The Rocky Giant hunches with his face towards the sea
And his heart is filled with aching from an ancient tragedy
That happened in the dreamtime when the land was fresh and young
And his burning anger separated Tibro from his son.

But he holds a darker sorrow that he longs to shout out loud -
Someone else’s precious son is waiting to be found.
And Tibrogargan comforts him: “Peace. You’re not alone -
My family of mountains will help to bring you home”.

The pregnant Mother Beerwah has been waiting to give birth
But it takes an age for mountain babes to rise up from the earth.
And as she waits she worries over all her Glasshouse brood
And hopes that they’ll grow safe and strong (as all young mountains should)

She watches while they frolic all about her feet each day
And she notices another child has joined with them in play.
Another mother’s son is lost: “For how long have you roamed?
Stay here with us until it’s time for you to go back home”

The Kabi tell the story of Glasshouse woes and fears
Why all the creeks flow constantly with bitter mountain tears:
An ancient storm; An argument; A son who went astray -
An absent child; An aching void that never goes away.

The mountain spirits kept their word, their sacred task is done
With ancient love and tenderness for someone else’s son.
And so today the Glasshouse creeks are flowing with fresh tears
For Daniel’s coming home at last: he’s waited eight long years.

Neil Ennis, August 2011

In memory of Daniel Morcombe, and in gratitude for the comfort we can draw from the dreamtime legends of the Kabi / Gubbi Gubbi aboriginal people.

Here’s a poem I wrote recently as part of a competition on the theme “Making pictures”.

For those of you not in the know, a Triptych is a set of three pictures, each related to a similar subject (e.g. Frederick McCubbin’s “The Pioneer”). So in this poem, I tried to create a set of three pictures, all with similar elements – fire / heat, smoke / smells, wondrous sounds, etc.

Enjoy!

It seems like wherever I ride my mountain bike these days, this wonderful rock art seems to be springing up.

One day I’ll ride by and see a simple pile of four or five stones. In a few days, there’ll be a few more – as though it’s a sapling or a strange rocky mushroom. After a week or two it starts to get more complex, until eventually you get something fascinating like this which looks like the fairies have been up to mischief in the forest.

This phenomenon is wonderful on so many levels:

Unlike the Mona Lisa, this sort of art is vulnerable. If someone was malicious enough they could knock all the rocks down with impunity. But they don’t. I think this is because most people who go out in the forest on foot or on a bike are happy people. The happiest people on earth are those who get regular exercise doing something they enjoy. I doubt you’d get many spiteful souls walking in the forest. I doubt this sort of creation would last a day in a big city.

Even though it’s vulnerable, it’s beautiful. Not in a “Mona Lisa” way – but on a simpler level. Someone just grabbed a few stones lying around and stacked them. It probably took less than a minute. But the end result quietly says “I was here”. When someone adds to it, the stones say “I was here too”. After a few weeks, the mystical conglomerate seems to be chattering away saying “Hey – we were here too! Me too! And me! Woo – hoo isn’t this fun!”.

And eventually you have something created by dozens of people that has taken on an happy energy of its own.

As an experiment, why don’t you take a walk in a forest somewhere, stack up a few stones, and see what they grow into?

Why do I ride a mountain bike?

I know this sounds crazy, but deciding where to ride is a spiritual experience for me.

It forces me to think about where I’d really like to go, which means I have to listen to my “inner voice”. I often feel like I’m being “drawn” towards a particular place, and I just go there. Perhaps the spiritual part of all of this is feeling a connection to the land, and responding to that connection.

The end result is I fall in love with most of the places I visit, and come home really happy.

Some of the beautiful open eucalyptus forest that surrounds Dunlop Lane in Kurwongbah. As I’ve written before it’s an old road – blazed over 170 years ago, but unlike most old roads, it has retained its magic.

Looking over one of the gates on Dunlop Lane into the “Slickers” horse riding ranch. Lilly loves visiting here. So do I (but for different reasons!).

Lake Kurwongbah as seen from one of the quiet tracks that lead off Scout Road in Kurwongbah. It’s amazing what you see when you follow a dirt track to see where it goes

We have family and friends who suffer from Parkinson’s Disease, so Liz had a great idea and suggested our family take part in the “Parkinson’s Qld Unity Walk” to raise money for research into the disease. This involved seeking sponsorship from kind hearted donors, and walking 4km along the foreshore at Wynnum on a glorious Sunday morning.

Of course, since yours truly sometimes (often?) marches to the beat of a different drummer, I thought I’d make it a bit more interesting by first riding from Lawnton to Wynnum, then doing the walk, then riding home, which added another 97km to the journey but made it a bit more of a challenge. So Liz kindly agreed to drive the kids to Wynnum and meet me there.

So we set off together along the waterfront with several hundred other like minded people, including a few walkers who were suffering from Parkinson’s disease themselves. On the way, we passed a fascinating line-up of colorful Volkswagen Beetles by the side of the road. All of them were immaculate with perfect paint jobs, sparkling chrome and proud owners not far away.

And it seemed obvious to me – if you want to have fun, spend your time with passionate people.

Whether they’re passionate about cars, or finding a cure for a disease, or just crazy / passionate about riding a bike somewhere, if you spend your time with people who have a flame burning in their heart for something, you can’t go wrong, and life is much more worthwhile.

All up, I did about 103km for the day. It should have been a little less, but I got lost (twice) trying to find bicycle tracks between Eagle Farm and Clayfield – as you can see from the map….

Sentinel

Ancient One with your arms held high,
Guarding the bones in this field of tears,
If I bend my ear to your gentle sigh
Will you sing me your song from long-gone years?

……

The dark-skinned keepers of the river of pines
Chant dream-time clap-stick songs and vows
And leave their beloved dead behind
To sleep in my timeless caring boughs.
I see the tears on your dusty face.
Your treasure is safe in my wooden embrace.

The sunburned settler far from home,
Far from the gentler softer lands,
Bows in prayer at the open grave
In the blessed shade of my verdant hands.
Lie peacefully now at my wooden feet.
I’ll shelter your parched bones from the heat.

The soldier’s widow speechless stands,
Farewells the ANZAC she loved the most.
The wind sighs through my leafy hands
As the bugler plays a sad “Last Post”.
Your brave lover’s watch has come to an end.
He can rest. I’ll guard him well, my friend.

……

Sentinel with your arms held high,
Will you watch my bones when I am gone?
Will you shade my children from the scorching sky,
You long-lived ageless timeless one?

The children of earth are a short lived race
Who rush to and fro in haste and greed.
I have not lived such a quickened pace
As I have grown to this height from such a small seed.
But I watch you all and I taste your tears,
And I’ll care for your bones through all my years.

I saw this tree in a cemetery a while ago, and later learned that some local Aborigines believe it was once used as a “burial tree”.  The tree is certainly old enough to predate European settlement and there’s a beautiful resonance in the thought that a tree that may have been a vital part of the burials of the first Australians should still be “keeping an eye” on a modern cemetery.

Some things like trees are almost timeless.

Some things like grief at the loss of a loved on are timeless!

Liz and I took the kids up to Mt Nebo this afternoon for walk through the rainforest and a bit of afternoon tea.

There’s something spiritually regenerating about walking through a forest. I feel like I’m “soaking up” the peace as one of the trees would soak up the rain. They seem to live at a different rate from us. Our lives come and go many times over while they’re still growing, reaching up to the sky and sighing in the breeze.

A majestic example of the strangler fig growing at Mt Nebo along the Boombana boardwalk.

This specimen is approximately 400 years old.

These trees begin life as vines, taking root in the crevices of other trees. They grow and slowly envelope the host tree, “strangling” it, and growing up to 50 metres in height.

The view above as we walked through the Boombana rainforest walk at Mt Nebo this afternoon.

"Tempus Fugit" by Nafra Cendrers

Imagine you have one minute to live, and after that nothing.

What thoughts would occupy your mind during that minute?

What memories would you recall?

As you watched the second hand move inevitably towards the end of the minute, what precious images would your mind hold on to?

I tried this mental exercise a few days ago whilst on a flight, and experienced one of the most memorable minutes of my life. As the clock “struck twelve” I had tears in my eyes – not from sadness at it coming to an end, but from gratitude at the wonderful people that are in my life, and the most amazing life that I have the privilege of living. For me it highlighted those things that are really important… and those things that don’t really matter.

Perhaps we regularly need a “Memorable Minute” to keep our lives in focus.

To my dear son Jonathan, who completes his final year of school this month.

Twenty-nine years ago this month I finished year twelve at Oxley State High School.

The photos above are like book-ends for that year. The one on the left is at senior camp, end of year eleven, just before we embarked on our final year. The photo on the right is after the last day of school when one of our mates, William, was very sad to be leaving town to fly to Adelaide, so we all went to the airport to say goodbye.

The last few weeks of that year are a blur – exams, parties, excitement, thinking about uni, and planning to always keep in touch with my school mates. Collectively we thought we were the best bunch that had ever come through Oxley State High, and we were going to make sure we didn’t forget each other.

I had a calendar on the wall where I used to cross off the days until it was over. To my surprise, the last day came much quicker than I anticipated, and now, almost thirty years later I realize that the time has flown and now my own kids are doing what I did.

If my Dad had given me advice then, I wouldn’t have listened to it. So I’m not going to offer you any advice now. But I do hope you remember how brutally fast our life can fly by. We get caught up in so many things, and before we know it, the magical times of our late teens and early twenties are gone. And I also hope you remember good friends.

There are two good friends from 1978 that mean a lot to me. Greg, who is with me in both these photos. is still my friend. He still has the love for life and the easy laid-back attitude that he did in his late teens. He’s a great guy to spend time with.

And then there’s my best friend from 1978, who I’m married to now. In year twelve I couldn’t beleive how lucky I was to be with Liz. And today, I still can’t beleive how lucky I am.

Enjoy this special time, Jonathan.

I hope the time passes slowly enough for you to savour it.

I took Steve and Harrison on a bike ride this morning, along the North Pine River, up to Lake Samsonvale, and then back along the North Pine Rover.

It was a hoot! A little bit slower than normal, because Harrison is only 9 and his bike is a bit worse for wear. But it was fun all the same.

And I got to try out a new program for my Nokia N95 mobile phone. Nokia Sports Tracker Uses the inbuilt GPS on the phone to record speed and height info. While you’re cycling, your N95 acts like a speedo, and odometer, showing you all the vital stats. But when you get home, you click the button, and upload the data to sports tracker.

The really cool thing is that if you take any photos with the phone on your journey, it will upload and geotag them.

So the map on the left here is where we went. You can drag and zoom it if you want more detail.

But the fun part is that the data is also uploaded to the Sportstracker community. Here’s a link to the data for our ride today. If you tick the “altitude” box, you can see every hill, and how fast we were going.

The thing I like most about this technology is that it adds to the fun of getting out and exercising. At times I’ve found it hard to overcome my inertia to regularly exercise. In regards to exercise, if it makes me think “Oh yeah! I want to do that again!” then I think it’s a great thing.

Oh – and you can use Sports Tracker for running, walking, skiing, rowing – whatever floats your boat.

P.S. I’ve ordered a mounting bracket to attach my phone to my handlebars. Till that arrives, I’m using some of Lilly’s hair ties