Eucalyptus for Your Nostrils

Below are some images from our hike in the Blue Mountains, right outside of Sydney. We spent the day with Evan, an Aboriginal man who shared some of his love for his culture and for the natural beauty of Australia as we trekked through the mountains. We got to stick Eucalyptus leaves up our noses, eat grass, hold groovy spiders, feel the earth, take part in a sacred land ceremony, and paint our faces with Aboriginal symbols through the use of different colored soils. The first image below is of blood sap; incredibly useful for healing wounds.

To see more  photos from our hike, click here, or go to:

alessandra-elizabeth.posterous.com

 

Cream colored ponies

Thank you to all who have sent me postcards! My face smiles : )
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I haven't written a list recently ... so here goes one ... 
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Some favorite things lately: 
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Green grapes
Pigeon-holes 
Ronnie, my Afro-Jazz teacher
The orchid blossom I found on the sidewalk this morning
Bobby pins
Watching Michael and my host mom have finger duels before tea

Garage-sale luggage

This week I had to write a blog post for my Australian Culture class, to be posted on the ASC blog. I chose to do it on the notion of "home." I figured I might as well post it here, too: 
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 It is often our intent to provide ourselves with definable peace through objective comfort. We think we know what home is, and that we know what home is made of. We think we know how to feel, and how to act, and how to rest in the place we feel we know the best. This is why we often do things like hide behind coffee, eat at McDonald’s, and carry our own pillows with us on airplanes when travelling; trying to relocate the familiar into the unfamiliar.

I speak two languages, but can effectively communicate in neither. Growing up in Brazil, I celebrated American holidays, like Thanksgiving, with things like failed jell-o molds in 100 –degree weather and Christmas with the illusion of Santa coming down a chimney in a city that hasn’t the need for fireplaces. My dad was born in Hawaii before it was a state. My mom is Latvian. I have stuff stored in a cockroach-laden attic in Rio, a church basement in Illinois, garage-sale luggage in Nebraska, a Rubbermaid tub in Washington, and a spare room in South Carolina.

May I venture that, in fact, we do not truly know what home is until we are away from what we once thought home was?

It used to make my blood boil whenever our friends in America would refer to our furloughs in the States as being “Home Assignments.” Who were they to tell my sisters and I where our home was? Who had given them the prerogative to assume America was our home? What did they know of home, beyond their concrete establishment of space and possession? These are, of course, rash reactions from a child’s mind, but I often find myself coming back to the stubborn thoughts. We love to say that “Home is where the heart is,” but how does one come to find where their heart is unless they’ve had it taken out of them? If our heart has always been in the same place, and has been held on to with an iron grip of blind dependency, we live in delusional comfort because we think we have a notion of how dear those things closest to us are.

We don’t. We can’t. We cannot know how dear they are until they are taken away, or moved, or changed.

Oswald Chambers once said, “What is it that blinds me in the ‘my day’? Have I a strange god – not a disgusting monster, but a disposition that rules me? More than once God has brought me face to face with the strange god and I thought I should have to yield, but I did not do it. I got through the crisis by the skin of my teeth and I find myself in the possession of the strange god still; I am blind to the things which belong to my peace.”

We desperately hold on to our notions of comfort. Our ideals for calm. Some of my times feeling most “at home” were when I was furthest from family, furthest from my birthplace … furthest from anything “comfortable.” --- But closest to God, and closest to who I am. An evening spent out in crisp mountain air, escaping from being found in the same place as a roommate who was hiding from the police. The feeling of driving into an awakening sun that makes all things new as you leave behind the foul motel you took harbour in. Sitting down to collect your thoughts when you realize how close you came to losing something, or someone. These things are home. Peace presented by the very presence of God.

Being in Australia, I have come to find that each person in our group, myself included, has arrived with a “disposition that rules me,” as Chambers stated. These dispositions are not disgusting monsters. They are not even necessarily bad. But they rule over us. And now we are brought face to face with these dispositions and given a chance to yield them for the purpose of seeing things clearer than we ever have before. God is presenting an opportunity to experience “home” as we never have felt it before through the offering of peace in a way we’ve never seen it before. We get to have our notions of comfort completely redefined, and our ideals for calm controlled by Him, instead of by the environment we’ve been raised in.

I am sitting in a bed at the house of people I met for the first time only four weeks ago, with trust that they will not poison the meals I am fed or stab me in the night. God has amazing ways of constantly redefining what we see as home. I am living in this peace presented by God’s presence--- and, for me --- He alone is home.

Bum Bags to Kissing Point

What do kissing, souvenirs, mandarin, pigeons,  hookahs, and avocados have in common?

Absolutely nothing.

But … today I joined three friends in exploring some new parts of Sydney. Daniel, Rachel, Tess, and I began our day at the Paddington Markets. They are very similar to the Saara markets in Rio, for those of you who have been there.  Loads of fancy nothings that you think you need in your life, but probably would do much better living without. I debated whether one might benefit from some striped thigh-high stockings, a t-shirt with “I love London” written on it (who doesn’t?), a kangaroo-testicle key chain, dried pineapple, or maybe even a cool leather fanny pack. Actually, the word “fanny” is highly offensive here. Aussies call it a “bum bag.” They like their alliterations, and are much better than we Americans at describing the nature of an object. A slide is a slippery dip. A cup of tea is a cuppa. Cans of beer are stubbies. A bachelorette party is a hen’s night.

Though sorely tempted by all those glamorously essential knick knacks at Paddy’s, I ended up just buying a dress. A dress that apparently looks like a bandana. Maybe this makes me a cowboy. Maybe Eric’s description of my returning to the US with a tan and a hat will come true after all.

After the markets, we ventured to Chinatown, where conversation and eating of coconut danishes ensued. We sat across from one of those Hello Kitty stores where it looks like a flamingo threw up because everything is pink. While we talked about ink wells and The Patriot, a nearby pigeon massacred a dumpling he had found.

It then began raining torrents of heavenly emotional breakdown. Lots … and lots … of rain. With plans for an evening hike severed, we decided to choose a random ferry to ride. The boat to Kissing Point looked promising, so we hopped on. Daniel tried a few lines on Rachel and I about the nature of a place such as “Kissing Point.” In Rachel’s words, the fact that this group of people doesn’t mind being “ridiculous” with each other is a good thing. Kissing Point ended up being this little rocky beach. An old woman smoking a hookah pipe served as the greeting, with a lone fisherman tucked in somewhere behind her on the quiet dock. We spent a bit of time just soaking up the union of rain and sky while meandering through the layers of crushed seashells, before getting back on the return ferry. It was the kind of place that is just simple enough to make you overwhelmed with its brilliance. Especially with the rocks and shore besieged by the rain.  

Later, I was told by some Aussies not to go there after dark.

Our evening concluded with dinner at a pub downtown. I had a chicken wrap with avocado, while Rach and Tess, who seldom get meat at their borderline vegetarian homestay, indulged in lasagna. I don’t remember what Daniel got because none of this is important anyways.

Randomness from throughout the day .... 

Finish Never

I have recently been missing a lot of things that will probably never come back to me. Missing sights and smells and sounds that fade insistently as new ones cloud my mind. Beautiful clouds; but clouds nonetheless. Attempting to describe a welcoming loaf of banana bread made fresh from the excess bunches in the backyard becomes more difficult when you’ve been eating cafeteria food for three years. Recalling how a passion fruit vine smells when the indigo flowers are just about to give way to their new sleepy fruit is a challenge when genetically engineered apples and oranges are the only fruits you see on a regular basis. I was recently overcome by a desire to lay flat as a skipping stone on a tile floor in the heat of a summer afternoon; to be immune to the world in sweet stillness while thinking of nothing at all.

I guess it all breaks my heart just a little. Which sounds cheesy. But I enjoy cheese, as do church mice.

The church is an interesting phenomenon. I am becoming a firm believer in Christians, on a regular basis, experiencing how Christians of other denominations worship, though also maintaining community within their own congregation. As I visit more churches, though, it truly allows me to step back and notice the binding agents in the family of Christ. In going to a Uniting Church here in Sydney, I have been transported back to my days in Yellowstone as the people pray prayers of Confession, or stand for a Call to Worship; acts of faith from people serving a God Who is far greater than even our words, but Who is alive and present in our words. Last night I went to Hillsong Church. You may have heard of it. : ) In being in the middle of hands raised high as they go, and lights scattering color across faces concentrated on adoration, I was transported back to a similar church visited on the East Coast of the U.S., where I stood beside my dad as I saw him raise his hands for the first time in a service, unguarded, since the last time we were in Rio together; a church where the technical perfection of a service is just as much praise to our God as humble half-tuned pianos and fading microphones might be. Uninhibited worship. Worship standing in the presence of a Saviour who swallows our stupidity and allows us to just …. Be.  

How I have missed being.

Because of many excursions and observations, the significance of the Eucharist has also grown in my life, based on simple experiences of it being practiced in different manners at different places. This last Sunday morning I went to a church that is very, very small and close-knit. Communion was one of the most beautiful things I have seen in a long time, and the sheer simplicity of it nearly made me cry. Because of the small amount of people, a few at a time came up and sat in the front pew. The pastor, along with two others, proceeded to hand each person an element, along with saying a few words to each. There was no hurry. There was no production or sense of accomplishment. Just … communion. The bread was a huge loaf with the toughest of exteriors and the softest of interiors, broken in half as the pastor initially read the NT passage on the Last Supper. As it was handed out to each person, the woman giving it tore thick, unrestricted segments from the soft inside; a very powerful visual for the Body broken and given.

This contrasts with a Catholic church attended several weeks back, where the Eucharist is obviously taken only by those who are members. Some friends of mine, in their experience at it, accidentally found themselves in the line to go up and take the elements, having not been aware of the restrictions. When arriving in the front of the line, and being recognized by the priest as not belonging, they were escorted back to their seats and asked to sit down.

There was certainly a level of magnificence, though, in observing characteristics of the belief in transubstantiation at that Catholic service. The priest solemnly consumed all that was left after the congregation had partaken, being diligent in leaving no trace. As the music drew to a close, he silently began  mixing pure water into the chalice and drinking the wash, then gathering crumbs from the plate and ingesting those, as well. Then, in a long-practiced manner of ceremony and service, wiped everything clean with a persistent white cloth.

Chambers once said, “Many of us are loyal to our notions of Jesus Christ, but how many of us are loyal to Him?”

Later he said, “Begin to know Him now, and finish never.” 

Incapacitating The Kangaroo You Hope to Eat

It is said that women who play a didgeridoo will become infertile.

Well that’s great to know.

Today our Indigenous Cultures & Identities class partook in a demonstration of the wonderful variety. Ross, a Wiradjuri man of the Goana dreaming, came to show us how to play the didgeridoo, throw spears, and effectively launch a boomerang.

We quickly found that, if we were to find ourselves stranded in the treacherous outback desert with nothing but a bamboo spear and a boomerang, getting our hands on a kangaroo even just a few feet away would fail. And we would die.

Also, since I’m left-handed, I would require a special spear-launcher and a different kind of boomerang.

So I would die twice.

Oh … and … also … I’m probably now infertile. 

I have added some proof below that, yes, I throw like a girl.

Rosa's Tomatoes

Today I finally, officially, met Rosa.

Rosa is an Italian woman who lives on the corner of one of the streets I cross to go to uni in the morning. Each time Allana (my roommate) or I walk past, and she is out gardening, she greets our wandering faces with, “Ciao bella!” She seems to be the type of woman who smiles just because the sun chose to rise in the morning, and feels the crisp evening air strongly enough to require that all wear a jacket so as to not catch vicious colds.

While I walked home this afternoon, she was out on the sidewalk scrutinizing the sky. I paused to say hello. She asked if I was walking back from work. When I replied that I was, instead, returning from school, she quickly and resolutely hugged me.

Then, while holding my hands, she told me about her tomatoes, her granddaughter who will turn 21 in October, and that I should go put on a jacket. 

I am not a mosquito

This is the 7:00am view from my bedroom window.

Though the picture itself is kind of fuzzy because of the mosquito screen, hopefully you can kind of make out the Sydney skyline. I wish there was a better way to capture how striking and lovely it is each morning. Maybe if you go make yourself some chocolate chip pancakes and couple them with some red gummy bears --- then you, too, can feel the same happy feeling I get in the mornings. 

Stealing curled hair

Today our Aussie history class led us to meet at the CBD in order to see the Hyde Park Barracks. The Barracks were the main facility where male convicts in Sydney’s early years slept and worked --- essentially a compound much like a prison. However, the detention centers often found themselves to be a little bit free-er in Sydney because of the fact that in Australia, if you wanted to escape your sentence, your choices were either to flee to the Outback desert, where you can pick your poison in 25 shades of black, or you can try to swim … until you drown …. because you are on a colossal island …. far away from ….. everything.

This is Paul. He’s in a hip hop class along with the rest of us who are trying to attain swagger.

One of the most interesting rooms in the museum was one that displayed a roster of all the inmates who had come through the barracks: their age, their crime, and the length of their sentence. People could be sent from Europe for one of three time periods: 7 years, 14 years, or Life. Some interesting crimes pictured below: Stealing handkerchiefs, and stealing curled hair. : )

Also pictured below is the room of hammocks in which the convicts slept. Further down you’ll find another list, of sorts. This list is the specific record from one man’s time at the Hyde Park Barracks, detailing his punishments for misbehavior at the prison; things such as 100 lashes for Obscene Language and 5 days in Solitary Confinement for being “Drunk, etc.” (I think we are left to fill in our own interpretation of what the “etc.” might mean ….)  

Let me know if you have any specific questions about Australia’s history – it has been very fascinating to learn about.