Australian history slowly emerges...

Kakadu rewrites Australian history. World's oldest stone axes -polished + sharpened edges - proving that the earliest Australians among the most sophisticated tool-makers of their time: no other culture had such axes for another 20,000 years. https://t.co/XadUFPocwQ via @smh

— Gemma Wiseman (@AuraGem) June 12, 2020

I do believe that we still have a long long way to go before the 'real' history of Australia emerges...It is far more diverse than mere colonial intrusions...When I first went to Tasmania and saw impressions of early aborigines there, I was shocked...They looked so vastly different from images I saw of early aborigines in a shop in Katoomba... And then, I realised why...Tasmanian aboriginals looked more African...The Roaring Forties perhaps???? So, shock horror, could migration have not begun 'out of Africa' but out of Australasia and back??? For further discussion see HERE

And then there are barely explained artifacts found in Queensland, suggesting other connections...the Romans, the Celts...???? Western Australian and Queensland coastlines have quite a range of mysteries that don't quite fit the current textbooks...

even when darkness gathers...

even when darkness
gathers
and the beach
is empty
I'll be there for you #tanka https://t.co/0dcZRcPxzL

— Gemma Wiseman (@AuraGem) June 12, 2020

I have spent my life trying to be there for people, no matter who they are... 

flowing hills...

flowing hills in
sepia mists
a small island
tamed with
organised life #tanka https://t.co/UPDeThWwlT

— Gemma Wiseman (@AuraGem) June 12, 2020

till thin trees...

till thin trees
and autumn plumes
iconic
feathered pens
by a misty page #tanka https://t.co/5CNG0eLxqO

— Gemma Wiseman (@AuraGem) June 12, 2020

in last light...

in last light
stand tall on
the dark hill
and turn round
tomorrow #tanka https://t.co/LcWGuNPDhq

— Gemma Wiseman (@AuraGem) June 12, 2020

The image reminds me of the 'Last Post'...of war... sunset on lives lost...but I decided to turn that concept around a little...

in soaking rain...

in soaking rain
earth's colours
succumb and blur
but a black umbrella
just ferries the drops #tanka https://t.co/5Kwb6F23WR

— Gemma Wiseman (@AuraGem) June 12, 2020

The black umbrella seems like a blot in this world of melting colours...like a darkness that persists...

rain shaping puddles...

rain shaping
puddles
brief circles
seeking
identity #tanka https://t.co/dn27rYO57x

— Gemma Wiseman (@AuraGem) June 12, 2020

There is so much play activity happening when the rain continues to fall on puddles...

songs of sailing...

the songs of sailing
boast many chords and
many crescendos
but violin strings snag
a solo spotlight #tanka https://t.co/uAJqXAxZQo

— Gemma Wiseman (@AuraGem) June 12, 2020

So love this image... It bursts with the energy of galleon ships braving fevered seas... and music is in the air...

on my rocky headland...

on my rocky headland
by little known seas
I feel at one with
raw colours and
timeless songlines #tanka https://t.co/Cz7O9vxQoZ

— Gemma Wiseman (@AuraGem) June 12, 2020

There can be times when I feel very much connected to Emily Dickenson... She tuned to outside landscapes without ever actually being there...except through her own inner landscape...

King Leopold and WA...

King Leopold connection in WA? Ranges 'received their colonial name in 1879 from Alexander Forrest, brother of WA's first premier John Forrest, who selected the Belgian monarch due to Leopold II's "interest in exploration".' The reason beggars belief. https://t.co/tYinvkE1Ug pic.twitter.com/7ouhUhBXcu

— Gemma Wiseman (@AuraGem) June 12, 2020

the road flows on...

the road
flows on
perhaps new questions
perhaps
old answers #tanka https://t.co/wDDTHg66Sg

— Gemma Wiseman (@AuraGem) June 12, 2020

Often, we think the future will have answers for current questions...But I am not so sure...There may be more questions...And the answers we thought relevant today may no longer be so...

buried in fields of blue...

buried in
fields of blue
may be
the only way
to feel alive #tanka https://t.co/438mL7EhtI

— Gemma Wiseman (@AuraGem) June 12, 2020

sweeping elegance...

sweeping elegance
but sometimes
surface beauty
shields
dark poisons #tanka https://t.co/QQgQPnqipk

— Gemma Wiseman (@AuraGem) June 12, 2020

A mystery murder by poison is one of this estate's very dark secrets...

Another mystery - a Robert Campbell was an owner of this estate in the 19th century...Could he be a very distant relative on my mother's side? 

first sea port...

first sea port
from days of gold
respects new golds
of the rising city
on the other side #tanka https://t.co/DYDUW8zGbR

— Gemma Wiseman (@AuraGem) June 12, 2020

seas fraught with moods...

even trees
bow to
the salty scents
of seas
fraught with moods #tanka https://t.co/8mH53T5klj

— Gemma Wiseman (@AuraGem) June 12, 2020

Trees by the sea in my peninsula world often are twisted into unique shapes... Can it be the salts in the air or the relentless winds that come and go or both?




Trees on the Rye foreshore...

daydream...

daydream
earth's wild mauves and
greens under
sunny skies
no need to count sheep #tanka https://t.co/jxscycKSep pic.twitter.com/cGI4XnbsBC

— Gemma Wiseman (@AuraGem) June 12, 2020

fallen leaves and survival...

I have a small silver car.
Today the windscreen was concealed in fallen leaves. The car became a kind of cocoon.
I drove very slowly so the leaves wouldn't peel off in the cold wind.
It felt lovely being hidden by the leaves.
1/3

— Tim Mallon (@PatMalo85776814) June 11, 2020

I decided to stop the car and look at the leaf.
I wondered why it was the one that survived. pic.twitter.com/6QcEOY6mO8

— Tim Mallon (@PatMalo85776814) June 11, 2020

Philosophy is not all about fancy dogma. Perhaps the most enigmatic philosophy is bound up in the persistent, apparently simple questions of life...Those questions tease through time...

But then...on further thought...do we really need to know the answer to the 'simple' question?...Will the answer be a fixed response or a variable? Indeed, is the question so very simple after all... a kind of wolf in sheep's clothing?...

Or is it enough to just slow down awhile, and let the question itself be the answer to finding inner peace?...

pebble conundrum...

pebble skills
conundrum
a figure of eight
a reef knot or
a lover's knot #tanka https://t.co/gqv5tWcNs3

— Gemma Wiseman (@AuraGem) June 12, 2020

shafts of dawn light...

golden shafts
of dawn light
bundles of grey cloud
frown over
scrambling waves #tanka https://t.co/vLFPJR40lj

— Gemma Wiseman (@AuraGem) June 12, 2020

The sea is ever a changing natural wonder of the world...so many faces...so many moods...

where wild chamomile grows...

grounded
with tall trees
and wild chamomile
an old village church
lives on #tanka https://t.co/n8SaG4cFHt

— Gemma Wiseman (@AuraGem) June 12, 2020

Footsteps releasing scents of wild chamomile on a walk to an old church seems like a feast of happiness for the senses...

struggling...

I'm struggling to make any sense of myself. I'm still running remote learning. Constant screen connection + zillions of emails=not a life. I don't know or like this me. I refuse though to sink to depression. Having a bad moment now - should be doing lessons - temporary escape.

— Gemma Wiseman (@AuraGem) June 12, 2020

I like to feel I make some sense at least to me... In recent days, I cannot find too much evidence of that sense... But I'll keep searching...

assumptions and life choices...

Assumptions - especially misguided assumptions - can be the death knell for assimilation of any kind. The life choices we make do not forbid us from accepting the right of others to make life choices. One life choice is not superior; one does not automatically damn another. https://t.co/yFNnalhmR1

— Gemma Wiseman (@AuraGem) June 11, 2020

We never can really build positive relationships unless we are willing to respect others' life choices. Who are we to think that one life choice is automatically superior to another? We need to separate the concept of life choices from the tag 'errors of judgment'. They are not synonymous. And the 'error of judgment' ultimately is only valid to the individual responsible for a thought or action.