The Audio below is a tiny bit different to the text below, because, real life :)
Dear Friends,
Monday morning here. The sun in my room. The cat in the beanbag.
The quiet music playing. (A Playlist below)
This letter has been percolating several weeks now. Like coffee.
And much like coffee, with added spices.
Recently, quietly walking through the rolling halls of instagram, something unfurled in front of me. A decent length of time of an interview with Abraham Verghese, author of The Covenant of Water. Sure, I’d seen the hype and a few of the various promos. But this. This was real.
I loved this book. All of it. I read it before I read the hype, as it first emerged.
Thus, it sank into me as all estuaries and waterways do.
It reached into my cells, something ancient and serpentine.
And the songline of it carried me along . . .
The interview in question is here, conducted by a medical colleague.
It’s a video; I rarely listen to audio only, preferring to see the real person.
The section I’m going to direct you to specifically is timestamped at 47.31 mins. And onwards. The link I’ve directed you to, clearly marks all the timestamps with descriptors; very useful. A few poignant points:
Abraham speaks to something so deep in my own bones; this book took him a decade to write. Ten years. If we live to be 100, thats one tenth of our life!
If we are 50, that’s 20% of our life. Let that sink in.
This, is what it takes to make a book.
A body, of work.
‘A book needs to be as long as it needs to be’, from Abraham’s (new) publisher. Yes, it does. There is no amputation of something to suit the colonised mind. Nor the monopoloy of money and ‘marketplaces’.
No.
Abraham speaks to this book being ‘possibly the best thing he could ever write’. Indeed. His life, his lived knowledge, crafted, refined and distilled.
He highlights ‘writing for the pure joy of it’, versus the expectation (and demand) of ‘doing it again and again and again’. To satisfy the machine.
It touched upon the attention span that our species seems to have to devolved to, (although ZDoggMD, the interviewer skips over this).
And this, the truly precious:
‘when a reader engages with the words, with the book’, . . . and Abraham is close to tears.
I know this one.
Very, very deeply.
Because, my friends, it is all about this: relational fields.
There is NOTHING, without relationship.Nothing.
A few other points I’d like to draw your attention to, for reflection:
-the book is a journey, not a ‘what happens next';
-reading the book aloud for Audible is performance, not simply ‘reading' it out aloud. I know this one, too (like Conferences and sometimes, teaching/transmissing).
-Abraham’s meta understanding he gained, as he read his book for Audible.
And:
trust and believe in you; have confidence in your art; be not derailed by the latest thing. Being true to oneself . . .
seeking validation vs living your story is a repetitive moral injury
the synthesis of science and art (how I have lived my life)
One thing. Stillness, quiet
Sit still feel into what you’re doing (he tells his medical students this)
Find beauty, (and) be still . . . or burnt out
Sit with the blank page.
And then this wells up:
the hermit. ageing. grieving.
preparing to die
This one manifests for me as music from the subcontinent.
As my yoga- a deep molecular homecoming.
My no.
And,
my yes
‘Where is my yes?’ has become a question.
This month, I finally completed the curation - and creation - of Hall 1.
July 2018, the walking began. The processing. The small words . . .
It feels so very good to finish it.
A skin shed.
finally.
Although the images glow, the underlying Story is brutal.
I had not realised how shredding.
The walking was the walking ~
Amidst the lostness. The dissolution.
And then - eventually - there was the s l o w marinating in mud.
And lagoons:
The estuary. The wetlands. The birds and the grandmother mangroves.
The Seagrass!
On Quandamooka Country
Beloved Place.
I walked here on Saturday, in full sun. It’s only ever about the tide.
Nothing else matters.
I’d not been able to walk (physically) for a few weeks. Tottering around the sand was a benediction. Medicine. As the waters swirled around my feet, their effulgent generosity rose and infilled the chambers of my heart, flooding and drenching my veins; changing my genes. Again.
I am always held here. Loved. Cradled. Safe. Infused with the entire panoply of this Place. Its integrated and coherent sentience. Irrigating me.
The waters are luminous and nacreous and opalescence that shimmers.
As I begin to orient myself toward the constellation that is Hall 2 - I Am Estuary - and as erosion has taken its toll, I am revising how I want to do this.
What is truly helpful?
What do I want to leave?
What is a gift?
What can I harvest and distill and refine; what can I potentise and . . .
I will not use the work ‘offer’.
I dislike it intensely.
At this stage of the game, I do not ‘offer’: I simply breathe. And Present.
I Am.
As are you.
As. Are. You.
Which is why this will most likely evolve into something that is truly about a relational field of community and creation. Yes, there are the Halls and yes there are the ‘Invitations, Practices and Provocations’ (the Lessons), but I am wanting to weave a basket of Communion. Of Relation-ship/s. Of participation. Of contribution.
I do not know the form yet. Though I do have thoughts.
I want to hear YOUR thoughts.
Very much.
I actually do mean this. Email me, or post a comment here ~
The Photography and Filmmaking Course will be similar ~
Although, by necessity, more directional :)
The Invitation page is nearly ready for you. (Although there won’t be the fancy face-to-camera pieces trying to convince you to join me/us. Nor the whiz bang Instagram enticements of technology. Nor the constant harassment of email reminders). Fuck that. I have neither the know how nor the energy (nor the health) to be a slave to any of that palaver.
My work is my work is my work.
What I’ve been reading;
‘The Book of Hope’; Jane Goodall (inspiring, of course)
‘Right Story, Wrong Story’; Tyson Yunkaporta (wonderful, and challenging)
‘To Sing of War’; Catherine McKinnon (fabulous. WW2 in New Guinea and US)
‘Plankton, a Worldwide Guide’, Tom Jackson & Jennifer Parker
There are others, but my library doesn’t record my loans (shock).
Oh, and that playlist:
note; perhaps not all of the songs on it are my choice. Spotify will have likely populated and added pieces. I’ve created something with NINE songs and 1 hour and 8 minutes duration. Enjoy, my loved Friends.
Until next time, dear Ones,
Narelle xo
PS don’t forget to let me know what you would like to see, in Saltwater Songlines.
Out of the mud and saltwater she stepped, trailing stars in her antlers.
Doe. Kin to me.
My skin . . .
thank you for all these gifts - the interview, the playlist, the books to inspire me. and especially for your work, your legacy, your self. it's a joy to be in resonant relationship with you.