Winter in Sydney is the best time for walking. The weather is cool and the skies sunny. On Sunday, I went out walking in the Royal National Park with the Bankstown Bushwalkers, up and down the ridges of Kangaroo Creek, near Heathcote. We stopped for morning tea at Kangaroo Creek, which glistened in the morning sunlight.
I’ve posted my fair share of great Rockwiz duets in recent weeks, but this has to be the best I’ve seen. It’s another unusual combination: Aussie songstress Tina Arena with former Tea Party lead Jeff Martin, singing the Peter Gabriel/Kate Bush song, Don’t Give Up. The performances from both (and also the band) was emotionally charged, and absolutely brilliant.
A Jizo is a guardian of travellers and children. There were thousands of them at Koya-San, probably since there are a lot of visitors! They are usually clothed in a bib and a hat, to keep them warm through the cold winter months.
Another beauty from Rockwiz, a ‘duet’ of sorts between the wonderful Angie Hart and Tim Freedman.
The monastery had a wonderful gravel garden in the front yard. One wonders how long the monks spend in carefully raking the lines.
Elsewhere in Koya-San, rocks and lines of raked gravel imitate the local landscape.
A song that is on my mind today, again from Josh Pyke:
We sleep together,
While all around us,
People kill each other where they lie.
They lie together,
Till they find someone better,
Try to negotiate that slow demise.
But I just can’t credit,
That type of effort for a
Piece of nothing on the edge of a knife.
Slices you so thin,
You dry like sheets in the wind,
Hold a candle behind through you see the light.
I want the song I can sing forever,
I don’t care for structure,
Just to know it’s mine.
I’d hate to see,
This thing we’ve developed,
Become your burden or my waste of time.
(My waste of time)
The afternoon can bring with it shallow moods
But I’d jump a harbour wall to clear your mind.
I quarter the years,
You drop the sails till we’re clear,
I’ll look for reefs,
You map the stars in the night.
And history tells us of worlds we’ll know nothing of,
Then retrospect becomes a shackle tight,
On the ankles of us,
Oh, in the future we trust,
We cross our fingers like some kids telling lies.
I wanna know that I know what I’m talking about.
Until I do,
All the walls seem white.
But when I’m sure that I know what I’m talking about,
I’ll take your burden if you say it’s mine.
If you say it’s mine.
If you say it’s mine.
If you say it’s mine.
A Shoji is a sliding door lined with rice paper that is a feature in traditional (and lots of modern) Japanese houses. There were long corridors of them at the monastery.
The corridors looked out on to the garden…
… Where other creatures also lived.
Very clever little diddy about growing up in suburban Sydney:
When I was a kid I grew up in a house
On a hill not the top not the bottom but the middle and I still remember where I cracked my head in the vacant lot there’s a row of tiny houses there now and we used to light fires in the gutters and I could cool my head on the concrete steps but the girl down the street hit my sister on the head with a stick and we hid behind my father as he knocked on her parents door to tell them what she did but the parents were drunk so they really didn’t give a shit
And the girl down the street said a dog couldn’t bark cause a man with an axe cut its voice box out but my older sister told me that it probably wasn’t true and I believe what she said cos she took me by my hand one time when a couple men drove down the hill in a white van said there was a phone box filled with money round the corner and I would have gone along but she took me by my hand to the house on the middle of the hill…
And my mother knew the words to a lot of different songs and we always sing the harmonies when we’d sing along she had cool cool hands when the fever hit and then the noises that the trains made sounded like people in my head and the stories that the ceiling told through the pictures on the grains and the pine wood bumps and I could stay out side till the sky went red and I’d cool my head on the concrete steps and we could never really see the top from the bottom I don’t pay enough attention to the good things but I gotta you could never really see the top from the bottom I don’t pay enough attention to the good things but I gotta…
In the middle of the monastery was an enclosed garden. It was very green, very tranquil, a perfect place to contemplate.
I love the shapes and textures of the foliage. The Japanese have landscaping down to a fine art.
I bought Josh Pyke’s album Memories and Dust yesterday and I’m really liking it so far. The song Sew My Name is the stand out on my first real listen, because the lyrics are very simple but lovely – just the way I like it:
When I go, I think I’m gonna sew my name into all of your clothes
my girl, since you have always worn me well.
And there are too many animals on this ship, some of you I think will have to sink
but when it gets too much, you can only adjust.
And oh I am always thinking about you
and how you always wear me well.
You can’t outgrow something sewn under your skin
so I will always wear you well.
And oh I am always thinking about you
I’m always thinking about you.
And Sunday evening always has a sense of something good about to end
I know, we hold our breaths for tomorrow. (Tomorrow.)
And when I go I think I’m gonna write my name
into all the books you love so well, since you can read me good my girl
yeah you can always read me well.
Try and rationalise a thing you’ve never seen before.
You can wear me well, you can wear me well.
I’d suit myself, but it’s one that I’ve never worn.
(You can wear me well, you can wear me well.)
And if theres only one truth that I know,
It’s that the stitches that we’ve made are the best that I’ve ever sewn.
It’s also got a really cute live action/animation video as well.
Static and Silence 