Friday Night ~ seeing the water ~

still here, all of this, me, you, still here. there's a void where my generative self was for a time, the major correlations governing this absence are these: no longer addicted to caffeine. without the spare time that opens luxurious thought. generating volumes of creative work that aren't after my own purpose {schooling children}. no longer without a localised support network. missing the over-arching deadlines of university and thesis work, remaining deadlines are self imposed and expanding like the gas they are, though vapour is condensing. i will be trying to find time on the weekends to record something of the decompression i need to have to make it in this industry, thus begins "Friday Night ~ {insert theme of the week in here}~" there's a deep and abiding vein of misogyny right through the architecture of our society. and in that absurd way the paradox is that it has very little to do with women at all, simply the ideas currently attached to women. things are as good now as they have never been in history, but the faults in the cloth of our culture reveal themselves, and they're north to south in the fibre. it's insidious and difficult to observe, being that they're so fine, as they run right through our discourse and adopted behaviours, that sometimes i could be convinced that my perception was confirmation bias. the worst of it plays out in the policing older teachers conduct on themselves. there's so much low level, barely expressed disquiet and antipathy in these work places but they play it out towards one another rather than at the structures that limit, antagonise, and encircle them. today i was told i was hired for the high modal way i presented myself, i instantly went several steps ahead of the comment without realising it, barely registering what could have been taken as a compliment rather than a statement of fact. it is of course pleasing to have self perceived strengths noted externally, and i don't think her machiavellian, but do i wonder what ends she has in mind with my particular skill set and how to best wield that in the emotional/philosophical/personal minefield that is this obstinate bureaucracy centred around man-kinds highest ideals. i am anarchistic to this system, i keep enforcing student ownership of their work, syllabus tied to children's experiences. my mentor wants this, but she's very threatened by me simultaneously. and i love her for it, my little twenty something heart leaps at being able to puncture decades of experience with new knowledge. concurrently i also see the colossal flaws in my practise, i falter to convey how much of a fraction of a teacher i am compared to this woman who insists she isn't creative, despite being so actively generative. a great many paradoxes underpin our daily life in proximity to one another, but do not mistake me, i respect her deeply. i see that she's been trained by her life system to self loathe and to expect negative behaviours to impact her life in the professional sphere. she's an dyed-in-the-wool misogynist, typically directing against others but in doing so also against herself, and tellingly, she's not critical of the nature of their discourse. the rupture i offer is something that the management will be directing to their perceived benefit, and i trust the principals direction, she's a decent alpha. i just wonder what the make of me, what they think they're making of me, and how i will reconcile my jealous heart. it's all worth it for the kids though, and that's how they get you in the first place. the weakness of the education union in this bargaining environment is that it's innately a child-rearing exercise. and still, in this late stage capitalist system, we have not yet dislodged the common notion that that is work done by an underclass; the non-capital generating exercise has no value {in the marxist mode}outside of those taking part in it generate for their own identity. this thinking is incredibly young, 200 something years teetering on the edge of some several hundred thousand years of human development. without this basic re-evaluation the dialogue remains entrenched in this lop-sided and half-hearted state, why fix this whining women's business at all eh? let em' make some noise, fill a few stadiums with red banners and get spat on in the street {no exaggeration} for their meagre pay rise, still far below comparable rates with other industries, it's just hysteria, it'll pass soon enough and then we'll dance the same jig in 4 years. ~In processu love to you all.

non-sunce

w/here to start.

i write in the cold, i write when i'm discomforted, i write when i really need to be doing something else. i very much need crisis to tip me into action. and i create crisis at every possible moment.

this is not necessarily conducive to healthy friend/relation/battle/ships.

i crave oblivion when others aren't around. and i find it in passive media, through lectures and,

see! there i went, clicked away from something i was engaging with purely because i feel alone in this space... this is why i make a poor long distance student. put me in a class room or a group of compatible people and you will get the best of me. leave me alone and i produce very little, if anything, without the promise of immolation/desertion/failure to sweep me to some small action. tis a grand thing that my artist friends need kindling to catch a fire. they are my saviours.

something of an anachronism {slight return}

too long, too long. mmm, yes, yes to pick up an old pen, again, and find it still pliable still charged with need, the page as yet unsated . to feel unabashed of the time between drinks, to know that you’ve been away for a reason and now it’s time has turned and there is space once more for the tiny limbs to stretch. - just recently I was brought to think on my time spent in learning how to teach and the crux of my meditation was on how education is centred on relationship for me, here’s a few selections… “The locus for my understandings from this course and how it has framed my experiences in this first semester comes down to one word. Relationships. The word unfolds like a flower, revealing manifold petals; how does the child relate to their peers, their family, to you their teacher, the school and finally to themselves. It is the creation and maintenance of these links that discerns the success of any individuals life, for man is a social creature and our worth in the world is relative to how our actions impact on those we a connected with. As teachers we are privileged and duty bound to inhabit the nexus of a child’s life, tying together the sometimes errant strands of the World around them; privileged to bring together those aspects of a child’s life, their relationships, and combine them wherever possible to enable them be students of the world.” “Simply reposing the next level of thinking into conflict or praise builds rigour into the daily classroom experience. A student comes to you with a problem; rather than simply giving them the solution that is apparent to your adult mind immediately, re-purpose the situation. What is the actual nature of the problem? Is there a sustainable way in which we can approach solving this problem which might stop it from occurring again? If a student succeeds at something they had struggled with, highlight the broader causes of their success, perhaps it was resilience, perseverance, developing their internal motivation. Naming their positive behaviour sets up the framework for them to make links across the spectrum of their experiences with success and adversity. Using Blooms Taxonomy to establish a relationship of information, ordering thinking and questioning to truly recognise patterns and discern their use lead to powerful learning experiences.” “I have seen and heard a largely combative stance adopted against the government curriculum documents, some teachers out right dismissing their use after external assessment, I find this approach unhelpful. Curriculum is a living document, the National Curriculum and VELS, while certainly documents of accountability and responsibility, are powerful tools for directing the consciousness of educators and by extension students. They are permeable documents, not simply a transmission of demands but a call to attention, an invaluable resource for inspiration and self-appraisal. Am I taking my Students far enough, what other dimensions of their self-hood can I develop? Our relationship with the governing factors of our profession and how we choose to frame that interaction sets the tone we adopt with those people that the document is in aid of, our students. By extension our embracing of this document is the embracing of our life choice, of our responsibility, of our students. Underpinning all of this is the internalisation of existentialist principles into my consciousness; the explicit decision to recognise that “Life is consciousness of” as my old lecturer, come appropriated father figure, Alistair Rolls puts it. The central concept, as I have come to understand it, is that the culmination of your being is what you are paying attention to at this very instant. Each and every living moment what you draw into your attention builds on top of all else you perceive, informing and permeating our experience. By directing and focusing that powerful lived instance into a ritual of extension, continually demanding the stretching of our consciousness, we build powerful networks of understanding and enrichen the lives of those around us.” “Those understandings I carry within myself are pieces of the people that gave them to me, facets of self that reflect the relationship established between us. These people reside in my daily consciousness, affecting how I perceive even as I see it occurring. We are truly privileged to be able to permeate the coming generation with our approaches, in essence, surviving those skills we value off into the future, paying forward the gift of education that was bestowed us” it’s wonderful to flex this particular muscle again and find it working as well as I left it, reminds me that there are great things to be produced out of my solitude, even though it pains me to confront my quiet introspection. this new direction, this “career”, is not so bold for me, it all seems such a logical progression of my being that I hope it is of great solace and enjoyment, rather than a tacit denial of its philosophical underpinnings… because i hear parents are 80% of the reason teacher quit. good night and good luck

It is not possible to play this song loud enough

find an amplifier with large speakers, turn it up to breaking, hold a speaker to your heart

and weep for your tiny flailing life

while the alabaster angel of the moon awakens, tearing free from the surface so long it's prison, it's Piscean, changeless face descending to earth, tears roiling from it's unblinking eyes for the work it must do.

the fruit is slow to ripen, though fast to fall

in the last 6 months or so i have begun to find that i prefer the company of women. as i come to understand this new un/folding self i realise that this is only a cognizant manifestation of that which was already true, that i am severely disconnected from the hetero-normative male condition.

anyone who has been close to me since 2009 knows of my non-cognizant sexual awakening from a very young {pre-concious} age, and subsequent non-normative world perception. i was taught to masturbate from a very young age, before i was forming crystal memories. i do not remember a time when i was not aware of the sexual potential in human play nor ever not desiring that from those around me. so it went that instead of being able to act on this impulse, through my poor self-worth and perceived unattractiveness (being that i was 118kg at 19 years old), i had long since fallen to putting women up on sexual pedestals or forming safe mother/child dynamics with older women i knew socially. one wore red lipstick, the other wore pink; pink was for fucking, red was not. as a sex therapist or tantric practitioner will tell you this can lead to a wildly misfiring and undirected eros, and in my case a deeply ingrained masturbatory life. all the proto-friendships i formed with girls around my own age were either abortive teenage shots at dating, or contained a barely concealed antagonism at the barriers in personality that would not let intimacy ensue between us. To illustrate: once i recoiled when i thought a potential play mate might have held feminist leanings, something which seems absurd in it's naivety now. i was angry at myself for being attracted and subsequently unable to express it in any meaningful way. it wasn't until my twentieth year that i found a girl to share my sexuality with, which means i have existed as an external sexual being for only 6 years.
So for all that truncation I feel that to finally say i prefer the company of women is a huge step. the moment of steep and vertiginous realisation came when the 3 women i worked with all nodded casually when discussing having been raped by a partner . I stood a flat footed minority in the face of their sanguine revelation that my veil of middle class pretention and protection simply hadn’t presented as reality. I felt the charge of their lives so forcefully, their giving, their considered communication. Again I idealised them, and chastised myself for denying reality. But I remain shaken that hetero-normative males are simply something I do not feel i can associate with on more than a facile, surface reality.

I realised that i had no female friendships of any substance…

until my friendship with beruthiel.

I remember being attracted to her very early in our acquaintance, but being that i was partnered when we met and, concomitantly, we worked together, i was "forced" to reserve my attraction to non-sexual play only {this being before my deep and abiding existentialism}. she moved jobs and eventually cities and we kept in nebulous contact through friends. It wasn’t until i moved cities and we were brought proximate by chance that I remembered that proto friendship and being lonely in that faraway place i did eventually move to capitulate it.
i was much afeared of the Eros i perceived between us, the energy that circulated there was not something I could yet channel, nor could I fully articulate my discomfort to myself, so to veil that I came bearing an idea, a vestigial notion of shared creativity, a comic.
Oh! the coiling of the plumb line that occurred in this. A shattering great release of Eros and channelling of intent into form that leapt alive in our words, beneath our skin. i bore a whole city into existence with the early surge of our coming together; in two sittings at a café i scrawled on stray parchment the machinations of a multitude of factions, characters, the geography of a place beyond existence.
We came together again and subsequently beruthiel poured herself into my dreaming, she became quietly immense, open, questing, generous with thought, blossoming in creativity and self, committing to the study of anatomy, perspective and illustrative tools; I now feel dwarfed by her commitment and capacity. This responsibility means I demand of myself to double my efforts in accessing the very best of my creative capacity in this world, to shape my life to match hers. To grow this together.
More than once we discussed the language surrounding our thoughts that this creative quickening had wrought, blushing that it was borderline sexual. But that is the truth of our connection; it is simply that we have been given such limited vocabulary for what friendship is. We have been educated to understand Eros as sexual and more specifically for a singular direction and purpose, when it is simply a desire between individuals to connect and to play, a circulation of energy and aspiration for bringing the future into being.
I do not feel as though we could have created so beautiful a thing had beruthiel and I simply made love, that the choice of focus and cognizant redirection of ourselves created a new space for us to fill with our intention. I have female friends with whom I share a similar circulation of Eros, but intuitively, and with consideration, I realise I cannot pursue a friendship in this same way. They are not people with whom I can share like this, their creative expression is not in alignment with mine and so i calmly accept that I am graced in what I share with beruthiel, with dae, with mr thylacine, with brannigan. That we create exceptional space and foster our better selves.

in praise of those that remain

the complexity tied to the phrase "i moved" is obscured in that same manner as stalin's observation of tragedy, the economy of scale leaves no room for the reality of the event. when i say "i moved to melbourne" or "we moved here a year and a half ago" there's no way to impart onto the listener how arduous, how wrought with challenge and complexity, how goddamn draining, enlivening and multifarious a thing to do moving was and is. this brevity is considered polite because, in the main, it's not expected of the everyday conversation that i should blossom my life narrative into yours while i make you a coffee. nor is that act of moving seen as important any longer, it's a dead fact, a 'thing' i did, even though it isn't a tangible physical object it is still a thing, some 'thing' that can only inform this moment, not change it.

so even though 'it' was a 'thing' that i 'did', and this massive, rippling upheaval, this rending of daily experience, this catharsis, has had so much to do with who i am now, with how i understand myself and how i value the relationships in my life, that i perpetuate the lie of considering it some dead thing now, partitioned and cauterised.

my almost daily disavowal of my achievement, my selfish giving, is testament to the continuum of human reality. the move occurred in stages, moment by moment, as with all of life, so at what point do you cry 'genesis' of a "thing"? when i first visited melbourne in 2007 and fell in love with it's wide streets and delicious gyros? or when i launched at the prospect of an easily accessible rental through a friend? it is pure historiographical fallacy, there is no knowing, only pinning with words to kill, vivisection for evidence, and all in defence of a predefined answer, supposition, the murder of life/truth.

i don't have a segue.

given all this import i've front loaded about my move i should perhaps return to this posts titular concern.


our* past is colonial, is defined my movement and seizure. there were some who blazed the trail, discovering the outposts that would hold for a time, and there were those who held, who built the daily life of a place so that life as we knew it would flourish.

eros and agape.

something very true to me was said by the comedian louis c.k. a man whose fraud i have invested in and whose conceits** i live in thanks of; he said life isn't yours to own, it's something you take part in. this, this right here, and everything we are collectively, this is all there is of the human experience, and what you see, think and do is only your contribution to life in your own small way. we are the greatest living embodiment of our own art, at every single moment, and we only get this one spin as far as anyone knows.

so for all the sound and fury of the frontier, the avant garde bleeding edge, there must be life that remains, the embodiment of creation. there must be recumbent satisfaction to our experience, life lived as mountains, where gravity knows it's place and healing, love and nurturing can find fruition. it is only a binary supposition that pins and good/evil morality to differing modes of reality, each phase of life and existence has it's own mores, it's on particularities of action and consequence...

i couldn't remain because i feared stagnation, but i don't fear recumbency when i decide on my deep water cove.

in truth there is nothing to defend in these things, only giving over to empathy for life and fostering a cognizant appreciation for it.


*raises glass* 'here's blood in your eye.'


*the privileged white middle class, with our cars and computers, to whom no bastion is deniable.

** actual conceits, as with the aching of john donne.

Great Southern Expedition ~ Part 5 ~

i left too early, both in the day and in time.

the ennui of travel is that the liminal self gets so little stage time he can't savour his own existence. much like other young men of my age my liminal self cannot grow up, existing as he does in a hall of mirrors, (nostalgia repackaged, contrived obligations, gestures of being) that, while directed inwards, do not point to the central self. to the mountain we can choose to become. travel is living without becoming, it lets us make a cocoon of necessity, outside of which everything has to wait.

so it was that the function of leaving concealed both the event and the emotions. the flight was an early one, there was scant enough time for a cup of tea and a pat to the dogs before we had to be off. so little time was there (it i tell myself now) that i forgot to look backwards for the entire drive, nor when i gave dad one last hug and i turned to board. when i did remember he and tasmania were no longer there. i feel as though there should've been more to it than this, but i am at peace with the fact that my actual, living, physical father is quite a non-event in my life, the partition in my thinking informs me it's not a good thing nor a bad thing, it simply is.

there's a disconcerting emotion-memory about my expedition that i carry. it goes something like; driving towards the home in geeveston on arrival felt as though it were a slow, unfolding homecoming. a rediscovery of and affirmation about a childhood in tasmania i never had, but glimpsed in several holidays there. this grief informs my having to drive away from a largely fictitious life, it feels like slowly closing a book. as though the act of leaving were a time lapse glaucoma, fading from the edges of vision into a tunnel formed singularity, the last sight of which is the broad side of the pages of a book which is simultaneously the vision of huonville from the top of the sleeping beauty mountain range. outside of this repeating image is nothingness. the fluidity of pure memory is terrifying, little wonder then we kill it with words.

what strange omen it was that my seat should be the very furthest right seat in the back row, unable to recline and with the tray table barely an inch from my chest, i became quite claustrophobic. i say that, but i feel as though it should have been an omen, though no pattern emerges from this experience yet. I'm very much back in melbourne, and i don't know if how they show each other how to live here is the explanation that suits me yet, but i live in quiet hope my village shall reveal itself to me.

this post, while perhaps mistitled, does actually contain as much of the great south land as my last day did, there's the rub.

so make a cup of tea, and some avocado toast, light a fire and sit comfortably while you press play on this last, small offering. why do we find so much comfort in a return to the beginning? it doesn't actually resolve anything...