Month: November 2018

Story 2 The Summit Run

I’m searching for a hint of falseness. The more I can’t find any, the more energy I’m imbued with. Even though I’m standing atop Mount Kosciuszko, feeling happy might seem odd given the life changer spanner sent my way the day before. Looking at my face in the photo of me standing on top of Australia reassures me. I look at this photo on my phone and zoom in with my fingers to scrutinise my expression some more. Yes, I really do look happy.

Happy!
more happy…

Picking up my speckled granite rock, an ancient stone chip created in explosive volcanic times, I slot it into my cupped hand as if slipping it into an envelope. I feel power and strength transmitted to me as I do this. It strengthens my psyche and empowers my flesh. In my mind I think about the overall deep seated knowledge that I WILL be the same as I was that day on top of the highest mountain in Australia nearly a year ago.

My granite power rock

Two years ago, I picked up that rock chip from the side of the road close to the summit, and kept it near the front door in among’st a stack of other colourful pieces I’ve collected from here and there. I didn’t know then how important it would be to me in the future but I remember carefully selecting a rock that had a shape that felt easy in the hand.  After that summit run last January, it has been my micro generator throughout the year when I’ve often needed a mental kick start. A reminder that my body will be okay and I’ll still be able to run and do everything I did before, even though my body has been ravished by surgery and chemotherapy. I WILL be the same. Maybe even better…somehow.

The granite is part of the main range where Mount Kosciuszko sits high up over the blue land far around. Several years ago, in a shallow valley to the north-east of the summit, I walked alone between the snow drifts. There were shallow peat pools and a ground cover of soft pale grey green snow grass. As I walked close to a jagged black rock tor that towered over me, I heard a roaring sound like that of a jet flying overhead. It reminded me of the earthquake I experienced in the Kimberleys in remote Western Australia which sounded like about eight jumbo jets. The loud rumbling sound penetrated the air and a sort of shimmer wave moved past me and wooshed away across the alpine valley. Looking around, there was no wind moving the white paper daisies or the snow grass. No jets in the electric blue sky, nothing. All I know was what I felt and heard, and I can only describe it as perhaps a spirit or some type of energy I had flushed from the tor. No malevolence, just kind of it.

Summit Track

In January this year, as I ran over that solid and dark, speckled ground to the summit I felt a great sense of power in the land. I thought about the energy spirit thing that ‘resides’ a few hundred metres from where I ran. The day before, I had phoned my doctor for the results of a biopsy test and he told me that I had breast cancer. Four days of preparation in my head helped me prior to hearing this news. I had rationalized stuff. The twenty two kilometre run solidified my rationalizations. I did feel good.

Grounding to earth

I was grounding myself to the earth with every step. I was confident then in returning to my normal self after the year of treatment. I have been confident during the year of surgery and treatment with a little help from my speckled rock and from strong human support that I have been so lucky to have gained. I am still confident. I trust my knowing myself. Soon I’ll be back in the strong powerful granite lands with my body intact and pretty much back to normal with another smile like the one in my photo.

The Granite lands

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If you’d like to find out how it felt when I returned to the high country, read Story 3 Summit Run-Closing the Loop -2 min read.

Other stories in this series of Sourcing Strength are; The Summit Run and The Summit Run, Closing the Loop.

You can read more stories in my series about Encounters with Wild Animals such as a Great White Shark, horses, snakes, whales, rock possums, bull buffalo and spiders

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Minimal Me – 2 min read

Bluebell and I at Maitland Bay

I am a young girl, around 15 years old, standing high up on the top of a huge sheer cliff with a scalloped bay in the background named Maitland Bay (after a shipwreck).

This cliff is within a national park and instead of me standing there as a typical visitor in hiking clothes, hat and boots with a bunch of other like walkers, I’m dressed in a sexy high cut swimming costume, two bare feet and my blue heeler, Bluebell.

This is typical of me as a teenager. The minimalist. Tearing off what’s not necessary to leave the bare bones and nothing extra. Bare feet, so I can extract maximum immersion from my exploration of the bush or rocks or sand or whatever the substrate I’m travelling over.

The muddy clay squelching between toes, after walking across a long spread of jagged and sharp rocky ground, I particularly savor and relish. That’s like the ecstasy of finally gorging on two tall glasses of water after riding your pushbike for miles without a drop of water down the throat.

I love that. To really feel the texture of the ground, gives me a more in-depth knowledge and a kind of intimate understanding of the terrain. Then it’s mine, that land.

You know I even get jealous of places. I am quite possessive of that track I’m standing on. Little beach to Putty Beach. That’s my track. Too many strangers I see on it now. It’s not theirs this place.

They don’t know it like I do.

They don’t know the legless lizard that leisurely suns herself on the southern sandy section of steps that rise up after the rocky gulch of caves bay. Nor do they know the dark diminutive swamp wallaby that forages behind the big set of wooden stairs at the northern end of Killcare beach. They also wouldn’t have met the echidna that loves to break up the ants nests for a feed just before Caves Bay.

Those cream flannel flowers that sweep round the bend in the track near the Maitland Bay turnoff seem to be in bloom longer than anywhere else. That’s the bend where the white tsunami sand rests high over the bay below. This particular soft bend connected me and held me tight to the land when I grew older and became a woman in my twenties. I lived away, three thousand kilometres away in fact in Darwin, and I’d see flashbacks anytime anywhere of that particular bend of heathy, low bush.

After flying home and re-visiting my bush, these flashbacks would disappear until I’d been away again too long and they’d reappear to remind me of my land.

Today, I continue to ground myself along this piece of coastline. I ground myself by the physical and psychee connection to this, my favourite stretch of the world, by feeling my feet touching the terrain, the roots, the rocks, the clay and the sands during my one and a half hour circular run I regularly do.

I often see my animal ‘friends’ on the track and I note whose flowering or fruiting. Sometimes, Ill slow enough to touch a slender flannel flower with the tip of a finger. No Bluebell now, but like as a young girl, there is no extraneous clutter on me. No water bottles, camel packs, not even a hat.

Only the bare bones to run.

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“Various‘ life writing stories of mine you can read are Pink, Synaesthesia, Minimal Me, Freedom Creek

You can read other stories in a series of how I Source Strength The Summit Run and The Summit Run, Closing the Loop.

You can read more stories in my series about Encounters with Wild Animals such as a Great White Shark, horses, snakes, whales, rock possums, bull buffalo and spiders

If you’d like to have my next post sent directly to you, just pop your email address into the subscription box.

Feel free to comment too…

Pink – 1 min read

The best piece of advice I was given I would have to say was to not follow the crowd, don’t be a sheep, be your own person, that concept. The other dimension is not to waste energy competing with others.

I learnt this in first grade. I was 5. Linda unknowingly gave it to me. Our task for the lesson was colouring in. My patience never stretched as far as colouring in perfectly up against those thick black lines. Never. No matter how hard I tried. Hopeless I was. But, I couldn’t see the point really. Linda however was perfectly skilled at this. Linda had blonde hair, was my friend, I liked her and was super popular. The teacher asked consecutively around the room what our favourite colours were, starting with Linda. She said pink. Alison my other friend said pink. Glen probably said pink. They all said pink. I loved pink but I said brown. That felt good.

Since that moment I have never worried about going against the grain. It has me in trouble but it’s usually worth it.

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Australia’s Faunal Extinction Crisis

My Submission to the Parliamentary Inquiry into Australia’s Faunal Extinction Crisis can be viewed here :  Dr Myfanwy Webb Submission 247. 

Resurrecting ecosystems manually should encourage all of the intricate connections within ecosystems and bolster their resilience to threats. I see regrowing bush is like providing necessary new ‘housing developments’ for our populations of animals and plants.

Wallaby (Photographer Myfanwy Webb)

To read more, go to my website REACT.care and you can read about the Parliamentary Inquiry.