There is an African parable about a farmer who sells his farm to go searching for diamonds which he never finds meanwhile the man who bought his farm find diamonds on the very farm that the first man sold.
There's a little patch of calm in an ocean of panic
Selling off the family farm our farmer is a tragic
He going on a search for a diamond studded land
When he finds his fortune, won't his life be grand?
Searching high and low will he ever find his treasure?
One day will he know a life of wealth and pleasure?
Trodding up and down on the search for Easy Street
He's a desk jockey and clown, the betting house his beat
Why he sold the farm many thought he was insane
Depressed and without charm, going down the drain
Never found his fortune, he's going off his head
Life never played his tune, and he ended up dead
In an Ocean of panic there's a little patch of calm
Where Farmer Obananic bears the work of his new bought farm
Working hard, tills the field and carries water from the creek
So he gets a good crop yield and just the other week
He was walking in the creek and found a shiny rock
He forgot it for a week because he stored it in his sock
But he showed it to a friend who told him what he found
The farm he bought had acres of diamonds lying round.
So the moral of the story, just stop and look around
You may just have a priceless antique sitting on the ground
And even better you've the brains to do what's in your head
Find your little patch of calm and don't panic or be dead
You've everything you need to create a life of thrival
Or you can look externally and live life in survival
Chasing rainbow ends, find hail and slime on
Or STOP. Look around you're sitting on diamonds.
I heard this story earlier in the week and decided to rewrite it in poetry rhyming couplet form. I have been also contemplating how this story might apply to my life. What diamonds am I sitting on? Rare books? Antiques?
AhHa! My unpublished poetry? My unpublished children’s books like Happy Harry Koala? The Australian Poetry Hall of Fame? All the above and more. Yes it is true, which makes me think “I’d better create some products from my writing and art. I’m sitting on acres of diamonds”
“I am a creator, I am creative, creating is how us creative creators live.
Creative creators live and love to create artistic expressions of beauty that’s great,
Creative creators lift cultures up higher with cultural evolution that they inspire
Creator open our hearts and fill them with love inspired by love and also from above” Thundercloud Repairian Quotes
Thundercloud at Wednesday Words Open Mic night in front of the Australian Poetry Hall of Fame mural by Tony Amaral
I will be the first to admit that I am a creative creator. Whether it is poetry, writing, art, sculpture, cooking or “whatever,” I love doing it. My current BIG creation is the Australian Poetry Hall of Fame in Guyra. It is a multifaceted project with a cafe, a Poet’s Hall of Fame, an art gallery, and more. It is like having a giant working studio in a theatre. For example yesterday I wrote a piece of poetry, wrote a blog post, painted some of the mural on the stage, cooked pumpkin soup and bread, did some graphic design. At the end of the day I recorded 54 minutes of poetry to facebook and then uploaded it to Youtube. That reminds me of what this blog post is about…….Creating.
I opened the Australian Poetry Hall of Fame in Guyra in March 2020 on the first day of COVID-19 lockdown so I quickly had to reevaluate my business plan which had included many live events. In June 2020, I began the Guyra Farmers and Craft Market at the Australian Poetry Hall of Fame providing an outlet for local artisans and crafty people to sell their wares. I also began weekly, Wednesday Words Open Mic Poetry Night. There were nights during lockdown in 2021 where I was the only one in attendance so I began broadcasting it on Facebook live. My good friend and patron Gladys Wilson has been a major supporter of the open mic night and also the Australian Poetry Hall of Fame in general. From Gladys, my first follower, I have grown a group of more than a dozen regular poets attending the open mic night. Now Wednesday Words Open Mic Poetry night has followers all around the world who tune in to the live Facebook broadcast or who catch up once it is uploaded to Youtube.
The most rewarding part of this creation is that I have inspired new people to create, not only poetry but also art and by stocking the only art supplies in Guyra, I am also enabling creators. Gladys Wilson has now written over 12 pieces of poetry, Doug Scott has begun writing and Gabriel Donleavy said that he has now been inspired to write more.
I am grateful. I am grateful for the opportunity to create but also the opportunity to facilitate and inspire other creators. As the economy becomes more and more robotised and mechanised the creative economy grows where people can make a living from their creations and innovations. We need creative people.
Listening to a music for writing playlist. A tray full of pumpkin, onion and tomatoes roasts in preparation for the next round of pumpkin soup to warm the core. Inspired to take moments away from other more pressing and productive chores and creative pursuits. It is autumn, 13 degrees Celcius outside and drizzly intermittent showers blow in and out. This is not the kind of weather that I would like to be a stockman on a horse.
I am now listening to a beautiful piece of classical music by Litvinovsky – Pelléas and Mélisande: I. Ils étaient comme des enfants. In English that translates to “They were like children,” and that reminds me what I am doing-writing.
For the time is often filled with trivialities and chores so in order to write, one must make writing opportunities. I live where I work, an old theatre one called the “Arcadia Theatre” but now home to the “Australian Poetry Hall in Fame” in Guyra, Banbai/Kamilaroi country. Living where I work and working where I live has both positive and negative aspects. One of the negatives is that it’s easy to fill the time with work and drudgery. The positive is that I have at hand a whole space in which to follow creative pursuits, a big child’s garden, in which to nurture the soul and the spirit and remind oneself that life is for enjoyment not suffering.
One of the simplest pleasures is writing. That’s why it is worth creating opportunities to write. Have a note book handy, write on a smart phone write on a computer to create a piece of literary art which echoes down through the eons for future readers to unearth nuggets of gold. Writing is not everyone’s cup of tea but for me it is a well drawn cup of Barry’s Irish tea with a dash of milk and the teabag left in.
Two hours after I began writing this piece the last third of a mug of tea is lukewarm but still strong tasty and drinkable, the pumpkin soup is blended and ready to serve and numerous interruptions have passed. These interruptions include Mediterranean field mushroom cups, avocado on toast, three glasses of fresh pressed juice and a delivery of an old radio, record player and a slide projector. The rain has definitely set in and I still do not envy the stockman Clancy of the Overflow on his horse in the rain.
Simple pleasures are life’s treasures like classical music on a rainy day
Simple pleasures are beyond measure, no price can be put upon play
Simple pleasures are diamonds of leisure, in a warm room writing away
Earlier this week I wrote a piece of poetry about a man who does all the enjoyable things twice but if it causes him pain then he goes and does something which he enjoys. The poem is simple titled “Double Dan”
Double Dan
There is a happy man who does everything twice
If it brings him joy and makes him feel nice
But if it makes him sad, feel horrible and mad
He doesn’t repeat it, he does things that make him feel glad.
He skied down a hill and skied down a hill again
Then he parachuted once and a second time my friend
He swam with a crocodile and a great white shark
Then he went and danced at a festival in a park
He rode a camel across a desert and then he rode it back
Twice took a submarine into a deep ocean floor crack
Then then he watched a horror movie and couldn’t crack a smile
So he played a game football with his friends for a while
If it makes him feel good he’ll do it one more time
He climbed a mountain twice to feel twice sublime
But he’ll only do it once if he shits his pants
Then to feel better he’ll play football or dance
There is a man named Double Dan, who’s a happy man
He does the fun things twice just because he can
But he’s no twit and if it makes him feel like shit
He’ll change what he’s doing and never repeat it.
There is a lot that I could write about doing the things that you love and not repeating unpleasant or harmful experiences. However time is limited. It is now 3:30pm and I have been writing this piece of content for over 5 hours. There are days where I want to write more than I have time for and when I have not written anything for a few days I start to get concerned that I am not being productive enough as a writer. The fact is that it’s not the writing that I don’t do enough of, it’s the publishing. It’s the part of the creative process where nothing new is written and the formatting, editing, uploading to Amazon etc. and it all seems like too much work. So I procrastinate, avoid and do the easier, simpler things like cook pumpkin soup or write a poem.
This week is the second birthday of the Australian Poetry Hall of Fame in Guyra, a place to celebrate poets past, present and emerging. There is always something to do and much more to be done so it is easy to be distracted and forget to write. However, April is the month of #TheDirtyThirty challenge on facebook. This is where we are challenged every day with a prompt to write a piece of poetry. I am looking forward to it as there is nothing as rewarding as creating a piece of random poetry from a random prompt.
Believe what you want. I am nobody to tell you what to believe but be aware that most of what you believe has been told to you by someone else who never questioned the source nor sough any extra information to back up their belief.
There are four main ways of “knowing. These are: facts, opinions, beliefs and prejudice. Somewhere along the continuum lies “faith” Faith is where we believe something exists without proof. The following 3 pieces of poetry have been written over the past few years as I ponder and meditate on life about beliefs that serve and beliefs that don’t serve.
Facts
I am about to destroy everything that you know
Please read this very carefully and slow
Is it a fact that you tell me, my friend?
Or is it a belief, that serves no proper end?
Is it a scientific factual truth that serves you,
Or preprogrammed belief that isn’t quite true?
How did you come that opinion my friend?
What information brought you to this end?
This belief that you speak about seems to cause grief,
Are you sure your opinion is not just a belief?
Have you researched the truth, critically looked at the fact,
or is this just a belief about how you learnt to react?
Have you researched and analysed all information?
Is this just a belief that’s causing you frustration?
I know that you only know what you know
So I will spell it out carefully and slow
There are things that you know you don’t know
And things that you don’t know that you don’t know
Things that are programmed that you can let go
Beliefs have no facts that you can show
A fact can be verified with real evidence
Providing support for assertion of arguments
Opinions are judgements based on facts
Opinions can be changed on how you interpret the facts
Beliefs are convictions based on personal faith
with no evidence or facts they are based on faith
Prejudices are reflections of narrow minds
having no place in argument at any time
Beliefs are based on values or morality
Cannot be tested with logic or rationality
Prejudices come from friends, family and media
Prejudice is when another plants a seed in ya
Acting on fears and pessimistic predictions
like that you need to get vaccinations
Believing that negative outcomes will get you
so you need to be prepared in case predictions are true
A belief is acceptance of something without proof
without empirical evidence to prove the truth
Is it a fact, opinion, prejudice or belief?
Only facts truely serve us and the rest cause us grief.
Only facts are factual and they are verifiable.
Linguistically this fact is undeniable. “be careful of bad spirits, they could harm you”
This is an example of a belief that’s not true.
Why am I even writing about this stuff?
Because of prejudice and beliefs, I’ve had enough
Beliefs are the foundation of our lives and our habits
Like chocolate eggs come from bunny rabbits
And if you believe in the Lord you’ll have eternal life
Religious beliefs cause much pain, war and strife
Like the prejudice that we need a nationality
is nonfactual and not based in rationality
Belief are for people who want to conform
It takes courage to go against the norm
Now hold your tongue and be careful what you say
Reassess your beliefs and have a lovely day
Please consider just what I have said
And turn the world upside down on its head, DISOBEY
Self affirming beliefs
A belief, and a value, opinion is just that. Beliefs are built in your imagination and not based on fact.
A belief is an explanation made in your brain to justify something you cannot explain
All beliefs are false and made up in your head not by looking at the facts, beliefs are the words that you said.
Made up from your programming fed into your mind, hypnotised by reinforced beliefs all the time.
You could believe in a god that there is no proof exists just because your mum, dad, a preacher and as an old book insist.
But beliefs are just purely abstracted nouns so you can drop all your beliefs and just walk around.
So you take control of your life ask what will I create and you drop your limiting beliefs then plan and then make living in the now and create a new plan to be famous world wide as the unlimited man
There is one more thing, believe in yourself to take control of your life, your destiny and health
I believe there are no beliefs to stop us achieve, every single goal that we write, plan and we believe
I have finished being a limited man and from now I’ll take action to do every dream, goal and plan.
The indoctrinated man
He believed everything the Bible ever said, read it and re-read it ingrained into his head
His beliefs were so outdated and morals very low, when he closed the Bible his mind became free though.
But it was not his fault, his indoctrination because the Christian missionaries colonised his nation.
Once upon a time he supported it, but now he’s homophobic like a hypocrite
If you’re spouting hate and lies, judgement and bigotry, whether Jewish, Christian Muslim, your mind is never free
If you take your cue from and old outdated book, you’d beat your slave and rape your wife, and sacrifice a chook (“chook” is Australian slang for chicken)
And take away the freedom of the people who you love, indoctrinated by an imaginary friend called “God” above
An imaginary God with human traits imposed, if god really existed there’d be no judgement I’d suppose
But you don’t have to keep the faith and blindly believe. Free will is what you have, you have the choice to leave
Behind the lies and fear of religious indoctrination. Think for yourself and change your mind and change the situation.
When he left behind the outdated book of fear, started being kind and admitted being Queer,
Poor little Rael was messed up in the head, believing that he would go to hell after he was dead. There is one more thing, “Be here now” and a photo for the Hindus of a big sacred cow.
Thundercloud Repairian 