When will these visitors go home?

Hi there,
This is house guest Pete writing from beautiful South Yarra, Melbourne Australia; in the very generous environment created by my hosts, Gord, Bec and Piper (and bump soon to arrive).

Jotara (my wife) and I had a storm-delayed flight across the Bass Straight, from Tasmania. That's where we live. (Please put us on your itinerary - ask Gord for contact details) After an enjoyable ride on the Sky Bus, a 24 hour airport-to-city bus service, we connected with a taxi and arrived at South Yarra at about 2130, to a warm welcome and cups of tea.

Fantastic to catch up with old Tantra buddies and share personal stories since meeting last year. All good conversation that heightened the anticipation of Gords and my planned trip to Steels Creek and the Centre for Human Transformation for a Men Breath and Spirit weekend, beginning the next day.

A short walk in the morning and I'm shopping in Toorak, Melbourne's designer shopping mecca. Then back to meet Gord, after his day at work to begin our journey and the start of the weekend course.

Although it was peak hour Gord and I made our way on the train across town to rendezvous with another Tantra buddy Andrew in minutes. A beer later and we were on the road, styling in Andrew's old C-class Mercedes. (Andrew's a musician, music producer and a hell of a breather!)

The journey through the picturesque Yarra Valley was a meditation in itself and ended with a trial for the old Merc; a steep gravel driveway, recently scared by a 60mm rainstorm. (That's 60mm in one hour!) After two attempts at the hill it was decided to take the alternative but prohibited route, through the vineyard which put me on edge. This weekend was going to be far from the expected.

Giving our explanation of the difficulties on the driveway our excuse was accepted and the circle began, an evening of getting to know the other thirteen participants and gearing up for the breathing exploration the next two days would bring.

I had attended one other Men Breath and Spirit weekend three months previous and had an idea of the potential personal changes and challenges that lay ahead, but I still felt a little apprehensive as I retired for the evening. Gord, cool as ever, made the comment that this was his "first breathwork session" with a hint of nervous excitement.

Saturday came, and I was in the first group to take the mat and breath through a session. It opened me up so that I felt like a jelly-baby inside, vulnerable and fragile. Saturday night was early to bed given the impact of the day. As I rose at 0630 to prepare the chip heater for hot showers, I felt well primed for the new breathing technique to be introduced that day.

So I imagined taking my last breath and eventually found a peaceful place inside, a wonderful mysterious journey that has left me centered. grounded and full of life.

This morning I'm on my way from the South Yarra haven so generously shared by Gord, Bec and Piper. The opportunity to share experiences with such a connected family has enriched my time in Melbourne and my energy for life to come.

Thank you friends.

Pete:)

Picture of new baby...

For those who wanted a picture of it, here is Bec's belly.







(oh yeah, the baby is inside...)

A day with Piper in the sand...

Today was another hot day - I was taking care of Piper, so we played in the sandbox for an hour this morning... looking forward to recapturing the things that I did as a kid through playing with her... sometimes really hard to slow down to her pace.

We created a sand woman... Piper wanted a breastfeeding baby, which didn't really work, but this is the result...

>
Also, a week ago, I had a few hours while Piper was sleeping, so I decided to play with my new router bits. It was fun, and cool that the router does such a good job in a short period of time... of course, I also learned what happens when you miscalculate with your measurements and suddenly a lot more material is missing than was originally intended.

Tonight, Bec was busy scraping and sanding back the walls in the bedroom... nesting is in full swing...

Gonna be a hot one tonight...

Just for the record. That's an actual thermometer... picture taken around 9:30 at night in the study... outside temperature feels about the same...

Thank god for fans.... and icy cold water.

St Kilda beach

My cousin Michelle arrived from Canada the day after my birthday (at the end of January). She's been staying with my parents, doing lots of sightseeing and job-hunting, but this week we roped her into babysitting for a morning! It was great, I was able to get Gord's visa application done - glad to have that bit of paperwork out of my hair.


The night before (Michelle slept over at our place), we headed down to St Kilda beach. I was blown away when Michelle said it was the first time she'd seen the ocean since she was last in Australia, which was 1991, when she was, I believe, three years old!!! This prompted me to ask Gord if he'd seen the sea when he was growing up, and he said he reckoned the first time he'd seen it was when he went to Vancouver with Shaun when he was twenty! Although he could possibly have seen it on a family trip to BC when he was ten, but he can't remember!


I'm kind of flabbergasted, but I forget that Australia is an island continent, with the majority of the population living in coastal towns and cities. The beach is an intrinsic part of the Australian identity, featured in our history, literature and folk tales. It seems so odd to me that you wouldn't grow up having at least a few holidays to the beach, but I can understand that a prarie family in Canada (and even an Albertan family!) might not make it to the coast all that often. However, it does explain why Gord values living close to the beach, and why he likes the idea that we can head down there pretty much whenever we like. We're kind of averaging once a week at the moment, or Gord certainly is. Piper and I at least made it to the local pool this week...


Anyway, here's a few photos of us with Michelle, on the boardwalk, in front of the iconic Luna Park, and scoffing cake on Acland St. Honestly, Piper ate more of that chocolate cake than Gord did! And given the difference in body size, that's a worry, eh! No wonder she was a bit hyper on the way home! Oh yes, did I mention that's my vanilla slice in the foreground?? Hey, at least I took half of it home!

Shelf building Saturday

.Today I spend some time knocking a shelf together for the back door, so we have a runway for the stuff that we need to dump when we come through the back door. I mostly used wood that was lying around, so its pretty bowed, but that should be OK once I screw it back to its supports.

I actually got this a bit wrong originally, in that I wasn't planning to make the one end come out any wider, but I drilled into the bricks in the wrong area and had to cover it up (cause I don't own a hammer drill and couldn't drill a new hole!!)

Still have to sand and stain the shelf, and the supports would look nicer if they were angled off at the ends, instead of being big and square... then a bi of trim to cover for the fact that the brick walls are far from square (guess that wasn't really fussy a hundred year ago...)

Its nice having the time to do this sort of stuff. I also got to use one of the routers for the first time, which was nice to see how well that worked... cheap as chips GMC quality, but good enough for the odd job around the place...

Piper likes eating

Well, another photo, this time to test out the Picassa functionality.

Appears to work so far... That's not paper in her mouth, but a sheet of filo pastry...

Moved house again

Well, tis a busy night indeed. First there was pear.. now back to blogger, then across to update the DNS redirect...

All adds up to a technical Fri night, don't you think?

Oh, and I'm still testing out the pictures, so here's another one from Bec's birthday recently (where she didn't turn old...)

:)

Fri evening in Gord's head

Hey, this is a scary place to be...

At the start of a rambling Fri night entry, sending this out to the world... stream of consciousness is a bit of a trickle at the end of a longish work week... a week that involved meeting a builder in Grmbrook, as well as producing a bunch of good stuff in the office.

Tonight, Australia is losing the cricket for the first time this summer. Serves them right, though most likely they will come back and be even stronger for the experience.

Nothing useful really to say. The blog space is new, so I should go and add a link into the template so that the old pages are still there.

Oh, and Shawn, good to see that you are still out there reading faithfully. We will be in Canada for 9 months starting in Dec, so hopefully we will be able to see you at that time.

I also have to try out the picture posting thing, so that's the next bit to do...

Friday afternoon

Yep, Friday afternoon. Piper's reading to herself in bed, after a busy morning at childcare. I'm wondering how to use the time - more and more these days the thought of being in bed is very tempting. Third trimester is kicking in... However, I've also been hit with the nesting phase, which in my case looks like me trying to finish all the knitting and sewing projects I've started in the last year! Somehow my world is being reduced to craft, daggy as that sounds.

This week has been hard, emotionally. Nothing like running face to face with your shadow. I feel like my shadow is so ugly, and I'd rather it not be there, but I think it's here to stay. The sooner I accept it, befriend it even, the better. Yes, hello rage, glad you're there! Hello, passive aggression!

Anyway, I'm feeling better now, after a very rough start to the week (just ask Gord! And I'm not even premenstrual! Although I guess pregnancy still makes you hormonal...) Thought I'd try adding some images so here goes... This is a photo of Piper and Miri (from Gembrook) while we were staying at the Duthies' place in December...