Day Break in the Bush

Monthly Newsletter | Australia, April 2024

“Everyone Is God speaking. Why not be polite and Listen to Him?”

— Hafez

Magpies, Ainsley Roberts, A. M. P. Society

The monthly newsletters are an amalgamation of musings and two poems (one by another poet and one by me, as per a practice introduced to my master’s cohort by poet Alice Oswald).

Please scroll down for upcoming online courses and event announcements.

Listen via audio:

Hello my friends,

As I write this monthly newsletter to you, I keep getting distracted by the birds. They have completely hijacked what I was initially planning to write about. I find that often happens with writing! We think we hold the reigns, but we really don’t.

Mornings in the Bush are bird time. There’s no hourly cathedral bells like I’m used to back in Europe. No real need for clocks. The birds tell me everything I need to know.

It’s midmorning, and the king parrot couple of blazing reds and greens are feasting on the bursting guava tree as I write. Either they’re late risers or this is a second breakfast. This tree sweetened with sticky guavas has become their local spot. And each day they let me get a little bit closer. I’ve been here for so many days now that they finally perch beside me unconcerned.

But they’re not the first to initiate a fresh day.

It’s the kookaburras who break the silence of the dreaming bush at dawn with their laughter. Imagine that, beginning each day with laughter. Like old men gathering at the morning cafe, they cluster together on branches and electricity lines and break the peace with their rollicking laughs…

Some aboriginal myths here say their cackles wake the sky-people; they who are in charge of lighting the sun each day. Imitating the kookaburra’s call is strictly prohibited for fear of offending these raucous old geezers and risking they stop singing the sky people awake.

Then the magpies join in as the sun rises, their melliferous song being perhaps the most beautiful of all. But also cheeky, as one distracts my dog from his breakfast, the other hops in and steals his pallets. The morning skirmish between hound and bird has become a daily ritual.

And now I’m watching blue-faced honey-eaters sipping nectar from the banana blossoms. Their soft, melodic song was believed to wake aboriginal peoples to the duties of the day.

On rare occasions, the shimmering blue flash of a kingfisher strikes through the thick landscape like a shooting star and reminds me of Devon; her kingfishers often ruffling the skirts of the River Dart where so many of my precious memories are stored.

Bush birds feature in many creation stories here, and being tucked away in this remoteness with them, I can see why.

And so along with the usual poems, today I’d like to share an excerpt from The Dreamtime Book, an extraordinary collection of hundreds of Australian aboriginal myths compiled in the 60s by the Australian anthropologist Charles P. Mountford.

This one is called The First Sunrise.

The Australian aborigines are deeply interested in the universe about them, the stars, the sky, and in particular, the earth itself. Out of this timeless interest has grown a rich heritage of myths and beliefs: the earth floats in the middle of a boundless ocean; it is a disc of limited size, moving in the sky just below the stars. And over the horizon is the land of the dead; a land with streams of running water, shady trees, ample food, and perpetual fine weather.

One ancient story describes how the sky was so close to the earth that it not only shut out all light, but forced everyone to crawl around in the darkness, collecting, with their bare hands whatever they could find to eat.

But the magpies, one of the more intelligent birds, decided that if they all worked together, they could raise the sky to make more room in which to move about. Slowly, with long sticks, the birds lifted the sky, resting it first on low, then on higher boulders, until everyone could stand upright.

As the magpies were struggling to lift the sky even higher above their camp, it suddenly split open, revealing the beauty of their first sunrise. Overjoyed with the light and warmth, the magpies burst into their melodious call and, as they sang, they saw the blanket of darkness break into fragments and drift away as clouds.

From those remote times until now, the magpies have always greeted the sunrise with their warbling song of incomparable beauty.

I have been finding real solace in the Bush. In the wilderness and the isolation. I spend so much time alone with it that the human need for relatedness can’t not speak to it in what Rumi would call a thousand silent ways.

Or perhaps a more accurate description would be listening. In the hours I spend alone here, writing, and familiarising myself with this one, small piece of land, I find I am constantly listening. The type of listening that requires being alone with the alone, as Henry Corbin would put it.

‘I don’t really want to be witnessed talking to the catbirds,’ writes Mary Oliver in her poem describing how she goes into the woods,

‘or hugging the old black oak tree.
I have my ways of praying,
as you no doubt have yours.’

The Parrot and the Magpie

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Poetry Offering

So for this month’s poetry offering, I think Mary Oliver’s voice is one of the most accurate in this attempt to put into words the chapel of the wild within which some of us find our gods.

WHEN I AM AMONG THE TREES

When I am among the trees,
especially the willows and the honey locust,
equally the beech, the oaks and the pines,
they give off such hints of gladness.
I would almost say that they save me, and daily.
I am so distant from the hope of myself,
in which I have goodness, and discernment,
and never hurry through the world
but walk slowly, and bow often.
Around me the trees stir in their leaves
and call out, “Stay awhile.”
The light flows from their branches.
And they call again, “It’s simple,” they say,
“and you too have come
into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled
with light, and to shine.”

This next one is one of mine that attempts to put my own sense of rapture into words.

THE BUSH BIRDS

The bush birds summon newly-birthed things.
In the mornings I hear something of perhaps what Yeats meant when he said
I'm looking for the face I had before the world was made.

I don't think they do it on purpose - the birds, that is -
this drawing out from the place where things begin.
In fact I don't think they care much
for us humans at all - why should they?

And when the coffee brews midmorning, 
and the bush heat stifles even their song, 
I wonder if they retreat back 
somewhere beyond the membrane of the sky,
taking their place as the winged ones priests call angels.

When we are forlorn and torn apart
is it they who hear us cry out?

Who visit new mothers in stables
and in our departures, 
build nests in our hearts?

Is it perhaps they who move the stars
with their Songlines
and forge the maps of the weary?

Who hear the musica universalis
and translate that Song of the Spheres 
into a sound we can hear?

Is it not they who are the muses of the poets 
and who announce oncoming storms?

Who split the night at its darkest
and ensure a new dawn?

Did they not delight Beethoven before he went deaf
and turn his despair into the 6th Symphony
while he could still hear their song?

When I am alone, and the weight of things falls away,
I know few things to be as freeing 
as these winged ones and their song. 

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Announcements

Please note, all these events can be attended live or via recording.

This Tuesday, April 9th | Women’s New Moon Rite | 8-9:30pm UK

April 14th | I was invited to hold the opening ceremony for a lovely free online educational event for women: Exploring the Unseen

April 24th | Next online lecture series: When Women Were the Shamans | 7:30-9:30pm UK

April 28th | Dismemberment Ceremony | only via recording this month as it clashes with another course I’m teaching