Savouring Sublime Sunsets
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An Indigenous friend told me that the Arnhem Land Yolgnu have a huge body of knowledge about sunsets. That idea captured my imagination. I’ve never quite let it go.
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Festival of the Breast
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Why wouldn’t you want to have your breasts tenderly and thoughtfully painted with ochre for inma (ceremonial dancing)? And feel a connection between your breasts and the earth around you? Our bodies all come from our mothers’ bodies and breasts and the earth is our continuing mother.
Read MoreCactus Youth
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Whether slim and brown, pale and gothic or covered in overdeveloped muscles, nerdy glasses or gold jewellery, young people need to find a way to identify themselves, to the extent they know themselves. In mainstream society, we have nebulous rites of passage for our young people — getting a driver’s license, travelling with friends, drinking alcohol ’til you’re sick.
Read MoreThe Sweet, Warm Winds
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In the cool piriyitja mornings the flowers are full of honey. Even at the height of the day the flowers cover your fingertips with abundant syrup if you touch them. They are bracingly delicious. The Anangu kids call them lolly flowers.
Read MoreHard for the Money
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I tried to change my mind about Tuesday. I did not succeed. In fact, I’ve given up trying for now. I like where I live and work and I like my routine, except for that lumpy bit at the beginning of the week.
Read MoreTo Have a Carer in the World
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Insidiously, the work undermines a caregiver’s self-trust and self-love. This is a danger inherent in the work itself — you have to deny your own needs and desires twenty times (or a thousand times) a day.
Read MoreBubbling Up
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If a ball of lava is coming towards you, you focus on it and watch its trajectory, then move sideways, that is, not down the mountain or into the volcano, so that you can avoid it. I have missed catching so many balls in my life that I figured I’d be fine.
Read MoreSkin Colour Pearls
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Next time an Australian with fair skin reveals their Aboriginality, whether by their clothes or jewelry, their tattoos or their story, let your heart swell with gratitude that the web of Aboriginal cultures continues to be woven.
Read MoreThe Sneer of a Chainsaw
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Claudia and I've become fond of the trees of our town. So we were both angry to be woken early by the sneer of chainsaws. Through the bedroom curtains, we saw a man hanging from a tree, sawing the very branch he stood on.
Read MoreChai, cappucino and rosehip
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In the darkness before sunrise, I blink as the kitchen lights come on. Pulling out a small white paper bag from the tea box, I see its pencilled name, ‘Hibiscus flowers’. I bought these more than a year ago, and forgot I had them. Delighted, I take a generous pinch of the blackish dried spikes, and throw them in the teapot.
Read MoreLove among the Medicines
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We needed to be needed. For some, there was a lingering appreciation for high status, a medical degree being final proof that you were good at school work. Some did want to relieve suffering, usually poor souls who’d seen a loved one through a long sickness as a child.
Read MoreThe Salted Centre
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We had some seriously ill people in the clinic this past summer. They had deteriorated to a critical condition in the fifty degree heat, not because of dehydration but because of a deficiency of sodium — salt.
Read MoreSplendid tiny beauty
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They were sea creatures with never-before-seen limbs, fins and strange appendages, resulting in names such as Anomalocaris, Wiwaxia and Hallucigenia. They hinted at the explosion of possibility during the early days of life on the planet.
Read MoreWoman in Uniform
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I spent a bit of time browsing the leather tool belts in hardware stores before a colleague persuaded me that it was probably a little odd for an apprentice doctor to want to look like an apprentice plumber. Perhaps even more pretentious than wearing your stethoscope around your neck all day.
Read MoreRadiant Fields
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Being out in the desert at night is a pleasure. Wandering along the sandy path, we enjoyed the spectacle. Dad said, "What would happen if someone was lost in this field at night?" One of the workers said, “There was a pack of dingoes bothering some of the people,” he said.
Read MoreThe Calling
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I’m not on call except for unusual emergencies. I sleep through the everyday emergencies — the heart attacks, obstructed gall bladders and car roll-overs — that my colleagues, the Remote Area Nurses (RANs) deal with at night. This week there are two RANs here with me — for a town at its peak population of around five or six thousand.
Read MoreSprouting Autumn
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My friend gave me her pomegranate tree and lime tree. I’d been dreaming of a pomegranate tree and was well-read about limes. I knew they’d be a good match for our place. I still dream of olive and fig trees. “How many years are you planning to stay here?” asks Claudia.
Read MoreWhen the Rock Breaks
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That sounds mad. But for a while now I’ve quietly believed that rocks have consciousness. It’s not that I hear gravel crying when I walk on it, but rocks do speak to humans, albeit in their own way.
Read MoreThe Boys on the Sideboard
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I’ve known her to use sixteen layers of translucent paint to get the depth of the doll’s complexion right, greenish veins just showing through the different shades of brown. Weighting the doll’s head, by suspending a steel ball inside it (without smashing the glass eyes) makes it loll on your shoulder.
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