group theory

we are on beautiful Maui
a sacred island where time slows down and turtles wander up the beach
where the days seem to drift gently but the week
has rushed by





















we have written poetry
made drawings, stitched, dyed
made things new to us that appear to have taken up some ancient island essence
gathered shells and made string



there are thirteen of us + me
which makes fourteen (+ our fearless leader, Sharon)
so fifteen in total

nine are recidivists, four are new to me
there are three sets of friends (in two of them, one of each has met me before)
and a mother and daughter (there were nearly two family groups, but my Ma didn't make it)
there are five Australians, ten Americans
two dual nationals (one American Australian, one Latvian Australian), and two Australians who emigrated to America
among the returners, three came to New Mexico , one to Whidbey Island
one to Inverness, one to Santa Barbara, one to Odessa and two to a class in Australia

my mathematical genius (and conscientious objector) grandfather would have had great joy in devising a Venn diagram.

I began to try and draw one, but it turned into a paeonie.

the marvellous thing is that this group melded remarkably quickly into sisterhood.
the talk is easy, the laughter flows close to the surface :: I feel deeply blessed that the work I do brings me together with people whom I hope I see again

I am also hoping to return to Maui, but who knows where or how the winds will blow, the way our precious whirled is going...

the need to know

unless you know what it is, it's legal and it isn't going to make you sick.

during a class last week at the Beautiful Silks Botanical Studio somebody asked the question

"what does oleander do?"

which reminded me that when i pootled across the ranges to Rockford in the Barossa Valley earlier in the month to pick up bottles of assorted nectars (with which to enhance the lunches at Mansfield) i drove past a group of young gentlemen assiduously stripping flowers from a huge Oleander (Nerium oleander). it occurred to me about a 100 metres later that they had bare hands. 

so i did the grandmotherly thing, made a u-turn and went back. 

poor things, they thought i'd come to give them a talking-to for stealing flowers. not so. but i DID give them a talking-to about health and safety.

they had no idea of the name of the plant, or that it was poisonous.

so i told them. 

i also suggested they would want to wash their hands before consuming their next meal (or rubbing their eyes)

their plan was to scatter the flowers at a wedding...but if i were the bride i wouldn't want bushels of  toxic plant matter tossed at me.

i'd also be concerned about small children picking up the flowers and putting them in their mouths. as small children so often do.

i tell my students time and time again "identify the plant, at very least by genus, before gathering". because it's just common sense.

somebody told me in the USA years ago how she and a friend had been hospitalized with anaphylaxis after lifting the lid on a pot full of boiling poison ivy. the genus name Toxicodendron tells me to stay well away from that one. i was so stunned by the story that

i completely forgot to ask "and what colour did it dye?"

so what DOES oleander do? i have no idea. and i don't plan to put it in a dyepot because even the smoke from burning oleander is poisonous.

while i'm on the subject

there have been a spate of images of "ecoprints" from castor oil plant leaves floating about the internet. call me old Mrs Unadventurous if you like, but i would be a bit nervous about bundling leaves from the plant whose derivative was used to kill Georgi Markov. admittedly using it in a dye bundle may not get the stuff into your bloodstream (which is where it is most effective) but there's very little research about the effects of inhaling steam from boiling such bundles.

once cloth is rinsed and dried it won't be a longterm poisoning device (unless you were to soak it in a poison before offering it for use, not a pleasant thought).

so given about 80% of ornamentals in suburban gardens are poisonous in one way or another, i recommend caution.

simple errors like confusing colchicums for crocus and hemlock for angelica have led to tears before bedtime in the past.

i'm not scare-mongering, i just think it's important to know what you're dealing with.

one of the reasons that green became the colour of bad luck in the theatre was that actors who regularly wore green costumes became sick and eventually died...if the colour green in the cloth was dependent on the presence of orpiment (arsenic trisulphide)

they may not have known why, just that you became ill if you wore green.

but that's another story.

ps thank you everybody who offered a word (or two) in response to the previous post...i'll be working with those words and shall hope to find them some friends soon

poor fellow my country

i'm using the title of Xavier Herbert's significant contribution for good reason. 

"This book is the decisive story of how in those vital years, Australia threw away her chance of becoming a true commonwealth. The dream of Australia Felix, The Happy South Land.The book will long remain in the memory and is undoubtedly Herbert's supreme contribution to Australian literature."

Australia has now been handed to a party of  environmental destructivists.

the Liberal Party, led by someone whose avowed mission it is to cut down the last of the tall trees we have left, is going to be in charge of our sinking ship.

Australia is in deep environmental trouble. each bushfire that burns thousands of acres of forest contributes to reductions in rainfall. reduced leaves, reduced transpiration, reduced clouds, reduced rainfall

and when rainfall reduces, then regeneration does too. or we get massive crops of woody weeds instead of trees. so with the countryside already under threat [and remember we are the driest continent]

and with all the raving about reducing carbon emissions - wouldn't it make sense to leave the last tall trees [which are basically carbon + water + a few other things] standing to get on with the business of converting carbon dioxide to oxygen

rather than being pulped to provide newsprint and toilet paper. 

poor fellow, my country.