An Assemblage of Thoughts
Collage art by SK Collages, skcollages.tumblr.com
Zozobra - “Zozobra refers to a mode of being that incessantly oscillates between two possibilities, between two affects, without knowing which one of those to depend on … indiscriminately dismissing one extreme in favor of the other. In this to and fro the soul suffers, it feels torn and wounded.” The Conversation
I came across this term earlier in the year on one of the #strandedaussies Facebook pages and I thought it was perfect to describe the sense of uncertainty one can feel when you can’t get home to your country (even when you understand why), along with the feelings you have when you eventually return home and try to mould your new life in with the old. Zozobra is a Spanish term for anxiety, but with connotations that call to mind the wobbling of a ship about to capsize. The term emerged as a key concept among Mexican intellectuals in the early 20th century to describe the sense of having no stable ground and feeling out of place in the world. According to the philosopher Emilio Uranga (1921-1988), the telltale sign of zozobra is wobbling and toggling between perspectives, being unable to relax into a single framework to make sense of things. It could also be an effective way to describe how many people in the world might be feeling at the moment, after the enormous upheaval we’ve all experienced these past two years, and described more fully in this interesting article There's a word for your overwhelming anxiety, and it's "zozobra".
It’s just over five months since my family and I arrived back in Australia from living in the US, and I can’t quite believe where the time has gone. With most of it spent in lockdowns, it couldn’t be more different from our first five months of the year in the US. I’ve started a range of blog posts, drafted when I’ve been struck with a blast of inspiration, but my enthusiasm seems to have waned for each of them once I’ve released the initial thoughts from my mind. I think that’s partly because of this ‘zozobra’ that I’ve been feeling. I haven’t been able to ground myself into any one perspective due to the conflicting nature of the different cultures, which has then been compounded by the lockdowns. I’ve found it hard to concentrate on one particular stream of thought - they’re all just up there in my head swirling around like a group of Whirling Dervishes. But as the following short video shows, swirling and whirling can be meditative, and grounding can be found in the release of the thoughts - whether consciously, through writing perhaps, or unconsciously, through something like this trance-like dance.
Until now, I didn’t feel I should be posting all these unresolved thoughts - who would be interested in those, but then I wondered, does it really matter?
The word ‘inspiration’ ultimately derives from the Greek for ‘God-breathed’ or ‘divinely breathed into’ and as the spokesperson in the video above says, “what comes from God should be shared with people” so I felt that was my cue. If no-one reads this post, at least I’ve creatively released the swirling energy from my mind, even in its incomplete state. Why not just collate what I’ve written so far into one post, I thought, like planting an assortment of different flower seeds. Maybe some of them will grow into more elegant and resolved thoughts, whilst some of them might just wither and die, never to be thought of again? So this is what I’ve done here today, in the hope that once planted, some might show themselves to be more worthy of my time and effort in the future, when I’ll give those thoughts the full attention they deserve…..
Canadian Bay Beach, Boonwurrung / Boon Wurrung country (Mt Eliza)
People often say, when you’ve returned from a long period of time away, that everything at home just stays the same. That’s true in one sense, but even if we weren’t living in a COVID world, there are still many changes I’ve noticed. Let’s start with an easy one:
MULLETS!
Here are some thoughts I had when some of my children started at their new High School, where I observed the kids at drop-off and pick-up:
“How did we ever get back to the fashion of mullets? Every second teenage boy I see seems to have one, and it appears the uglier the better! I guess with hairdressers closed over COVID, they’ve had to resort to cutting their own hair. And I suppose styling a mullet is way more fun than your stock-standard buzz cut. But gee, I really hope this trend finishes before my boy becomes a teenager!”
My mind went straight to judgement! But slowly, I turned this around to curiosity. As I explain further down in this post, ‘curiosity over judgement’ really is a great position to put yourself in.
Also, here’s a story from the ABC if you want to read more about this current trend: Is the mullet coming back in style or was it never out of fashion?
INDIGENOUS RECOGNITION
And this is the thought I had (one I was much happier about I might add) the moment I turned on the ABC News when I was in hotel quarantine in Sydney, back in June:
“Oh wow, they’re using the Indigenous names of locations in their news reporting - amazing!”
Click this link to the AIATSIS Map of Indigenous Australia, where you can zoom in to any section of the country.
I am writing this post from Boonwurrung / Boon Wurrung country.
This is definitely one of the issues that’s been doing a lot of swirling and twirling in my mind since. Why did I think it was so amazing that the ABC was recognising Indigenous place names? I guess because in most of my 48 years on earth, they haven’t, and up until recently, I’m ashamed to say it wasn’t something I’d ever really thought much about.
According to this article ABC’s 7.30 to recognise Indigenous place names in programming:
“The introduction of place names on one of the ABC’s most prominent programs follows a decision in 2019 by the ABC to become a partner for Reconciliation Australia’s Action Plan, which is dedicated to making Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander names, voices and languages an everyday part of the vocabulary.”
This is a wonderful step, but I have been wondering why it has taken so long? It’s certainly an issue that I am by no means qualified to write about, but I can tell a couple of stories - one from my youth and one from my twenties - that speaks to the importance of educating our children (and adults) about the history of our Indigenous culture in Australia.
My youth - I’ve written a little about how my Irish ancestors came about farming the land that I grew up on, see this blog post Abandoned - Part 1, and what happened to the Indigenous people that were living in the area at the time. What I didn’t mention though, was the negative Indigenous stories surrounding me in my early youth in the 1970s, that skewed my understanding of the culture for quite a long time. We lived about 30 minutes away from an Aboriginal mission, but all I recall hearing about it as a child were the unfavourable elements - the crashed new cars, the destroyed buildings, the drunk and disorderly’s. There was no detail in the stories, possibly few facts, and never any real discussion as to ‘why’ - but there was plenty of information to implant bias into a young brain. I remember being intrigued by the culture, and wanting to visit the mission to learn more, but it just wasn’t the done thing back then. There was an attitude of ‘out of sight, out of mind’, and a segregation that I’m not sure we’ve ever really reconciled ourselves with in Australia - or at least not in many parts of the country.
We’ve also since learnt, that much of the media reporting on Indigenous culture back then was negative:
“One of the biggest traps is to report about Aboriginal affairs only if something negative has happened. This perpetuates the negative perception of the general population.
In the 1970s, Fiona Stanley, then a young doctor, analysed a year's worth of newspaper articles in Western Australian print media about Aboriginal health and found that 90% of Aboriginal health-related media articles were negative.
Not that this has changed much. 40 years later, in 2012, 74% were negative. And a 2015 survey of more than 350 articles about Aboriginal health found almost 75% of these articles were negative.” How to write about Aboriginal culture.
Even as recently as early this month, we saw an Indigenous man wrongly accused as the kidnapper of toddler Cleo Smith, followed by photographs on the front page of various newspapers showing the eventual alleged abductor, Terence Kelly, barefoot and in leg shackles. This prompted senior lawyers to question whether the accused can have a fair trial by jury after the blanket ‘prejudicial’ media coverage. The Guardian.
Journalists like Matthew Abbott are helping to tell different, more positive Indigenous stories, including the ‘Football’s Longest Drive, 1,000 miles across Australia’ series, as shown in this New York Times article. It’s stories like these that we need to read more about in Australian media.
Matthew Abbott, ‘Football’s Longest Drive’ series, www.mathewabbott.com.au
My twenties - a past job of mine was at a Convention Bureau where I helped academic clients bid for international conferences to come to Melbourne. One bid I worked on back in 2004/5 was WIPCE 2008 - the World Indigenous Peoples’ Conference on Education. I worked with a group of Indigenous Australian’s on the bid, and also worked closely with a New Zealand Maori team - the decision makers. I’m a little hesitant to bring this up, because I may have misunderstood the situation, but I think it highlights my naivity at the time, and speaks to the general lack of education many of us had/have on Australian Indigenous culture.
When we were planning the final bid presentation in Hamilton, New Zealand, there was some conflict about who was going to present. It was planned that I would present one component (the tourism aspects) and the client would present the other components (the program, speakers etc). But there was one lady on the Australian bid team who was quite scathing of my involvement - not personally, but I believe she didn’t think I should be representing their bid team in any way due to me being non-indigenous. At the time, I couldn’t quite understand it. I was the most qualified to talk on behalf of the tourism components of our bid. But she was adamant I didn’t present, and if my memory serves me correctly, I didn’t, I just provided the team with the relevant information which they presented. I think I eventually realised that the presentation wasn’t the most important component of that particular bid process, but it was the perception of ownership of the conference that was key. If I was seen to be too heavily involved, there may have been mistrust that the community might rely on too much assistance from the Bureau to run the conference, and not their own Indigenous community - and therefore they felt this might lose them the bid to another city. I’m happy to say we WON the bid, and I also learnt a very important lesson in cultural sensitivity.
My time living through ‘Black Lives Matter’ issues and protests in the US made me reflect back on these previous encounters with a deeper intensity and curiosity, and feelings of shame about my lack of knowledge of overall Indigenous issues certainly pervaded my mind over this period, and particularly since I’ve been back in Australia. I realised that we really do have to listen and learn more and that education about the truth is key, from the earliest age possible so our children don’t have to ‘unlearn’ years and years of bias. But I’ve also realised how much our mainstream media and our politicians are responsible for this bias, and I’m getting better at not believing everything I read.
Outside the White House, Washington DC, July 2020
And in the words of Summer May Finlay, a Yorta Yorta woman who works in Aboriginal health and is a PhD candidate, who wants media to change the conversation:
"I know from my own experience there is a profound disconnect from the way the media describes Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to my own lived experience of our strengths.
"Whenever I read about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, it’s almost like it’s a bad thing. I'm a proud Aboriginal person, I love being Aboriginal, and I couldn't imagine ever being anything but an Aboriginal person.
"We need a national conversation that recognises and celebrates the strengths of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and communities.
"I've had the luxury of travelling to communities around Australia, and I see these strong, passionate, caring, generous peoples. I don’t see that reality reflected in the way we’re described in the media." How to write about Aboriginal culture
INDIGENOUS CONNECTION TO THE ENVIRONMENT
As discussions swirled around climate change in the lead up to the UN Climate Change Summit - COP26, my thoughts briefly turned to the Indigenous connection to the environment.
And I resonated with these words, written by the wonderful healer, Victoria Breheny:
“We have become lost from harmony, balance, acceptance and unconditional love. We have become disconnected from the rhythm's and cycles of nature, the wisdom of mother earth and the true meaning of being present. We have placed our energy in the material over the natural, the ego over the spirt and the self instead of the collective. We are being asked to remember and revere the teachings and wisdom of all the Native people of the world.” Victoria Breheny, Active Stillness
I also had a few thoughts around Australia’s ‘plan’.
‘THE PLAN’
Sedona Mago Retreat, Arizona
“When I recently heard the announcement by the the Australian Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, regarding ‘The Plan to Deliver Net Zero: The Australian Way”, all I could think about was the following inspiring words, engraved on the rock above:
“Anyone standing on this land can feel love for Mother Earth and experience the realization that when we go beyond differences of nationality, religion, race, and culture, all humanity becomes our family of Earth Citizens.” Ilchi Lee, Founder of Mago Earth Park, Sedona, Arizona.
All that was echoing in my head was:
The Australian way
The Australian way
The Australian way
Which was subsequently followed by confusion as I wondered what this really meant. ‘The Plan’ didn’t seem like much of a plan at all - just a rehashing of what we’re already doing and a reliance on technology that doesn’t even exist yet! Again, I’m not really qualified to talk with any confidence on this subject, but even with my untrained eye, I could see it was no plan.”
Whilst I don’t want to muddy the brilliance of Ted Lasso (if you haven’t watched it yet, do yourself a favour) with the lacklustre, disingenuous ‘plan’ of our government, I did enjoy the synchronicity of watching the scene below close to the time Scott Morrison mentioned the word ‘PLAN’ 101 times in his announcement.
We were then struck by severe storms in Melbourne, and I wrote this:
“It’s a good day to ponder climate and our wondrous planet - here in Melbourne we’ve had huge storms overnight. Trees are down everywhere, trampolines have taken flight, rubbish bins have made friends with their neighbours, the power is out, and school has been pretty much cancelled. It reminds me of a snow day in the US. Whilst there is some annoyance that life continues to throw curve-balls as us, particularly those in Victoria, in some ways it feels like a gift. It really does make you ponder our existence on the planet and just how fragile it is. If only our leader could see it in the same way.”
GUNS IN THE USA
Image from worldpressphoto. “Parker Fawbusg stands with his family and his firearms,
in the backyard of the church where he works as a pastor, in Poseyville, Indiana, US.”
I had these thoughts when I was trying to write a post on GUNS in the USA:
“On the morning of Friday, September 24, 2021, I woke up to this news:
13 people shot, 2 killed. Collierville Kroger Supermarket, Memphis, Tennessee.
Collierville is two suburbs away from where we lived in Memphis, and where many of our school family friends live. It’s generally considered an extremely safe neighbourhood, with a crime rate of 9.1/100 compared to the city of Memphis at 85.7/100 and the US 22.7/100 (where 1 = low crime and 100 = high crime) Source, Best Places. Straight away I messaged one of our friends to make sure her family were safe. Thankfully, she was, but it’s her regular supermarket, and she was rattled.
Despite family in Australia worrying about us moving in 2018 to Memphis, Tennessee - the second most dangerous city in the US in 2021 according to Safewise - I was never really concerned with gun safety. We lived in a relatively safe suburb (I did plenty of research), and if I’m honest, I was much more fearful of a car accident. I knew of six people through a 2nd degree of separation, that sadly passed away in road accidents in the 2.5 years I was living there, and everyday, I had to battle the crazy drivers on the freeway that scared the life out of me. But guns, nah, it wasn’t as visible, and I guess I just blocked it out of my mind. During COVID though, it seems like gun violence in the safer suburbs is on the rise, and I started to see a few more alarming stories being shared on Facebook and told to me in person. I even had some friends say there were going to renew their gun license and purchase a handgun, such was their fear of the increasing crime.
But, having said that, I’ve always wondered, are gun shootings in the USA really as bad as what the media in Australia would have us believe? Just how many mass shootings are there each year, and how many of these are at schools? How many guns are there in the country, and who are the people that own them? Are mass shootings increasing each year, and if so, why might that be? Where does the obsession with gun ownership in the US come from, and how does it compare to other countries? ….. These, and many other questions, I’ve pondered over the last few years, but particularly now, since Tennessee, a Republican state in The South, has recently approved legislation to allow most adults to open carry handguns without obtaining a permit. It’s a scary thought, and it’s time for me to find out the answers to all my questions.”
Well, I haven’t yet done that research. Maybe I will, maybe I won’t. I can certainly say though that it’s one element of coming back to Australia that I’m very pleased I don’t have to worry about.
And this is another post I started writing - about why I couldn’t write about guns!
WHY I’M STRUGGLING TO WRITE ABOUT GUNS in the USA
A snap I took of a stand at a Gun Show I visited out of curiosity. Mississippi, November 2020
“I’ve been trying to write a blog post on GUNS in the USA for the last few weeks, but it is just not flowing, and I’ve been wondering why. Besides the fact that I’m languishing in this Melbourne lockdown and not feeling overly motivated to do much at all, I wondered if there was another reason for my stalling.
I had an epiphany about it today.
I fear that if I post the story I want to post - with questions answered such as ‘how many mass shootings are in the US each year, how many school shootings take place, how many guns exist in the country’ etc, then the response from Australians might be that of seemingly moral superiority - since we got rid of most of our guns back in 1996 after the gun amnesty in response to the Port Arthur mass shooting, and again recently 2018 when another 57,000 guns were taken off our streets. We’ve had virtually no mass shootings since, and of that, we’re all pretty proud. But it’s not just guns where some often feel morally superior over America, it’s COVID deaths, religion, road safety, and abortion, just to name a few. I’m somewhat guilty of doing this in the past myself of course, but living in the culture for 2.5 years helped me look at the issues from a curious perspective rather than a place of judgement, and it helped me to accept the ‘why’ behind the issues. Added to this, when a country offers you so many positive experiences, it becomes harder to write a story about the country that may come across negatively.
So nope, I’m not going there today. Maybe down the track. For now, I want to relive the amazing adventure our family was so lucky to go on, and to also remind Australian’s that when you look past some of the issues in the US you may not agree on, you may just find a spectacular country that offers…. “
Well, I didn’t quite finish that one either, but I did turn it into this post that captured some of the brilliant colour and emotion of the US Colo(u)rs of the USA.
GRIEF
Quite a few people I know have lost loved ones this year, and are experiencing substantial grief at the moment, particularly my Mum, who lost her husband in January. I came across the following by Elizabeth Gilbert, and thought it poignant:
“People keep asking me how I’m doing, and I’m not always sure how to answer that. It depends on the day. It depends on the minute. Right this moment, I’m OK. Yesterday, not so good. Tomorrow, we’ll see.
Here is what I have learned about Grief, though:
The only way that I can “handle” Grief, then, is the same way that I “handle” Love — by not “handling” it. By bowing down before its power, in complete humility.
When Grief comes to visit me, it’s like being visited by a tsunami. I am given just enough warning to say, “Oh my god, this is happening RIGHT NOW,” and then I drop to the floor on my knees and let it rock me. How do you survive the tsunami of Grief? By being willing to experience it, without resistance.
It’s an honor to be in grief. It’s an honor to feel that much, to have loved that much.”
As someone trying to help another through grief, I’ve had many questions about how best to do this. You constantly wonder, “have I said the wrong thing, am I doing the right thing, or am I making things worse, have I crossed the line, is this going to help them?” You hope you don’t cause them any further pain in your words and actions, you just want to provide loving support to help them get through.
I came across this guide which I found helpful Helping Someone Who’s Grieving.
KINDNESS
One final thought, because it was ‘Word Kindness Day’ last Saturday, have you heard about the Human Library, a nonprofit learning platform that allows people to borrow people instead of books? But not just any people. Every "human book" from this library represents a group that faces prejudice or stigmas because of their lifestyle, ethnicity, beliefs, or disability. A human book can be an alcoholic, for example, or a Muslim, or a homeless person, or someone who was sexually abused.
What a wonderful idea! Read more here CNN Health or here The Human Library.
Sometimes we don’t need to resolve every thought that is buzzing around in our heads, we just need to accept that they’re there, and find a space to release them. Perhaps that’s in the form of talking verbally with a friend, or it might be a personal diary, or like myself, you want to share them more widely in the world in the form of a blog or other public space, just in case those thoughts might be able to help someone else. It can be a vulnerable position to put yourself in, but the older I get, the more I realise just how many of us hold onto certain thoughts for fear of what others may think of them; when really, they’re possibly just as likely to have had some similar thoughts themselves, or, maybe you’re sharing a different perspective that they’ve never really thought about.
Like Walt Whitman, Ted Lasso and others say, if we come from a place of curiosity over judgement with these thoughts, and try not to feel shame for ‘not knowing enough’ about a particular issue, but then proceed to learn more, then surely this can only be a good thing for humanity.
“Be curious with yourself, be curious with others, and your life will change.” The Clutch
Looking back, I can now see why I had such ‘zozobra’ over even writing these blog posts. Besides the thought on the mullets, there’s some pretty big topics in there - anxiety, Indigenous recognition, my personal relationship to Indigenous culture, the environment, guns in the USA, and grief! Phew, no wonder I couldn’t finish them off! There’s also much anxiety over how to write about these topics, and there’s always the strong fear that I’m just going to get it wrong. But hopefully, if I just continue to reflect, question, stay open-minded, and be curious, I shouldn’t go wrong. The more I Iearn, the more I realise I don’t know, and life then becomes a wonderous maze of exploration and adventure.
Finally, some more Ted Lasso wisdom, because….well, just because I think it needs to be shared.
And if I can’t convince you to watch the show, maybe Emma Clifton can:
“Ted Lasso is about a hot and thoughtful man, who has the face, moustache and wardrobe of a handsome Ned Flanders but the wisdom, heart and quotability of Brené Brown.”
Enjoy x
