Dessert

For those wanting something to drool over, this is Cleo's lovely choc mousse that I made:



yummo.

Desperately seeking Desert

Hello!
Well the title really is meant to say desert, not dessert, so I'm sorry if you were hoping for a tale of an exciting mudcake experience or something of that sort! If so I'm sure I'll be able to comply sometime in the near future, as the seeking (and/or making) of sweet things is a fairly frequent occurrence for me. Just not this time.

I went on a "Desert Trek" last week. Basically a whole bunch of people went camping out near Broken Hill.

Some of us rose before dawn to watch the day come awake.

Many hours were spent around the campfire sitting, singing, cooking, eating, praying, laughing, sharing and listening to stories - or just watching the glowing, sparking embers.

We spent time alone, time just to listen and to be.


We spent time walking, adventuring, climbing rocky hills and ridges, chasing goats, climbing through gorges and round water-carved pools. Hanging with good friends.

I lapped up the wide wide desert skies, soaked myself in the golden wintery sun and the potent campfire heat, and felt the spirit breathing life.

It was very very good.

Sometimes the night was beautiful
sometimes the sky seemed so far away
sometimes it seemed to stoop so close
you could touch it but your heart would break
sometimes the morning came too soon
sometimes the day could be so hard
there was so much left to do
but so much you've already done oh God...
- Rich Mullins

Thanks for chance to step out of it all and bite beautiful reality.

Jesus' Mad Tea Party

If the world is sane, then Jesus is mad as a hatter and the Last Supper is the Mad Tea Party.

The world says, Mind your own business, and Jesus says, There is no such thing as your own business.
The world says, Follow the wisest course and be a success, and Jesus says, Follow me and be crucified.
The world says, Drive carefully - the life you save may be your own - and Jesus says, whoever would save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.
The world says, Law and order, and Jesus says, Love.
The world says, Get, and Jesus says, Give.

In terms of the world's sanity, Jesus is crazy as a coot, and anybody who thinks he can follow him without being a little crazy too is labouring less under the cross than under a delusion. "We are fools for Christ's sake," Paul says, faith says - the faith that ultimately the foolishness of God is wiser than the wisdom of men, the lunacy of Jesus saner than the grim sanity of the world.

- Frederick Buechner

I think I need to get a little crazier.

Funny and/or incomprehensible journal article titles!

• Long-Wave Sensitivity in Deep-Sea Stomiid Dragonfish with Far-Red Bioluminescence: Evidence for a Dietary Origin of the Chlorophyll-Derived Retinal Photosensitizer of Malacosteus niger

• Modeling Underwater Visual and Filter Feeding by Planktivorous Shearwaters in Unusual Sea Conditions

• Labile Nature of the Visual Recovery Promoted by Reverse Occlusion in Monocularly Deprived Kittens

• Increased Sensitivity after Repeated Stimulation of Residual Spatial Channels in Blindsight

• A Private Ultraviolet Channel in Visual Communication

• Further Evidence That Whorfian Effects Are Stronger in the Right Visual Field than the Left

• Visual Latencies in Cytochrome Oxidase Bands of Macaque Area V2
  

• Visual and Semiochemical Disruption of Host Finding in the Southern Pine Beetle
  

• Perceiving Conductors' Expressive Gestures from Different Visual Perspectives. An Exploratory Continuous Response Study

• Oculoparalytic Illusion: Visual-Field Dependent Spatial Mislocalizations by Humans Partially Paralyzed with Curare

• Visual Performance in Behaving Cats After Prenatal Unilateral Enucleation

*These are all totally legit scientific articles

from another.

Te Solte La Rienda - Jimenez Jose Alfredo

Se me acabo la fuerza
de mi mano izquierda
voy a dejarte el mundo
para ti solita.

Como al caballo blanco
le solte la rienda
a ti tambien te suelto
y te me vas ahorita.

Y cuando al fin comprendas
que el amor bonito
lo tenias conmigo.

Vas a extrañar mis besos
en los propios brazos
del que este contigo.

Vas a sentir que lloras
sin poder siquiera
derramar tu llanto
y has de querer mirarte
en mis ojos tristes
que quisiste tanto,
que quisiste tanto,
que quisiste tanto.

Cuando se quiere a fuerza
rebasar la meta
y se abandona todo
lo que se ha tenido.

Como tu traes el alma
con la rienda suelta
a ti tambien te suelto
y te me vas ahorita.

Y cuando al fin comprendas
que el amor bonito
lo tenias conmigo.

Vas a extrañar mis besos
en los propios brazos
de el que este contigo.

Vas a sentir que lloras
sin poder siquiera
derramar tu llanto
y has de querer mirarte
en mis ojos tristes
que quisiste tanto,
que quisiste tanto,
y que quieres tanto.

Se me acabo la fuerza
y te solte la rienda.

Magic Mushrooms

I found mushrooms yesterday!
I was walking home, and there was a little silky-smooth pale one on the roadside, which I collected. Then, after being inches from kissing three different spiders (which happened to be on webs at face-level), I found a few more in our local abandoned oval:


I feel like Alice in Wonderland..


Some people I told were less than enthusiastic about my find:
"You're gonna diiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!"

Do you think they'll kill me?

But they smell so gooood.

Undaunted, I set about preparing them..

YUM.

I am tempted to philosophise about the wonder of mushrooms springing up suprisedly, such rapid unlooked-for gemmy little beings.. but I'll restrain myself.

I love you.


ps 24hrs on, I'm still alive and kicking :)

pps sorry there was no exciting halucinatory story! I should have made one up. hmm but I don't think I can be bothered to rewrite. You'll just have to imagine one.

A Kite is a Victim

A kite is a victim you are sure of.
You love it because it pulls
gentle enough to call you master,
strong enough to call you fool;
because it lives
like a desperate trained falcon
in the high sweet air
and you can always haul it down
to tame it in your drawer.

A kite is a fish you have already caught
in a pool where no fish come,
so you play him carefully and long,
and hope he won't give up,
or the wind die down.

A kite is the last poem you've written,
so you give it to the wind,
but you don't let it go
until someone finds you
something else to do.

A kite is a contract of glory
that must be made with the sun,
so you make friends with the field
the river and the wind,
then you pray the whole cold night before,
under the travelling cordless moon,
to make you worthy and lyric and pure.

-Leonard Cohen