Stuck in a Moment performed by The Edge and Bono - Letterman (Fri 18 Jul 2011)

Why Letterman was so good. In all the zaniness, there were incredibly touching, revealing interviews and live performances, this being just one ..

There are plenty of moments in life and most we move through as we should. Some we miss and let it pass us by. And there are those where we can get stuck. Inspired and written about the sad and tragic loss of a good friend ..

"It's just a moment
This time will pass"

Stuck in a Moment (more) performed by The Edge and Bono - Letterman (18 Jul 2011)
Saw this on the TV when I was in New York. It was shown in a repeat episode while the show was on a summer break. Thought to myself at the time I would put it here when I get back. Here it is. The music starts at around the 2m:20s mark. The interview before this is worth listening to BTW.

Stuck in a Moment Lyrics

I'm not afraid
Of anything in this world
There's nothing you can throw at me
That I haven't already heard
I'm just trying to find
A decent melody
A song that I can sing
In my own company

I never thought you were a fool
But darling, look at you. Ooh.
You gotta stand up straight, carry your own weight
'Cause tears are going nowhere baby

You've got to get yourself together
You've got stuck in a moment
And now you can't get out of it
Don't say that later will be better
Now you're stuck in a moment
And you can't get out of it

I will not forsake
The colors that you bring
The nights you filled with fireworks
They left you with nothing
I am still enchanted
By the light you brought to me
I listen through your ears
Through your eyes I can see

You are such a fool
To worry like you do.. Oh
I know it's tough
And you can never get enough
Of what you don't really need now
My, oh my

You've got to get yourself together
You've got stuck in a moment
And you can't get out of it
Oh love, look at you now
You've got yourself stuck in a moment
And you can't get out of it
Oh lord look at you now
You've got yourself stuck in a moment
And you cant get out of it

I was unconscious, half asleep
The water is warm 'til you discover how deep
I wasn't jumping, for me it was a fall
It's a long way down to nothing at all

You've got to get yourself together
You've got stuck in a moment
And you can't get out of it
Don't say that later will be better
Now you're stuck in a moment
And you can't get out of it

And if the night runs over
And if the day won't last
And if your way should falter
Along this stony pass

It's just a moment
This time will pass

Stuck in a Moment performnd by The Edge and Bono - Letterman (18 Jul 2011)

Stuck in a Moment (more) performed by The Edge and Bono - Letterman (18 Jul 2011)
Saw this on the TV when I was in New York. It was shown in a repeat episode while the show was on a summer break. Thought to myself at the time I would put it here when I get back. Here it is. The music starts at around the 2m:20s mark. The interview before this is worth listening to BTW.

Stuck in a Moment Lyrics

I'm not afraid
Of anything in this world
There's nothing you can throw at me
That I haven't already heard
I'm just trying to find
A decent melody
A song that I can sing
In my own company

I never thought you were a fool
But darling, look at you. Ooh.
You gotta stand up straight, carry your own weight
'Cause tears are going nowhere baby

You've got to get yourself together
You've got stuck in a moment
And now you can't get out of it
Don't say that later will be better
Now you're stuck in a moment
And you can't get out of it

I will not forsake
The colors that you bring
The nights you filled with fireworks
They left you with nothing
I am still enchanted
By the light you brought to me
I listen through your ears
Through your eyes I can see

You are such a fool
To worry like you do.. Oh
I know it's tough
And you can never get enough
Of what you don't really need now
My, oh my

You've got to get yourself together
You've got stuck in a moment
And you can't get out of it
Oh love, look at you now
You've got yourself stuck in a moment
And you can't get out of it
Oh lord look at you now
You've got yourself stuck in a moment
And you cant get out of it

I was unconscious, half asleep
The water is warm 'til you discover how deep
I wasn't jumping, for me it was a fall
It's a long way down to nothing at all

You've got to get yourself together
You've got stuck in a moment
And you can't get out of it
Don't say that later will be better
Now you're stuck in a moment
And you can't get out of it

And if the night runs over
And if the day won't last
And if your way should falter
Along this stony pass

It's just a moment
This time will pass

Nothing Really Matters - Eileen Cady / Footprints on the Path

Words of Wisdom from Janice's Fridge Door - Ashfield (Sun 15 Mar 2015)

.. "nothing really matters" .. by Eileen Cady

Dwell not in the past,
Use it to illustrate a point;
then leave it behind.
nothing
really
matters
except what you do now
In this instant of time.

From this moment onward
you can be entirely different person
filled with love and understanding,
ready with an outstretched hand,
uplifted and positive
in every thought and deed.

Eileen Caddy / Footprints on the Path

Recently had an experience that has forced me to reflect on life more than I normally would.

I recently had to abstract my experience down to a txt message, so someone could appreciate and understand what I went through during and after this experience. Here it is:

I saw the generosity, concern and empathy of complete strangers. I saw first hand the diversity, strength and professionalism of our Rescue Services - I'm in awe of them. I saw the importance of life and how fragile our connection is with it.

I'm proud of my decisions and my actions that day, I think it helped save someones life.

Due to circumstance and/or privacy laws, it is not possible to thank all those people who helped that day, so I say it here - THANK YOU.

An experience like that makes you reflect a lot and in some ways it was life changing - a spiritual experience actually.

I have dwelt on this for far too long and it has had a bigger impact (both negative and positive, oddly enough) on me than I could ever imagined.

It is now time to acknowledge that it did happen for the first and last time here. And it is also now time to leave it behind. Let it go!!!

And so that is that.

Coffs Harbour Bound : Heading Home - Kurnell / Kamay Botany Bay National Park (Mon 16 Mar 2015)

A Warrior of Light often loses Heart ..

A Warrior of Light often loses heart.

He believes that nothing can stir him in the emotion he so desired. He is forced to spend many evenings and nights feeling that he is one of the vanquished, and nothing seems able to restore his enthusiasm.

His friends [and himself sometimes] say ‘Perhaps his fight is over.

The warrior feels pain and confusion when he hears[/feels] such remarks because he knows that he has not yet reached the place he wanted to reach. But he is stubborn and refuses to relinquish his aims.

Then, when he least expects it, a new door opens.

On Understanding a Photograph - Francis Hodgson / Financial Times (Thu 11 Oct 2012)

Wall - Suehirocho / Tokyo (Sat 22 Sep 2012)
From Caught in the exhilaration of the moment (*), Francis Hodgson writes about Daido Moriyama's (*) approach to photography:

Moriyama [..] treats each moment with absolute equality.

He neither makes any judgment himself, nor expects you as his viewer to make any.

The photograph is a moment experienced, nothing more and nothing less.

Moriyama is capable of something approaching documentary, [..] and he is capable of the lyrical .

But I don’t think he ever asks us to understand anything.

This quote goes well with Trent Parke's (*) approach to viewing a photograph (*).

Tokyo, the 50's - Ikko Narahara

Tokyo 2012 - Sumida / Tokyo (Sat 22 Sep 2012)
Ikko Narahara (*) writes in the preface to Tokyo, the 50's (*):

Tokyo, the 50's
When I First Roamed the Streets
by Ikko Narahara (*)

Photographs arrive suddenly from out of the future. For it me it was always like that. Suddenly I would reach out and grab it in midair - the photographs had appeared by itself in my hand. Whenever I pushed the shutter button, my body seemed to become transparent, as if it were out int the middle of the photograph. And as I continuted to take photographs over the years, I came to feel that the images I took had already buried in matrixes of some sort in the space of the future, where they remainded waiting for the moment when I would one day dig them up. That must surely have been how it was. From that time of the big bang with which the universe started and began its evolution, perhaps even though the will of the universe latent in the fluctuations in the "nothing" preceding the big bang, these experiences had surely been prepared for. I am simply a messenger sent to meet up with the images and rescue them. This is the only way I can reconcile myself to the strangeness and mystery of having brought so many photographs into the world.

Possessed by thoughts like these day after day, I suddenly remembered I'd forgotten something - the photographs I had taken when I first began roaming the streets.

I bought my first camera in 1954. I got it to use for my planned work., "Human Life". At the time I couldn't have imagined that after exhibiting that work my whole life would change course toward photography and toward the person I am today. In the intervals between photographing "Human Land" I used to walk the Tokyo streets with my camera. I didn't have any special or clear purpose in mind. My family had often moved to different locations in western Japan, and since I was a child I'd had the habit of thoroughly exploring each new location. I felt the same interest in my exploring Tokyo, whereI'd lived since I came there as a college student. The only difference was that now I carried a camera with me. I breathed photographs on Tokyo street corners the way I breathed air. In my viewfinder those street corners changed into "streets in my photographs." Whenever I released the shutter, I seemed to hear the beat of modern jazz, which I loved so much. I remember I kept on rambling the streets in this way until I became involved in taking my next work, "Domain" in 1958. I was so lazy that I only printed a few of these photographs. The negatives lay buried their negative case, where I forgot about them. By chance, however, I remembered these negatives from forty years earlier. For the past three years I have again been photographing in the streets of Tokyo, and this brought back the memory of my earlier roamings.

"I'd really to see them .. I wonder what photos I took back then?" I couldn't even remember most of the images, and very few of the contact prints remained. But the moment I realized I wanted to see them, I was overcome with the strange feeling of being faced with the all too obvious and simple fact that photographs have to be printed in order to be viewed. After all these years I'd become thoroughly accustomed to the life of taking photographs, and yet here I was suddenly realizing that all too easily I'd vaguely assumed that once I'd pushed the shutter the things I'd taken simply continued to exist by themselves. But even for me, they were actually nothing more than events lying latent in my mind. As mere negatives there were like inverted ghosts; they had to no reality as photographs. I was shocked to realize that those negatives still lacked real existence, and then I had to laugh at my own blindness.

Before long, from what seemed to be the negatives, I made new contact prints and began to look through them.

As I put them into the enlarge, I could hardly wait to see how they would turn out. Unrecognizable images of which I had almost no memory began to appear before my eyes. Were these really my photographs? The photographs came into being like starlight arriving from forty light years away.

Past time buried in the time of the future - a sleeping time with with its eyes suddenly wide open. Through this small astonishment I was also tasting the strangeness and wonder of photographs. As that time my darkroom was filled with the paradoxes of time travel.

I've come to see that these photographs, which excavated the light and wind of the 1950's, were unmistakably the first steps in my travels through cities which would turn into the rest of my life. [..]

I bought this book following this Review (*) by Jesse Freeman (*). The preface is one of the most amazing pieces of writing on photography I have read, and I have read a lot. A beautiful book, both in words and photos, and I am so glad I took the risk to buy it on a whim.

The night before brain surgery ..

Another extract from Lance Armstrong's book entitled "Its not about the bike". Some parts of the book really connected with me. Here is the one that resonates the most ..

How do you confront your own death? Sometimes I think the blood-brain barrier is more than just physical, it's emotional, too. Maybe there's a protective mechanism in our psyche that prevents us from accepting our mortality unless we absolutely have to.

Jenny - 'A little tidy up of Jenny's hair - it was always my job to do this.' - Kirrawee - 16 Jun 2009 (picasa)
The night before brain surgery, I thought about death. I searched out my larger values, and I asked myself, if I was going to die, did I want to do it fighting and clawing or in peaceful surrender? What sort of character did I hope to show? Was I content with myself and what I had done with my life so far? I decided that I was essentially a good person, although I could have been better—but at the same time I understood that the cancer didn't care.

Jenny and Geoff - 'off we head to the Hospital' - Tue 16 Jun 2009 (picasa)
I asked myself what I believed. I had never prayed a lot. I hoped hard, I wished hard, but I didn't pray. [..]

I believed, too, in the doctors and the medicine and the surgeries — I believed in that. [..]

Jenny Collage - The Night Before Brain Surgery - The White Markers were placed on Jenny's head before an MRI - they would be used by the Nuerosurgeon to assist in precisely locating the Tumor from a digital scan of the MRI. - St George Hospital - Tue 16 Jun 2009 (picasa)

Beyond that, I had no idea where to draw the line between spiritual belief and science. But I knew this much: I believed in belief, for its own shining sake. To believe in the face of utter hopelessness, every article of evidence to the contrary, to ignore apparent catastrophe— what other choice was there? We do it every day, I realized. We are so much stronger than we imagine, and belief is one of the most valiant and long-lived human characteristics. To believe, when all along we humans know that nothing can cure the briefness of this life, that there is no remedy for our basic mortality, that is a form of bravery.

Jenny with the Flowers from Julia and Todd (photo to come), and Pacific Dragons - St George Hospital - Tue 16 Jun 2009 (picasa)

To continue believing in yourself, believing in the doctors, believing in the treatment, believing in whatever I chose to believe in, that was the most important thing, I decided. It had to be.

Without belief, we would be left with nothing but an overwhelming doom, every single day. And it will beat you. I didn't fully see, until the cancer, how we fight every day against the creeping negatives of the world, how we struggle daily against the slow lapping of cynicism. Dispiritedness and disappointment, these were the real perils of life, not some sudden illness or cataclysmic millennium doomsday. I knew now why people fear cancer: because it is a slow and inevitable death, it is the very definition of cynicism and loss of spirit. So, I believed.

Jenny, Joanne, David and Geoff - "Jenny takes a photo of us all just before she heads out to have a 4cm brain tumor removed. She had no fear and looked forward to quickly recovering to resume the treatment of the tumors in her liver." - St George - 6:30am Wed 17 Jun 2009 (picasa)

Will try add some more photos (partly done now - Geoff 10 Mar 2009) and maybe some of my own recollections and thoughts on Jenny's Night before brain surgery. There is a bit of story here if I can find the strength to write about it.

Jenny - 'Just before heading out for surgery.' - St George Hospital - 7am Wed 17 Jun 2009 (picasa)

With Or Without You - U2 - Paino Cover by Mark Matthews (youtube)

With or Without You - U2 - Piano Cover by Mark Matthews (youtube)

With or Without You Lyrics

See the stone set in your eyes
See the thorn twist in your side
I wait for you

Sleight of hand and twist of fate
On a bed of nails she makes me wait
And I wait without you

With or without you
With or without you

Through the storm we reach the shore
You give it all but I want more
And I'm waiting for you

With or without you
With or without you
I can't live
With or without you

And you give yourself away
And you give yourself away
And you give
And you give
And you give yourself away

My hands are tied
My body bruised, she's got me with
Nothing to win and
Nothing left to lose

And you give yourself away
And you give yourself away
And you give
And you give
And you give yourself away

With or without you
With or without you
I can't live
With or without you

With or without you
With or without you
I can't live
With or without you
With or without you

A warrior of light often loses heart ..

He believes that nothing can stir him in the emotion he so desired. He is forced to spend many evenings and nights feeling that he is one of the vanquished, and nothing seems able to restore his enthusiasm.

His friends [and himself sometimes] say ‘Perhaps his fight is over.

The warrior feels pain and confusion when he hears[/feels] such remarks because he knows that he has not yet reached the place he wanted to reach. But he is stubborn and refuses to relinquish his aims.

Then, when he least expects it, a new door opens.

Another passage from Paulo Coelho's - 'The Manual of the Warrior Light'. Felt a bit like this at times over the last 8 months or so. Still, life goes on - I enjoy what I am doing, even with all stupid mistakes I have made along the way.

Video: It's not my Time by 3 Doors Down
Love the Parkour in the Video - Jenny seemed to know all about Parkour last May when we watched a show on TV - I had never heard of it, but have since seen people in Newtown doing it. Jo told me today, that they would have loved to have done this when they were younger.

The Lucky Ones

This is a work in progress. It has been in my head for a long time now, but it has been hard to write. Hopefully, it will make sense. I expect to modify it a bit over the next few weeks, but at least it is a start.

A few months before Jenny died, I read Lance Armstrong's book entitled "Its not about the bike". Jenny had been given a copy by a long time friend, Mena, not long after the book was first published here in Australia (sometime around 2002/3 I am guessing). She read the book quickly and I know she got a lot from the pages. For some reason I did not read the book until early May 2009.

Geoff, Jenny, Mena, Steve and Joanne - Natation DB Titles - Kawana / Qld - Sat 25 Apr 2009 (picasa)

I bought my own copy so that I could read the book that meant so much to Jenny. I think I was motivated by the fact the Jenny was progressing to the final stages of her Cancer (at least that is reluctantly what I quietly started to think - she had just been diagnosed with multiple tumors in her liver on the 11 Mar 2009 - not a very promising situation). I thought I might find something in the pages to understand her and our situation.

I read the book, intermittently over a few weeks, at my local coffee shop before work and on the train to work. There was lots of the book that resonated with me, particularly his encounters with cancer. One part in particular struck a chord with me. It was about a half through, where he writes about what he felt during chemotherapy following neurosurgery to remove a beign brain tumor.

What is stronger, fear or hope? It's an interesting question, and perhaps even an important one. Initially, I was very fearful and without much hope, but as I sat there and absorbed the full extent of my illness, I refused to let the fear completely blot out my optimism. Something told me that fear should never fully rule the heart, and I decided not to be afraid.

I wanted to live, but whether I would or not was a mystery, and in the midst of confronting that fact, even at that moment, I was beginning to sense that to stare into the heart of such a fearful mystery wasn't a bad thing. To be afraid is a priceless education. Once you have been that scared, you know more about your frailty than most people, and I think that changes a man. I was brought low, and there was nothing to take refuge in but the philosophical: this disease would force me to ask more of myself as person than I ever had before, and to seek out a different ethic.

A couple of days earlier, I had received an e-mail from a military guy stationed in Asia. He was a fellow cancer patient, and he wanted to tell me something.

"You don't know it yet," he wrote, "but we're the lucky ones."

I'd said aloud, "This guy's a nut."

What on earth could he mean?

When I read this, I stored it away in my mind, eagerly awaiting Lance's own answer to this question - lucky .. What on earth could he mean?. It would come quietly on the last page of the book.

"You don't know it yet, but we're the lucky ones," my fellow cancer patient had written.

I will always carry the lesson of cancer with me, and feel that I'm a member of the cancer community. I believe I have an obligation to make something better out of my life than before, and to help my fellow human beings who are dealing with the disease. It's a community of shared experience. Anyone who has heard the words You have cancer and thought, "Oh, my God, I'm going to die," is a member of it. If you've ever belonged, you never leave.

Jenny had often indicated that she felt lucky (I think in both aspects - that of surviving an aggressive cancer and oddly enough, having had had cancer). She said this in the Australian Story Episode, "In the Pink":

'I don't understand how things work out, and why things work out the way they do. I feel like I've been lucky. I don't understand how cancer works, I don't know why I've been blessed the way I have been.'

Jenny - Australian Story - "In the Pink - Kirrawee - May 2004 (picasa)

and in her Talks:

'I feel I am so lucky and have a wonderful life. I have had some great opportunities through breast cancer to meet some very inspiring people. Geoff and Jo have been a constant source of support for me. Breast cancer has totally changed my life but for the best.'

Relay for Life 2007 - Jenny - Survivor Representative - Sylvania Waters - Sat 28 Apr 2007 (picasa)

The Rainbow Connection - Phil, John, Marj, Jenny, Liz, Noel - Phil passed away shortly after this photo was taken - he often spoke to Jenny about how luck seemed to play a big part in how things worked out, but sometimes you make you own luck - Rely for Life 2003 - Sylvania Waters - Sat 31 May 2003 - (picasa)

As Jenny's International Dragon Boating Career started, she came to the attention of the Media and in the first Newspaper Article she featured in, she was even compared to Lance Armstrong:

Don Iverson, Director of the Health and Productivity Research Center at the University of Wollongong, said that Ms Petterson could be compared to Lance Armstrong, who won the Tour de France after fighting testicular cancer.

'It's almost superhuman,' he said.

Cancer wont slow rowing champion - Sydney Sun Herald - 2 May 2004

She was a little embarrassed by the comparison, but Jo and I were very proud of Jenny and her achievements in her treatment, her sport and her life as breast cancer survivor.

Geoff, Jenny, Grace, Lynn, Betty, Thomas, Grant, Joanne and David - Relay for Life 2007 - Jenny - Survivor Representative - Sylvania Waters - Sat 28 Apr 2007 (picasa)


After Jenny's passing, I had an encounter in the Intensive Care Unit where Jenny left us. Joanne and I had gone back to thank the staff at the St George Hospital and to pickup some scans that had been lost in Jenny's move from the Level 1 to ICU. We spoke to the head ICU nurses (they were between shifts) and we knew both of them from Jenny's time in ICU (and I was well known to them as I had fainted in ICU on Jenny's second day in ICU after the neurosurgery). We talked a little and I mentioned that Jenny did consider herself lucky to have had cancer - as she said herself - it had changed her life for the better. One the nurses questioned this statement and she made me feel a little uneasy for saying what I had said. She could not believe anyone with cancer could consider themselves lucky. Maybe, she had seen too much of the cold harsh reality of cancer in that ICU. Maybe she was right. It did not seem too lucky now that Jenny was gone?

This conversation stuck in my mind for a long time, and I started to question many things. It was not until I came across the following blog post by Doug Miller that I found some peace. Here was a man who had recently been diagnosed with Cancer. He was articulate and in many ways his post offers so much more than Lance's writings on Cancer and Luck. This is probably the most moving piece of writing I have read in my life. I don't have cancer, but I have lived a shared life with it and it's consequences. I can truly emphasise. Here it is. My heart is with you Doug ..

Doug Miller - Colorado Trail San Juan Mountains - 1994 - A Single Path - (blog)

The Lucky Ones by Doug Miller (Wed 23 Sep 2009)

[..] a friend [..] pointed me to Lance Armstrong's book entitled "Its not about the bike" I picked up a copy and quickly read through it. I liked it.

It had a bit much detail focusing on cycling, but that was an aspect of the man that could obviously not be separated from the larger reality of his battle with cancer.

There were portions though that left my mind spinning. Armstrong's description of his diagnosis and the roller coaster of emotions that ensued was painfully raw and hit the mark with a clarity and similarity I could not deny. I myself am walking those darkened and fearful paths as I write these very words.

Out of all the pages a couple simple statements that he made resonated with me in a powerful way.

Armstrong tells of a letter that he received. It was from a man he had never met before. He himself had battled cancer. He wrote Armstrong to acknowledge his support and positive thoughts. As he finished the letter he made a strange statement that confused Armstrong. He wrote, "you probably do not understand this right now, but we are the lucky ones".

What? How is anyone with cancer lucky? It is devastating. It not only has the potential to steal your life, but also has the destructive potential to steal your Hope. Those words are haunting. Lucky? We are the lucky ones. This brotherhood of suffering is somehow lucky..........blessed?

It is diametrically opposed to any sort of sane thinking that those outside of this brotherhood would agree with. It actually is an almost dangerous statement. As if you say it as you are waking off a cliff without a safety net. A statement such as that redefines everything. Life. Death. And even Hope.

But as I walk this path, and simultaneously encounter life in all its beauty and harshness, I find myself agreeing. "We are the lucky ones". I am lucky. I say those words with a part of me screaming, "how dare you, how can you say that". But it is true. The perspective that cancer gives to life is unbelievable. It has the power to refine you. Your thoughts. Your direction. Your focus.

It is as if you look at life for the first time. Everything is different. Nothing is the same. Everything is turned on edge, revealing a freshness and an urgency that is not seen outside of cancer. If this clarity does exist in our normal lives, it is missed. Overshadowed by the busyness of life. By worthless and empty pursuits.

Another quote from Armstrong's book was this: "Cancer is not about dying, it is about living" What a statement.

Most would argue against it. But those that walk this path find it to be true. Life after diagnosis becomes "alive". It becomes real. It is as if you can grasp it with your own hands, breath it in, consume it.

Oh if I could have had this view earlier in life. I knew that it existed. I sensed it. I chased it. Through the mountains. Through relationships. In the woods and fields of my youth. It was a whisper in the words of poets. And a reflection on the horizon as the sun slipped out of view. But i did not catch it until cancer became my reference. My reality.

We who are members of this brotherhood and sisterhood of suffering are the lucky ones, because now we can truly live. And Love. And Hope. And I dare to say Dream. They are painful dreams, haunted with the shadows of uncertainty, but they are vivid dreams. Passionate dreams. Dreams that leave your heart aching, your soul longing. We are released from the fear of death. Our finite lives are bared.

We come face to face with our mortality and realize that life is looking back at us. Raw and uncertain. But ALIVE none the less. There were days before cancer that I despaired. At times despising my life. But now I am hungry to live. I long to live. Whether that time be long or short, I hold tight to life and all of its glorious agony.

Posted by Doug Miller at 9:11 PM

A Warrior of light is wise; he does not talk about his defeat

The warrior of light never forgets the old saying: the good little goat doesn't bleat.

Injustices happen. Everyone finds themselves in situations they do not deserve, usually when they are unable to defend themselves. Defeat often knocks at the warrior's door.

At such times, he remains silent. He does not waste energy on words, because they can do nothing; it is best to use his strength to resist and have patience, knowing that Someone is watching, Someone who saw the unnecessary suffering and who will not accept it.

That Someone gives him what he most needs: time. Sooner or later, everything will once more work in his favour.

A warrior of light is wise; he does not talk about his defeats.

From the Manual of Warrior of Light by Paulo Coelho - (more here).

Has felt a bit like this of recent, though if I were to take this passage literally I should not be talking about it :-) Thinking about it a bit more, I have decided that 'That Someone' referenced in the text should be me. Will move past this as we make our way to Macau in late July.

Lake Burley Griffin Sunset - Black: Dark Days - Canberra - 02 Aug 2002 - (picasa)

On Failure - I Wrote this for You (Tue 30 Jun 2015)

Self Portrait - The Photographer - Ultimo (Wed 01 Jul 2015)

I Wrote this for You on Failure:

You fail with your heart on your sleeve.

You fail like you mean it with every part of you.

You fail attempting the impossible and the ridiculous.

You fail in front of others and you fail and they laugh at you and you fail and you feel nothing and regret less.

You fail sincerely and earnestly and you risk everything at every opportunity.

This is how you fail: You fail beautifully. You fail with grace.

via The Millions Ways To Fail by I Wrote this for You.

An amazing piece of writing. Passionate, powerful and, oddly enough, incredibly Inspiring. To be a must, and often read post.

A Simple Paradigm - Time For Adaptation by Vern Gambetta

A Simple Paradigm - Time For Adaptation by Vern Gambetta (05 April 2010)

When you think about going for the quick fix, just quickly run this simple paradigm through your head. It all relates to time for adaptation. Nothing complicated. Don’t over think this. This is a just a general guideline, a reminder, that the process of adaption to training takes time.

• Flexibility improves day to day


• Strength can be improved from week to week


• Speed (A fine motor quality) improves from month to month


• Work Capacity improves from year to year

Based on the law of reversibility

• You can lose flexibility from day to day


• You can lose strength week to week


• Speed declines month to month


• Work Capacity declines year to year.

Another favourite blog post from Vern Gambetta.

Something worth remembering when starting out on a new activity. Also particularly worth remembering when having a voluntary break (between campaigns, etc) or forced break (injury say) from your activity.

On Abstraction - Vivek Haldar (Tue 20 May 2014)

Untitled - Hampstead Heath / London (Sun 18 Aug 2013)
Vivek Haldar (*) writes On Absrtaction (*):

It is telling that one of the central activities in programming is abstraction. Abstraction is nothing but taking a jumble of intricate detail, putting it in a tightly sealed box, and then poking very small, well-defined holes in the box to interact with that jumble. So clean! So much better!

But every abstraction is leaky. Ints carry the baggage of their bit-width. In a perfect world, every int would be a BigInt with unlimited range. But we live in a world where it matters whether ints fit in a hardware register or not. Networks carry the baggage of not being perfect links. In a perfect world, a link between two machines would be an immutable, always-available channel for sending messages between them. But we live in a world where wires break.

via Why technologists want to secede (*) by Vivek Haldar (*).

I like to abstract (*), but it is hard because of the imperfect world Vivek (*) describes and abstracts so well above.

Red - Redfern St / Redfern (Fri 13 Jul 2012)

Red - Redfern St / Redfern (Fri 13 Jul 2012)
It's not called Redfern for nothing. Remember, always be nice to a dog.

A Familiar Path - "A Walk to Remember" ..

A Familiar Path by Doug Miller:

[..] A single step repeated hundreds and thousands of times would eventually arrive at the end. It did not take superhuman strength or a talent that most do not have. It took a steadfast commitment. Step by step as the miles added up and the challenges slipped by. Today just like those days on the trail, is another step. Tomorrow yet another. I walk this journey in anticipation of the end, but I also know that there is much to learn in the process. It is the process, no matter what the hardship where great beauty and adventure can be found.

Jenny and Joanne - Main Range Walk - Path to Blue Lake - 06 Jan 2002

Around New Year, each year for the last 10 years we have traveled to the Snowy Mountains area (around Perisher Valley and Jindabyne) to get away from the Christmas/New Year Crowds, to relax and take in the sights of the Snowy Mountains.

Each year we would take the opportunity to challenge ourselves to the 22km Main Range Summit walk, to not only witness the beauty of the mountains, but to test ourselves and to benchmark our fitness to the previous years effort. This was particularly important for Jenny. She and we could see what effect her cancer and treatment was having on her physical body, for the previous 12 months.

Wild Flowers - Snowy Mountains Main Range Walk - 29 Dec 2005

Some years were easy, while others were more challenging, particularly the long and steep uphill leg from the Blue Lake to the Summit of Mt Kosciuszko.

One of the more difficult years for Jenny was January 2008 when a side-effect from one her treatments, which caused soreness and tenderness of her feet (Hand-Foot Syndrome), made it very difficult for her to walk even a few steps. This did not stop her and she did the 22km walk, one painful step at a time. I was so proud of her, though, in typical Jenny style she thought it to be nothing unusual.

Snowy Mountains Main Range Walk - 29 Dec 2005

On the first day of this year, we did the Main Range walk, for what would turn out to be our last time together. While temperatures in Sydney were the typical balmy 30's, the weather in the Mountains had turned and there was a wind chill factor of -15 deg C. This was our last day to do the walk, we were prepared with Jenny and Joanne wearing seven layers, with beanies and gloves. We decided to at least walk the first 6 km to the Blue Lake and make a decision there whether to continue on for the next 16km or return.

For all of us, the conditions were challenging. However, for Jenny the extra challenges which revolved around dealing with the many issues relating to her cancer, the most obvious for this higher altitude challenge, being the tumors in her lungs. Little did we know at that stage the cramping in her stomach she had experienced a few times over the previous month or so, would be the early signs of countless tumors in her liver, which would be diagnosed in early March 2009. On top that, was also the embryonic stages of a tumor in her brain, which would manifest itself as a 4cm tumor in early June 2009.

Jenny and Joanne - Lake Albina - 29 Dec 2005

Needless to say, this was the most difficult Main Range Summit challenge for all of us, and for Jenny in particularly. She was short of breath, even on the small downhill sections. As we reached the Blue Lake, we waited quite a while and we left it up to Jenny to decide what we should do. Eventually, she said she felt she could do it, so off we nervously set, in very strong head winds, to the Summit. We stopped at Lake Albina on the way.

Jenny & Joanne - Lake Albina - Mt Kosciuszko Main Range Summit Walk - 01 Jan 2009

Every step was a struggle for Jenny and she did amazingly well to make it to the Summit. As usual we would take our Summit top photos - this time there was no one there (usually there would be 20-30 people) as we had taken twice as long as normal and we had reached the Summit hours after everyone had headed back to their starting points.

Jenny and Joanne at the Mt Kosciuszko Summit - Mt Kosciuszko Main Range Summit Walk - 01 Jan 2009

When I read the little story (it was a few weeks ago now) from where the above quote comes from, I thought of Jenny initially, and later Joanne and myself. I think it has helped me understand, that we were not only doing this walk each year (with each year being a "step") for the physical beauty and challenge of the Mountains, but also for the beauty that can be found in the "process" of doing something like this each year. I think it also helps me appreciate the difficult "steps" that Joanne and I take each day, without Jenny's physical presence in our lives - but knowing we are "getting on with life" with the support of our family and friends, and knowing many great experiences and adventures lay ahead for us and those in our lives. We know this to be true - we have already witnessed this in Prague in late August 2009 - "Touched by Jenny".

Joanne, David and I will do the Main Range walk this year, probably on the 1 January 2010. We know Jenny will be with us every step of the way.

Jenny and Joanne - Main Range Walk - 06 Jan 2002
Just another little story of perserverance and determination from Jenny.

Jenny near Mt Kosciuszko Summit - 06 Jan 2002

On Training and Discipline - Siegfried Hansen / Eric Kim Street Photography (Wed 18 Dec 2013)

Untitled - Pitt Street / Sydney (Wed 18 Dec 2013)
Siegfried Hansen (*) writes On Traininng (*) and Discipline (*):

There are many things you learn by training (*) and discipline (*), but overall you should internalize both theory (*) and technique (*) to a point that you can fully concentrate (*) on the moment when taking pictures. I navigate through [..] my hometown, almost blindly (*) on certain routes, focusing on things that are happening around me. It’s all coincidental, nothing is preset.

via Capturing Harmony on the Streets through Graphical Images: Interview with Siegfried Hansen (*) by Eric Kim (*).


Untitled (Detail) - Pitt Street / Sydney (Wed 18 Dec 2013)

Photographer: Murray Fredericks

Murray Fredericks is an Australian Photographer. I was aware of him and his works from my foray into large format photography. I had bought a 4x5 inch large format camera in Shanghai in November 2004 (that's another story) and I needed to learn how to use it. Murray was offering a weekend workshop at a rural location in western NSW, near Oberon, and I had considered attending. With assistance of my friend Leigh Perry, I was able to work it all out and did not need to take Murray's workshop in the end. Some scans of my initial transparencies, by an Epson 4990 scanner, are here

I follow news regarding photography and photography exhibitions in Sydney - typically article written by Robert McFarlane who writes occasionally for the Sydney Morning Herald (just found he has a blog at ozphotoreview.blogspot.com). I have known of Murray since the time his work was exhibited at the Point Light Gallery in 2003. His initial SALT work was also reviewed by Robert McFarlane

When flying to Prague, on the flight to Prague from Helsinki on FinnAir, I was pleasantly surprised and delighted to read an English Newspaper (The Financial Times) that had a review of Murray's exhibition in London at the Hamiltons Gallery in Mayfair. I pulled out the page inflight and put it away with a mental note to make sure I would find the Gallery and view the Salt Exhibition when in London a few weeks later. Was very impressed to read that his photos were being compared to Turner paintings and that the largest and most expensive photo was being sold for 30,000 Pounds - pretty impressive for a humble landscape photographer who started his career as an Economist from Sydney University.

Blue Sky Thinking - Murray Fredericks - SALT II - A Newspaper Article found inflight between Helsinki and Prague - Sat 22 Aug 2009 - (picasa)
The day before the Great River Race, I had organised our seats on boats and I had time to do some sight seeing in London. I found the Gallery using Google Maps and made my way there on the Tube. I found the Gallery easily and chatted with the Gallery guy, who gave my a DVD of the SALT Documentary of his trip to Lake Eyre. Managed to sneak in a few photos before I left for the Photographers Gallery (yet another story), which was walking distance away (well maybe at least a couple hours rambling through the back streets of London).

Murray Fredericks: Salt Exhibition - Hamiltons Gallery / London - Fri 04 Sep 2009 (picasa)

Murray Fredericks: Salt Exhibition - Hamiltons Gallery / London - Fri 04 Sep 2009 (picasa)

Murray Fredericks: Salt Exhibition - Hamiltons Gallery / London - Fri 04 Sep 2009 (picasa)

SALT37 by Murray Fredericks - Sep 2009 (www.gosee.de)

Self Portrait in Lake Eyre - Hamiltons Gallery / London - Fri 04 Sep 2009 (picasa)
The ABC are showing his SALT Documentary tonight. There was a review in yesterdays Sydney Morning Herald titled - Searching for infinite space in extreme locations. An extract follows:

Murray Fredericks - Sydney Morning Herald 22 Mar 2010 - Searching for infinite space in extreme locations - Tue 23 Mar 2010 (picasa)
Having been "the guy with a camera" at high school who took pictures of sports teams, Fredericks was a serious photographer with commercial and artistic ambitions in his mid-twenties. He shot what he calls traditional coffee table-style photos until he realised he wanted more from his work.

"I reached the point where I went through everything and went 'there's nothing new here'. All I'm doing is finding new angles and new locations but the message itself - and the way the message is delivered - isn't changing'," he says.

"So I went through everything again and I thought 'which images affect me differently?' and they were the images that conveyed a sense of space."

That discovery has taken Fredericks 14 times to Lake Eyre in outback South Australia in the past six years. His aim was to photograph the flat salt plain with its low horizon and lack of distinctive features.

Hauling his gear to the location by bicycle, he spent up to five weeks by himself trying to capture the nothingness. And when things changed, he wanted to capture that too.

"Everything happens on the cusp, on the change,'' he says. ''It's the transition periods that are interesting because that's when the stuff you can't imagine or you can't expect happens."

Fredericks's shots of land and sky have proven so popular there are three galleries - in Sydney, Melbourne and London - waiting for his new work.

SALT 8 by Murray Fredericks

Found a nice review by Rebecca Wolkenstein who writes:

.. it wasn’t until I viewed his film SALT, that I decided my roster couldn’t live without him. The film and the work had a spiritual element I had never really understood before then. It sounds rather dramatic to be speaking this way, doesn’t it? When the film comes out [..], I highly recommend that you immerse yourself in the landscape. It’s full of surprises.

SALT 5 by Murray Fredericks

My friend Leigh Perry shoots very similar photos, but typically from the shore of Sydney's coastline - see his portfolios: Invariance and Peripheral Vision. Beautiful photos ..

Invariance #116011 - Reef by Leigh Perry

Invariance #332 - Lake. by Leigh Perry