judith was also a recipient of the Australian National Living Treasure Award in 1998.

Scribbly Gum Moth tells the story of the insect’s life cycle.

Scribbly gums are spectacular Australian eucalypts that get their name from the strange ‘scribbles’ left behind on their smooth bark. These rambling tracks are tunnels made by the larvae of the Scribbly Gum Moth and tell a story of the insect’s life cycle.

Photos of the Scribbly Gums were taken by me in the Ku-ring-ga Botanic Gardens in Sydney.

Ku-ring-gai is an Aboriginal word describing the home or hunting ground of the local people.

Radical amazement by Colleen Keating

colleen Poetry , ,

 

“Our goal should be to live life in radical amazement. ….
get up in the morning
and look at the world in a way that takes nothing for granted.
Everything is phenomenal; everything is incredible;
never treat life casually. To be spiritual is to be amazed.”

by Abraham Joshua Heschel

A selection of recent moments of amazement. 

 

 

 

Radical amazemnt 

This morning low on the city horozon
I watched the sun twinkle through the trees
their tracery –  bare limbs of deciduous  and  evergreens
highlighting its early journey into a new day.

It is a holiday here for the Queen’s birthday
and on the sharp edge of winter it is hard to leave my bed
as one would normally do to rise with the light
I linger “under the doona” as we call it these day
and ponder Heschel’s words .

How easy it is to take another day for granted
to  look  casually  at the wonder of the light
outside my window
at camellias blooming gloriously in red and pink and white
some with soft salmon  frilled to the edge.

How easy to  treat the bird song in the high trees
 casually rather than hear it as music for my soul
and to forget everything around us
be it common, familiar, ordinary 
is  phenomenal, incredible and extraordinary.
not waiting   for it to be gone or to change to realise this

When the word radical means deep, absolute total
there is no room for measure
when amazement calls for  surprise, atonishment even shock
we have our call to live with radical amazement

Our spitiuality.No need for church
it is here right now