Mindfulness

Walking the dawg today. I was quite happily pottering along with my camera, Ally sniffing along the way. I was aware of all sorts of things happening around me. Then I started thinking of a current “buzz word” in the counselling circles. It’s called Mindfulness. It’s one of these words that come into fashion, everyone uses it and then usually goes out of fashion. It is a technique that I have used for many years with my clients without having a name for it.

The idea is that you stay in the here and now and don’t disappear into your own head and thoughts. You consciously become aware of your surroundings, your body, what you can see, hear, smell, touch.

So as I was walking, I realised that I was doing “mindfulness” without even realising it. As I was walking, I was very aware at an unconscious level of my surroundings. I could hear the birds, and even spotted a caterpillar wandering along the path. The only problem was, as soon as I became aware of what I was doing, I was aware of doing it and it all felt different. I was consciously aware of my surroundings, rather than just enjoying them. Damn !!

I did however have a lovely walk. Took some great photos, and when I got home I thought I would write about all the things I noticed, simply by being in the here and now. It was quite amazing. Almost nice to realise what I was doing, but irritating that my brain put it into a counselling technique rather than just enjoying the moment.

Anway, in the space of about 45 minutes, this is what I noticed.

Planes taking off. We are quite close to the airport and often will hear the planes taking off and landing. I’ve got some really nice photos from that spot.

Birds in the trees. Dusk. Birds are getting ready for bed and are quite social at this time of the day. They fly from one tree to the next. Chat to their mates. Argue with each other. There are quite a number of different birds that hang around there.

Caterpillar. I was rather intrigued by him. He was moving so fast that some of the pictures were fuzzy. Here he (she?) is:

Kids and families on bikes. There was a whole family, mother, father, and a couple of kids. The first kid almost ran her over. She wasn’t quick enough getting out of the way. Usually she comes to me when I call her and tell her to “come over” a couple of words she understands.

Helicopter. Saw this one coming and then going. I’ve no idea where it was going or coming to, but....

Ally sniffing.

Ally just wanders at her own pace. Sometimes behind me; sometimes ahead of me. Not normally this far ahead.

If you look carefully, you can see her near the sign. As I said, she doesn’t normally get that far ahead of me.

Other people and their dogs. This is a favoured place for walking the dogs. Near the river for those who like to swim and lots of smells, plenty of room to run and chase for those inclined.

Sunset. I’ve seen better. But not bad. Also interesting to see how the sunset was reflecting in the water.

Man showing a kid what he’d caught fishing. I never did find out what he had caught, but the boy and his parents were busily looking into the man’s bucket with much interest. I thought about asking if I could have a look too, but decided not to.

Bird sunning itself. There is one particular bird that can often be seen here, wings spread, drying itself before going to bed for the night. This bird is unusual as it’s feathers are not waterproof, unlike most waterbirds.

She must have finished drying and preening for the night. Usually I find them with their wings spread.

Clouds. Lots of clouds. Often Perth gets quite boring with lack of weather and constantly blue skies. Boring, you might say. Blue sky, boring !! Yes. All summer. Blue sky. No change in weather except to go from hot to hotter. Boring !!

Moon. Near the end of my walk, the moon started to become visible. I thought this one turned out rather nicely. A bit of cheese anyone. Don’t think I can see the man in the moon.

Houses across the river. Across the river is very expensive real estate and you can tell by the size of the houses and the looks of them.

Speed boat and 2 kayaks. The boat was coming quite quickly and I think one of the kayakers wasn’t quite happy as she pulled right over to the bank of the river until the boat’s wake had subsided. The boat was going quite fast until it saw the 8 knots sign. Then they slowed down. There has been a lot of damage to the banks of the river here, mainly because of speedboats hooning.


The rocks submerged by the high tide. The river was quite high today. Sometimes I sit on these rocks. But not today. Not without getting my bottom very wet.

Foam in the water after the speedboat had passed. The water looked like someone had put washing up liquid in the water.

And last but not least:

A little yellow baggie of dog poo at the side of the path. For some reason, people seem to pick up their dog poo, very tidily, with the little yellow bags available at the start of the walk, but somehow seem to think they will magically disappear if they leave them behind.

Not bad for 45 minutes or less. Even if I was aware of my own awareness.

Madeleine

Sunday, 11 May 2008

Ally and the Kitten - Part 2

Ally and the kittens

I love watching animals and their behaviour to other creatures and to their own kind. We’ve had all sorts of different animals over the years, and not just cats and dawgs. We’ve had a goat, a horse that used to live in our paddock, guinea pigs, mice, rats, ants and chooks. I think that’s about all. Nothing particularly exciting except for the echidna that got stuck in our laundry. But that’s another story.

Shortly after I got Ally, my dawg, I acquired a cat we called Purzah. Before I had a chance to get her fixed she came on heat. So for 5 weeks, I had this screaming, female, feline who nothing more than to find the nearest man and root herself silly. But I was adamant. I was not going to have kittens in the house. I was not going to have any more animals. I had two cats and my dawg, and that was sufficient.

Finally the caterwauling diminished and I let the cat outside for the first time in weeks. She disappeared for about 3 days, and yes, 9 weeks later, she had four kittens.

As many of you are aware, I’m a sucker for a pretty face, and Ally appears to be as well. They were bedded down in the bottom of my wardrobe and Ally and I would lie on the floor together and contemplate the miracles of nature.

As Purzah became more confident, I was allowed to touch her babies and Ally was allow to lick them.

Over the next few weeks, the kittens grew and began exploring their new world. Ally followed them around like a mother hen. When Purzah went outside to do her business and to get something to eat, Ally would watch over the kittens. She would lick their bottoms ever so gently, and they would snuggle up to her, just like she was their mother.

As they got older, they would climb on Ally. She would lick them ever so gently. However, as they got bigger, you could see that Ally was aware that they were bigger and stronger, and she would push them, again, gently, and play with them. Exactly at the level they could handle. Never once was she ahead of them.

It was amazing to watch. This little dog, who had never had a litter of her own, knowing instinctively, what these kittens were capable of.

Ally has her own chair in the lounge. As the kittens got big enough to climb up on the chair, they would and Ally allowed them to. You could almost see the look of pride on her face as they learned to negotiate the chair, and improved their climbing skills on Ally’s favourite chair.

More time passed, the kittens got bigger. One day I heard Ally growl. Something she rarely does. I turned around and there she was growling at one of the kittens. Ally had decided, as do all good mothers, that this chair was hers again and the kittens were now big enough to be told that it was time for them to move onto other people’s chairs and to claim hers back.

Madeleine

Wednesday, 18 January 2006

Ally and the kitten (part 2)

As you can see I wrote this in 2006. Last night I went to visit friends who have recently acquired a kitten called Taffy. He is a gorgeous little, yes, ginger, kitten. As usual when I visit these friends, I took the Ally dawg with me. Their dawgs and The Ally Dawg are great mates and we visit regularly. Ally and Taffy had met once before. With this initial response:

Shortly they decided to ignore each other. This kitten has no fear. He lives with a border collie and a golden retriever, both big dogs, and little Ally is not frightening to him.

Moving forward a couple of weeks. I went to visit these friends again and Taffy and Ally met up for the second time.

After a few initial moves of “who are you?”, “what the .... are you?”, and “do you play?”, the two animals spent the whole evening chasing each other around the house. Now Ally is not a pup. She is not a young dog. I got her in 2000 and at that stage she was supposed to be 2-1/2 years old, which would make her 11 this year. Her face is very gray and when puppies want to play, Ally quite often will get cross with them, and warn them off with a growl.

But a kitten !!! A totally different kettle of fish (or kittens as the case may be).

Taffy hid under the bed. Taffy pounced at Ally from under the bed. Ally nuzzled him with her nose. Taffy hid under the bed again and played with the ruffles and Ally talked to her “Come on out. You’re cute”.

I got there at 8 p.m. and left after 1 a.m. We sat and chatted for hours. And the two fur kids played as well.

Taffy only stopped twice for a well needed rest, but only with coaxing – like being held on someone’s lap and constantly patted until he went to sleep. These were literally cat naps and didn’t last very long.

The whole time Taffy was sleeping, Ally was watching him for any sign of movement and then they were off again.

This one’s quite fuzzy. But you get the idea.

However, old dogs pay the price the next day, same as humans. This is Ally this morning.

One tired little fur kid.

Madeleine

Sunday, 11 May 2008

p.s. The font keeps changing on me for some reason.

A gaggle of goldies

Took the ally dawg for a walk this p.m. and met up with a gaggle of goldies. I’m not quite sure what a large number of golden retrievers is called, but these were definitely water dogs, and I got a number of photos of them in and out of the water.

Check them out:

Goldies

Madeleine

Sunday, 20 April 2008

The power of words

Thoughts that have come to mind from reading Graffiti's blog (http://graffiti99.blogspirit.com/) on suicide and how people have trouble saying the word "suicide" or "kill yourself". One of the things we have been taught in our training on suicide is the need to be clear about what the individual is thinking about. So rather than saying "Are you going to do something silly?", or "Are you thinking of hurting yourself?", we are taught to ask the direct question: "Are you thinking of killing yourself?". It was quite interesting to see how many people had difficulty in saying the direct words and would beat around the bush. Some people fear that if we name the act, then it is more likely to happen. That the person's words have the power to make someone kill themselves.

So what is the power in these words? What do they mean to people? What's the Child scare about actually verbalising what's happening.

We are told that words have power. That "black" people are not really "black" but Aborigines, indigenous people, African American etc. These are politically correct terms to use today. People believe that if you change the words, you change the connotation and thereby change people's feeling about a certain topic.

How true is this? How much really changes when you change a word? If I change the word suicide to "glopide" will this actually change people's attitude to the act of killing themselves. Will the magical thinking stop if I change the word? Or will the magical thinking simply shift to the new word?

Is it really true, that by changing the words we change the perspective about an act? Or will people's attitudes and beliefs only change through education and learning? Death is a scary topic in our society. We talk about "gone", "passed over", "gone to heaven (or a better place)". We don't often talk about "he died".

The same would happen with the word "glopide" over time. It would eventually have the same connotations as "suicide" with the same magical thinking that the word has the power to make something happen.

So what is the power of words? Is it the magical thinking that goes with words? Do words actually have the power that humans give them? Can we change the power of words simply by changing the word for the same act?

Madeleine

Thursday, 17 April 2008

Psychological Cleaning??

I was just chatting to someone who had just finished a project. Suddenly she found herself cleaning the house. Something she felt needed doing for some time, but suddenly the urge was there.

I remember when my husband and I split, I cleaned. When my daughter died, I cleaned. I’m not obsessive about the house; far from it. I tend more toward the slob end of housework.

So why is it that women, when something big happens in their lives, clean house?

Is this a rare phenomena, or is this common for women?

If this is a female thing, what do the guys do? Do they disappear into their shed and make something?

What is the psychological process involved?

Is it a “cleansing” act? I sometimes feel it is. Are we cleansing out the old, in order to allow in the new?

So many questions, so few answers.

I would be interested in other people’s feedback.

Madeleine
Wednesday, 16 April 2008

Sunset

These are some sunset photos I took while walking the dawg down by the river

 

I'm just testing how these all fit together.

 

 

 

Madeleine
Sunday, April 13 2008

Fire

I was sitting in my lounge, miles away in my mind (probably watching something mindless on television), and suddenly became aware of the sound of aircraft over my house. I remember my first thought was: “I’m not under the airport flight path”. I do very occasionally get planes flying over the house, late at night, but not often. This was unusual. I went outside to see what was going on and realised that it wasn’t planes, but helicopters. The fire fighting helicopters than dump water on fires.

Of course, I got out my camera and started taking photos of the helicopters coming over the house. After a time, I realised that the smoke was getting bigger and bigger and that the fire wasn’t just something in the hills, miles away, but was actually quite close to me.

Put on some shoes, probably some decent clothes as well, and went for a walk with my camera. Well, the fire was just, literally around the corner from my house. I stayed for a while, had a chat with other onlookers, including a woman in a three wheeled bike, with four or five little dogs in the carrier at the back.

This is what I saw

It was peak hour, everyone coming home from work, and I live on a major road. It was really interesting to watch people trying to get home, ignoring the fact that there was a large fire in front of them, fire trucks all over the place, and they just wanted to get past and get home.

Finally the police arrived at the corner, and started to redirect the traffic

And gradually get things under control.

At one stage, I went home, but kept wondering how close the fire was and whether it was heading in my direction. I was wondering what I would take with me if it came to the crunch. The animals of course. My money and stuff. I didn’t have Lara the Laptop at that stage so figured I would lose all my stuff so figured I would grab the external hard drive which has heaps of personal stuff on it.

Eventually I couldn’t stand the suspense and went back down the road. Watching the fire meant I knew what was going on, I knew if there was any immediate danger. I don’t like fire.

So I started watching the helicopters. I got the series of shots I put on Photobucket. I also got shots of the helicopters dumping the water on the fire. I must have taken hundreds of photos, just to get the few great shots.

Gradually the fire moved away from my house and further into the bush. I took a few final shots of the surrounds, as the onlookers also moved away and moved their cars.

Life headed back to normal. I’m left with lots and lots of photos, and a memory of helicopters, smoke, and relief that nothing major happened. We didn’t even make the news.

Madeleine

Sunday, 23 March 2008