Saturday Search - Lee Harris Energy

I've been a Lee Harris fan for a while now. His monthly energy updates were what hooked me first but now I'll listen to him anytime :)

Today he put out a song with a video clip that is incredibly beautiful, sensual and moving. I wanted to share it here; https://www.leeharrisenergy.com/all-who-walk

If you're moved by this, check out some of Lee Harris's other work. 

His partner, Steven Washington, does Qigong if you're looking for movement, energy shifting, and exercise. I've been enjoying that movement as well.

My search of all things spiritual began with a story, Past Lives, I wrote way back in 2009. I don't know where the story came from, but it poured out of me in random scenes that grew into a story. I took it to a writing course, and was told by a story editor that my premise was impossible. I'd written about past lives, where the gender shifted depending on which past life was written about. I decided I needed to learn about past lives, since I'd obviously ballsed up the whole concept.

I followed a rabbit hole into a realm that has changed my life. It began with a writing course on astrology and past life connections (when you look for something, sometimes it falls into your lap!). I did a few courses with Mary O'Gara and she taught me so much about writing and the alternate spiritual practices. 

I've kept following the flow. One course led to another. One person to another. All are connected to writing - which is the weirdest part! 

This journey has had fundamental changes to my life, health, focus and happiness. It's been the weirdest, longest, but most fulfilling rabbit hole I've ever fallen into!

Have you followed rabbit holes? Do you find things out-of-the-blue that are perfectly what you need?

Saturday Search - Tarot

L to R: a traditional Tarot card, The Angel deck, Mary-El deck

About 2 years ago, a friend gave me a deck of Angel cards while I housesat for her. I used them while I had days alone communing with myself and nature. I didn't understand them, but there was a sort of peacefulness in dealing cards, reading the little book, and working out if they meant something. I became somewhat addicted to this peaceful practice.

In the past Tarot had been a voodoo 'thing' that I'd steered well clear of. It was associated with fortune telling and all 'bad' things.

These cards were different to anything I'd seen before (e.g. the 'traditional' Rider-Waite deck on the left in the photo above) or been told. They were channelling images of Angels and unicorns and faery folk (pictured centre in image) and there was no fortune telling at all. Instead they were delving into me, poking at my thoughts about me, the world, life.

So began a practice that I'm still addicted to!

Top row: Mary-El Tarot cards. Bottom: Tarot of the Crone

I then found a writer with a Tarot business (Weaver Tarot) and gave my friend a reading for her birthday. She raved and raved about the reading. As I thought I should have one, I was gifted one in a website promo. Aside from spending a lot of time talking about writing, Cat did a reading for me and used these Tarot cards that yelled at me from across the country (on the right in the top image). The symbolism in the cards were nothing like the Tarot cards I'd seen in the past, nothing like the Angel cards, and were something I could understand just by looking at them. On a gut-level, they spoke to me.

The Tarot of Femmes Erotiques - celebrating women

So I bought a deck of my own. The Mary-El Tarot deck.

And this weird thing has become even more addictive. I have another deck now that talks to me too (Tarot of the Crone), and not only that, it works with the first deck (middle picture).

Then I found a deck celebrating women, and I bought that too (last picture).

And I know I sound like a loopy person, and I know it's all weird and insane, but each morning I dig a little deeper in understanding myself as I flip a daily card from each deck and ponder how these cards relate to me, my life, my writing journey.

Have you ever used Tarot cards? Do you have a favourite deck, or symbol, or card?

Saturday Search - Oracle cards

I had never heard of Oracle cards until last year. There seems to be a heap of different types but I think the basic idea is that it's a simple deck of cards which uses symbolism and/or a word to stimulate thought. These can be used for whatever purpose you require - answering a question, helping to work out yourself or your thoughts, for clairvoyance, etc.

They seem to be a quick way to encourage thoughts and/or discussion.

I own three packs, each are very different. One is a Celtic Tree pack and it has some depth to it, linking in Runes, tree meanings, seasonal links, and personal meanings. It's a bit too deep for my daily use because I found I wanted something basic so I could think for myself after a prompt.

So, I was then pointed towards two decks and I couldn't decide between them. I followed both creators of FB and I still couldn't decide. Then one had a sale, so my decision was made, but then the other one kept attracting my attention and when she had a sale I had no resistance! 

One I use for my daily thoughts and the other for my dreams :) 

The Soul Trees cards are basic and beautiful. They have a coloured tree and a single word. I adore them.

The Messenger Oracle has artwork filled with symbols, rich with colour, and usually a phrase. They give my subconscious homework while I sleep, sometimes I dream with the dragons or mystical characters from the cards (I don't write fantasy but I do love it!)

This past month I've been participating in a challenge on Instagram where I create my own oracle deck using prompts set by Over the Moon
Academy. A friend encouraged me, then another participant told me I needed to share my cards regardless of my skill. It's been the strangest experience. I draw terribly, like a child, and yet it's been a positive experience, even with putting my 'art' out in public. 

Looking at a word and then expressing it as a simple image has loosened up my creativity - kind of like word association game. Then trying to express that in a drawing has been a challenge. I don't see pictures in my head. So if I think of a frog, I know things about frogs and I know the basic shape, but I can't envisage a frog in my mind's eye, I can't get small details, and so I draw some rudimentary thing to skim over details. It's not much better if I look at a picture and try to draw it because I really need to trace to get it right, I have no clue how to work with perspective! I know mine looks like shit but I've no clue how to un-shit it, if that makes sense.

But it's been quite a rewarding experience and I've seen some incredible artwork and my mind's been opened by looking at other people's interpretation of a simple word. Sometimes people's interpretation of my art has me rather shocked in a good way.

Have you ever used Oracle cards? If so, do you have a favourite deck?

Saturday Search - Astrology

Astrology was one of the first 'alternate' things I was familiar with, I think. I've always known my star sign even if I was in trouble for reading about it! I think the widespread awareness of astrology comes because astrology has always been in mainstream newspapers.

When I was a kid, Dad brought the newspaper home after work. If the stars were for that day, it was mostly over by the time I saw them, so there was no future prediction, which made them innocuous reads - I wasn't having my future foretold.

As I got older, I read more about my sign mostly because I exhibit so many of the traits of my sign. It gave me a sense of being understood. It explained away some of my oddness (compared with others - I was the only one in my immediate family of this sign).

As I got older and mixed with more people and found more people interested in astrology, the signs themselves were only the start of astrology. There were rising signs, full natal charts. It was like a science trying to understand what it all meant, what's more, it was so aligned with astronomy it shocked me.

I love the stars. I love looking up at the constellations, watching for shooting stars, looking at their movement across the sky. I have a tiny understanding of astrology, but there's this whole incredible depth to it that I haven't gone into - and since I think it might take forever to learn it, I might leave that to the experts :)

I do like reading a daily interpretation of what the stars and planets are doing and what that might mean for the energy we feel - that's kind of cool!

I read about astronomy and check out the ISS, and solar flares, comets, moons, galaxies, etc.

The universe is the most incredible space. No wonder we use it to try to understand our place.

How are you with astrology?

Saturday Search - Runes

I fell into Runes in my 20s and I’m not entirely sure how. I hadn’t wanted to look at Tarot or anything clairvoyant, but deep down I knew Runes would be safe - I’ve no idea how I knew that. Or maybe it just came because I had heard ‘bad’ things about other devices and I’d heard nothing of Runes. I don’t know, and ultimately it doesn’t matter. But down that rabbit hole I went!

A few books, some searching, lots of reading, and I needed a set of Runes. But none felt right. So I went and made my own. I lived in a flat without a garden as such, but I’d made a little one along my part of the back fence, and through the fence grew a privet. Armed with a little saw, I chopped off the branches that poked into my yard, then cut up the branch into rounds for my Runes.

My raw, crudely made Runes

I let these dry in the sunshine for a bit. And then I wrote my Runic letters on my tree branch. I always intended to burn the marks on but I never have. I use the same Runes today, without changing a mark! And yes, I know Privet's not a plant I should have used, and I know it's better if they're stone - but these are mine, and that's the most important thing to me.

Although the Runic alphabet bears little resemblance to our alphabet, I felt I had a connection to these letters and I learned what they meant from a book, or ten! In the beginning, I had no understanding of intuition being linked with what I was doing. I thought it was something I had to learn, study, and then pass my daily test as I read my spread. 

I used the Runes mostly when I couldn’t decide something or couldn’t work something out. I’d sit quietly and think of my problem, then pull three (usually) Runes and work on what they meant and how that may relate to the issue I faced.

I refused to use them to ‘tell’ the future. I wouldn’t use them to read for others - in fact, I doubt anyone knew I read them. 

I made a raw silk bag with a leather drawstring in which to keep them. I kept them as natural and basic as I could. I kept the readings focussed on understanding myself and my issues.

You could say they were a tool in helping me decide my life. As a kid I’d often flipped a coin to know what I wanted (and if it fell the wrong way and I had to do best of 3 or best of 5, then I knew what I truly wanted!), and I guess this was the next progression. Something that dug a bit deeper into my psyche.

Have you ever used Runes? How do you use them?

Here's a website with more information if you're curious - https://norse-mythology.org/runes/the-origins-of-the-runes/ 

Saturday Search - gemstones

Samples from my grandparents

I've been a collector of rocks, shells, soil, bugs and odd stuff for as long as I can remember. I suppose it began with shell collecting, which Mum did whenever we went to the beach, and developed. I distinctly remember her parents bringing me rock samples back from Mt Isa when they'd holidayed up there, and I would have been under 10 years old when that happened. These are probably my oldest rock samples in my collection.

Thundereggs

Gypsum (maybe)

I've always collected interesting rocks. But a few years ago, I found a stunning piece of gypsum (I think) in a dry creek bed in central Qld. I think it's one of my favourite pieces. I've bought bits too. When I was in 5th Form, 17 years old, we went up to Yeppoon on holidays and I bought a "thunder egg". I've also bought a piece of amethyst.

Moss Agate, small bowl

I've always wanted to own rocks as jewellery. In my teens, there was a crazy for those coral necklaces (pink mostly) but I wanted a brown one made of rocks. They didn't exist, but Mum found one some years later and bought it for me. Then I've bought small opals and black pearls when travelling around Australia.

Agate, large bowl

Over the years, I've also collected small gemstones as I've seen them and 'felt' that I needed them. And then I've found some rock bowls, and some wooden bowls, and I've a few of those too.

Black pearls

Lately there's been more gemstone jewellery available (I don't know if I've just found it, or the internet has opened up this interest market). I seem to be collecting more and more gemstones.

Amethyst

And now there's this whole industry of using gemstones to 'help' with life. It's really quite phenomenal. When I look at my collection, I'm rather attracted to the colours black, white and light blue.

Black: generally black stones are protection stones. They protect you from negative energies. They also indicate death, earth, stability. Black conceals.

White: purity and cleanliness. Kindness. Openness, truth, wholeness, completion. White reveals.

And technically, black and white aren't true colours but reflection/adsorption of all colours.

Blue: sky, ocean, space. It's a cooling and calming colour. It depicts space. It's about solitude, peace.

My collection case

Now, I own more colours and I like picking them up to help me think. Sometimes I'll pick up a particular stone and carry/wear it for the day to help me with whatever I need to do. I don't really know what the gemstones mean, if I have to know I need to look it up. But I don't need to know what someone tells me they mean, I just let my intuition pick what I need...it's been working for me for many years now, so no point changing a good thing!

Some stones, rocks, sticks, nests and soil

Are you into rocks or stones?

Saturday Search - Colour

There have been heaps of studies done about colours - the best ones to make dentists, doctors and hospitals calming. To ensure you move fast in travelways. That you eat well in restaurants. There've been studies done in wildlife too about why colours attract/detract. It's always been something I've read about. Not something I've brought to my life.

I do muted pallettes. Yellow seems to be a recurring theme in these photos I've just grabbed that I've used on here before. But I do navy, black, yellow, grey, pastels. The colours that allow you to hide in plain sight.

There are a thousand reasons why, and I won;t go into those here or you might be reading for ages! But I'm not comfortable standing out - although yellow is sort of a stand out colour, isn't it?

When I was a kid I wore bright yellow, bright green, red. I wore apricot/orange. I wasn't quite so muted. I don't know when I began to fade to the background, but in high school sewing, the clothes I wore were muted - beige and pale green or olive were a couple of things I remember making. So it was sometime between being 8 or 10 and 15. Puberty.Which is probably when my skin erupted, so that makes sense.

Anyway, I began to notice this recently. I have 'home' clothes that are quite bright - but I don't go out in them. I get changed before I go out.

Then I noticed when I was in my favourite shop (it's sort of a mixed hippie/weird shop), that they had these awesome cotton pants in bright green and purple, but I didn't buy them, I went with the black and grey ones. When I got home, it nagged at me. Why did I change my mind? What was wrong with purple and green?

A friend rang and in our rambling, wild conversation, I told her of my pants dilemma. We laughed about it. We laughed about me fitting in and not standing out. About how I now lived on the coast where wild things happened and I could indulge my inner hippie because surely no one cares on the coast. But...they do...don't they?

So, I thought about it some more. I caught a train up to Sydney and when I was daydreaming out the window, I noticed that when I was a kid, there was a "dress code" of what you could wear to work, to the shops, to church, etc. And I'd had that drummed into me and although I didn't like it, it was what you did, or mostly did!

I was a rebel in that I wore trousers to my grandfather's funeral, when skirts were the done thing. I wore trousers to lots of things I was supposed to wear skirts or dresses to.

I'd been to a friend's wedding (I was maybe 18 or so) and I had what I thought was a smart black suit and a green shirt/jumper. I remember sitting at this table with her friends who were discussing everyone's clothing and who was 'appropriate' and who wasn't. I learned that you never wear white to a wedding as you upstage the bride. You never wear black because that's for funerals, and never a suit because that's even worse and certainly for funerals, and never green because that's a sign of jealousy. Holy cow! I broke so many dress rules I was a disaster.

But rules have relaxed now. People wear anything they want. And so, when my friend came to visit, we went to my favourite shop and there were no purple and green pants, but there was a pair of rainbow pants with dragonflies on them. She dared me. I can't back down from a dare! So I own these. At home, I team them with whatever colour I want. The few times I've been brave and worn them out, I've gone with a white top. The first time, a mate told me I 'looked like a yes vote' and I didn't want to clarify what he meant by that. The next time, an older lady told me that I made her happy - not just because I chatted to her, but because of my smile and my happy pants!

She's right, they do make me happy. When I'm having a blah day, I drag on the rainbows and every time I take a step, I have to smile at all that colour.

They remind me that Mum used to wear purple a lot when she was sick, because it made her look healthy and people would say how good she looked. And I think that's important.

We need to wear whatever colour makes us happy, makes us feel good, makes us look good, makes our day.

So I'm going to try being brave and wearing bright colours out. Bright colours make me smile. They make me happy. And the world needs to be a happier place!

What's your colour? Do you wear your favourite colours out?

(Author buddy, Lily Malone is in one of the photos here in her pink beanie - I love that she has that and that she wears it with pride and a beaming smile!)

Saturday Search - Meditation

I can sit quietly, in awe of nature, any time you want me to. When we got a Wii game thing, the only one I was good at was the Zen mediation where I got expert level first go. I'm good at sitting still, lost in my own thoughts.

I thought that meant I was good at meditation...and maybe it does. I'm not quite sure where meditation and mindfulness overlap. Or if meditation has been commercialised to the point where you're not expected to find your own path.

Doubting I knew anything about mediation, I started to read more about meditation, also mindfulness. I began listening to meditations conducted by people. I downloaded some apps. I kind of lost my way a bit. Some meditations were just too fast for me. Some voices made me laugh at their exaggerated sounds - as if they were trying too hard to be deeply soulful or something. Some of the apps just had too much in it, or too many add-ons I didn't need, or cost too much. I resent commercialisation of things we intrinsically know.

Lately, I've gone back to my thing. Sitting silently in nature. But in the past, when thoughts of the day-to-day things filled my mind, I didn't find meditation all that restful or deep or whatever the books told me it should be. So now I've begun to use some of the techniques that I've read about - the ones that worked for me, or resonated within me.

I welcome whatever random thought flits through my mind, give it some love and send it on its way. After enough of these have past, I feel my mind give a big sigh, and it gets into deeper stuff. Sometimes I solve problems in my story (whatever one I'm writing, or some I've written in the past that are in the files but not finished. The one called Past Lives, which led me down this rabbit hole has been given a lot of thought and is bubbling waiting to be rewritten...soon!). Sometimes I can order my thoughts about the world, or whatever issue is bugging me. Sometimes I feel like a domino falls in my brain and I have this chain of thoughts that I follow like Alice down that rabbit hole. I've no clue where those thoughts are taking me, but I'm more than comfortable in my mind, so I'm happy to roam anywhere, discover anything.

Meditation, for me anyway, is about finding my calm place. The place where I can think, dream, problem solve, create. The place where the noise of life quietens and I can be me, be with me. I like it. I like taking myself on this journey into my mind.

Do you meditate? What is meditation for you?

Saturday Search - Energy

Energy. I learned about it in science. It's forever linked to E = mc2 and Einstein, for me. I played sport, so energy is also equal to exercise and doing things. And I also associate energy with people - she's a high energy person, he's a low energy guy, she takes my energy - yet I haven't really understood what that meant.

Some years back, I wrote a short story about an energy/emotion draining vampire. It came out of my thoughts about people. When I was with some people, I left feeling completely hollow. Other people left me bouyed. Others I felt the same as when I'd met them. What did that mean?

As I started looking into things to improve my health, I came across stuff about 'toxic people' and how some people needed to be avoided because they took and didn't give back. I started to recognise that these were often the people who left me drained. As I had less and less energy, I couldn't be near these people, and I jettisoned so many. Some had been friends, some I thought were close friends, but they all seemed to roam away as soon as I couldn't be a shoulder for them (or a source for their constant need for energy).

I didn't understand it, even as I did it.

Last year, I had less and less energy every day and it worried me terribly. I had a virus, I had to rest and drink fluids. But this treatment wasn't replenishing my energy. I had no clue how to get more. I began to read.

I read about Mindfulness and Meditation with a Jon Kabat-Zinn. It was eye opening. I'm hopeless at meditation, or so I thought, but he gave me hope.

Then I went on a reading journey where one book followed another, each building on what I'd learned. Mindfulness for Beginners by Zon Kabat-Zinn, then Medical Medium by Anthony William, then Cure by Jo Marchant, then Becoming Supernatural by Dr Joe Dispenza.

In Joe Dispenza's Becoming Supernatural, he gave a heap of scientific reckoning to support his arguments. He took Einstein and made it relative to his arguments. He claims that emotions are energy. Negative emotions (anger, fear, stress, grief) have less (or heavier) energy than joyful emotions (gratitude, happiness, joy, love). At least, I think that's what he said - that's what I took from it anyway! The happier, lighter emotions oscillate at a higher frequency, they make you feel better, lighter. He says that meditation and focussing on the energy within you, can increase these joyful emotions and you can heal yourself by changing the expression of genes by changing hormonal responses.

Just before I bought this book, I had my first acupuncture session (after having a treatment many years before, but not continuing it). During the acupuncture treatment, I was left in a quiet, dark room with soft music playing. I had needles in my feet, hands, face, and lower legs. I had nowhere to go and nothing to do but lie there and relax. I felt like I was dying when I walked into that place. I'd driven the 20 mins to get there and it had exhausted me. I hadn't driven for most of the year because I hadn't had access to a car, so I was putting it down to stress, plus virus. As I laid there, wondering if this might help and hoping I'd be right to drive home, things started happening inside me. Tingling, fluttering things. It started in my toes and moved through my body. Slowly. Like ants crawling over me (except not as creepy or bitey!). My body began to twitch and move. Voluntarily. There was a white light in my mind and my stomach that was spreading (and I know this is weird, I had my eyes closed, but it's warmth and heat is why I call it 'light' but it may not have been light as such). About halfway through the session, I felt  like this was working. I had hope.

I left there with energy.

I wish I could explain how that worked. In my science head, I'm thinking that the pinpricks into the skin begin some kind of immune system response, which fires up the immune system and that's what I was feeling. But shit, I'd had a freaking virus for 12 months and that immune system had konked out trying to fight it. So how did this work?

I have no bloody idea.

But since then, I've improved every day. I have energy. I'm starting to feel those good emotions again - joy, love, gratitude, compassion. I'm doing my day job, plus writing, plus doing house and garden work, plus volunteering at the local nursery. I've been able to have visitors and go visiting. I've had energy to climb towers, run about with kids, swim, walk, travel. Things I could not for the life of my do the past 13 months when I could hardly do my day job and cook tea.

I don't understand it, but as one of those books said, sometimes you just have to thank your left brain for trying to rationalise what's happening, and let your right brain smile and be glad it's occurring.

So, I'm celebrating. Celebrating the return/release of my energy.

In Becoming Supernatural, Dispenza says that energy is everywhere and it switches and changes and flows. He says sometimes we give energy to the outside flow, sometimes we draw it in from the outside, sometimes we circulate the energy within us.

Einstein said that Energy could neither be created nor destroyed. It sure felt like I'd destroyed mine, but I'm ever so glad I have it flowing again. I don't intend to lose it anytime soon!

How's your energy?

Saturday Search - Trees

I know, after religion and feminism, trees seems a big change in direction! But it's nature, like my Wildlife Wednesday posts, so a big part of my life.

When I was 5 years old, we moved house. I don't remember the first house much, and I've no memory of any trees in the backyard of the first house except for a mandarin tree which Mum called a thorny mandarin tree and I had to stay away from the thorns. I've no idea if there were thorns or if I was just being kept from climbing the tree!

Anyway, our new house had a few trees but two were my favourites and became 'my' places. One was technically the neighbour's tree, but it was a Weeping Willow with half the fronds weeping on our side of the fence. I spent quite a bit of time in my castle under the willow, often with my dog. Right next to these fronds was a pencil pine, in our yard, and although it was there, it held no great place in my heart. Certainly nothing like the beautiful willow.

The other tree that had a place in my heart was right against the front verandah. The verandah had cutouts in the brickwork that made paneless windows, and there was like a concrete slab over it, so you could sit on it (I'll see if there's a photo because that's a terrible description!). Then there was this spot you could climb to above the stairs, and it was my favourite reading spot. I was screened from the street by the tree, but Mum could see me from the house. When I was young, I could climb into the tree and nestle in the branches but as I grew, this wasn't possible.

These trees were very important places for me. Sadly, both were cut down during my teenage years and I have to say that it hurt. Not so much the loss of hiding spaces, because I'd outgrown the spaces, but the loss of friends. 

Yep, I considered the trees as living beings, not unlike my pets, or my school friends. I didn't know this was weird. I mean The Faraway Tree was one of my favourite stories, and that tree was a living being, wasn't it? 

It was somewhat of a rude awakening to realise that people saw trees as easily dispensable, if not a complete pest!

I have 'collected' favourite trees everywhere I've lived. Trees that have some connection to me, which I can't explain at all. I like being near them, touching them, admiring them, and I may chat to them too. I like trees, but there are always special ones.

Some years ago, one of my friends was talking to me, and she's into all psychic things but sort of for fun, not entirely seriously. She had a deck of cards to tell you what you were in a previous life. She'd done herself and her kids and we'd been laughing about their cards. She drew one for me, and began laughing. Through her laughter, she managed to say I was a tree person. I froze. I'd never told anyone about my thing for trees. When she realised I wasn't joining in the laughter, she says, 'What aren't you telling me?' I told her about my trees, in a quiet little voice, expecting censure or more laughter. But she was gobsmacked. 

We sometimes recall that moment, as we explore this psychic, mystical, alternate world. Our scoffing disbelief has changed to curiosity and a sense of maybe...

I've no clue if I was a tree person in a previous life. I don't even really know what a tree person is/was. I think they were pre-Druids. And I'm not sure it's important. I like trees. I have an affinity for some trees more than others. I like animals. I like nature. That's just me.

So trees are a part of my searching. I know it's probably incredibly odd but it's me. And as the weeks go on, I think you might find that trees aren't so odd at all ;)

Do you have a favourite tree?

Saturday Search - Feminism

My interest in feminism came about because of the many things I wanted to do and was told I couldn't - because I was a girl. This appalled me. What kind of an answer was this? I went in search of better answers, but no one had any better answers. This was how society was...and it sucked.

I didn't want to do anything too drastic. I didn't want to have to wear a dress all the time (at all, really, but I was willing to compromise!). I wanted to be an altar boy. I wanted to play football (rugby league). I wanted to ride my bike to the mangroves. I wanted to wear shorts to school, or trousers. I wanted to play cricket.

I didn't want to do these things because I was a feminist or a rebel. I was involved in the Church, and at 7, you could be an altar boy. I was holding out for this, and when I turned 7 I didn't even have a clue that the word "boy" was going to exclude me. It never occurred to me that I couldn't do it.

I played netball, I started at 7. This was cool, but my favourite game was rugby league and I wanted to play that. Okay, so no girls could play footy, how about cricket? No. Right. I set up cricket at school in the lunch break and girls were allowed to play. I could control that because my house was next to the school and I could pop the gear over the fence so we could play - the school had no sports gear. I don't think many girls played, I can't really remember, but it didn't matter because I could!

Riding my bike was because my friends did it and I wanted to go with them. I hadn't quite twigged that they were boys and there was a difference in what we were allowed to do.

And school clothes, well, dresses let the cold air up your legs in winter and I wanted to be warm. Stockings were no answer for me as I'm allergic to nylon. I just had to be cold. And shorts are so much better in summer because boys can't flick your skirt/dress up and laugh at your knickers.

I thought these were reasonable things. I still do.

As I got older, the word 'feminist' was bandied around. The Female Eunuch by Germaine Greer had caused a stir. At some stage, I read this and I can't say I was all that enamoured by the book or Ms Greer. I didn't want to rant and rave. I didn't want to burn my bra. I didn't want to make a fuss. I just wanted to do what I wanted to do.

In high school, things started to change for women, and I got to play some sports in female competitions - soccer, hockey, cricket, basketball. There were still places I couldn't go, things I couldn't wear, things I couldn't do, but as I got older these choices were able to be twisted a little more. I could sometimes get around the rules. I often had to fight, but if it was worth it, I did.

I'm lucky that during the course of my life, I've found people who do accept me as equal - or as myself! I worked with men who encouraged me to go get my truck license, go put up the fence, go ride the quad bike, go inject the sheep, go modify the seeder. I got in and helped. I learned. I got my hands (and everything else) dirty. There were some who started off by saying things like, "Well, if you earn the same pay as me, you'd better be able to do the same work," and "That's fair," was my usual response as I worked my arse off to prove myself.

I don't call myself a feminist. I just go and do what I want to do, wear what I want to wear, play what I want to play. If someone stops me, I might fight for my rights if it's important to me. I just want to be able to do my things, happily, without being categorised. If that's being a feminist, then put that label on. I'd prefer a world without labels.

Saturday Search - Reliigion

This is the start of my new series if posts on Searching for Something. I'm not sure what it is, sort of a search for myself, and the meaning of life, or my life at least! I think it might be a -0 age milestone. A change in hormones. Who knows. I just have been doing some exploring and finding amazing things that I'd like to share, and write about some of my experiences.

They're not going to be mainstream for the most part. And my views are probably not those of the majority. However I will try to be honest, and give a reasoned discussion as much as I can.

Topic 1 is Religion.

I was raised in a conservative religious household, in quite a strict Catholic manner. I had no bad experiences in Church as a kid. We had fantastic priests who challenged me to a lot of deep thinking when I questioned them. I did bible study classes, played music at Mass, read the Readings, all those things that you do when you're highly involved in something. Before I left home, I was on the liturgy committee, taught Sunday school, played music, and was still highly involved.

My parents were also highly involved, and Mum had a real devotion to her religion and God. At about the age I am now, she began going on annual retreats and learning more about her spirituality. She did a daily scripture reading and wrote about it. I guess it was like a meditation, or a placing her life and her worries into a spiritual context.

Religious discussions were not uncommon in our household. I asked a lot of questions. The priests we knew were quite incredible theologians and so if they came to dinner, discussions were many, varied, and not to be missed. We had all orders of priests and nuns that were family friends and were often part of meals, or family events. And it wasn't confined to Catholicism. I studied comparative religions in Yrs 11 and 12, so discussions could range across any and every topic imaginable especially when I asked questions. Sometimes these discussions went long into the night, leaving poor mum nodding off at the table trying to be a great hostess, while Dad and I and whoever was visiting were wide awake and into the discussions.

When I left home, I was given a blessing during Mass in our Parish and presented with a Parish Candle. It was a really touching moment to be recognised in my community. A community I'd been an active member of for my entire life.

I moved to a country town, and I know the religious people in Sydney were despairing of where I went because the Bishop was quite strict, behind-the-times, and was in the middle of a huge dispute with the local nuns. They all probably knew were things that I'd struggle with, before i knew it myself. I was lucky in that I found the one 'cool' priest in the area and I loved attending the little church. I bought half a fan for that church when they asked parishioners to help cool the place. People gave what they could, so an older gentleman and I went halves in a fan. It was a great little community and I felt quite at home.

And then the priest got moved. He hadn't toed the Bishop's line and was banished (I think they termed it, 'moved on'). Soon after that, I walked out of church in the middle of the sermon. I'd had an absolute gutful of the hateful rhetoric that the priest was spewing out, so I up and left. I'd never done that in my life and it scared me. I kept waiting for lightning to strike me dead. It didn't.

I'd been brought up in a conservative, religious environment, but what I'd failed to notice was that as a bedrock, there was compassion and love. In this area, those were not the bedrock.

Fire and brimstone was the bedrock in the new area. Pre-marital sex, being homosexual or promiscuous, not obeying the Bishop's rule, these were all a feature of the heinous things done by people...and the reason I walked out of the church.

I never really returned. I came to see that people made the church and the community. One person in authority could ruin the entire place. One non-understanding, closed-minded man could kill community, make people turn towards hate, and ruin what had once been a loving family environment.

I didn't want to be a part of something where I had no voice and no control. I didn't want to support horridness, and closed-minded people. I know I have turned my back on many lovely people, but it's what I needed to do. I don't believe that large communities should be under the rule of one man in complete control. It got on my goat, terribly.

Religion, as with other things, can breed fanatics. I struggle with fanatics. I like moderates, people who allow everyone to be - or at least allow others to express their opinions openly and be heard. I like discussions, not rules. I abhor dictators.

Religion gave me a fabulous grounding in life. I've learned a lot from many discussions. I have respect for the many and varied religions of the world. They just aren't for me. I'm a lone wolf in my approach to (or quest for) spirituality.

Interestingly, on my Pinterest account, I've only ever received one rude and nasty comment from a stranger, and that was about something I pinned saying religion had started many wars. So if you'd like to leave a comment on my posts, please feel free to do so, but if there are any rude or nasty comments, they will be deleted. Thank you.