Category Archives: Juniper’s World Journal

It has been school holidays here in Oz.   We are supposedly all awaiting the mythical visit of Oprah.  Well it’s not mythical in the sense it isn’t happening, just mythical in that it will be seen as mythical because of her global stature, and everyone wants a piece of the tourist attraction that will follow her visit.  Oprah sets world trends with a wave of her magic touch wand.  Don’t get me wrong though I love Oprah, particularly her discussions on debt reduction which my family are applying to rid ourselves of credit cards in 2011.

Now the beginning of my blog is prefaced by a picture of mangroves from the botanical gardens in Cairns.  These are a crucial image of any wetland tropics area.  They are trees that love to live in the mud and at first sight not at all beautiful, but if you look closer they have some kind of artistry to them.  Mud, clay, moulding, delicate shape!

When we went to the Botanical gardens it was hot and sticky and I am sure we felt like melting sticky marshmellows inside, but the shady trees helped us out.  However, it was difficult to find the facilities other than a swing, which is not good when you need them.

I really missed the Botanical gardens of Hobart where the plants seem more colourful and interesting.  Not that leaves and mangroves, not to mention sunbirds and scrub turkeys can’t be interesting.  Life is after all what you make it.  It must’ve been nostalgia making me think of home.

My youngest was very bothered by the heat, and the fact we weren’t doing what he wanted, but he soon found an old throw away seed pod to play footy with, followed by a set of swings in the shade.  At this point he began to enjoy the trip!  As for me I went looking for birds, and found scrub turkeys, sunbirds and a spoonbill.  The sunbirds seemed so unaware of me, unlike the sunbirds at home.  So I was able to be quite close.

Now I would really love to go on more bird trips, but perhaps must organise the kids to have more activities whilst I hunt down some pictures.  The older two love to read, and would probably enjoy it with their own cameras.  The youngest I will have to be a bit more creative with.  Maybe a digitial camera of his own, a small, cheap one to begin with and I could share my passion for photography with him.

Worth a try?  Parents to survive and thrive must be resourceful and creative beings.  We are able to give of ourselves whilst having just a bit of space to be what we were before parents, creative intelligent beings without dependants.

Yet, parenting teaches us so much!

(c) words and pictures all rights reserved.

I will be working the above passion fruit image into something creative – look out for it sometime on my other blog.

So I am over at my other blog,  Unity’s Garden I have been posting some of my old posts from here, sharing my photographs and inspirations and generally making a new nest, but there is so much in this old space- and its so homely I’ve had to pop back.

It seems so quiet at my other blog still, and it’s even sad not to be lost in the blogging world having fun yarning on about the day, but these days I tend to do that in short bursts in my facebook statements and am putting a lot of energy into my other writing projects, but there is something about blogging those days that always pulls me back in.  It’s comforting to know you have a homebase to return to.  So here I am back at Pearlz Dreaming, telling you where my new home is, but also blogging about life in general.

So today in my facebook statements I wrote:

singing, raining, sleeping kids, cut away cane, things to post by snail mail and garlic bread for breakfast

family playing rain mud footy, rain ain’t gonna stop their fun……..

We have learnt that rain arrives a lot in the tropics!  We embrace it and don’t give up on our outside fun.  Of course this is not always easy as you can end up with massive down pours and people in canoes paddling down the street when it floods.

I appreciated our rain so much when travelling in Tasmania last summer.  It was recovering from a drought and I realised just how lucky we were to have access to such a large amount of rain.  Does it surprise you to know that rain is a constant motif in my writing, probably not?  Which makes me think how important for me to spread my wings and travel more so more motifs can enter into my writing, and extend the themes.

That said, writing of local themes can often reach globally.  I shared a poem with an accomplished poet in America, Melanie Simms and was touched by her response to it.   It made me realise that there are many experiences that people half a globe away can share, such as the knowledge of sugar cane country.  I am looking forward to reading Melanie’s book, Waking the Muse.

I have been busily emailing more of my contacts and commenting less on blogs.  I file all those beautiful emails in my inbox for each person that I correspond with a lot.  I think of what will happen to future writer’s correspondence and how it will be accessed, and all of our on line comments, and yahoo discussions.  How will people mine all these places to understand the contemporary writer’s world?

There is so much to look forward in creative life, as my novel is starting to come to me in dreams again, I am almost ready to begin the rewrite – will keep you posted.  I’ve begun making more 2d presentations of poetry (poetry with image), and will move into 3d soon (adding sound).  A new song happened last week from a poem too, and I would like to jam some of them with musicians and see what happens to them. I am also keenly developing my photography and looking for opportunities to combine it, theatre and poetry together.   I am greatly encouraged by more opportunities coming my way and people liking some of the work I am putting out there, thankyou, you all know you are for your encouragement.  I treasure your comments!  They are sincere and not just throw away statements and I will always remember them.

Another really exciting thing is that my son has gained a penpal, another Baha’i child in America. They are snail mail corresponding – this has all come out of blogging and facebooking and their mum’s becoming friends.

(c) June Perkins, all rights reserved.

My new space is under construction. It is called http://unitysgarden.wordpress.com/

So if you want to bookmark it please do, as this blog space will soon be closing. Some of my archives from Pearlz Dreaming and World Citizen Dreaming will be placed in the new space. Please support my new home (: I looking forward to continuing to share the blogosphere over in the new digs. Anyone wishing to write a testimonial for me to include on my new site please let me know. They would be much appreciated.