Keeping a journal can help you sort out your thoughts.

Noble cause
Thursday 28 September

"The mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of the mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one." -Wilhelm Stekel

September school holidays are on and today we went into Melbourne and saw the Earth from Above exhibition at Federation Square down near the river.

French Photographer Yann Arthus-Bertrand has created a free public exhibition of 120 "emotive images" that teach us about the beauty and fraility of Planet Earth. Shot from the air, the pictures are stunning. Each is accompanied by a description of the place itself and a comment about sustainable development. This is a compelling exhibition and I mean to go back for another look before it ends 12 December. If you can't get to Federation Square, at least have a look at the website.

Yann Arthus-Bertrand is an artist with a noble cause. His work is beautiful and accessible and can teach us so much. This man is making a real difference in the world. I want to be like that.

Time Out
Wednesday 26 September

The timer on my exposure unit is broken. The exposure unit is best described as the machine I use to make stamps. I knew it was unhappy. I've been coaxing it to hang in there just a little while longer. I have a stack of orders and Melbourne Paperific to prepare for. That's four weeks of work. Then the machine can rest.

The timer must be repaired. Of course. There is still work to be done, and even though I'm getting out of commercial stamp-making in a month, I still want to keep it for my own personal use. "I need you, I want you," I croon to the machine. Don't give out on me now.

But the universe is sending me a message. Slow down. Take care. Live in the present.

What do you really know about yourself?
Sunday 24 September

Today, at a restaurant in Balwyn, we celebrated my mother-in-law's 74th birthday. Or her 75th. We really aren't sure. There is conjecture as to whether Antigone was born in 1931 or 1932.

Her husband, Chris, was born in 1924. Even though his birth certificate says 1923. But the birth certificate isn't officially his, Chris explains, it belonged to his brother who died in infancy. When Chris needed a birth certificate for his passport and application to immigrate to Australia, the Cyprus government mistakenly provided his dead brother's. That'll do, he thought and the Australian government concurred.

I don't know what Antigone's birth certificate says or why she thinks it could be wrong. But it was also issued in Cyprus. Perhaps you are thinking the moral of this story is "remain suspicious of birth certificates issued in Cyprus".

But it's not. You see it doesn't matter what year either Antigone or Chris were born. They don't care! History is bunk! And when we drove back home to Oakleigh, pointing out the mansions in Mont Albert, Antigone said she didn't need a house like those. She likes her home. It is humble by comparison, but very comfortable. They are two older people, happy with with who they are and their place in the world. Right here. Right now.

How lucky am I, to have role models like these two people? For me today, that's the moral of my story.

Escaping The Box
Monday 18 September

"We say we waste time but that is impossible . . . We waste ourselves." -Alice Block

I had a cold last week. I told my immune system when it was coming on: "I am keenly aware that I could choose NOT to be sick, so there better be a good reason if this tickle in my throat evolves into something more elaborate." Well, it kept evolving - into a sore throat, into a nasal-drip, and finally into a stuffy nose, sneezing and watery-eyes sort of thing. The biggest imposition was that it zapped my energy at the end of the day. I'd go straight to bed after dinner and read or listen to audio tapes for a few hours before sleep.

Well, it was marvellous. I had such quality time propped up there in my sick bed last week. It was a Dr. Wayne Dwyer Personal Development Fest, as I listened to four CD's and read an entire book all by this psychologist-turned-spiritual guru. Medicine for the soul.

So thanks to my overwrought immune system, I had a very pleasant week of television-free evenings. I've decided that this could be the start of a new era for me. TV is a time-waster. True - sometimes there is therapeutical benefit when one zones-out in front of the box. But mostly I'd be better off doing something else. Like reading or journaling in bed.

Face Value
Sunday 17 September

"Sure, I can do a demonstration of using Metal Clay," I told the Melbourne Polymer Clay group. Nothing like volunteering to show a club how to undertake something you really aren't yet qualified to do. So yesterday and today I had to whip up a sample using Precious Metal Clay (PMC3) that I'd actually fired on my own gas stove. My one previous encounter with Metal Clay was in a class at Workshop It! (see my blog entry 13 June). This weekend I decided to make a clasp I could attach to a polymer clay lump (in this case a moulded face) to create a pendant. Hooray - it worked beautifully! I love the result. Now I'm set for my demonstration on Wednesday night. And I think I'll be churning out a few more of these pendants, too.

The End of the World
Monday 11 September

Last Friday I went to the Stitches and Craft Show at Caulfield Racecourse. There were lots and lots of bead sellers there. I love beads. My stash of beads was already pretty impressive but I bought a few more on Friday anyway, as you do at a craft show.

So Sunday was my big clean-up-the-house day and at the end of it I rewarded myself with some creative time and made four gemstone necklaces. Two are shown above. These will be to sell, hopefully at Lumina Gallery.

When I went to bed I had a dream that the end of the world - Planet Earth, anyway - was imminent. I kept seeing images of these beautiful gemstones, heading toward Earth in a fiery comet. People were preparing to face their deaths. The comet was gonna hit us in a couple of weeks. Then as I wandered around, feeling depressed, I got this flier about a shop opening, just down the street from me. I went to check it out: It was a scrapbook shop. The world was about to end and here were a couple of happy, hopeful businesswomen opening a scrapbooking business. Ka-ching, ka-ching went the cash register.

It kind-of doesn't surprise me, actually - that is exactly the type of business I WOULD expect to see opening just as the world was about to end.

And today is September 11th. No doubt that subconscious thought influenced my dream. The world can be a scary, violent place. So how do we respond? Pull out your photos and pretty papers, gals. Immerse yourselves in thoughts of the ones you love and happy moments you've shared. Or make a colourful neckace. That usually perks me up.

Off to Pluto for a Protest March
Tuesday 5 September

Greetings from Outer Space. I'm on my way to join a protest march demanding Pluto's restoration to Planet Status. Poor Pluto. What a jolt it must have been last week, to regard oneself a member of the club for over 70 years, then suddenly to be kicked out rather unceremononiously. Sort of like my Foxie-Butterball experience in reverse (see 1 September entry below).

If you are interested in an astrologer's perspective on the Pluto debate, follow this link. If you aren't interested, don't.

The Foxies
Friday 1 September 2006
Back in the early 1960's, my older sisters Julie and Yvonne, and my cousins Brian and Joe formed a club they called "The Foxies". They held their meetings in the loft of my grandparents' barn in rural Indiana. I was too little to join The Foxies but old enough to want to - badly. So at my mother's insistence the other kids relented to making me their club mascot. I was dubbed "The Butterball". As Butterball I could not participate in their club activities but I could at least be with them in the barn loft . . . I was expected to quietly amuse myself on a stack of hay bales several feet away.

So what were their club activities? I believe the main activity was spying. But there wasn't much to spy on out in the middle of the country.To be honest, I don't think they did much at all except try and impress one another that whatever they were up to as a group, it was meaningful. Certainly I was convinced that being a Foxie was something which I should aspire to.

Alas, the Foxie members all outgrew their interest in the group before I outgrew being The Butterball.

Many years passed and we became adults. In fact, we became middle-aged adults. All of us - even Butterball me.

When my family and I visited Indiana last month, there was a family reunion and we had a big lunch and caught up with everyone, including the aunts and cousins and all their kids. It was quite a gathering - nearly 30 of us in all.

After lunch we were asked to gather as an audience. We pulled our chairs into a semi-circle, then Vonnie, Julie, Brian and Joe, assembled in front of us, exuding importance, each holding a little trophy with a fox on top. The Foxies had reformed.

"The time has come," said President Brian, "to rectify a long standing oversight." The rest of his speech is a blur. But as Brian reached for a fourth Foxie trophy and extended it in my direction I knew my wildest dream had finally come true: I was a real Foxie - at last.

There was applause as I approached the front. Forty years of Butterball-ness - I'd finally stepped beyond it. Cousin Joe leaned forward to whisper in my ear. I anticipated a warm welcome to the club. Instead: "You are only a JUNIOR member, you know, " he said, pointing at my trophy. Indeed, my fox was slightly smaller than the foxies on the others' trophies. Never mind. 'Twas a fox, nonetheless.

So should any of you four elder Foxies be reading, I promise you this: If it takes me another forty years, though I'll be 85 and you'll be in your nineties, I vow to prove my worthiness. A full-fledged Foxie I will one day be.

I'm certain that's a goal worth achieving.

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