Australia Day

See also more-notes-on-australia

You have to take your hat off to Australia. Or Australians. I mean by this Anglo Celtic Australians. I mean look-a-here, they only came over a mere 200 years ago and in that short space of time they have managed to transform this continent and

a) eliminate or inebriate the indigenous inhabitants
b) turn pristine bush and forest into useable farm land and then
c) turn nearly six million hectares of that farm land into unusable salt marshes where nothing will grow
d) bring to near extinction more species than any other continent, via the introduction of exotic animals such as cats, dogs, foxes, cattle, rabbits, deer,and sheep

So hats off to yer, boys, you've done us proud.
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So shoot me. So dismember me. So have me quartered and eigthed. So have me pilloried and stone me with factory farmed chooks and doggie do. But I celebrated Australia day by ignoring it.

(Other ways of celebrating it. Fly the aboriginal flag. Don't own a dog and if you do own one, don't train it. But rather get an indigenous pet such as a blue tongued lizard or spinifex hopping mouse or plains rats. [with the appropriate license, of course.] Also the dingo, but that would require a large property. Plant an indigenous tree. Visit an old age home instead of a pub. Get together with some friends and write, and then perform, a song. Join a drumming circle. Have tantric sex with your partner, and if you don't have a partner, volunteer for a service organisation - who knows, you may meet somebody there. And if sex is not on the menu, give each other a foot massage - which is a kind of sex anyway. Instead of buying anything, make something delicious at home and then organise a tea-picnic somewhere that's so close you can walk there rather than drive.

Smoke grass/pot dagga rather than using alcohol as your drug of choice. Boycott fast-food outlets. Visit a land fill site or an abbatoir or a refuge for women and children fleeing domestic abuse to get in touch with the underbelly of our so-called 'civilisation. Don't go fishing, or, if you must, don't use a barbed hook and put the fish back once you've caught it. Unplug the television and read a book, or talk to the people you live with. Throw a sheet over the computer and ignore it for a day or two. It won't mind and you will benefit. Ride a bike. Put on a clown costume and visit a children's hospital. Do absolutely nothing. Ignore your thoughts, or better still, notice your thought and refuse to believe them. Support the opposing team instead of the one you regularly support. Have a vegetarian meal, or cook one for friends and family. Go rock climbing or hang gliding instead of to the horse (disg)races. Speak languages other than English loudly in public places. Write stories or poems or plays that illuminate the experience of your minority ethnic or faith tradition in this land.)

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Australian history begins in Southern India
Australian history begins in Ireland
Australian history begins in Poland and Greece and Lebanon and South Africa
The narrative does not start here it only continues here
we all bought our lives inside us with us, and tried to continue them here as best we could, in some shape and form, even if we had lost everything there...