Sophia

Laura Marling is one seriously prodigious 21-year-old. I was transfixed by her when I saw her play the Metro last year, and her latest single continues to leave me in awe.

Sophia seems to morph from a kind of dirge to a catchy country-pop anthem without notice. Amazing stuff. And I still can't stop comparing her to Joni Mitchell.

At Sea

I can't decide whether this wallpaper is my dream wallpaper, or would daily leave me feeling seasick. What do you reckon?

On the weekend I picked up a 1940's clothbound copy of Charles Lamb's Essays of Elia, for $1.99, at Salvos. I think it would look rather splendid on that sidetable.

h/t Design Sponge.

Wallpaper by Abigail Edwards.

the weekend

1. Kris and I did flowers for a friend's wedding. Actually, Kris did the flowers. I did some helping Kris do the flowers.
2. TACO TRUCK in the park near my house with Alice and Kris.

Taco Truck is pretty much the greatest thing ever. The invention of Raph Rashid (husband of awesome Melbourne designer lady Beci Orpin), Taco Truck is a mobile food outlet that pops up in the northern suburbs. It's in Brunswick at least once a week, but often I'm out or working, or it's raining. But not today.

Before the Taco Truck, there was the Beatbox Kitchen. To find out where they're going to pop up, you just need to follow them on twitter or facebook.

Le Petit Prince

I love Amy Borrell's illustrations. This one reminds me of The Little Prince, which my Year 7 science teacher read to us at the end of every period.

The God of Shapes

You who formed the earth

and the avocado,

those ripening spheres-

In you, all shapes orbit.

We pull against you, tripping on

our own will, begging

you to release us from

such freedom as this.

Instead you hurl us

into constellations

of your

own making, stars

motioned by the winds of creation.

Looking for perfection

in triangles, it's in silent equations we

see your true self.

---

My attempt at a Rilke-style poem.

Ripening

Everything ripens in spring. A storm just shuddered through here, thickening the air with the smell of rain. Today, life is bursting at the seams.

This evening I began Rilke's Book of the Hours, sitting among the bikes at dusk, the air warm and threatening, outside Readings on Lygon Street.

It's a collection of poems he wrote to God. This one shimmers...

When gold is in the mountain
And we’ve ravaged the depths
Till we’ve given up digging,

It will be brought forth into day
By the river that mines
The silences of stone.

Even when we don’t desire it,
God is ripening.

{Auch wenn wir nicht wollen:
Gott reift.}

Melbourne is...

Kimbra singing in a laneway in Fitzroy in the middle of winter.



As my Sydney friends would mockingly say... "It's.Very.Melbourne": IVM. A phrase yet to be patented, but I reckon it's got legs.

Thanks to Pip, who lives on the other side of this laneway for sharing it with the world.

This thing we call life

singing to the trees on wombat hill

Here's the fun part.... I'll tell you what I'm doing if you tell me what you're doing. Go on, I want to know!

Reading: Discipleship by Bonhoeffer, Journey to the Stone Country by Alex Miller, Confessions by Augustine and 2 Corinthians.
Watching: Jane Eyre on the big screen.
Making: A podcast called The Spoken Project (Sshhhh it's a secret).
Eating:  Cake, crumble and tofu.
Wearing: The winter coat's been back out this week.
Listening: The new Wilco and Laura Marling streamed on the web. This American Life, All Songs Considered and Tim Keller sermons.
Cafe-ing: at Manchester Press, on Little Bourke.


There is a lovely magnolia tree out my window, being overshadowed by an avocado tree, which HAS FRUIT. A while ago I picked some and waited a month for it to ripen, only to cut it open to find a rubbery green bullet. That's ok. Just having a fruit tree in our yard makes me happy.

The blossoms are out. The birds seem happier. Melbourne doesn't have as many pigeons and seagulls as Sydney, instead it has cute little sparrows. It almost broke my heart the other day to see a dead one.

Also, my house mate spotted a pigeon with a bread necklace. That's a bird with an entire piece of bread around its head.

I wrote my tiny new God son a book. It didn't turn out as awesome as I hoped (things are always more awesome in my head), but I was still pretty excited to create my first picture book. It was called Penelope's Favourite Things and is about a girl who is obsessed with lists.

On the weekend a few of us from Cross Cultures went to Daylesford. I've been swooning over Daylesford ever since I heard about the White House, which is kind of silly really, because a town is more than one house, but it seemed to sum up the beauty of the place. Thankfully, Daylesford didn't disappoint. The Wombat Hill Botanic Gardens and lavender farm were highlights. It felt a little bit like the southern highlands of NSW; country charm abounding.

But what about you??

Hyacinths and the world in dormancy

Have you ever noticed our world is in dormancy? What I mean is, things are aching, creaking, breaking, shuddering with potential but not quite getting to fullness. Happiness lasts only momentarily. Beauty is fleeting. Things are in decay.


It's like there's something not quite right with the world. We sense it should be blooming, but instead it's fading.


I want to suggest that this sense is no illusion, but rather points to a greater reality.


If I can use a gardening analogy, it's like the world is a Hyacinth bulb.


Hyacinth bulbs are on my mind, because my housemate Kris has been growing them in jars on every vacant surface of our house, so bear with me.


To make them grow, you rest a bulb on the lip of a jar filled with water for six weeks in cool darkness. During this time, the bulb thinks it's underground and grows roots. It's getting ready to support life. It starts to grow a little shoot, until it's ready to be brought into the sunlight.


Once brought out, it shoots up and flowers, like the one in the picture. It bursts forth in a matter of hours into a living, green plant.


Our world is like a hyacinth bulb in the dark. It's waiting for blistering light to beckon it into fullness of life. The question is, what is this light?


To be honest, the light's already come into the world, but the world didn't recognise it: "The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him."


The world was made through Him. The light is Jesus. Even the Jews, his own people, didn't recognise him as the light:


"He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him."


But there were some that realised he really was the light the world was waiting for, and for them, he is their light and life. "...To all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God."


I have received the light, not out of some great wisdom of my own, but because it blinded me one day. I had been like a seed, dormant in the ground until Jesus woke me up. And one day in the future, the light will come again the world will be renewed.


I was reading the King's Cross by Keller the other day and here's how he puts it:

"If you put seeds into a pot of soil and then put it away in the dark, away from the sun, the seeds go into dormancy. They can't grow to their potential. But if you bring the pot with seeds into the presence of the sun, all that has been locked within them bursts forth. The bible says everything in this world - not just we human beings but even the plants, the trees, the rocks - is dormant. These things are just shadows of what they have been, would be, and will be in the presence of their Creator. When the Lamb of God presides over the final feast and the presence of God covers the earth again, the trees and the hills will clap and dance, so alive will they be."

Can you imagine this? Do you want this? Then welcome the light.

Things you really ought to have a read of

Some links to fill your heart:

Kath writes with great poignancy about getting beyond ourselves when confronting death over at A Listening Space. Sometimes it is hard to know what to say, what to do, what stories to tell, which places to inhabit. Meditating on this is a good place to start.

Soph R's magicked up some awesome upcycled cards recently. Check them out here. I'm honoured to have been an inspiration.

Jo's over at Heartbeat Poecy praying prayers too honest to make it to the pulpit, but too close to the small, dark voice in our minds not to be taken seriously.