[Updated 28/1/06]
Well, it’s my last full day down here at Anglesea.
It’s 11:30am and it looks like it’s going to be a beautiful day. There’s
not a green cloud in the sky and the breeze is just a breath.
I always get sad when it’s close to the end of a holiday down here. I’ve
been having my summer holiday down here for so long I don’t know if it is
to do with leaving this place or if its just the end of the holiday and time
to get back to work. I suspect it is a bit of both. I will miss going for
my walk each morning. The sound of the ocean and the different personalities
it takes on each day. Noticing whether the tide is in or out. Is it going
to be a fine day or overcast.
I notice the weather when I’m in Melbourne but not as intensely. Down here,
I become much more attuned to the natural world. I am sure if I worked harder
at it I would become much more attunded. But as it is, it is much more present
in my daily life.
One of my goals over the last few years has been to spend the whole of January
down here. I made it a specific goal for this year but it didn’t happen. We
stayed in a cheaper house last year and we thought we could afford to hire
it for four weeks instead of two. But the further we got through last year
the more definite Judy was that she didn’t like that house. In the end it
was available anyway so it didn’t matter.
Nevertheless I am determined to do it some day. My plan is to spend the first
two weeks just having a holiday and the second two weeks focussing my intent
in my work for the coming year.
I have been reading
Presence
[see my review here]
during this holiday. Pretty well a chapter each day. It has been powerful
reading. This book records a conversation between Peter Senge, Joseph Jaworski,
C. Otto Scharmer and Betty Sue Flowers. From the back cover:
At this turbulent juncture in human history, a whole new set of
social innovations promises to shift humanity away from its destructive path
towards a brighter planetary civilization. Presencing and its U process is
one of the most profound. It provides all who want to change the world not
only with profound hope, but with a systematice and effective way to birth
a sustainable planetary society. Nicanor Perlas, Recipient of the 2003
Alternative Nobel Prize and the UN Environmental Program Global Award.
It has led me to focus on what I want the intent of my work to be.
I feel like I have got closer to this intent each year down here over the
last few years. I can remembr walking along next to the cliffs down from Roadknight
beach in deep contemplation. I really feel like another two weeks down here
right now would allow me to get closer still to this elusive part of me.
Maybe be next year. Who knows what this year will bring.