Thank you for that poem and photos this morning. Much needed. I have a spot like the one you wrote about, giving me the strength to continue, to calm my mind, to write.
You are welcome. I think we all need a place of peace and regeneration, but many do not have one. Some are too busy just surviving, and others do not recognise their own need...
that was great, I read it twice... very intimate, I can relate it to my own life very easily. do you ever look at each other and wonder WHY you keep coming back to THIS spot? Whatever the reason, it's perfect.
Thank Rob. Everyone needs a special place, I think. Glad you have one!
Why do we go back to this one? It's a good question...
I tend to charge off and race up mountains or down waterfalls. I have learned, from Meg, the art of stillness - and a lot of that learning happened in the place I describe here. I still love racing up mountains and down waterfalls, but I am more thoughtful about it than ever before, and I love the opportunity to just sit, in one place, and find a calm centre.
We have built a store of wonderful memories here, and we enjoy adding to them. It is a long time since we have been there - life took us away and we now live far to the North. It's time to return, I think.
that's beautiful Dave, my wife and I have a place too. TOTALLY different from what you've described, but it's OUR place, and that's the attraction. We secretly hold it close.
Fabulous! It doesn't matter what - or where - a place like that is. What counts is the shared meaning, hey? A place where you grow together. A place where you can reconnect, even with all the crap the world can throw at you.
I thought of this too, Rob. Why this spot? For me it would be the swimming and the sounds of the water. And the fact that they've shared so much together in that place.
Yes and yes, my friend. A deep store of memories there, like the pool around the boulder.
The time that the flock of Red Tail Black Cockatoos flew down in the dawn light to wash themselves in the river right beside where we lay.
The time that the thunderstorm lashed our tent and echoed down the gorge while we huddled inside laughing, wrapped around each other.
The time that a searingly hot wind blew through the valley and we leaped into the water every half hour to cool down, keeping a worried eye on the sky for smoke. After two days we walked out under a hammering sun and when we returned to civilisation we discovered that a large part of our nation's capital had indeed been burned to the ground by a massive bushfire.
The time the wild wombat growled at us as we walked down in to the gorge by moonlight at 1 am.
That’s another great poem mate, as you know I’m doing a photography project on my own local river and I’m drawn to those areas of it that are the pauses between conversations. I’ve been struggling with a title for my project so I’m gonna sit with this poem for a while and see what comes up.
Just so you know, you can feel your love for Meg in those photographs and there’s a real skill to that.
Looking back on it - our visits to this place feel like luminous polished stones, strung on a necklace of time. In writing this post, I was taking it out and placing it in the sunshine to sparkle. No-one else had seen it before but us.
The pools on a river are themselves a necklace, on a string of water, draped across the throat of the hills.
We had hoped to get back there this Summer but we have been too busy with helping a couple of our adult children, seeing other family, and sorting through a bunch of things that have kept us in our former home city.
Today we are finally heading back North, 500km up the coast, to our little haven on the big river... We have been away too long.
It's been wonderful seeing family but I can't wait to get home.
Thanks for sharing this beautiful place with your words. I know this feeling of sitting with a river and being in perfect peace. I also love that part of Buddha’s story when he lived by the river and learned how to rest in the stillness of being. 🙏🏼
Something to bring back with us into the everyday world, if we can. At times of difficulty I have thought my way back to that river. I'm sure you do the same...
I actually wrote the poem in my notebook, quite some years ago now, sitting on the bank of that river one Summer morning, watching the cool waters gently swirl about the boulder....
I wrote it just for myself, and for Meg, long after I ceased publishing my work, as reminder of peace for times when we might need some.
So, that you find it soothing and heartfelt, is a true joy to me.
I adore this Dave! What a beautiful tribute to how the natural world can save us and how just being in it can ease our hearts and minds. I really related to the part about being in the busy stage of life with kids and needing to make money (where I am right now). So grateful I can sometimes get out to my little forest for some much needed sanctuary. Beautiful read and lovely photos. I can see how happy you are there.
Yes. Sanctuary is the word. This place was our sanctuary. We first visited at a time when we were both badly bruised and battered by life - trying to build something stable out of apparent chaos. Which we did - slowly - over years.
I wrote that poem sitting by the water there one morning, with a campfire burning down to ashes and Meg still asleep under the leaves of the tree behind me. A moment of peace which I wrote down in my notebook, preserved for a future when we might need it.
I never expected to share it with others, but I am glad it has found people who understand.
I am always fascinated by your adventures, Dave. What a beautiful trip to share with Meg. Sorry, I haven't been around much lately. Got sick the third time this month... Flu, fever, and the works. Such a beautiful post. So much to love in your poem. I have read it over and over.
Oh my friend. I'm so sorry you are unwell. I hope the boys don't have it too. It is so hard caring for a sick child when you are unwell yourself. I do remember....
Part of my brain is a storehouse of beautiful, hard to find places in the wilderness, where you can leave the world behind with little chance of meeting anyone else. Of course, the chances of having a river to swim naked in, with no-one else around, do go up in proportion to the difficulty of getting there. ie. the best places are generally difficult to get to, or other people would be there already.
Having said that, when I do on occasion bump into someone else out in the bush they are - almost always - lovely people. They are there out of the same adoration of nature that I have, and they have as much right to be there as I do.
I was at a crowded city beach today. Lots of people. However, everyone was there because they love the ocean and the Summer and it was still a happy experience. Australian beaches are almost all - by law - entirely public space. You can't "own" them or fence them off or make them just for the rich. So there is a wonderful social levelling at the beach here. It doesn't matter who you are or what you do or what you have or don't have. Everyone is just another person, doing their thing.
I have always been drawn to placid pools of water. When I was growing up, we had no "running" water on the place, just a "wash," a deep gully that had cut through the land and sometimes, rushed with water. After the rushing, there were pools left behind, so still and green. I thought they must be fairy pools and I longed to rip off all my clothes and lounge in them, utterly alone and green and magical.
This homage to the two of you is glorious in its exactness. You have a record, photographs of so much. You have your two memories intertwining. You have the river to return to. And the rocks and swooshes of air atop the water, that disappear, but always return.
Thank you for that poem and photos this morning. Much needed. I have a spot like the one you wrote about, giving me the strength to continue, to calm my mind, to write.
Good morning Karen
You are welcome. I think we all need a place of peace and regeneration, but many do not have one. Some are too busy just surviving, and others do not recognise their own need...
Best Wishes - Dave
Oh Dave, this line spoke volumes to me:
"There are places we go to, and pass through, and then there are the places which enter us, which become us."
Yes and thank you always for seeing this Earth and her magic as she sees you.
Good morning dear Stephanie
That is such a beautiful comment to make. I will try to live up to it....
Best Wishes
Dave :)
that was great, I read it twice... very intimate, I can relate it to my own life very easily. do you ever look at each other and wonder WHY you keep coming back to THIS spot? Whatever the reason, it's perfect.
Thank Rob. Everyone needs a special place, I think. Glad you have one!
Why do we go back to this one? It's a good question...
I tend to charge off and race up mountains or down waterfalls. I have learned, from Meg, the art of stillness - and a lot of that learning happened in the place I describe here. I still love racing up mountains and down waterfalls, but I am more thoughtful about it than ever before, and I love the opportunity to just sit, in one place, and find a calm centre.
We have built a store of wonderful memories here, and we enjoy adding to them. It is a long time since we have been there - life took us away and we now live far to the North. It's time to return, I think.
Very Best Wishes to you - Dave :)
that's beautiful Dave, my wife and I have a place too. TOTALLY different from what you've described, but it's OUR place, and that's the attraction. We secretly hold it close.
Fabulous! It doesn't matter what - or where - a place like that is. What counts is the shared meaning, hey? A place where you grow together. A place where you can reconnect, even with all the crap the world can throw at you.
EXACTLY !
I thought of this too, Rob. Why this spot? For me it would be the swimming and the sounds of the water. And the fact that they've shared so much together in that place.
Yes and yes, my friend. A deep store of memories there, like the pool around the boulder.
The time that the flock of Red Tail Black Cockatoos flew down in the dawn light to wash themselves in the river right beside where we lay.
The time that the thunderstorm lashed our tent and echoed down the gorge while we huddled inside laughing, wrapped around each other.
The time that a searingly hot wind blew through the valley and we leaped into the water every half hour to cool down, keeping a worried eye on the sky for smoke. After two days we walked out under a hammering sun and when we returned to civilisation we discovered that a large part of our nation's capital had indeed been burned to the ground by a massive bushfire.
The time the wild wombat growled at us as we walked down in to the gorge by moonlight at 1 am.
And more...
D :)
Hello David and Meg and thank you for sharing what the river says!
You are welcome, Paul.
D & M :)
So perfectly beautiful! 😍
Dear Susannah
Thank you! Happy Autumn to you and the family.
Best Wishes - Dave :)
Well said mate!
Thank you! The Kanangra country is sublime...... as you kmow!
D :)
Hey Southern Dave
That’s another great poem mate, as you know I’m doing a photography project on my own local river and I’m drawn to those areas of it that are the pauses between conversations. I’ve been struggling with a title for my project so I’m gonna sit with this poem for a while and see what comes up.
Just so you know, you can feel your love for Meg in those photographs and there’s a real skill to that.
Thanks for sharing,
Northern Dave
Ah my friend...
Looking back on it - our visits to this place feel like luminous polished stones, strung on a necklace of time. In writing this post, I was taking it out and placing it in the sunshine to sparkle. No-one else had seen it before but us.
The pools on a river are themselves a necklace, on a string of water, draped across the throat of the hills.
We had hoped to get back there this Summer but we have been too busy with helping a couple of our adult children, seeing other family, and sorting through a bunch of things that have kept us in our former home city.
Today we are finally heading back North, 500km up the coast, to our little haven on the big river... We have been away too long.
It's been wonderful seeing family but I can't wait to get home.
I hope the photography project goes well.
Best Wishes - Dave :)
Thanks for sharing this beautiful place with your words. I know this feeling of sitting with a river and being in perfect peace. I also love that part of Buddha’s story when he lived by the river and learned how to rest in the stillness of being. 🙏🏼
Good morning Laura
Oh yes.... such peace.....
Something to bring back with us into the everyday world, if we can. At times of difficulty I have thought my way back to that river. I'm sure you do the same...
Best Wishes - Dave :)
Golden moments indeed x
Thanks Tom!
Some of the best times there, beyond doubt.
Of course - we all have to live in the world, wherever that is, and most of the time for most of us that will be in non-paradisical places.
So... I do try to find golden moments wherever I am. (Not always with success!)
Best Wishes - Dave :)
I am fortunate enough to live in a conservation area, surrounded by National Trust land in an area of outstanding natural beauty.
Only it's inaccessibility prevents it from being overrun by tourists and hikers.
In the summer, visiting yachtsman add much colour, but the occasional cruise liner makes me feel as if I'm living in a wildlife park for humans.
I am forever grateful to the wife that brought me here, even though I lost everything when she went.
I will post a glimpse of a little hidden treasure a few miles up river soon.
This is sooo beautiful, Dave. A soothing and heartfelt read. 💙
Thank you Caroline.
I actually wrote the poem in my notebook, quite some years ago now, sitting on the bank of that river one Summer morning, watching the cool waters gently swirl about the boulder....
I wrote it just for myself, and for Meg, long after I ceased publishing my work, as reminder of peace for times when we might need some.
So, that you find it soothing and heartfelt, is a true joy to me.
Very best wishes from us here,
Dave and Meg :)
Paradise! Thanks for sharing, Dave and Meg
I adore this Dave! What a beautiful tribute to how the natural world can save us and how just being in it can ease our hearts and minds. I really related to the part about being in the busy stage of life with kids and needing to make money (where I am right now). So grateful I can sometimes get out to my little forest for some much needed sanctuary. Beautiful read and lovely photos. I can see how happy you are there.
Oh Alex
Yes. Sanctuary is the word. This place was our sanctuary. We first visited at a time when we were both badly bruised and battered by life - trying to build something stable out of apparent chaos. Which we did - slowly - over years.
I wrote that poem sitting by the water there one morning, with a campfire burning down to ashes and Meg still asleep under the leaves of the tree behind me. A moment of peace which I wrote down in my notebook, preserved for a future when we might need it.
I never expected to share it with others, but I am glad it has found people who understand.
Best Wishes - Dave :)
So lovely, I’m so glad we have these natural places to bring us peace 💚
I am always fascinated by your adventures, Dave. What a beautiful trip to share with Meg. Sorry, I haven't been around much lately. Got sick the third time this month... Flu, fever, and the works. Such a beautiful post. So much to love in your poem. I have read it over and over.
Oh my friend. I'm so sorry you are unwell. I hope the boys don't have it too. It is so hard caring for a sick child when you are unwell yourself. I do remember....
Part of my brain is a storehouse of beautiful, hard to find places in the wilderness, where you can leave the world behind with little chance of meeting anyone else. Of course, the chances of having a river to swim naked in, with no-one else around, do go up in proportion to the difficulty of getting there. ie. the best places are generally difficult to get to, or other people would be there already.
Having said that, when I do on occasion bump into someone else out in the bush they are - almost always - lovely people. They are there out of the same adoration of nature that I have, and they have as much right to be there as I do.
I was at a crowded city beach today. Lots of people. However, everyone was there because they love the ocean and the Summer and it was still a happy experience. Australian beaches are almost all - by law - entirely public space. You can't "own" them or fence them off or make them just for the rich. So there is a wonderful social levelling at the beach here. It doesn't matter who you are or what you do or what you have or don't have. Everyone is just another person, doing their thing.
Get well soon, Naz!
Dave :)
I have always been drawn to placid pools of water. When I was growing up, we had no "running" water on the place, just a "wash," a deep gully that had cut through the land and sometimes, rushed with water. After the rushing, there were pools left behind, so still and green. I thought they must be fairy pools and I longed to rip off all my clothes and lounge in them, utterly alone and green and magical.
This homage to the two of you is glorious in its exactness. You have a record, photographs of so much. You have your two memories intertwining. You have the river to return to. And the rocks and swooshes of air atop the water, that disappear, but always return.
Oh, dear Rebecca... many memories. Many photos too. I had to select the ones with clothes! 😂