Friendship

For some reason Christmastime makes me stop, pause and reflect with gratitude the people who help to make my Life so fortunate, so diverse, so unpredictable, spontaneous, creative and wonderful. I am so lucky to have such inspirational, beautiful and varied friendships. The other night on the tele they showed different species of animals that have formed inexplicably close bonds that even over-ride instinct - the crow and the kitten in the US; the lioness and the baby gazelle, the elephant and the dog - maybe we can all learn from them about overcoming judgements and prejudices?

I was so inspired to read recently that a woman recently decided not to celebrate her birthday in the usual way - instead she spent the day in gratitude and rang or wrote or spoke directly to everyone that she believed had made a difference to, or touched her life in some special way..

I love this poem by Ron Carnell:

Treasures

It's so hard to find the perfect breeze,
One blowing none too hard nor soft,
Carrying a scent of wild flowers,
And moving clouds about aloft.

It's so hard to find the perfect sky,
One blue and deep and bright,
Carrying a sense of openness
With geese and wrens in flight.

It's so hard to find the perfect night,
One warm, quiet and unflawed,
Carrying a mood of solitude,
And a closeness to our God.

Yet no perfection's so hard to find
As that which you extend
And none I'll ever treasure more,
Than to simply be your friend.

A Grain of Sand

To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour.

This beautiful poem by William Blake epitomises the two days my partner, artist Banx, and my best friend and I just experienced at sensational Kingscliff, just over the Queensland/NSW border on the NSW coast. How ironic, that this weekend is our ‘Labour Day’ long weekend, and yet we all completely chilled, and relaxed, and I even purchased a pair of shoes from the I Love Billy range called Laziness!

The celebration of Labour Day has its origins in the 8 hour day movement, which advocated eight hours for work, eight hours for recreation, and eight hours for rest (thank you Wikipedia!) – and this weekend we figured we’d better ‘celebrate’ the rest and recreation part! Once again ‘merci’ and gratitude come to mind – only the weekend before we had attended the very moving ANZAC Day dawn service at the Eternal Flame memorial in Brisbane; saying the biggest thank you’s of our lives to those who helped make Australia a free and wonderful county to live in - to cherish every day of our lives. This weekend it’s thank you to our hard-working forefathers, who fought so valiantly for our worker’s rights, all those workplace "given's" we now take for granted that make our lives more tolerable and balanced.. but also, this weekend it is ‘merci’ for wonderful friends, grains of sand that stick between my toes as I walk along Kingscliff Beach, funny dogs on the beach chasing shadows, the beautiful sunset beach wedding I witnessed early evening under a hot pink sky (who could ask for a better start to married life!), and eggs sunny side up this morning at Salt Village as the crashing crescendo of the ocean echoed in the background… ah! Sheer bliss…eternity in an hour..
PS The stunning black and white surfer image is another by my talented Brissie photographer brother Peter Hardie, check out his website for more great surfing images Down Under!
http://www.pbase.com/pshardie/sun_n_surf
The other two we photographed at Fingal Head not far from Kingscliff, well worth a visit!