Five stars and a Kulin sky
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Anyone who has ever asked me about how Chart began knows what Tony Birch means to this project. And for those of you who haven’t, I’ll tell you what he means, which is a whole bloody lot.
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Tiny Lights
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For the first instalment of the Nocturnal Series, Laura Stortenbeker makes a trip to Kooragang – home to one of the world’s largest coal ports, fed by the open cut coal mines that devastate the Hunter Valley.
Read MoreEating Fat Choy/Moss/Prosperity for Prosperity
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I don’t see myself as deeply superstitious, but I won’t walk under a ladder or clean my flat on the first day of the Lunar New Year. There’s a practical element to not walking under a ladder; not cleaning my flat on New Year’s day, however, is purely symbolic.
Read MoreStrange Fruit
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The house is closed up in preparation for my research trip: power points switched to off position, stray food tucked away in Tupperware containers, pot plants entrusted to friends, blinds pulled all the way across. A friend’s car is already packed and sitting in the driveway, ready to leave for the airport.
Read MoreAustralian Fruit Salad
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For the two weeks over the Christmas break I return to my parents’ home in Perth. Each day we peel and dice a large basin of fruit salad. Baby nephews gurgling on the living-room tiles, cousins sprawled asleep on the sofas; someone will be singing in the shower while my brother-in-law and my father take apart a bike on the verandah. A tiny knife makes exacting work.
Read MoreReflecting on 'Rituals'
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I am afraid.
I fear the degree to which violence is proliferating across our planet and the ways in which it is manifesting in the lives of the young. And I’m afraid that we, the collective adults of the world, are not nearly as outraged by this as we should be.
Read MoreSleep Because
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In the summer, we don’t sleep because we’re tired.
We sleep because the distinction between the world and our bodies becomes hazy and hard to define.
Step and Then Step
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The rivulets are in true turmoil; and it feels such a Tasmanian word, rivulet, as though the island's landscape requires a distinct vocabulary, a pastiche of nomenclature borrowed from the world: tier, sugarloaf, tarn, ben, quoin.
Read MoreGreat Place in the World
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The coffee rock on the headland beach is a bit imposing if your Christmas was inactive. It can be an effort on a warm day. Many times you will want to stop and admire the water.
Read MoreForever New
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Heat/hope/waste
And the new season sets
The new season sets in and brings gifts
Gifts of heat, gifts of rest
Gifts of faces of familiar kind
And in the season hides
Living in the Present
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December 23. I visited my mum in Flemington to do some gardening at her place in preparation for Christmas. This is her in the backyard.
Read MoreSeed Water
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I remember hearing someone say that yor breath
is the one thread that flows thru ya whole life.
South Preston Raptures
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Today I decide to walk up Raglan Street a bit later than usual. Because I am stressed I am seeking out slightly more extreme situations to distract myself. So, despite the late hour and lack of people I walk into the Collier Street park and lie down defiantly in the middle.
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