Robin on the fence
Flaming, flitting, just ahead
Leads a cheeky dance
Robin on the fence – Mary’s haiku
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Author Archives: seanatbogie
Where Have I been?
Diary of a Retiree: Day 247
181 days since my last diary specific entry.
Where have I been?
I have had this question a few times. Maybe it is time to answer it. I have been in a headspace called preoccupied. A week or two ago, I had a realisation. I realised that I may have finally arrived somewhere else. Where? Well, I think I arrived at some sort of understanding or reconciliation with the fact that I no longer need to be preoccupied with the concept of working under the instruction of others. It has taken eight months.
Admittedly, particularly in the last five years or so, I enjoyed a significant degree of autonomy in my work – a very fortunate and often rewarding circumstance. On the other hand, I found plenty of reasons to be dissatisfied, especially when I felt outcomes could have been better. Instead of settling systems into place, I have seen widespread and rapid change with poorly considered impacts on work groups become the norm. The recurring, patronising platitudes and executive level incompetence I have seen offered up in approaches to radical change management have been gob smacking. I have felt stymied by management incumbents and structures that do little other than promote power plays, churn and corporate memory loss. I have seen stabilising, value adding loyalty between employees and employers evaporate.
I have worked with some brilliant people. I miss and take my hat off to so many of my ICU and HITH nursing colleagues for their enormous depth of experience, their vast reservoir of knowledge, their diverse skill sets, their advanced professionalism, their teamwork and individual initiative, their collegiality and their highly-developed sense of empathy and compassion. How blessed to work with such people! I have been Supervisor, ANUM and Educator working with some outstanding Nurse Unit Mangers and fellow Educators. Very sadly, after 36 years of working in healthcare I can’t make the same observations about the medical profession. I have worked with some good medicos, but as a generalisation, I would have to say self-serving and arrogant are still the words that come to mind. The medical culture is toxic to efficient and cooperative healthcare institutions.
So, where have I been? Coming to terms with the haunting of my working past. Lifting the weight of working to protect colleagues and patients from harm at the hands of my employers.
The frustration is fading. I am beginning to look ahead, toward the possibilities of the future. The new question is, where am I going? It feels like an optimistic one.
Ni’ ni’ sweetie pie
Ni’ ni’ sweetie pie
I’m going to leepy la
To the land where the dream tree grows …..
Once I’m settled and curled
And my heart has unfurled
I’ll be ready to witness the show
I’ll beam all beatific at the wonders terrific
Of the whorls and the heat and the snow
I’ll meander with candour
Past sweet treats and wander
To the rooms where they play with a bow
Sweet music will render
My soul to surrender
To the passions of love’s inner glow
And I’ll put all at stake
On the heroes I’ll make
As I stand up preparing to go
Back to the darkness
To the bedroom soft harkness
Of the breathing of sleep low low low
Summer meditation
At first it is the light you become aware of
The golden hue of a summer evening sun
The surreal enhancement of every vista
An enriching highlight to the end of the day
Take a deep breath
Sigh it out through an open mouth
Cleanse
Then the sounds reach into you
A rippling cascade of water
A wind gently rustling leaves
A magpie carolling
Find your position of comfort
Melt your body into the earth
Unwind
Your skin responds to the air around you
Its featherlight touch, gossamer weight
Soothing, reassuring, fresh and clean
Smooth your brow
Part your lips
Drop your shoulders
Let your hands and feet fall where they will
Relax
Close your eyes
Meditate
The world around you fades
You pacify it, clear your mind
Letting everything that was today go
Focus your mind’s eye between your eyebrows
Know your breathing
Breathe in
Breathe out
Breathe in
Breathe out
Float
Be
What you see
It isn’t the best shot of one of the local koalas, but it is the only one we saw on this evenings walk along Bridge to Bridge. There will be better shots to come. If you take your time, the wildlife exposure up here is something really special.
We stopped at the Seven Creeks site of the Goulburn Valley Water Treatment Plant akong the way. I will be meeting GV Water reps there in a couple of weeks to show them the state of the area. Hopefully, I can recruit them to the clean up cause in cooperation with our Strathbogie Tableland Landcare Group. I have a vision for extending the Landcare managed Bridge to Bridge bushwalk into a celebrated 12 – 15km experience that encircles the town. So far, various agencies have been supportive and collaboration with GV Water at this site would be grand!
Walking the Tableland
We are on a journey here. I mean, we are on all kinds of journeys of course, but this one is quite specific. This is a physical journey, one for travelling together. We have tasked ourselves with walking the roads, tracks and trails of the Strathbogie Tableland. Sometimes 4km, sometimes 15, every time something new to experience. Even when we repeat a path there will be a seasonal difference, something that has changed in the landscape surrounding us or something that has changed about ourselves that we take to each place.
33 kinds of rain
The misting rain as light as being
The pitter patter rain of anticipation
The sun shower rain of joyfulness
The dawn lit rain of new awakenings
The driving rain of persistent harassment
The piercing rain of pain and hurt
The bleak rain of uncertainty
The saturating rain of grief
The pounding rain of anger
The cold rain of fear and loathing
The persistent rain of melancholy
The drought breaking rain of celebration
The tropical rain of surprise and relief
The tin roof rain of night time snuggles
The slanting rain of getting under your skin
The fat wet rain of things to come
The dull rain of misery
The easing rain of hope for a day
The sheeting rain of washing your sins away
The aerosol rain that never settles
The eddying rain of indefinite endings
The ominous rain of growing darkness
The thunder laden rain of shock and fear
The storm driven rain of nature’s authority
The drenching rain of no escape
The floating rain of disproportionate outcomes
The harrowing rain of oppression and spite
The lightning flash rain of vision burned
The unexpected rain of scrambling for shelter
The flooding rain of tears
The icy rain of an unknown future
The sleety rain of chilled to the bone
The sunlit rain of clarity of purpose
The dancing rain of swirling possibilities
The evening rain of contemplation
The elemental rain of fundamental outcomes
The cloaking rain of secrecy
The wispy rain of dissipation
The hard rain of death
The transparent rain of release
The soft rain of peace
Dark, black night, cold, white frost, warm, golden sunshine
The cold can bite you here. It is sharp and crisp and penetrating. In the dark of a cloudless, moonless, star bright landscape, in the nocturnal brilliance of moonlit contrasts, in the shelter of a blackened room, it stabs through the bedclothes. It targets your knees or a hip, whichever joint is most elevated and least supplied with a warming blood supply. It ices your brain.
Then the morning comes. The frozen grass cracks under your feet. The birdbaths are glazed and crazed and the world is a wonderland of white light, of reflective crystals. It’s all worth it.
Then comes the sun. Gently rising over the tree lined eastern horizon, shafts start breaking through the cold barrier in scattered beams of raw illumination. Light sprays jump from each hoary crystal bed they touch. But just as quickly, just as they commence their flashy dance, they are replaced by translucent droplets, silvery and clear, mirroring the world around them in fresh formed globules like polished convex glass.
Then the rich, thermal bath of undiluted yellow sunshine begins. It bathes our world in a warming golden glow, washing from our memory the cold that was snapping at our heels such a short time ago. We revel in it. We revere it. We relish the transition from the sharp edged winter’s night to the slow, melting, immersive onset of another glorious North East Victorian winter’s day.
The Journey Begins
Thanks for joining me!
Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton
